Timeline for A machine can flag spam automatically. Can it do better?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
36 events
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| Mar 6, 2018 at 16:11 | comment | added | RealAnswersNotAI | @Undo Correct, the initial response to that question was that the downvotes were ok because most of them were probably on spam or other obviously bad posts. So it's only tangentially related in that low-rep users were using Charcoal to find spam to downvote (and probably flag) and that caused some confusion on my part since I wasn't familiar with Charcoal and it's impossible to tell whether a user's huge number of downvotes are due to frequenting Charcoal or due to personal whim. | |
| Mar 6, 2018 at 7:39 | history | edited | Petter Friberg | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Mar 5, 2018 at 22:18 | comment | added | Petter Friberg | @CodyP I actually can't see directly how it is related, the current auto-flags from user does not also downvote (apart from automatic community downvote since spam flag) so naturally an SD_FLAGGER would not cast also a downvote. The manual down voting from users seeing post (may it be by report) that they think merit down vote would not change. | |
| Mar 5, 2018 at 21:56 | comment | added | Undo | Found it myself. Some users are downvoting spam manually. That's not affected in any way by autoflagging, be it more flags, less flags, or no flags. To quote Rory Alsop, I see no problem here at all | |
| Mar 5, 2018 at 21:51 | comment | added | Undo | @CodyP Could you throw me a link to that data? SmokeDetector never downvotes anything, ever. | |
| Mar 5, 2018 at 19:09 | comment | added | DForck42 | @CodyP i don't think SD votes on posts, just flags them. | |
| Mar 5, 2018 at 19:05 | comment | added | RealAnswersNotAI | I agree that rolling Smokey HQ into existing accounts creates transparency and understandability issues. Just last month we had a post by a user (actually me) who was suspicious about how on Security SE "There are about 23% of downvotes that come from 14 users who collectively have submitted 0.5% of posts in the past 5 years." Many of those 14 users ended up being Charcoal HQ users. I'd rather have "Smokey_Account" making questionable judgments than a low-rep user creating 100's of questionable and hard to track downvotes through Charcoal. | |
| Mar 5, 2018 at 15:53 | comment | added | Undo | @TylerH We'd love to do that, but it's SE dev time. There have been a couple efforts to do that; they've all fizzled out. It's not worth integration for the benefit over what we have now (especially if we could reliably nuke spam <10s after creation) | |
| Mar 5, 2018 at 15:40 | comment | added | TylerH | If the concern is really that strong re: badges and flag count / stats, then frankly we should probably talk about this behavior getting set to 100% accuracy threshold and rolled into the Community user and monitored by devs and CMs instead of users. | |
| Mar 5, 2018 at 15:38 | comment | added | TylerH | Brad's comment is easily countered when you consider the fact that moderators have the ability to automatically delete content unilaterally, which is even more powerful than what this entails. The only difference is that moderators get elected (and many moderators have come from such organized chatrooms, so it's not like these are completely untrustworthy users compared to saints/white knights) | |
| Mar 5, 2018 at 14:08 | comment | added | Monica Cellio | I really like the idea of having Smokey accounts to both remove the badge incentive (yes that's a thing for some people) and communicate clearly to mods where the flags are coming from. | |
| Mar 5, 2018 at 13:38 | history | edited | Petter Friberg | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Mar 5, 2018 at 13:00 | comment | added | ArtOfCode | @PetterFriberg The bot accounts debate is one we had last time round. At the moment, it's not a course we're interested in following, for various reasons. I'll give you a ping if it comes up in future, though ;) | |
| Mar 5, 2018 at 12:33 | comment | added | Petter Friberg | @Cerbrus the limit is per site, after a while every account will have 100 flags on each site. | |
| Mar 5, 2018 at 12:28 | comment | added | Cerbrus | @PetterFriberg: On a busy day there can be ~275 autoflags cast. With 10 flags per account, MS would need 28 accounts. (10 flag cap, bottom of the page)... That's not exactly ideal. | |
| Mar 5, 2018 at 12:23 | comment | added | Petter Friberg | @Cerbrus for NAA only 1 flag is needed ;), and for the 215 users lets remove the idea that many of them have signed in to get free flags (I see this a lot, people like badge's and flag like crazy). You don't need this mess, 4 more SD account's and things get crystal clear. | |
| Mar 5, 2018 at 12:14 | comment | added | Cerbrus | I don't really understand why you'd ignore the aspect of those 215 users trusting SmokeDetector. That's an extra layer of trust above what MetaSmoke already gets from community managers / moderators. There aren't nearly as many NAA flags required as spam flags, a single account for spam just won't cut it. 5 fake accounts to take care of the 5 auto-flags just seems more dubious... Ideally, we'd have a way of identifying a user's cast flags as cast from the API using MetaSmoke. But again, that'd require dev time to add a parameter to the API & flagging mod interface. | |
| Mar 5, 2018 at 11:43 | comment | added | Petter Friberg | Do note that bot's casting flags by them self is not new atleast not on Stack Overflow Can a machine be taught to flag Non-Answers and post comments on them automatically? | |
| Mar 5, 2018 at 11:35 | comment | added | Petter Friberg | @Cerbrus, you have 215 users now casting random flags on random site, I doubt the overview would be different. We are already trusting Charcoal to keep an eye on things, more then we trust 1 of those 215 random users. | |
| Mar 5, 2018 at 11:32 | comment | added | Cerbrus | Because then there’s just MetaSmoke doing their thing. It’s not the community keeping an eye on it. It’s not the community setting the flagging conditions and threshold, @PetterFriberg. Users can set their own conditions and limits on what gets flagged using their accounts. | |
| Mar 5, 2018 at 11:32 | comment | added | Petter Friberg | The concept is simply to avoid all these "free-flag/badge" discussions use flagging accounts. | |
| Mar 5, 2018 at 11:27 | comment | added | Petter Friberg | @Cerbrus it's the idea that you got a "free" badge that is bad (not that I personally care much) and since for moderators it would be easier to understand who and why the post was flag if they see "SD_FLAGGER_1" instead of random user, why not use SD_FLAGGER_1?, because you will not get the badge anymore :D? | |
| Mar 5, 2018 at 11:22 | comment | added | Cerbrus | @PetterFriberg: Take my AskUbuntu account. Yes, that's (recently) gotten the Marshal badge. I'm pretty sure I'd stand no chance in an election there, though. The fact that I got that badge there really doesn't mean anything. There are only 4 sites with enough spam that one could get a badge like that in any reasonable time. | |
| Mar 5, 2018 at 11:17 | comment | added | Petter Friberg | and for SmokeDetector it's better to keep away that idea, as reputation the community is sensitive to "free" flags, badge etc. For example Marshal is moderation badge, that counts in election, probably it is not so great to have a bot earning this for you or even contribute to earning it (if it was not you, yourself writing that bot) | |
| Mar 5, 2018 at 10:57 | comment | added | Petter Friberg | Honestly if it's better for moderators (more clear), the only true objection would be "but my free flags!!!", I will not get them anymore. | |
| Mar 5, 2018 at 10:56 | comment | added | Petter Friberg | 15 rep is hardly a problem (7 edits), "experienced users"??, anyone can sign up!. "Rules As Written", @JohnDvorak for those rules it's same stuff always 1 bot using 5 other accounts. Are you sure no one has added a socket in this list? | |
| Mar 5, 2018 at 10:51 | comment | added | John Dvorak | @Cerbrus not to mention that the latter is against the Rules As Written. | |
| Mar 5, 2018 at 10:48 | comment | added | Cerbrus | @PetterFriberg: each account would need to get at least 15 rep to be able to flag. I'd rather see experienced users vouch for a tool, than a tool with the power of 5 users vouching for itself. | |
| Mar 5, 2018 at 10:45 | comment | added | Petter Friberg | @JohnDvorak I prefer Smokey vouching for himself, since it's it casting flags, it's more clear/transparent for moderators and you avoid the free flag/free badge idea. You do not need dev support, just setup flagging accounts. | |
| Mar 5, 2018 at 10:36 | comment | added | John Dvorak | @PetterFriberg the difference is that in one case you have five people vouching for Smokey, in the other you have Smokey vouching for himself. Another option would be to have the devs vouch for Smokey by giving it a special privileged account, but that hasn't seemed necessary. | |
| Mar 5, 2018 at 10:26 | history | edited | Petter Friberg | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Mar 5, 2018 at 9:39 | comment | added | Petter Friberg | @Mithrandir I can't understand your first comment? You will need to contact each moderator on each site (teacher lounge for example), regarding second comment is not 1 account (SD) casting 5 flags with other accounts? | |
| Mar 5, 2018 at 9:36 | comment | added | Mithical | Re: other accounts - that's essentially sockpuppeting, no? Who owns these accounts? That's essentially casting a flag with a sock and then manually flagging with your main account, which is pretty much a no-no. | |
| Mar 5, 2018 at 9:36 | comment | added | ArtOfCode | Of course. If individual sites have an issue with this, absolutely we'll work with them to find the best solution - whether that's off entirely, at current levels, or something else. The decision on that needs to be a community decision, though, not mod-only. The debate about bot accounts is ongoing. | |
| Mar 5, 2018 at 9:35 | comment | added | Mithical | How would you propose we get the moderators of each of the 172 sites involved more than a main meta post? | |
| Mar 5, 2018 at 9:33 | history | answered | Petter Friberg | CC BY-SA 3.0 |