I'm Curious

[Canary42]

I notice that spam offenders (and presumably others as well) go into Banned status.

So, just out of curiosity, how many Banned users are there on Ab, and what percentage of the total is this ?

[aelmpvw]

by the time i have answered the percentage of banned spammers will have increased

[jim360]

I have a horrible feeling that the answer is likely close to 90%+, and even that is probably an underestimate. There is a *lot* of spam.

[DTCwordfan]

well there's Happy, Doc, Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Prince Andrew, and that's just for starters - probably 15 times more than there are active members....

[dannyk13]

I would say that 99% of banned users are spammers.

[Canary42]

Yes Jim, I was thinking something in the upper 90s for percentage.

[jno]

most of them aren't really AB users, they're just shills who sign up to place an unpaid advertisement and get blitzed within moments.

As I understand it, if someone's suspended, even permanently, their posts remain on the site, presumably because some of them may be interesting or useful. When someone's banned, all their posts vanish with them, which is of no account if they're simply spam.

[youngmafbog]

I suspect you are close to the answer Jim.

[-SharonA-]

And the hassle of making up fake email addresses.

[aelmpvw]

when i'm particularly bored i post a perverse comment on a spam thread, what do they gain from that?

[jno]

what any advertiser gains: publicity.

[Chinajan]

They're not interested in your replies ael and the human ones won't even look at them. Just post and disappear.

A lot of spam on forums is posted by automated spambots, so it's not even a human.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forum_spam

[aelmpvw]

^ doesn't work if it's a load of gobbledygook does it?

[aelmpvw]

i assumed that they probably made ,say, 1p, every time someone clicked the link, otherwise i don't see the point

[jno]

I've no idea how well they're understood. But obviously, when I see aelmpvw has commented on something in the latest posts, I click on it at once, so they've got one of the clicks they were seeking.

[davebro]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Curious_(Yellow)

(canaries are yellow?)

[aelmpvw]

i will desist from making comments on spam posts :-)

[ABSpareEditor]

There are currently 43041 banned users on The AnswerBank.

[Mamyalynne]

Final answer? ;-)

[brainiac]

How many who are not banned?

[THECORBYLOON]

I can't mind on what happened when I joined but do folk get a confirmation e-mail when they join?

Reading the link in Wiki,

"Confirmation e-mails to registering users prior to allowing the user a first log in, either containing a site-generated password or an activation code/link."

Would that not stop some of the spam?