3 or 4 spam “Buy Phloboxidril Now In Your Area” posts per day were tolerable. 20 to 50 aren’t. I know I could block the magazine, but I’m just one of the many who are subjected to it.
E2a: a day later I blocked science, only to find that askKbin also suffers from this spam
Using this approach, I am seeing none of those posts on /science. I updated the filters a bit today. The top post is a legitimate article from 2024-04-13 and is by HeartyBeast.
Now, I understand that this is seen as an unnecessary step (too fancy) for some. People want zero ads out of the box without anything extra. So I’m thinking about the next approach here.
Framing the problem:
The third point and fourth points are important here, since that’s currently intractable. You can’t reconcile zero additional setup with that.
But let’s suppose becoming moderator of a defunct magazine (point 4) were possible while point 3 remained unresolved. In other words, at least moderators can try to pick up the pieces. Something being underestimated here is how annoying it would be for the moderator to manually cull posts every single day. I think you would have instant turnover after a couple of weeks once the tedium sets in. Manual solution is not good. Clearly, automation is needed on the moderation side.
So assuming you could actually inherit a magazine, but with no guarantee of upstream development, what about restructuring the tool above so that it’s for moderators, instead of end-users? That’s pretty easy, and I could make it something the moderator clicks once and it’s done, auto-banning the posts. This is a pretty good method.
But you can’t inherit moderation right now, so that’s back to square one.
Realistically, that leaves these options at the moment:
Third approach is the path of least resistance and is best for most casual users. Second is for diehards who cannot move instances due to some personal or technical reason. First approach is the most annoying and eventually leads to the third approach after frustration sets in.
Pick your poison, I guess. I can’t think of any other prophylactic approach at the moment, maybe this comment triggers some idea.