

Ask PG: Why did I just get a "stop spamming us" message? - krmmalik

I just got a "Stop spamming us, you're wasting your time" message when submitting a genuine link which was the new video from RSA. "the paradox of choice".<p>I've never spammed this site, at least not knowingly. Please help?
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pg
This happens when you submit a link to a spam site. When it happens to
innocent people it's usually because some site has been mistakenly classified
as a spam site, e.g. by an admin fat-fingering something on an iPhone.

~~~
anotherjesse
It is very easy to fat finger the "flag" link as a user when browsing from a
phone.

Any thoughts on a mobile skin to HN that removes flag?

~~~
pg
One day I'll make a mobile-optimized version.

~~~
palish
HN already is a mobile-optimized version (except possibly the up/down arrows).
No need to waste your time.

EDIT: Well, the community has spoken.

~~~
smackfu
You think? On my iPhone, the page width is about twice as wide as would be
comfortable to read, so either you read tiny print or zoom and scroll
constantly.

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ColinWright
I also got that the other day when submitting something via the bookmarklet.
When I opened the "submit" page and copied things into the boxes (copy/paste)
then it all worked.

Not sure what is being triggered, but it looks like more than one false
positive for "spam" detection.

EDIT: As an experiment I've just tried to submit using the bookmarklet the RSA
Animate of the talk and got the message again ... then I tried "by hand". Both
times I got the "Stop spamming us" message.

I wonder if it's the direct link to the YouTube video that's the problem ...

Now I've succeeded with a link to a different site.

PG: You have an interesting glitch in your spam detection.

~~~
krmmalik
I just used the search function to look for HN submissions that contained the
same keywords in the title, and noticed there are previous submissions that
do. Even though its a different link and different content. I wonder if that's
causing the glitch?

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powertower
Youtube link to Andrew Warner and James Altucher talk.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_4yfn0bG50>

Gave me the same message.

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mattdeboard
Reminds me of the link last week re: 130% effective spam filter.

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Sukotto
I see lots of successful youtube.com submissions.

According to SearchYC[1], the most recent successful posting of a youtube link
was 2 months ago <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2417032>

According to HNSearch[2] it was 2 days ago
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2651680>

[1]
[http://searchyc.com/submissions/youtube.com?only=domain&...](http://searchyc.com/submissions/youtube.com?only=domain&sort=by_date)

[2]
[http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=you...](http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=youtube.com&sortby=create_ts+desc)

~~~
johnx123
He might borked it lately

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jcfrei
maybe some bayesian learning algorithm disseminates the url you submitted and
calculates a spam possibility based on the tokens (then the token 'youtube'
might have a high bias for spam). just a thought though, that I got after
reading <http://paulgraham.com/spam.html>

~~~
johnx123
Hackers may not eat their own dog food!!

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davidw
It looks like you post an awful lot of stuff from your own site, maybe that
triggers something.

~~~
ColinWright
That seems to have been a long time ago, and the same can't be said of me.
I've triggered it now twice by submitting direct links to YouTube.

Not conclusive, but it's a start.

~~~
stonemetal
I know there is a list of domains that are have been banned maybe youtube has
now made the list.

~~~
hugh3
Nope, I successfully posted a youtube video yesterday.

(Nobody upmodded it though, which is a shame, cuz it was totally awesome.)

~~~
ColinWright
Not according to your list of submissions you didn't.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=hugh3>

~~~
dangrossman
It's there but [dead]. You have to change your preferences to show dead links.

~~~
hugh3
Well shoot. I didn't get a "stop spamming" message.

For what it's worth, the video is called "The Kepler Orrery" and it's an
animation showing all the multi-planet systems discovered by the Kepler
mission so far, side by side, with the same length and time scale. It's pretty
awesome.

~~~
ColinWright
As an experiment (and I wouldn't normally advocate this) try submitting it
again, see if you get the message this time.

EDIT: Actually, having gone and found it, don't. It doesn't really contain any
seinsible information that I can see - it just appears to be a lot of spinning
circles, some music, and no real information about what you're actually
looking at. It might be great, but it's impossible for me to see why.

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shawndumas
I got it once when I tried to post an Apple Press Release when iCloud was
announced...

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nextparadigms
I got the same message when linking to a Youtube video.

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revorad
RSA submissions on Thursday afternoons from accounts less than 2 years old are
banned.

