#1 2023-09-30 4:15 pm

V6558

Member

Registered: 2023-09-26

Posts: 14

What is the "evidence" icon?

Hi all, can someone please explain what is the "evidence" icon at individual entry of the spammer and what does it mean, how to use it? Thanks

robleyd

Member

From: Adelaide, Australia

Registered: 2012-07-15

Posts: 7

Re: What is the "evidence" icon?

If the submitter of the report has included evidence - such as a spam link posted - the evidence icon will link to a page including the evidence. Otherwise it is just an icon.

For example, search for miriamf1957.

V6558

Member

Registered: 2023-09-26

Posts: 14

Re: What is the "evidence" icon?

So, am I correct thinking that if icon is not clickable then there is no evidence?

I'm asking because I was banned immediately after clicking on the email verification url.

Not sure what would be the evidence in this case? Perhaps "user successfully verified email address" ?

Maikuolan

Member

From: Perth, Western Australia

Registered: 2011-08-09

Posts: 799

Website

Re: What is the "evidence" icon?

When reporting something to SFS, if any evidence exists (in this context, evidence could mean the content of the spam in question, any spammed links, or in the event of something being submitted due to a honeypot trap, then some kind of message or description indicating as such, or if there's anything in particular which other users, or SFS mods/admins should know about concerning the report, etc), it *should* be included in the evidence field of the report. If it is, then that icon will appear, allowing others to view that evidence. If it isn't included, there won't be any icon (so, if you don't see any such icon alongside reports, it's safe to assume that no such evidence was included with the report in question).

It isn't mandatory to include such evidence, and there are many people which don't include it due to software constraints (or in some cases, laziness), but it is very strongly recommended to do so, because if a report ever comes into question (e.g., if someone requests for a report to be removed, or if someone requests the removal of a specific IP address, username, or email address, and there are some reports which describe the particulars requested for removal), the evidence provided for those reports (or the lack thereof) is factored into the decision by the person processing the removal request for how to proceed with that removal request (e.g., whether to honour or reject the removal request, whether to take further action beyond just removal, for example, revocation of API keys in the event that a submitter is found to have been intentionally submitting false data, attempting database poisoning, etc).

Take in mind that I am not a moderator nor admin here, so my word is not law. But, speaking from the extensive experience of discussions had here at these forums in the past, *in general* (there are exceptions in some circumstances), if a report doesn't include any evidence at all, if someone requests for it to be removed, the removal request will be honoured without question. Likewise, if someone includes "evidence" which suggests the report was made for reasons other than spam (e.g., petty vengeance, someone writing something stupid in the evidence field like "reporting this guy because he's annoying and I don't like him", which.. though a very rare occurrence, also isn't totally 100% unheard of), the removal request will be honoured (and often with consequences for whoever submitted the report in the first place).

On the other hand, if the evidence field is filled in *correctly* (e.g., properly describing the content of the spam, including any spammed links, etc), if the reports are reasonably recent, if there are multiple reports for the data in question, the reporter is in good standing with the community here, and the reports appear to be ongoing (i.e., there's a high likelihood of new reports arriving imminently with that same data), the removal request usually won't be honoured.

In short: The evidence included is important, and if evidence isn't included, regardless of whether some evidence exists somewhere, from the perspective of SFS, and from our perspective, it can be regarded as non-existent.