in reply to The recent spam wave

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't new nodes have to be approved before they are visible? I often see "node approved by X" in my nodelet over there.

By default, you could make all new accounts unable to post comments on existing nodes until they've had a new node of their own approved. That would weed out all but the most dedicated spammers without forcing more work upon the admins. This isn't a fully automated solution, but it also wouldn't impact the legitimate users of this site in a negative way.

Update:
To address the first-post re-post BrowserUK brought up, you could also require some nominal amount of XP (or node reputation) before allowing the user to comment.

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Re^2: The recent spam wave
by Argel (Prior) on Sep 02, 2011 at 19:55 UTC
    But everyone who can approve nodes could still see the spam.

    Update: I think there's a way not to show those, but then that means fewer people would be left to approve legitimate nodes. I was thinking of "Show Unapproved Nodes", but it looks like Friar on up always see unapproved nodes.

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[reply]
      I think there's a way not to show those, but then that means fewer people would be left to approve legitimate nodes.

      Allow more people to approve nodes? This is a community-driven site after all.

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Re^2: The recent spam wave
by chrestomanci (Priest) on Sep 05, 2011 at 15:23 UTC
    By default, you could make all new accounts unable to post comments on existing nodes until they've had a new node of their own approved. That would weed out all but the most dedicated spammers without forcing more work upon the admins. This isn't a fully automated solution, but it also wouldn't impact the legitimate users of this site in a negative way.

    It would have affected me. When I first joined this site, I posted nearly 20 nodes in replies to other comments and questions on SoPW, before I posted my own question here.

    My suggestion is that the first few posts by new Initiates should go through a manual approval until the user is promoted to Novice. The moderator should have three choices: Reject, accept or immediately promote to Novice. If the user gets three rejects then their posts are hidden and their account locked. If they post something good as their first post, then the promote button lets the moderator give them an immediate +20 XP bonus, so no more of their posts need moderating. While their post is awaiting moderation it is viable only to those eligible to moderate it. (Friars and above). This means that visitors to our site and the googlebot will not see any spam.

    My other suggestion is that spam posts should be hidden more. The current This node was taken out by the NodeReaper... display takes up as much space as a normal node. I think it should shrink to a single line, or hidden entirely unless you select a "Show Spam Nodes" option in your preferences.

[reply]
      IIRC, the current "show reaped nodes" shows the actual nodes, not a link to visit reaped nodes
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