I am testing out new admin functionality to flag and delete spammers in the Micro.blog system. It won’t affect what you see because we already curate Discover to keep spam out, but Discover updates will be a bit slower while we figure this out. Cutting down on the spam that shows up on ... micro.welltempered.net

@jean Got to say I can’t recall seeing any spammers so far in my Microblog experience so someone’s doing something right 👍

@thedimpause @jean agreed - I don't think I've ever seen spam on Microblog

@jean I’m with everyone else on this one: spam? What spam?? 🙂

@jean Thank you for being on top of this, and I am not aware of experiencing any spam here on Micro.blog . . . so I take it that now you are staying on top of on top! 🙌🏻

@jean To add to the previous comments: I have seen issues here and there, however I poke and prod at Micro.blog an awful lot so that's to be expected. Given the fact that I can count those issues on one hand, I'd say you were already doing a great job and it's reassuring to know that these tools continue to be improved on top of all of the other work being done across the team. 💯

@jean Thanks Jean, though I echo the other sentiments in the thread that I’ve never seen spam here.

@jean You’re obviously doing a great job because I never see spam!

@maique et al: Because we have a free trial, many spam accounts are created. Most only post once, but the unfiltered global timeline is full of these posts, with all the usual spam topics you’d expect. Currently we create Discover by manually selecting a cross-section of posts to give new users the flavor of Micro.blog, as well as to make current users aware of users they aren’t following. We are looking at ways to prevent spam from even hitting the global timeline so we don’t have to slog through so much dreck to curate.

You wouldn’t see the spam because you only see the accounts you follow. Although occasionally we get a miscreant who sends spam @ mentions to accounts featured in Discover, but we shut those down as soon as we learn of them. This is the upside of having limited search functionality. We always consider whether a discovery improvement will also become a vector for spammers and trolls.

@jean Glad to know you’re on top of things and keeping the timeline spam-free. While not on at the top of my wishlist, wouldn’t a global timeline of only paid users fix that problem? While also including users who feed their RSS to Micro.blog by implementing the age of the account criteria.

@jean Question. Is it allowed to do proper marketing on the Timeline? I mean to be helpful to the community and offer your wares when asked for by others, leaving any promotion to satisfied customers.

@jean Makes sense, of course. Thanks for all the background work 🙂

@jean I am very good at making a note of these things 😬

@renevanbelzen Yes, that is not a problem. As long as accounts don't violate our terms of service or community guidelines, there is not a problem with promoting products.