I don't understand the spam management process

[Tim Dorr]

I just don't get it. The flow of user interaction is completely bass ackwards. You have to go around to several different places to deal with it all. I think it's best demonstrated by example:

Let's say a spammer comes along, registers a new account, posts a spam topic, etc. Here's how I have to deal with it under IPB 2.3:

- Get a report PM
- Open the topic
- Copy the username to my clipboard
- Log into the ACP
- Find the user
- Delete any topics/posts they've made
- Delete the user (I choose to delete, rather than ban, but it's the same net effect)
- Delete the report PM

And now in IPB 3.0, the flow hasn't improved at all:

- Get a report email
- Check the report center and open the report
- Open the topic
- Copy the username to my clipboard
- Log into the ACP
- Find the user
- Mark then as spam
- Delete any topics/posts they've made
- Delete any PMs they've sent
- Delete the user (I choose to delete, rather than ban, but it's the same net effect)
- Handle the report

That's a lot of steps for something that happens every day or so. Here's what I'd like to see happen:

- Make the report center more feature-filled. I should be able to both get to the topic in question and also act upon it.
- I should be able to mark a user as spam, delete their topics and PMs, and delete/ban them in one fell swoop. One button to handle everything in one place. Simple as pie!
- Put those buttons, links, actions, etc in the topic itself, in the report center, and in the ACP. Let me take care of this stuff easily.

At it's core, I don't want to both have to log into another area of the site and perform similar actions in separate locations in the software. I had thought the report center was going to handle that, but it's really just a specific PM-handing system to replace what we had before. Boring! Let it actually do something. On smaller boards or ones that only get occasional spam, it's overkill to have a system just for managing reports. But if it actually adds functionality, the benefits come back to those kinds of customers.

Thoughts? Am I missing something incredibly obvious?

[Matt]

Kind of.

Once in the report center, you can click on the topic link at the top of the report center's page. Once the topic has loaded, click the mini-profile pop-up button () and click the mark as spammer icon (it's the first one; it has a red flag). Assuming you've set up your ACP's settings for spam management to unapprove their recent posts, this is all you need to do.

Routinely, say every day or so on a busy board, you can then log into the ACP, click on 'Manage Spammers' under the 'Members' tab and delete or ban the members and remove their posts in one go.

[bfarber]

Interesting thoughts though. I get weary of adding too many "administrative" features to the front end. Lord forbid an XSS attack shows up and someone manages to take over an admin account on the front end without a password, that's bad enough. But if we add too many administrative features on the front end, the potential damage increases a lot.

Marking as spam will automatically unapprove all the user's recent posts. Perhaps we can add an option to also delete their posts and pms? Would basically take care of your concerns.

[Charles]

That would probably work... you could even have the feature only available if the Trash Can feature is also enabled so if someone accidentally activates it you can restore those posts. I would like have an intermediate confirmation screen to confirm since delete posts is more invasive than "unapprove" posts.

[bfarber]

Makes sense. Should also probably limit that functionality to admins only. e.g. you need to be an admin to delete pms presently, so it would make sense to only allow admins to delete pms through the changed feature set I'd imagine.

[Ryan H.]

Sounds good to me.

[Guest]

Will the 'Mark as Spammer' option also Mod Queue the user?

[bfarber]

People marked as spammers can't create new posts

[Andy Millne]

Yeah sounds like some good changes there. +1

On a related spam note I still can't work out how to hide banned spam members from the members list and member count. when I have a marked as spam memer the system says they are in group "Members (banned)" and obviously I cannot set the members group to not show in the members list :)

In essence I don't really understand the altered method of handling banned members in IPB3. Could somebody please explain it to me?

[Tim Dorr]

[quote name='Matt' date='20 August 2009 - 02:49 AM' timestamp='1250750947' post='1846665']
Once the topic has loaded, click the mini-profile pop-up button ()


See, I didn't even get that far. :) I didn't know that's what that icon did. From a UI perspective, the previous drop down icon and hover state were more clear about what that does. To me, the new icon looks like it says "this link opens in a new window". Changing that is related to the problem, but there are other things to fix beyond that.

Edit: Actually, I don't see that icon in the member info card popup? :huh:

[Tim Dorr]

[quote name='bfarber' date='20 August 2009 - 09:38 AM' timestamp='1250775486' post='1846747']
Interesting thoughts though. I get weary of adding too many "administrative" features to the front end. Lord forbid an XSS attack shows up and someone manages to take over an admin account on the front end without a password, that's bad enough. But if we add too many administrative features on the front end, the potential damage increases a lot.


You can add this functionality to the report center, which puts it behind at least one level of protection. And, more importantly, it puts it one less step away from the user. The report center should really be more than just a glorified secondary PM inbox. It's got a lot of potential.

[bfarber]

[quote name='Tim Dorr' date='20 August 2009 - 10:53 AM' timestamp='1250780012' post='1846789']
You can add this functionality to the report center, which puts it behind at least one level of protection. And, more importantly, it puts it one less step away from the user. The report center should really be more than just a glorified secondary PM inbox. It's got a lot of potential.


There are a lot of improvements we can work towards in the report center, but honestly it *is* more than a glorified PM inbox as is now. :)

All reports of any content throughout the site can be centralized into one single repository. The report center features RSS feeds if you need to keep abreast of stuff reported while not actually logged onto the forums. Moderators can discuss the reported content, assign statuses as the report is being worked, and ultimately mark the report resolved. It prevents overlap with multiple moderators working separately on a single issue. :)

[Matt]

The only issue with deleting PMs and Posts is that deleting posts is incredibly expensive. You'd certainly have to loop via refreshes in batches of 100 posts or so, I'd say due to the attachments check, topic and forum rebuilds.

One thing the report center does currently lack is data on the person who created the item that was reported. It would be lovely to have their details to hand with links to "Flag as spammer" and "Warn Member". But then, the report center is a recent addition and its bound to mature over time.

[dr. Jekyll]

[quote name='Matt' date='21 August 2009 - 09:16 AM' timestamp='1250838965' post='1847170']
The only issue with deleting PMs and Posts is that deleting posts is incredibly expensive.


Don't forget to delete signature and personal profile. Many spammers know very well they are going to be banned but they hope that the links in signature and in profile will survive and be see from search engine.

Will be nice to give the possibility to the admin do delete everything with just one click from the ACP. :)

[bfarber]

For the record, I added (in 3.0.3) ability to edit about me and status text when editing a member from the front end. It was annoying me that I had to login to the ACP to do this, since most profile spammers are now using the about me area. Signature and "website" fields are already editable from the edit member screen presently.

[AtariAge]

[quote name='Matt' date='21 August 2009 - 02:16 AM' timestamp='1250838965' post='1847170']
One thing the report center does currently lack is data on the person who created the item that was reported. It would be lovely to have their details to hand with links to "Flag as spammer" and "Warn Member". But then, the report center is a recent addition and its bound to mature over time.

Yes, please. :) It's also a bit confusing with regards to PMs--if someone reports a PM you can only see who reported it. I'm not really crazy about jumping into a private conversation to get all the details (and at present this is broken), so some basic information (such as the name of the person who wrote the message that is being reported and a timestamp) would be helpful.

..Al

[dr. Jekyll]

[quote name='bfarber' date='21 August 2009 - 04:16 PM' timestamp='1250864204' post='1847274']
For the record, I added (in 3.0.3) ability to edit about me and status text when editing a member from the front end.