Current.com Blog | April 27, 2010 | 36 comments

Fixes and improvements: help us fight spam!

Photo by: buggolo on flickr // used with permission via Creative Commons Attribution 2.0

Last week, we talked about some recent changes regarding the way we handle feedback on Current.com. That's not all we've been working on--one of the things we've heard a lot of feedback about is the amount of spam that can show up on Current.  We hear you--we don't like spam either!

So, we rolled up our sleeves and started working on some improvements to our spam detector. But here's the deal: in order for us to continue to train the system to better detect spam, we need your help. If you see a spammy story or comment on the site, please flag it for review! This will help us better identify and remove spam as quickly as we can.

Important: a few of you have helped us identify spam accounts via flags, and that has been helpful. In addition, please flag individual comments and items on the site as well to help better train our system.

Don't worry, though--if something you added gets caught up in the spam net by mistake, it's not lost forever. As always, the community team will be reviewing the spam and we'll restore any items that get mistakenly identified as spam.

We appreciate hearing your feedback, so please head over to our feedback system and let us know what you think. Thanks for reading!

Steph

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    Current.com Blog
  2. tags:
    Blog,  Spam,  Current.com Blog,  fixes and improvements,  1 more
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36 comments // Fixes and improvements: help us fight spam!

  • artemis6
  • Almibry
  • Almibry
  • diode
  • mario_a
  • diode
    • 0
      diode  

    • quick question, why did pages of comments go away? here at work my computer takes forever to load the super threads with 100+ comments. now, i know the page system used to be broken, so i guess it was done away with, but why not just fix it?

      or is this a setting i'm missing somewhere

      also, possible iPhone app?

      also, with the email notifications of comments left after my comments, can there be an option to only get emails on comments left in response to your comment, and not just every single comment in the thread

      do we do the thursday night open houses anymore?

    • 1 year ago
  • Almibry
  • diode
    • 0
      diode  
    • Almibry:

      yes, i've fiddled with those, it didn't seem to work. it still sends me every response in every thread i've posted in.

      the only reason i bring it up is that my gmail threads all the emails into one group which is great, but my iphone reads them all as individual emails, and when i get a few hundred a day, it gets frustrating and clogs up my inbox

    • 1 year ago
  • Almibry
  • diode
  • diode
  • flyingkick
    • +5
      flyingkick  

    • A little off topic, but what's the point of the voting system?
      A post get's + or - but nothing really happens.

      Have you considered placing the highest rated comments at the top, while dropping or concealing a comment once it gets a certain amount on negative votes.

      That would be a really great incentive to post meaningful comments, while discouraging hateful comments.

    • 1 year ago
  • lordsbassman
  • CalgarC
  • diode
  • Almibry
    • 0
      Almibry  
    • flyingkick:

      If you really want the most popular comments to come first, you can always click on that little button at the top of the page, after the story and before the posts, you see where it says: Display: Newest | Oldest | Most Popular? Click most popular, and tada! Your wish come true. (Current, please don't listen to this guy, I want to read all the comments, oldest first and I'm sure there's at least one person out there who agrees with me). I clicked it once on accident and it confused the shit out of me for about an hour (I'm a loser).

      PS: Popular IS NOT meaningful. Dummy.

    • 1 year ago
  • diode
  • flyingkick
    • +1
      flyingkick  
    • Almibry:

      Thanks for the button info! Did not know that.
      It kinda sucks though, because then all of the responses are out of order. You don't know who is responding to which post.

      You have to understand, back in the day, if a comment was really meaningful, clever, poignant, it would be picked by a staffer to be quoted on Current TV, along with your profile. How cool is that?! Also, a comment could be "recommended" by a user with a level 3 commentator status.
      It was an incredible incentive and reward system to post thoughtful comments. And now it's gone.

      So, now there is a rating system to vote up meaningful, clever, poignant comments, while voting down hateful or irrelevant comments. Of course, popularity does not necessarily = meaningful, but usually the Current community is pretty right on with their voting. Having the post with the most votes appear at the top would be a neat little achievement. You'd still be able to read other posts, just look at how YouTube does it. It's not a robot voice quoting your comment on TV, but it's something.

    • 1 year ago
  • Almibry
    • 0
      Almibry  
    • flyingkick:

      I haven't been here all that long so I had no idea that's how the voting used to work, that does sound cool.
      Thanks for proving you're not dumb too (I like smart people... Mostly).

    • 1 year ago
  • artemis6
  • versasrev
    • 0
      versasrev  
    • artemis6:

      They said they got rid of it, because of the way users where using it. According to current, people were using it as a way to get people involved in their thread wars/petty squabbling (-) as opposed to using it to recommend insightful/meaningful thoughts or ideas(+).

      Essentially to many (-)'s made the whole thing seem like a bad idea, was how I took currents reason for doing away with it. The original explanation was with the post Mario (I think?) put up after the implementation of the new stuff.

    • 1 year ago
  • CalgarC
  • lordsbassman
  • ryan8566
    • +1
      ryan8566  
    • CalgarC:

      i have been doing the same, and others who care about the integrity of the site. but in asking for a collaborative effort, 'current' should do its part. as posted below by another member, 'levels' are important, and i have still had no response re: commentator and contributor levels after several requests.

    • 1 year ago
  • CalgarC
  • lordsbassman
  • CalgarC
  • lordsbassman
    • 0
      lordsbassman  

    • I'll up my hours of fighting spam if I can buy Current gear.. like Ben's track jacket.. [I'm still very proud of my commentator swag.]

    • 1 year ago
  • CalgarC
  • ryan8566
    • 0
      ryan8566  
    • lordsbassman:

      a jacket? cool! after being upgraded twice with a promise of 'swag', 'bling', to come--
      zero...nada...not even a response. i was hoping for a ball-point pen, or even a #2 pencil.

    • 1 year ago
  • lordsbassman
  • sgwhites
    • +1
      sgwhites  
    • ryan8566:

      Hi Ryan,

      I apologize very much for the delay--we ship our swag out in batches and given the volume, it can take some time. We haven't forgotten about you, we're just fighting our way out from behind the mountain of tee shirts!

      Steph

    • 1 year ago
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  • Darlink
  • bailey78
  • dcuisinot
sgwhites
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