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At CrossValidated, we have recently had a few spates of "users" that just exist for Search Engine Optimization purposes, most recently Acoustic Fencing Panels Ltd, Addiction Rehab Clinics Ltd, Store Frontsltd and User Call Handling Ltd. These "users" just put their address, phone number, website etc. into their profile and never post anything or otherwise interact with the site.

So far, I have been pointing to these in the CV chat, but it would be a lot easier for everyone involved (plus avoid noise in the chat) if I could simply click somewhere in the user profile to draw moderator attention.

The top voted answer at Flag abusive users recommends flagging one of their posts... but per above, these SEO "users" do not post, so there is nothing to flag.

So, can we please have some kind of "flag user" functionality within a user's profile? Perhaps enable that at 10,000 rep or similar?

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    As a moderator - this would be a great way not just to deal with problems on my own site, but in theory, elsewhere. As such I'd love to have this as a tool for 10k or someone who is a diamond moderator somewhere tool Commented Jan 11 at 12:28
  • @JourneymanGeek: fully agree. These spammers typically set up accounts on about five SE sites. I don't quite see them contributing usefully at one of these... so it should really be enough for one user to flag them so a mod can destroy them network-wise. Commented Jan 11 at 12:31
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    Oh we can't destroy them network wide but we can get folks to do it on their own site . Profile spam is a pretty hard nut to crack due to quantity, but there's lots of situations where being able to flag a user would be handy Commented Jan 11 at 12:34
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    Why limit it only to 10K users? Anybody who has flagged a reasonable amount of spam posts can review their spam flags and find a few accounts like this as well. It took me all of 30 seconds to find one such account in my MSE flag history. Maybe 1K or 3K users should be allowed to flag such accounts too. Commented Jan 11 at 13:14
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    @PeterJames: I'm all good with having a lower rep barrier. Perhaps down to the 15 required to flag something right now. I'd just rather not allow completely new users to start abusing this system. (We also had a bit of a sock puppet infestation today, that may color my opinions.) I know that it took me quite a while to start looking at what users we have. Commented Jan 11 at 13:33
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    1K (established user) or 3K (ability to close vote) should be enough. I think 15 is too low. Commented Jan 11 at 14:01
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    I think the current recommended action for such a situation is to flag a random post from a different user and explain in the flag that it is not about that post but about a user without posts (including a link to the user profile). But I agree that it would make more sense to be able to flag the profile directly. Commented Jan 11 at 14:01
  • @Marijn, I agree this is the norm but here the said accounts "never post anything or otherwise interact with the site". Commented Jan 11 at 14:46
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    @User1865345 that is the point, you can flag a completely unrelated post from a completely unrelated user, and tell the moderator in the flag text "I am flagging this post but there is nothing wrong with this post or this user, however I want you to take a look at a profile from a completely different and unrelated user" and the moderator will understand. Commented Jan 11 at 15:05
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    @Marijn, ahh, I see what you meant. Clever. But I would genuinely love to see a feature as proposed by OP and prefer this to, say, flag an unrelated post. Commented Jan 11 at 15:06
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    @Marijn It might be safer to flag one of your own posts with "In need of moderator intervention" (which seems to be the only flag option on one of your own posts). That way, a moderator can't accidentally take action on an unrelated user. Commented Jan 11 at 16:01
  • Yes, please - and I agree that the rep barrier should be kinda low. This would be great for trolls too. Sometimes the more egregious ones will write 20+ posts in one day, which is literally too much for me to flag normally on most sites. Commented Jan 11 at 16:06
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    On small sites check the autobiographer user list you can tell right away from the names who's a spammer profile. Staff has said elsewhere they don't actively pursue these cases because user account deletion is too taxing on the database in terms of performance. Commented Jan 11 at 16:17
  • @bad_coder The user list is interesting. On the 1st page of the autobiographer link, when I looked there were 25 accounts which contain spammer in the name. On one example I clicked to see if any posts I could flag, contained "Profile spam removed by moderator" as their profile description. So, some moderators have the time to find and identify profile spam. Commented Jan 11 at 16:34
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    the opposite - all mods should have access to this alongside any reputation based gating. I believe its a tool we would use extensively Commented Jan 12 at 0:24

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I think this is a great idea.

On top of dealing with profile spam, as mentioned, this would also help deal with serial spammers.

Most spammers only spam once, but relatively often there comes a spammer who spams up to 10 posts, if not more.

Yes, each post can be individually deleted, but by deleting one serial spammer’s account, it would delete all corresponding spam. Much more efficient.

I also agree with @PeterJames: don’t just limit this feature to 10K-rep users; when flagging spam, the more the merrier.

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While it sounds great and ideal, we must not allow custom flagging a user profile, because that would be the result:

this user is hostile to me and downvoted my question

or:

this user posted a really hostile comment

Etc. So if this get implemented, I suggest having the flag button just raise a flag for the site moderators, without even giving flag options. Something similar to the chat flag would be enough, in my opinion:

mockup of profile with "flag as spam/offensive" link

When clicked, it would just show a confirmation dialog.

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    And of course this could still be misused. "User X was not nice to me, so I will go and flag their account as spam." But of course immature users can already do something similar by spuriously flagging User X's posts. I don't think this has been a major issue (plus, moderators can always take action against users that abuse the system). So TBH, I don't really think this is all that much of an issue. (But I will gladly defer to actual, y'know people who know what they are talking about, i.e., mods.) Commented Jan 11 at 18:02
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    @StephanKolassa true. But at least mods won't have to waste time reading, and in 99% of the cases it's trivial for them to know when a profile was falsely flagged, without checking further. :) Commented Jan 11 at 18:09
  • I agree with your “sole flag” idea, and perhaps, to stop (or discourage) users from abusing the feature out of anger (as in the example above), there could be, for misuse, first a warning, then a small penalty (e.g. -1 rep), etc., even up to a suspension. Commented Jan 11 at 21:06
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    Frivolous flagging would lead to suspension so... 'abuse' might solve a problem :D Commented Jan 12 at 0:27
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Perhaps an alternative option would be to shadow hide the entered profile of a new user, and which is unlocked on the first sign of a positive interaction with the site.

By shadow hide I mean when the user is logged they see their entered profile information, but other non-moderator users or search engines just see an empty profile.

E.g. the following could allow the entered profile information to become publicly visible:

  1. Upon the first upvote.
  2. First post which isn't negatively scored, closed or deleted after X hours.

I'm not sure how easy it would be to implement this compared to a new account flagging option, but just thought it could be an automatic way of handling the following issue in the question:

These "users" just put their address, phone number, website etc. into their profile and never post anything or otherwise interact with the site.

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    No need to make it "shadow hiding" i.e. the user should also be aware their profile appears empty to everyone, e.g. with some notice. This might deter some spammers, who would hopefully go elsewhere when realizing this. Something like that is done in chat, where the chat profile "hides" the display name of users with less than 20 reputation, and also something related to it is the network profile which disable all the links. Commented Jan 11 at 18:44
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    I don't really know how much this adds? Most spam or R/A comes from the post itself, not the user profile. "Shadow hiding" wouldn't affect most spammers' or trolls' MOs. Commented Jan 11 at 19:06
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    @Anerdw My answer wasn't aimed at dealing with spam posts, but really in response to the we have recently had a few spates of "users" that just exist for Search Engine Optimization purposes part of the question. Commented Jan 11 at 19:11
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    This was suggested previously as a way to deal with spammers - I think the idea here is it gives us a more efficient way to report not just profile spammers but also cross network trolls. Commented Jan 12 at 0:26

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