9

2 user accounts have been created and all they have done collectively is redundantly suggest TeamViewer here, which is only a half valid answer given the full scope of the question:

OS X: What remote support solution can be installed with the fewest clicks after a grandma is given a link?

I'm thinking this may be a deliberate SEO or spam attempt, what do you think?

What is meant to be done about this sort of stuff, if anything?

3
  • @studiohack, why remove the 'thanks'? Does it increase your rep? Do you do that for a lot of questions? Bit of a trivial thing to take time to do? I want to thank the people for their attention.
    – Luke Stanley
    Commented Jul 20, 2011 at 4:28
  • thanks and signatures are not required here, and no, I don't get anything by doing it. Cheers!
    – studiohack Mod
    Commented Jul 20, 2011 at 4:50
  • @studiohack If you don't get anything by doing it, why do it? Is saying thanks in questions banned? Thank you for this inquiry.
    – Luke Stanley
    Commented Jul 20, 2011 at 18:10

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
5

Given that one of the two users had an IP address from one of the companies being recommended, and the other was from the same geographic area, I'm declaring this spam.

10
  • Out of curiosity, which company was the spammer affiliated with? I didn't think to do a WHOIS on their IPs, but I did notice that they were from the same geographical region, which seemed suspicious.
    – nhinkle Mod
    Commented Jul 6, 2011 at 22:40
  • Ah, OK. I thought that seemed like the sketchier of the two products. @DanielBeck's second thought was correct after all.
    – nhinkle Mod
    Commented Jul 6, 2011 at 23:11
  • How do we retrospectively address their impact on all other areas of the site?
    – Luke Stanley
    Commented Jul 6, 2011 at 23:29
  • @LukeStanley their accounts were entirely removed, so there shouldn't be any remaining impacts. It was all nuked from orbit by @Dori.
    – nhinkle Mod
    Commented Jul 7, 2011 at 1:32
  • Is it really likely that it's the only question they spammed?
    – Luke Stanley
    Commented Jul 7, 2011 at 5:15
  • A separate question, but are there any upcoming changes to consolidate repeat answer / solutions like this?
    – Luke Stanley
    Commented Jul 7, 2011 at 5:15
  • @Luke I guess we have several people (including mods) monitoring late answers to old questions (which are a gold mine for spam and cr.., erm, weak posts). Unfortunately, there's no automated way to prevent such things from happening.
    – slhck
    Commented Jul 7, 2011 at 7:40
  • Dori, the repetition I'm referring to is say, 5 different posts mentioning one product. As a programmer, consolidating these to one seems a logical move.
    – Luke Stanley
    Commented Jul 7, 2011 at 7:48
  • @Luke No need to consolidate, just remove. If it's already there, there's no additional value gained from a duplicate answer.
    – slhck
    Commented Jul 7, 2011 at 11:02
  • Unfortunately separating spam from genuine answers is very difficult, so consolidation to remote duplicates seems to me, to be the only long term technological solution, unless I'm missing something.
    – Luke Stanley
    Commented Jul 7, 2011 at 20:44
3

Two unrelated companies, no referral codes... It's a worthless answer, but doesn't look like deliberate spamming. This looks more like a fan of these products dumping his unfiltered opinion into the site. Not being able to actually read would fit with that.

It's possible though that the user want to push the popularity of one of these products in a a non-obvious way. I know of team viewer, but have never heard of the other product.

Flag as low quality answer and have it removed. That's the easiest solution.

2
  • Yeah but would a spammer working for a company use a weak competitor to give the illusion of choice?
    – Luke Stanley
    Commented Jul 6, 2011 at 18:12
  • 2
    @Luke I suspected the other way. Mention your unknown product next to a very popular one, bound to receive upvotes. I know team viewer employees ough, so I miht not be impartial here.
    – Daniel Beck Mod
    Commented Jul 6, 2011 at 18:35

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