On my first ever review of Low Quality Posts, I was presented with this answer.

I voted Looks OK, but it was a test and I failed. The system told me I should have marked it as spam.

I don't understand how could this answer be spam. He is trying to explain how to set a cron job, and the link he has proposed is legitimate. Why should I have marked this as spam?

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    I agree this seems a bit unfair, as that user appears to have been caught because of excessive self-promotion ("This account is temporarily suspended for promotional content.") – but how could you have known by looking at this one post? – Jongware Sep 8 '16 at 9:50
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    If you thought that that answer "Looks OK" you should probably think twice the next time you are reviewing... – Bakuriu Sep 8 '16 at 13:14
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    To add insult to the injury, you can't flag as spam inside the LQRQ – Braiam Sep 8 '16 at 13:28
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    I was really confused for a while until I realized the link was just showing the question not the answer.Where did it go? – user2322082 Sep 8 '16 at 13:38
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    That's definitely not "looks ok". It may not be spam, but it looks like it. You should have been leery of that answer from the get go. Someone paying attention might have opened it in a new browser window to inspect it closer. You didn't. I'm not a fan of a lot of these audit posts, and yes, it's true, you couldn't tell that this user was spamming their url all over the place from this one answer, but you should have been wary of the possibility. I'd say this audit was good. – user1228 Sep 8 '16 at 14:15
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    Problem is if you open that question you see that there are two other answers which have high scores and look similar to this one. I consider this some kind of a inconsistency. I flagged a lot of questions that were similar to this one but most of them got disputed. It is very confusing for me and I skip most of these kind of questions lately. – Saeid Sep 8 '16 at 14:23
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    Note that there are no consequences for failing a couple of audits, not least because everybody knows the system is imperfect. – David Richerby Sep 9 '16 at 12:14

It is spam because this user was responsible for posting a slew of pseudo-answers that contained a link to his "blog", on which he simply regurgitated the question and his "answer" from Stack Overflow, adding no additional details. The principal purpose of these answers was not to answer the question, but rather to promote his blog. They all violated the cardinal rule of disclosing one's affiliation with all links. Not to mention the cardinal rule of posting a self-contained answer that does not rely on links to external content.

How you were expected to know this history and therefore arrive at the conclusion that it is spam is difficult to answer (and a recurring problem with the automatically-selected spam audits), but you certainly shouldn't have chosen "looks OK", either. It is not a quality answer.

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    Also to be noted that the user is temporarily suspended for promotional content. – Bhargav Rao Sep 8 '16 at 9:55
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    While that's true, posts in the review queues are supposed to be evaluated on their own merits, not based on the user who posted them. So while you could have passed the audit by investigating the user's recent history and/or profile, this should not be necessary, assuming that the audits are working correctly. – Cody Gray Sep 8 '16 at 9:58
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    @CodyGray Thanks for the edit. I just don't understand why this is a low quality answer but this or this aren't? – Saeid Sep 8 '16 at 10:34
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    The obvious answer is that they haven't been flagged as such, so the system doesn't know about it. The real answer is that the question itself is low-quality, making all answers to it very likely to be of similarly low quality. Unfortunately, the review queues pay little attention to this, placing obsessive focus on the symptom of the problem (the answers) rather than the root of the problem (the question). 1k reputation to go before you can vote to close questions on your own, but you can flag them as "should be closed". Don't hesitate to do so, @sudo. – Cody Gray Sep 8 '16 at 11:10
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    @CodyGray Note that while you can't necessarily tell from the post alone all of the problems you brought up, what is in the post itself is a lot of red flags that should really lead an appropriate reviewer to look a bit further into the issue. You may not be able to know, conclusively, from the review screen that this user is spamming posts to their blog, but there are enough red flags to indicate that you should probably check out if there is. That plus the post being low quality even if the reviewer doesn't realize it's spam make it a decent enough audit. – Servy Sep 8 '16 at 14:25
  • @sudomakeinstall2 The main difference is that those answers don't serve to promote a site; and they are pretty much self-contained, imho they are not great, but also not too low quality. Funny thing is I flagged this answer (or another answer by this user) when it came up in the review queue a few weeks ago; I had almost given it a "looks ok", until I did a quick google search for that website and found multiple answers by multiple (sock puppet?) accounts with relatively low quality answers all linking to that site. – Mark Rotteveel Sep 10 '16 at 16:08

This is a common pattern of spam that we see on a regular basis. Someone will come here, post short answers that are usually based on or directly plagiarized from existing posts or sites, and then tack on a link to their site at the end. The content at their site is typically plastered with ads or a direct promotion for their products or consulting services, and is usually plagiarized from somewhere else.

Common signals to look for are

  • new users whose only posts are short answers with "for more details: [link]" at the end,
  • commercial websites that you've never heard of and that appear nowhere else on Stack Overflow,
  • all of this user's other posts all linking to this site,
  • links to blogspot.in blogs (90+% of these posts originate from India) that you can see from the URL were created the day the answer was posted, and
  • these being new answers to questions asked years ago and answered multiple times already.

Be very wary of new answers to old questions that end with links like this. If in doubt, take a look at the user account and see what other answers they've left. Review is the primary means of identifying these spammers, so please be on the lookout for them when reviewing Low Quality Posts and Late Answers.


An answer that does not explain much and sends the reader to an external site is not necessarily spam but it is suspicious.

When I see such posts in review, I click the link that the review interface provides to get to the original Q&A. Once I do that, I can see whether it has been declared spam or not. I don't need to know the whole history of how the author of the post has been posting on the site.

We want users who see something suspicious to investigate. Maybe the investigation reveals nothing actionable. Or it can reveal a problem that warrants further action on the investigator's part (e.g. reverting a defacing edit) or warrants flagging for moderator attention (e.g. a user spamming the site, sockpuppets, etc.)


I originally flagged this answer a few weeks ago when it showed up in the review queue. I had almost given it a "Looks OK". It wasn't a great answer, but I think it was just about on the right side of too low quality (or maybe I was just generous that day).

However the "for more details please see here" was a bit of a red flag. I did a quick google with "site:stackoverflow.com technoblogging" and found multiple posts by multiple(!) users all with similar low quality posts all linking to this site.

That is a confirmation that something fishy is going on, so I flagged with a custom reason specifying that this user and at least two others were posting answers that seemed to primarily serve to promote said website. As a result of that flag all posts by these users were obliterated and the accounts temporarily suspended (iirc).

The audits serve to ensure that you pay attention when reviewing. This might not have been an obviously bad question, but it should have gotten your sixth sense tingling that something wasn't right, prompting you to either investigate a bit more or choose skip if you don't have time/want to leave that to others. In that regard it is actually a good audit question even if you failed it ;)


Spam posts are hard to identify since they often require you to follow the links and sometimes read additional unrelated posts by the same author. (I'm not talking about the obvious spam that gets deleted in 1 minute - those posts never reach the review queue. I'm talking about the questions that are part of someones PR campaign for a serious website where the only thing missing is the admission of affiliation.)

The latter is beyond what I consider due diligence. Personally I don't get hung up for failing the occasional review test as long as I catch most of them.

If I see something that rouses my suspicion I always open the question in a new tab. It then becomes obvious whether it is a test and how to pass it.

When I fail, it is usually for one these reasons:

  1. The test is bad. The question is actually not of very poor quality. Or it is an old question that has a positive score although it doesn't follow the current rules.

  2. The test is hard. The question was closed after someone stumbled on information that led to the question being closed.

  3. I disagree. The question may be of questionable quality.

  4. I wasn't focused enough and made the wrong decision.

So, how do I deal with these failures?

  1. sometimes makes me write a question on meta, asking that the question be removed from test consideration.

  2. makes shrug my shoulders and move on.

  3. means that I need to consider whether to change my ways.

  4. usually means that I need a break, so I stop reviewing and do other stuff.

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    Visit the SOCVR for a couple of hours. Spam posts are anything but "hard to identify". – Cerbrus Sep 8 '16 at 13:47
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    ~95% of spam is super obvious and can be properly judged in <5s. The remaining few % are borderline cases where you consult the user's other posts. In over 1,5k spam flags on the network (sigh....) about 95% of the spam I see is blatant and super easy to identify. – user308386 Sep 8 '16 at 13:50
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    @Cerbrus Thanks for the link. Haven't bothered with chat rooms because the link to them is in such an inobviuos place. After reading about half-an-hour worth of SOCVR chat I think I won't be bothering much in the future either, unless I decide to join a close or burninate event. Too much chatter. – Klas Lindbäck Sep 8 '16 at 14:18
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    I always feel a bit silly upvoting an answer like this against the obvious community sentiment, but Klas I have to agree with you. And it is the only answer here that I DO agree with. – Richard Le Mesurier Sep 10 '16 at 15:44
  • @magisch You are correct. However, those get deleted within a couple of minutes and don't appear in review tests. – Klas Lindbäck Sep 12 '16 at 7:47

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