Idea to help keep people reporting spam

[Jeff G.]

C&C WARNING! Scroll down.

Imagine the sight of spammers being buried alive in a pit of processed meat product.

(sorry about the excessive use of whitespace, it was necessary to protect the skin and furniture from the cats and coffee)

[Wazoo]

Added in a Custom BBCode thing called "Spoiler"

Jeff G.'s post would then look like this;

C&C WARNING!

Imagine the sight of spammers being buried alive in a pit of processed meat product.

To see the item, mouse over/select the 'hidden' text ... or hit the "Quoted Reply" button to see the actual post ....

[Jeff G.]

That's cute, thanks!

[Wazoo]

The black looks a bit out of place, wondering if I should snag the color codes of the other blue stuff and make it match?

[Jeff G.]

I'd leave it - it looks "blacked out" AKA "censored" as is, which is EXACTLY the intent.

[turetzsr]

I'm with “thebassman” on this one - I arrive 30 mins early for work every morning to allow myself enough time to report the daily spam.

Whilst I see the level of spam decrease for a short period, it nearly always returns to the same level (or worse).

Although I see some signs that ISP's are taking the matter seriously, more often than not, you are lucky to even get an auto reply to your reports. Although this is an issue for the ISP's and not Spamcop, i'm interested in the idea of having an  incentive  -  my time is too valuable to spend 30 mins a day for nothing.....

24830[/snapback]

...First: thanks for having stuck with it!

...Here's how I look at it: suppose you were given an opportunity to see and report to the police some incidents of abuse (child, spousal, etc). Suppose further that you knew that only in rare instances would you receive any sort of acknowledgement from the police of your reports. Suppose further that only in very rare circumstances would you learn that an abuser you reported had been actually caught and punished. Suppose, finally, that your reporting seemed to have no affect on the number of abuse cases that were reported to you or, indeed, on the total number of abuse cases; in fact, that abuse cases continued to increase. Would you argue that because your reporting of abuse appeared to have no affect, and, specifically, no affect on abuse cases which you yourself saw, that you should stop reporting the abuse? For me, the answer would be to keep reporting, hoping to scare off some potential abusers and leading to the punishment of the few where I did contribute.

[Jeff G.]

StevenUnderwood, I think you're right.  Should I have a party when I hit 400k?

24954[/snapback]

Oops, I passed it and didn't realize - I'm at 445801 Total Held Emails now.

[craigt]

Just thought it'd be interesting if there was a counter for the spams I've reported, either total or during the year -- kind of like to see how much time I've wasted reporting these morons!

Moderator Edit: Merged this new post into an existing Topic, originally opened up in the Lounge .... then moved this Topic from the Lounge to the New Feature Request / Suggestion Forum section. PM sent to advise ot the Move/Merge ...

[agsteele]

Just thought it'd be interesting if there was a counter for the spams I've reported, either total or during the year -- kind of like to see how much time I've wasted reporting these morons!

39860[/snapback]

There is a counter if you have a flat rate Email account (although the running figure isn't displayed anywhere other during the processing as far as I can tell). When you report spam via the website from your held mail folder, the first stage gives a list of reports which are numbered and these are your sequential report numbers. The number provided when the parsing takes place is, of course, the total number of spam reports processed.

Of course the 'personal' count is only reports submitted from your held mail folder rather than the true total including those submitted by Email or pasted into the parser and thus by-passing the held mail folder. But it gives a rough approximation to the number of spams submitted if you have a flat-rate Email account.

Andrew

[Jeff G.]

There is a counter if you have a flat rate Email account (although the running figure isn't displayed anywhere other during the processing as far as I can tell).  When you report spam via the website from your held mail folder, the first stage gives a list of reports which are numbered and these are your sequential report numbers.  The number provided when the parsing takes place is, of course, the total number of spam reports processed.

Of course the 'personal' count is only reports submitted from your held mail folder rather than the true total including those submitted by Email or pasted into the parser and thus by-passing the held mail folder.  But it gives a rough approximation to the number of spams submitted if you have a flat-rate Email account.

39869[/snapback]

On my account, that counter has been reset at least once.

[kamaraju]

I think it would be really cool if spamcop has a page where it lists the total number of spam emails submitted by a person. For starters, it would be fine if it lists just the number of spam emails. One can make it more sophisticated by displaying the number of spams reported each day and may be plot the graph of spam emails reported vs days etc.,

Why would this be a nice feature:

1) First it tells the user whether reporting spam emails to spamcop has reduced/increased spam in his/her inboxes.

2) In my case, I have been reporting spam emails (around 50 a day for the past couple of days). I do not use SCBL list or get any benefit in return from spamcop. You can say I am doing this just to help out others. It would be nice to give some statistical information for users like me.

Somewhere I read that paid members have this feature (or something like this) already enabled. But I think it would be nice if you can extend this to "users who are just trying to help spamcop" as well. What do you think?

[Wazoo]

What do you think?

Merged this "new" Topic into an existing discussion .... PM sent to advise of the Move/Merge action.

[turetzsr]

I think it would be really cool if spamcop has a page where it lists the total number of spam emails submitted by a person. For starters, it would be fine if it lists just the number of spam emails. One can make it more sophisticated by displaying the number of spams reported each day and may be plot the graph of spam emails reported vs days etc.,

<snip>

...Although I have no objection to this idea in principle, I'd personally rather have the SpamCop staff spend their time on the things that I understand they currently spend their time on -- answering and helping users and trying to stay ahead of new spammer tricks. If the have extra time then, sure, this would be a pretty nice feature.

Why would this be a nice feature:

1) First it tells the user whether reporting spam emails to spamcop has reduced/increased spam in his/her inboxes.

...Only if a user reports the same percentage of spam s/he receives each interval of time and her/his e-mail provider does not change (non-SpamCop BL) filtering from one period to the next. I suspect there are many of us (including me) who do not do the first and many of us whose e-mail providers do refine their (non-SpamCop BL) filtering from time to time.

[l008com]

It would be really cool if there were more stats on individual users. Like if I could look up my "user stats" page and instead of just telling me my average reporting time, it could also tell me great numbers like total number of spams reported, average reported per day, and so on. That would be great, it would make reporting spam a bit more fun!

[Wazoo]

It would be really cool if there were more stats on individual users.

Merged this into an existing Topic/Discussion covering the same ground. PM sent to advise of the Move/Merge.

[Paranoid2000]

Some level of feedback (e.g. a page showing where user reports have resulted in action) would be an incentive for many but this would require some level of input by ISPs or tracking by SpamCop staff, the later making it unfeasible.

However for those interested in taking further action after reporting particularly objectionable or persistent spam, the Kill Spammers forum may be worth a visit.

[l008com]

I was thinking more along the lines of what the guy who started this thread was thinking. Just show some users stats, even if its just the average reporting time followed by the total number of spams. The best stat to have would be your ranking among all others. For example the guy with the highest number of reported spams would be 1, the next highest number would be 2, and so on. And maybe use the average report time to 'handicap' the total number reported somehow, so that if you report spam fast, your spam number counts a little more than if you report slow.

You could also split up the rankings, to have overall, this month, this year etc. Kind of like how that distributed.net stats are set up.

And maybe the #1 guy could receive cash & prizes ;-)

[Paranoid2000]

And maybe the #1 guy could receive cash & prizes ;-)

A video of a spammer being force-fed viagra until they burst would be a worthy prize.

[turetzsr]

A video of a spammer being force-fed viagra until they burst would be a worthy prize.

...ROTFLMAO! I nominate this as post of the month! <g>

[Telarin]

A video of a spammer being force-fed viagra until they burst would be a worthy prize.

You owe me a new keyboard, I just spewed coke all over mine

[l008com]

Another stat I just thought of... Even though our average reporting time is shown in hours, it must be calculated to the second, right? So why not show a number with that stat, that shows where your average is relativel to the whole. For example weather your reporting time is in the top 50%, top 5% etc. I'd still want to see stats that take into account the total number of spams sent in as well.

[Wazoo]

Another stat I just thought of... Even though our average reporting time is shown in hours, it must be calculated to the second, right?

???? So many complaints in place about that number as it stands. I was once down to less than one hour ... submitted one spam that apprently had issues with the Date/Time-stamp (or something glitched in the parser ..????) ... took me to something like a week, which made no sense, based on the "nothing older than 48 hours" had been in place for a long while. It is presently sitting at "approximately 8 hours" ... quite in contrast to the reality of any spam I do report via the SpamCop.net toolset happens within minutes of its receipt.

Some overseas folks swear that they have "proven" that there is also a timezone offset issue, such that they can 'never' drop below that offset ...????

In general, the "technical" feeling is that the number displayed is just so much extra unneeded garbage ...

So why not show a number with that stat, that shows where your average is relativel to the whole. For example weather your reporting time is in the top 50%, top 5% etc. I'd still want to see stats that take into account the total number of spams sent in as well.

Actually, I don't believe I actually want to know just how many complaints I've sent out over the years .... I was sending out complaints prior to Julian bringing this to the public (and that was in 1998) .... stated many times elsewhere, most of my reporting is done manually, as SpamCop.net doesn't go far enough (for me)

The flip side of turning Reporting into some kind of a contest basically boils down to the simple fact that not all users can be trusted ....

[Farelf]

... ???? So many complaints in place about that number as it stands. ... In general, the "technical" feeling is that the number displayed is just so much extra unneeded garbage ...

As opined before, if it's no use it should be scrapped, it is doing more harm than good. On the other hand, it was once intended as some sort of motivational/monitoring tool and obviously people (still) would like to see it fixed.

... The flip side of turning Reporting into some kind of a contest basically boils down to the simple fact that not all users can be trusted ...

Heaven forefend ... but should any be found not to be so (trustworthy), I recommend a salutory "clunking" Reference the video here

[Miss Betsy]

My guess is that it is a comment in the parsing code that doesn't mean what it seems to. There are others that people question every now and then, but I can't think of an example.

It probably has something to do with the algorithym. Perhaps a 'fresh' spam has more weight? Perhaps one and eight have the same weight so it doesn't change? Perhaps GMT doesn't affect the code - the hours being translated in the code? Or perhaps it didn't work as it should so it has no meaning now, but no one has bothered to take it out?

I doubt very much that it was inserted as 'motivational' - individuals may be competitive and be motivated, but most of the scbl is fed by server admins who just do it as part of the job probaby. Their focus is how well the scbl works for them, not on how much they are contributing.

from the ng: I don't know what is happing lately with the SCBL relative to the spam I

receive. It used to be the case that more or less a constant fraction of

my spam was in the SCBL. A couple of months ago it started to vary widely.

I don't see anything odd in the spam I receive, so I suspect that it has

something to do with spamcop. posted by Philip Homburg

His conclusion is that more and more of the scbl is fed by spam traps.

Miss Betsy

[Farelf]

... I doubt very much that it was inserted as 'motivational' ...

Maybe, as you go on to develop the theme, the reliance on ordinary reporters is less important now but that statement just doesn't agree with the facts. It ignores the motivational-type messages like Your average reporting time is: 5 hours; Great! in the member page, it doesn't explain the "Yum, this spam is fresh" message for <= 2hours in the parser output and it doesn't address the FAQ http://members.spamcop.net/fom-serve/cache/371.html

... individuals may be competitive and be motivated, but most of the scbl is fed by server admins who just do it as part of the job probaby. Their focus is how well the scbl works for them, not on how much they are contributing.

No argument from me ... but while it remains to tantalize the loyal, ordinary members they ask, with some consistency, for it to be "accurate".

... (NG comment) posted by Philip Homburg ...His conclusion is that more and more of the scbl is fed by spam traps.

Interesting, thanks for that - spamtraps involve the least risk for SpamCop, as a matter of business principle it would make a lot of sense.