Spam Flag declined.. exactly what *is* the line?

up vote 11 down vote favorite

I flagged this answer, and questions by this user on SU, SF, UL and here - he has had a clear pattern of similar posts with minimal content, linking back to the site. This sort of breaks the self promotion rule and seems flaggable to me.

I only worked this out cause I remember seeing the domain somewhere else, and finding this through a SE wide search. The decline reason is " declined - flags should only be used to make moderators aware of content that requires their intervention "

Well, I'd consider this spam, and as such chose to flag it. If it isn't, at what point do we consider somewhat pointless SEO attempts (since new users have nofollow tags on links) to be spam and not?

discussion flagging
share
edited Nov 29 '12 at 10:27
spacer
N.N.
3,1971428
asked Nov 28 '12 at 13:09
spacer
Journeyman Geek
1,021110
1  
flagged what question? Can you add links to the SU,SF, UL questions and answers? – fossfreedom Nov 28 '12 at 13:11
Added link to answer. serverfault.com/a/450803/33193 serverfault.com/questions/180552/… on SF , superuser.com/a/511798/10165 on SU unix.stackexchange.com/a/56606/27961 on UL – Journeyman Geek Nov 28 '12 at 13:15
Just to note the SU and SF answers are gone, cause I flagged them for being spam there too ;p – Journeyman Geek Nov 28 '12 at 13:24

1 Answer

active oldest votes
up vote 8 down vote

My take on this.

Spam is where a post does not bear a close enough relationship to the question posed, just provides links to irrelevant external material - and/or looks like self promotion to an owners website.

It appears at first glance to be on-topic & relevant.

  • What Constitutes Spam?

The link in the answer seems to have some relevance to the question being asked i.e. The link provided is to an article with relevance to the question posed.

Thus to the Self-promotion issue - this should really have a pattern to this.

Having asked other MoDs from other sites (yes we have a room for just MoDs) - I just got blank looks.

I can only surmise the reason for deletion of answers from other sites was that there was indeed a pattern to the person.

On AU there doesnt appear to be a pattern of self-promotion (yet).

Thus, I dont believe this falls into the spam category.

The standard comment text would apply though:

Welcome to Ask Ubuntu! Whilst this may theoretically answer the question, it would be preferable to include the essential parts of the answer here, and provide the link for reference.

share
edited Nov 28 '12 at 23:30
spacer
Oli
57.7k2563
answered Nov 28 '12 at 13:50
spacer
fossfreedom
70.8k418
5  
The flagger ideally would have included info about the user's behavior on other SE sites, but that doesn't make it irrelevant. "Hey spammers! Go to a different SE site where your posts aren't blocked, and nothing will be done to stop you for a while!" doesn't seem like a sensible policy. – Matthew Read Dec 2 '12 at 17:37

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged discussion flagging

gipoco.com is neither affiliated with the authors of this page nor responsible for its contents. This is a safe-cache copy of the original web site.