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Rev

12

I'm not sure it can be compared to Gmail, really - SmokeDetector is tailored so specifically to the stuff we get on SE that I'm not sure direct comparison is possible/useful. That said, we see a very large percentage of any spam that gets past the SE-native filters.
– ArtOfCode
Commented Feb 22, 2017 at 23:12
7

As for (2), no. SmokeDetector is tailored to spam, and its method of detection (regex) is not easy to adapt to other purposes - we have enough spam tests to reach the top of the One World Trade Center, and recreating that for homework would take far too long to be useful. It's also out of scope for the main Smokey project, though anyone is of course welcome to fork it for their own use.
– ArtOfCode
Commented Feb 22, 2017 at 23:13
Thanks, I use regex in php and it can be hit and (usually miss). All the best
– StudyStudy
Commented Feb 22, 2017 at 23:19
1

No worries, happy to answer questions. If there are enough samples of stuff, anything can be identified eventually. What I wonder about homework questions is the variety - homework doesn't seem like something that would be the same (or extremely similar) every time, unlike spam.
– ArtOfCode
Commented Feb 22, 2017 at 23:20
It's a continuous issues, you could be dissing/ discouraging the next Einstein , but at the same time some users just ignore all warning, which is annoying. I don't have an agenda one way or another, but the PSE commununity periodically goes through cycles of questions that appear just before exams. I think every possible procedure has been discussed, and discussed....
– StudyStudy
Commented Feb 22, 2017 at 23:26
Yep, it's not an easy one to deal with. I'm not sure there's much Smokey can do to help with it, but if you do ever come up with an automated solution I'd like to hear about it.
– ArtOfCode
Commented Feb 22, 2017 at 23:27
8

SmokeDetector is a great platform for seeing everything that comes into a site - you could definitely fork it and strip out the unnecessary bits, then add whatever logic you'd use to detect these. But yes, it is out of scope for Charcoal.
– Undo
Commented Feb 23, 2017 at 0:59
2

There is a stackapp developed and running in sobotics, for detecting poor quality questions on Stack Overflow. You can certainly fork it, and make one for Physics.SE.
– Bhargav Rao
Commented Feb 23, 2017 at 11:14
@BhargavRao thanks very much for that
– StudyStudy
Commented Feb 23, 2017 at 12:01
2

@AlternativeFacts I'm one of the developers of FireAlarm. If you are interested in this thing, and want to run it on Physics.SE, please visit this chat room where you can get further details.
– Box Box Box Box
Commented Feb 23, 2017 at 14:00
IMO, homework isn't really comparable to spam. Spam is generally always negative, and posters of spam don't tend to be well-meaning. However, while there's definitely annoying and exasperating homework-question askers, there's also perfectly polite students who are coming to a useful resource to ask for help in explaining something they don't understand. SE websites are large collections of very knowledgeable people. If a particular user is abusing the site (i.e. frequently posting asking others to solve specific homework problems) then that should be handled on a case-by-case basis.
– Abigail Fox
Commented Feb 23, 2017 at 23:22
@AbigailFox Hi , I do take your point and I have a comment above that I hope reflects your comments. I love it when someone really has a go at trying a problem, as I can see myself (as a self study person) in the same position, but not so much when the OP ignores all the rules and basically demands an answer, that gets my goat a bit. It's hardly ever a particular repeating user on PSE (in my experience) as they get the message the first time they post ,it's rather lots of people who are often desperate as their exam is a day away. But I was just curious when I saw the new filter.
– StudyStudy
Commented Feb 23, 2017 at 23:33
@Countto10 Yes, that's for sure annoying. It's just awfully specific and difficult for a robot (I'd imagine) to discern. Either it's very clearly spam-like, or it falls in a grey area where a human notices that it's an obvious attempt to get a specific problem solved for the OP. I just think these should be human-handled and not auto flagged, because posters of these questions tend to be (at least marginally) more well-meaning than posters of true spam.
– Abigail Fox
Commented Feb 23, 2017 at 23:37
1

@ArtOfCode. Just for info, your next project bbc.com/news/technology-39063863
– StudyStudy
Commented Feb 24, 2017 at 13:13
1

@Countto10 There's a stackapp for that too! And strangely, the owner of that app requested for a perspectiveAPI key around 24 hrs before your comment. (Spooky stuff, right?)
– Bhargav Rao
Commented Feb 27, 2017 at 15:33

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