Do the Mods prefer us to flag the spammer or the spam when we see it?

I think flagging the question is more useful. It notifies the mods about both the question and the poster.

If the Q gets flagged, then we will deal with both the Q and the poster (as @Mimishu1995 said). Flagging the user is meant for those jerks users who turn their profiles into spam. But really, we just appreciate flagging any way you want to do it; we’ll sort it all out on our end.

(We’re a little short-staffed at the moment, so thanks for your understanding if spam lingers awhile)

I thought I had read on another Q that it was OK by the Mods for one user/flagger to post a comment on a spam thread, just so that the other Jellies know that the Q has been modded, so others don’t have to waste any time also flagging it. Is that still OK?

@Kardamom It’s not a big deal. From our perspective, a post that receives multiple flags is more likely to stand out in our cluttered email inboxes, so additional flags aren’t entirely wasted.

@thorninmud I think @Kardamom is asking whether posting “flagged” is disruptive, as opposed to multiple flags.

@Kardamom Did I get that right? If I did, the answer is yes – that is very much okay. It doesn’t help us, but it does help other jellies, so we like it.

@longgone Yes, I just wanted to know if it was OK to post on the actual Q that one of us had seen the Q and had already flagged it. That way the next person who opens the Q wouldn’t have to bother flagging it again.

Previously we were told that was not ok to do that, @longgone.

@Kardamom Yep, that’s fine!

@jca I can’t speak for decisions which were made a while back, but we’ve been discussing the issue recently. The current team is fine with jellies posting to say that a thread has been flagged – it makes a lot of sense and saves other users some time.

Where posting “flagged” can become a problem is when the question may actually not be spam. Granted that there are Qs that are blatantly spam. But there are also many Qs that we’re pretty damned sure are spam (or will turn into spam at some point), but we can’t be certain.

Yes, long-time members can get pretty wise to the ways of spammers and may have a highly-developed “spammy sense”, but it’s better to give Qs that fall into the gray area the benefit of a doubt. Sure, flag the question you may be suspicious about; the mods have tools for diagnosing spam that members don’t have, and we’ll check it out. But posting “flagged” on a suspicious Q in effect accuses the asker of breaking the rules and discourages anyone else from answering the Q. That would be a real shame if the Q is actually legit.

So my personal stance on the matter is that it’s safer to flag but not post any comment at all. That may indeed result in several flags on the Q since no one knows that it has already been flagged, but as I said above, those multiple flags may actually help draw our attention to problem Qs. That said, if there’s a Q that is unambiguously spam and someone posts a “flagged” comment on it, I don’t see that as a big deal.

OK, so I’ll save my “flagged” post for questions I’m 100% sure are spams. Most of the time an introduction and a link can make a blatant spam, but questions like “what is the best <something>?” with details “please help me blah blah blah” may be legit.

I always just flag the question but it is hard at times to refrain from a witty retort. I do my best. Sometimes I fail. haha