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[request] Stopping Spam Blogs in Tag Surfer

  1. symbolik
    Member

    I like Tag Surfer, and understand that there needs to be a default category ("Uncategorized"). Can this tag be made de-selectable once other tags are listed in the side-bar? Maybe if the "Uncategorized" tag is shown as a check-box on the side that is checked and greyed-out until another tag is added? The idea being that this could allow the users to stop spam bloggers from eating all of the available real-estate on the Tag Surfer page, since the vast majority seem to be using the "Uncategorized" tag.

    An alternative approach, if this cannot work, might be to simply not allow blogs to be picked up by Tag Surfer if the "Uncategorized" tag is the only tag present, but this sounds like it could have some undesirable second-order effects...

    Thanks!

  2. thesacredpath
    Member

    In the blue bar at the top of the screen (while logged in), in the right-hand pulldown menu titled "blog info" is a selection called "report spam." If you find one of these blogs, report it so staff can take action on it.

  3. symbolik
    Member

    Yes, I have been doing that, but it doesn't give me a chance to proactively stop these from showing up in my Tag Surfer results. Hence, I still gets results that are largely spam, with content I actually want to see pushed aside, in essence. If users could choose to exclude "Uncategorized" content, spam might still be there, but lots would probably stop being visible, with the payoff of fewer spam reports to WordPress staff to eat up their time.

    Another question, unrelated to spam - recently I have noticed that several results in Tag Surfer have been tagged with things I have not selected (example - the tag "emotion", which I do not have). These may or may not have the "Uncategorized" tag. Is this simply a glitch, or is it a know issue (hopefully with a solution)?

    Thanks!

  4. symbolik
    Member

    Actually, I have been reporting these in Tag Surfer using the "Spam?" link preceding "Tags:" under the article title. This is probably the same thing, however, but I have never actually used the "Report as Spam" function under "Blog Info"....

  5. ctwcageycrow
    Member

    I have noticed the uncategorized spam the last few days. Is this something that happens often? Is there any way we can volunteer to help police these type of spam posts (aside from reporting it) ? I enjoy finding new content but with all the spam I usually just stop looking.

  6. thesacredpath
    Member

    If you find spam, then report it as I mentioned above. Staff will take action.

  7. ctwcageycrow
    Member

    I do report the spam and will continue to do so. However, I am not sure that staff is always available. There is currently spam that has been up for over three hours and I would really enjoy hitting the delete button.

  8. thesacredpath
    Member

    It goes into a queue when it arrives, and when staff are in they review them. It may not disappear today, but if you report it, it will be looked at. Remember, staff has to sleep, and have time off.

    It's never going to be instantaneous.

  9. eyegillian
    Member

    I agree with the above posts -- please change the tag surfer so ONLY the selected tags are searched and NOT uncategorized. I really like the idea of the Tag Surfer, but when half of what shows up is "uncategorized" spam and offensive posts, it's not worth scrolling through in order to find something worth reading. And I really don't want to click on those posts in order to "report as spam". Thank you.

  10. symbolik
    Member

    We know how to report spam - I want to be able to unsubscribe from the "Uncategorized" category, so that I don't even see it. If we do not see this spam, then we would not report nearly as much, and perhaps support staff time could be better spent on things other than dealing with these "Uncategorized" spam reports. Plus, I figure if more folks could unsubscribe, then the effectiveness of the spam blogs would be reduced.

  11. symbolik
    Member

    Just got done reporting 26 spam blogs from Tag Surfer. All "Uncategorized". About half of the tagged articles (real-estate-wise) consisted of this spam. This support request thread was included in each spam report.

  12. katm
    Member

    Now I remember why I stopped using the tag surfer.

    I just reported about a zillion of those random letter blogs.

  13. tellyworth
    Staff

    The problem isn't that you were seeing posts from the Uncategorized tag. The problem was that not all tags were listed for posts - the posts listed with just Uncategorized actually had some other tags that weren't shown. That should be fixed now.

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