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The spammers will figure out we have a more aggressive system for removing spam and will spam more aggressively.
– Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
Commented Mar 6, 2018 at 4:50
2

which feeds the spam filters, which gets rid of them faster, Don't forget, smokey feeds spamram. I actually think some feedback - maybe via one of the flags being custom might be a nice touch over the current system
– Journeyman Geek
Commented Mar 6, 2018 at 4:55
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@Ano In the unlikely event that spammers review their own posts (they don't) it would not be unequivocally a bad thing for them to discover that we dislike them and are taking action. Sure, most are obviously unrepentant, and giving them too much details about our countermeasures would be stupid. But I don't think this is anywhere near crossing that line.
– tripleee
Commented Mar 6, 2018 at 5:50
@Ano erm, keen spammers can already read all this? And will have access to everything the general community has.
– user310756
Commented Mar 6, 2018 at 6:21
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@Ano if anything, it will make the spammers realize they better spend their time and resources on other sites, with less spam protection. :)
– Shadow Wizard
Commented Mar 6, 2018 at 7:22
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There are several good reasons NOT to have automated comments coming from Smoke Detector or its users. The primary reason is that SD users can't actually do anything to help someone whose post has been automatically deleted - that requires a moderator. "Hey, we deleted your post for [reasons] - if we got it wrong, please help us train our classifier!" isn't an awesome introduction to the site. Beyond that, we know from experience that telling spammers exactly what got their spam identified just results in a long, tedious process of banning every possible unicode representation of a phone #
– Shog9
Commented Mar 6, 2018 at 17:49
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But probably the best reason not to do comments is simply that they're comments - the expectation of most readers is that there's a human behind them who is going to be responsive to feedback. When that's not forthcoming, there's no telling what the reaction will be. I've had spammers do public record searches and threaten my family; you don't normally expect that from a spam flag, because it's completely anonymous. Expecting volunteers to stand by their mistakes is fine; expecting them to tolerate abuse isn't.
– Shog9
Commented Mar 6, 2018 at 17:54
@Shog9 well I was thinking Smokey would make the auto comment - so stalking smokey will be hard - but if you think it's going to make it easier for spammers - the thing is - they can click on the spam tag on any site and they will find all they need to know - maybe the comment will make it easier. Yep as for expecting a reply - the user could be directed to charcoal chat. Anyway- it's no big deal - it was an idea thrown into the ring for evaluation, and it sounds like it's not such a good idea. Sorry about your family being threatened - too many psychos out and about
– user310756
Commented Mar 7, 2018 at 0:53

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