[citation][nom]Renold[/nom]"too bad. it can't stop spam post in tomshardware anyway. still way to go google."Is there some mental disorder that prevents people from rolling their mouse wheel a couple of clicks past junk posts?. I usually read Tom's later after it is removed but there are always these complaints about spam. I am serious and not trying to be offensive.[/citation]
Obvious spam is easy, yes. AI can hunt it down I guess. But, what about spammer evolution? There are more and more spam comments that one needs to read to find out half way that it's spam. Or should we be diagonal readers for all? Still mentally processing a lot more of the spam message than it's necessary, but missing out on normal/important messages once we begin to read like that by default. I don't see why (beneficially to me) my attention should go to spammers.
Don't forget it's the spammers that messed up the thumbs up/down system, because from the avid readers of Tom's Hardware they were thumbed down to oblivion very shortly after their spam action.
My suggestion: turn it into a game some bit. Tom's could grant all users that report on spam 1 point for their ranking system, inspiring them to contribute like this. There would not be a "not spam" option. Messages that get let's say 20 reports would be hidden automatically till admins evaluate and delete them, or restore them. Accounts reporting false positive spams could be considered spammer accounts, and their future reports would not be counted in. Maybe even the "neutral" accounts reporting spam should not be considered, till they gain "reputation" as benevolent humans. Practically a malicious bot would need to successfully report for example 20 spam messages for it's vote to count in automatic hiding of spam.