So much spam today!

Agreed

And every time someone posts a reply to the spam post it alerts the spammer that they've got a live one.

If you come across spam post, just report it. No need to add a reply to the post saying you've reported it. The Webmaster will deal with it.

I don’t like feeling that way either, but I think it’s a fact of life these days. I like being able to “report” and let the webmaster make a better judgement than me.

No need to add a reply to the post saying you've reported it. The
Webmaster will deal with it.

Except I'd rather see/issue the quick "reported to webmaster" response than see a line-up of responses from nice people who don't recognize that it's spam or advertising (although I just hit the report button when it's AI). While it doesn't happen every time, that does occasionally occur. Also, some responses may be from tag teams in cahoots with the spammer to make it look like the real thing: also deserving of a short report post.

Per the community guidelines:

"Report guideline violations. Notify the moderators by using the "Report" link that appears alongside each post when you are signed in."

"Do not post in reaction to guideline violations. "

While the common practice here is for folks to post things such as "Reported to Webmaster", I've seen the webmaster politely say that he'd prefer folks not post a response and instead just use the report function.

Then you also have folks post "don't post" a response on the same thread when in actuality the approved action is just report "the report". Every posted reaction no matter how well intentioned brings the offending spam to the top of the queue.

With all of this said, I'm sure the great folks at Rick Steves can deal with well intentioned "reported to webmaster" reactions with equanimity.

This place is politely policed and they bend over backwards to be both accommodating yet keep this place up to their standards. (In the future, malevolent AI robots will rule this place and harvest our traveling thoughts to fuel their evil ambitions-- that's what I'm hearing from my friends that travel from the future.)

Happy travels

Well, in the big picture there are SO many more concerning issues to fall on a spear for these days, IMHO.

As long as we don't actively engage the culprit, short-report someone publicly whom you're not VERY sure is a culprit, or report- respond with hostility/snark/inappropriate language, I don't see the problem. LOL, some of the report-responses are pretty funny (without breaking guideline #2) and who doesn't need a good chuckle these days!? :O)

Spam! Spam!! Spam!!! Spam!!!!
(Not so) Wonderful Spam!!!

Apologies to Monty Python.

I don't understand today's fresh crop --- they don't even try to make it look legit. What's their theory?

They post as much as possible to get SEO--search engine optimization. That's better placement on search engines.

The webmaster agrees that one response to these is okay letting people know it's been reported but others should not pile on.

They don’t try to make it look legit, because the forum members that participate in this forum are not their target audience. They’re only interested in having a reputable website like the RS website place a link to their website. In terms of search engine optimization, this gives them more credibility and gets them a higher ranking in search engines.
That’s why replies to these posts that say something like “ you don’t fool us” etc are useless. They are in fact counter productive , because all they do is keep the spam post on the first page and thus easier to find and index by search engines.

Thanks for the explanations --- that makes sense. I guess it's actually helpful that the spam is so obvious.

no matter how many times we are told to not respond, that that helps the spammer every time, people still feel the need to "reported to WM" which makes the case for the spammer and raises the post to the top of the stack

I am getting more junk emails to my personal email recently. So annoying! I block the url but I still get them. Should I just delete them and not go to the trouble of blocking them?

They seem to come in waves.

Advice anyone?

The webmaster agrees that one response to these is okay letting people know it's been reported but others should not pile on.

If one person reports it, and leaves a "Reported" comment, the post remains on the top page as it was. It doesn't "rise up to the top page". It never left the top page. So I don't think it helps the spammer. These spam messages get reported long before they reach the second page (yay for the forum members!)

The "Reported..." post alerts people, and avoids the ocasional reply from someone who doesn't realize it is spam. Admittedly, that's not an issue with this latest, very obvious lists of links, though.

And if I see zero replies to a spam, I don't know if it's been reported or not, so I click on it. Seeing a spam title with one reply, I know I can save time and ignore it.

If the reporting person does not post a reply, then the webmaster will receive dozens and dozens of reports for each spam. Is that a problem for webmaster? I don't know.

So there's some benefit to posting the reply, and maybe some downside to posting the reply. I think the ideal thing would be for forum software to identify spam and immediately delete it.

Webmaster, does the above commentary make sense? I'm happy to do whatever you say.

That’s why replies to these posts that say something like “ you don’t fool us” etc are useless.

These are done because you can't post the same thing twice on two different threads. It won't be allowed by the website. So, we have to be created.

“ If one person reports it, and leaves a "Reported" comment, the post remains on the top page as it was. It doesn't "rise up to the top page". It never left the top page. So I don't think it helps the spammer. These spam messages get reported long before they reach the second page (yay for the forum members!)”

Unfortunately this isn’t always true. For instance there was one spam post yesterday that 3 people replied to, with several hours in between posts. Which is why it came back to the top page, which lead to someone else commenting and so on…

I am getting more junk emails to my personal email recently. So annoying! I block the url but I still get them. Should I just delete them and not go to the trouble of blocking them? They seem to come in waves. Advice anyone?

Judy, your options depend on your email provider. I have Gmail and if I can see that it's spam without opening it, I just click the box to the left and then click Spam, which deletes and marks it as spam. Sometimes I open it if I'm not sure, and will then just hit the Spam button and it gets deleted and marked as spam. And if you do have a lot, you could just check all the boxes to the left and hit the Spam button, and they will all be sent to Spam simultaneously.

However, there are some that are more than spam; like phishing attempts to lure you into giving up information. Those I send to Google via the Report Phishing button (in the drop down menu using the 3 vertical dots to the right of the Reply button).

@Mardee, I don’t have gmail but that’s basically what I do when I find them in my junk folder.