Outreach Template

This document is intended for use as a template for Charcoal members to use when reaching out to a site on the subject of how to handle spam. Since outreach doesn't tend to make us very popular if we come across as "we know better than you", this template has been written to come across in the best possible way. Please use this template whenever possible when writing these sorts of outreach posts rather than writing your own. When in doubt, ask CHQ.

To aid with image, a member of Charcoal who is also an active member of the target community should make the post. This helps because it doesn't come across as a new user (often sub-200 rep) turning up on a site's meta and telling the community what to do.

To use this template: Edit this wiki page, and copy all the markdown from the first horizontal rule (-----) down. Remove any sections that are irrelevant to the site/time/situation you are posting about. If you make any modifications, try to avoid mentioning Charcoal where possible, and remember to follow the target site's policies. Again: if in doubt, ask CHQ.

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Let's get aligned on how to handle spam

TL;DR: Stack Exchange network policy includes a specific method of handling spam; let's use it, because it has benefits both for our site and the network as a whole.

I've recently noticed a significant number of community members handling spam in various different ways. I'd like us all to get aligned on how we should be handling spam, because if we're all using the same method we'll be far more efficient at it.

To be clear: all of the various methods that I've seen have their own benefits and aren't necessarily bad. However, there's a recommended way to handle spam on Stack Exchange, and using that instead, as a community, gets us the best outcome. Stack Exchange network policy suggests the following:

DO:

• Flag spam posts using the "spam" flag;
• Flag rude, offensive, or otherwise abusive (of users, or of the system) posts using the "rude or abusive" flag.

DON'T:

• Edit spam or abusive posts;
• Vote to delete them;
• Downvote them.

Flagging these posts gets them removed in the quickest way possible; it puts the tools for doing it in the hands of a majority of the community rather than just those with the vote-to-delete privilege; and as an added benefit it feeds the user to SpamRam, Stack Exchange's native spam-blocking mechanism. Editing, voting to delete, or downvoting the posts all reduce the visibility of the spam/abuse, which means it takes longer for the post to accumulate the required flags (6) to get rid of it.

I suggest that, as a community, we follow that policy as closely as is practicable.