SpammerSurvey

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(from a discussion on MeatballAntiSpam)

What if, when the spammers are recognized, they are diverted to a form that is a type of survey that is used to help create a social-psychology map? Once they fill out this form, they are then reciprocated with a blank page that is seperate from the main wiki where they can deposit their spam. What if this social-psychology map data is then compared to geographic location data? What if some of these forms are able to be modified over time, in order to fool a cross section of some of the spamming people into revealing more about who they are, and why and how they do this.

Proposed Generally Useful Data

In general, the more information that we know about the life conditions, the "world view", the culture, and the motives of the people doing the spamming, the more we will know about why they are spamming. Possibly useful information could include:

Approximate age

Geographic location

(Psycho)metrics about how they would solve different problems, what is more or less "important", based on recognizeable conditions of existence. This is problematic, because the information provided can be subjectively interpreted from both the survery taking, and survery analytic ends. These "metrics" would have to be fashioned in a way that makes them valid and reliable. The nature of this data would be:

Ethnographic (see [Wikipedia:Ethnography]). A qualitative analysis of all information that can be gathered about a person, to create a holistic view of the person, and the system they are a part of.

Human values. (see [Wikipedia:Values]) Again from a holistic point of view. The questions we want to answer here are "who is doing what to whom, and why?", from a values perspective. And, we want to know how the person is answering the age-old question "What's In It For Me?" (WIIFM), and why they are answering it the way that they do.

Potential problems with survey format

A potential problem with creating an online survey is that there is a high likelihood that the survey takers would simply click randomly through it, to move on to the online space that they are trying to get to in the first place (in the case, the proposed spam repository).

However, another approach could be to create "paths" that represent valid and reliable social/psycho metric choices, and/or possibly "tasks" who's completion also reveals potential valid and reliable social/psycho metric choices, in order to get to the desired online space. The "paths" and "tasks" would likely need to be relatively quick and easy. Yet, there must be a reiterated set of "paths" and/or "tasks" in order to create reliable and valid data. So, "paths" could simply be a series of choosing to click on different symbols or images that can be shown to validly and realiably resonate with with psycho-social choices.

Of course, a survey could also be made available as a "task", as a certain percentage of people might very well actually accurately fill out the survey. Other "tasks" could simply be quick, yet valid and reliable social/psycho metric "task"-oriented choices.

We can assume that the spammers are posting the content for commercial reasons. And so, I think we can assume that a questionaire or survey that appeals to the reasons we think they are spamming might get some results.

Proposed Survery

"Thank You for submitting link content to this wiki. In order to ensure that the links your are posting here are optimized for internet search engine page ranking, we'll need you to answer a few questions.

What country are you located in? ______________

What city are you located in? _______________

What is your age? ______________

What level of schooling have you achieved? (check one)

Primary School (High School)
College or University Degree (type of degree _______)

Which search engines do you hope will pickup the links you are posting here? (check all that apply):

Yahoo
Google
AltaVista?
Other (please enter here _______)

Which website locations are the best places to places links:

Blogs
Guestbooks
Wikis
I don't know what Blogs, Guestbooks, or Wikis are.

Are the links you are posting here pointing to commercial or advertising websites?

Can you explain your best strategies for posting links to websites? Where are the best places online to post links? What would make it easier for you to post links to websites? (fill in text box:_________________)

Can you explain how you learned these strategies?

Someone else taught me
I learned them on my own
Other (please describe: _________________)

How much time do you think you spend posting links to websites?

Less than two hours a day.
Two to five hours a day.
Five to eight hours a day.
Eight or more hours a day.

Is there something you would rather be doing with your time besides posting these links?

If Yes, describe what you wold rather be doing below:

(fill in text box_________________________________ this could eventually become a multiple choice question, depending on answers given.)

Which describes you the best?:

I like working by myself.
I like working with others.

When you are faced with a tough problem you usually:

Stand back and look at the big picture, and try to work out the problem in a way that brings no harm to others.
Stand and fight, only the tough survive!
Report to authorities or my superiors for instructions on how to solve the problem.
Seek other like minded people to work together on a solution tht we all agree on.
Look to family for help and support, and advice about how our ancestors solved these problems.
Look at all of the options to find a solution to master and control the problem.

To help improve this site for you, please describe a typical day in you life. :

(fill in text box ________________________)

Discussion

Just wanted to jot down some of my thoughts for now. I'll definitely be coming back to build tthis up and brainstorm about it some more. -- SamRose

: This is what I think we can do. We can divert confirmed spam attacks to the survey, and then when they are done, allow them to post on a TarPit?, which is really a delusion. Rather than theorize about this forever, let's just start with a basic survey to test the idea, and then improve it over time. -- SunirShah

Looks like a good idea to me. May I suggest that the survey read something convincing from the point of view of the wiki spammer? I have created one possible idea above that I think will resonate with the people posting the spamming content. --SamRose

: I think this is pretty straightforward. I'll implement something after I move to Ottawa this weekend. -- SunirShah

Can we set this up to only trigger on a very limited set of URLs, not the entire blacklist? Some of them, like blogspot, are tripped by regular users. Checking the list of blocked edits should give a good idea of what URLs will be hit. -- ChrisPurcell

: If the blacklist is tripping regular users, you should remove the rules that cause those failures. -- SunirShah

It has happened twice that I'm aware of in the months since blocking blogspot. We get dozens of spam attacks per day on it IIRC. The main reason I'm concerned is that, at the moment, the user gets a very easy way to post their complaint that their URL is blocked: remove that URL, and post. It's even described on the page. People do not appear to have a problem with this. If we start putting up a survey instead, that removes that easy course of action. -- ChrisPurcell

Adding more to the survey today, trying to slip some psychological questions in there. -- SamRose