Spam in the Reader forum

And this is now the second page of the topic list in the Reader forum:

By the way, this is what I am talking about:

And the list is longer...

The number of sports-related spam posts in the Reader forum has been on the increase, specially on days of important matches. And, as hard as JC and company strive to eliminate them quickly, they frequently remain there for hours after being posted.

I always undestood that one way to help in combating spam was to eliminate spam messages as soon as possible, not in hours. Some time ago, I suggested in this same thread, and combining suggestions from others, that some of the users that daily report spam in the forums they frequent be appointed as some kind of "limited moderators", with the only privilege of temporarily removing messages that for them are obvious spam. If considered necessary (I wouldn't consider it necessary, for they have been reporting spam for months), the removed messages could be temporarily stored in a safe place where they could be revised by someone with more experience and authority, before being eliminated for ever.

Some persons have questioned this idea, on the grounds that these limited moderators could use their powers for unjustly removing messages from people they do not like. I find this very thought insulting for the people who report messages daily, and could equally been said, equally insultingly, of any of the present moderators.

It has also been pointed out that the idea is not even worth considering unless someone is under the illusion of it ever being implemented. Been a complete ignorant of the innards of the software behind any forum, my naive impression is that this simple idea cannot be all that difficult to implement. And if it were implemented, spam messages would only be vissible for minutes, not hours. And I am naive enough to think that this would even make easier the task for all of those who are now trying to delete spam messages and disable their posters.

In short, I still think the idea is at least worth considering.

I am glad to say that all the spam messages in the Reader forum reported today in the Spam report thread have been eliminated.

I marked this "question" as Answered because the offending posts had been eliminated. However, today the Reader forum has been piling up spam messages for more than five hours, and nothing happens, despite reports.

I always understood that one way to discourage spammers is to eliminate their messages as soon as posible.

Quite frankly, I don't feel encouraged to continue reporting spam.