First, any platform will have to deal with spammers. The moderation tools and team are always finding new ways to fight back, but that battle will never be "over". That's just the nature of the internet.
More importantly, one should remember that we are not USENET. There was more than a touch of elitism and intellectual arrogance in the original phrase "Eternal September": "The influx of new users are not up to our standard or high intellectual plane. Sniff What plebs."
DEV has always aimed to be something different. We want to be welcoming to people who don't know what they're doing, and that means being patient with "noise". The war against the "noise to signal ratio" was what made Stack Overflow so unfriendly towards newbies.
As one of the tag moderators, I usually see more of the scum posts than most members, and I can't really say it's gotten that much worse. I think there are three components to this:
The DEV crew is always improving the algorithms for the Feed. Follow tags you like, upvote articles you appreciate, follow excellent authors, and you'll find that more good content than bad comes shows up for you.
It's like the desert analogy: you find what you look for. If you look for life and beauty in the desert, you'll find plenty of it. If you look for death and desolation, you'll find plenty of it. Focus on, and promote, the positive. Ignore or flag the bad.
Make DEV what you want to see. If it doesn't feel welcoming enough to new members, make it more welcoming. (We even have a Welcome Thread to make it easy!) If you want to see more content like a certain article, like it, comment on it, even promote it on your social media. And then, of course, flag problematic content so it can be dealt with.
By the way, if anyone is wanting to help deal with the spam problem, especially within particular tags, we can always use more tag moderators! Just email yo@dev.to.
Just in case anyone is unaware, the following types of posts are generally discouraged, if not outright disallowed, depending on the exact circumstances:
Affiliate link collections. (Some major tags forbid them, all the rest require clear indication they're affiliate links.)
"Linkback" posts, including "article previews", meant to drive traffic elsewhere. The whole article should generally be posted on DEV.
Advertising products or services. We encourage Listings to be used instead.
Showing off a project should be limited to #showdev and the appropriate technology tags.
The moderators are always adapting policy and approach to keep DEV clean.
30+ years of tech, retired from an identity intelligence company, now part-time with an insurance broker.
Dev community mod - mostly light gardening & weeding out spam :)
Thanks Jason, all excellent advice to try and keep the ship right-side-up :)
I did wonder if I used the right metaphor with eternal September, was struggling to find something else, perhaps an SO reference would have been better - also I probably fell victim to click-bait titling!
As I mentioned in another reply, it feels a little like admitting defeat if I have to use filters to remove things that shouldn't be here in the first place, however, it also helps lower the impact of those doing bad and they are likely to go away if their return on investment / effort is too low.
I should probably report a few more things and follow some tags ;)
Yeah, I agree the best response is really two-fold:
Use tags (and the experience setting in Settings > Misc to filter out the content that isn't right for you.
Report content that doesn't belong on the site at all.
That isn't admitting defeat at all, but rather addressing the actual problem so it can be curbed.
And, of course, if this is something that you feel really passionate about, you could always volunteer to be a community or tag moderator! Then you get some additional tools for helping fight back against spam.
// , “It is not so important to be serious as it is to be serious about the important things. The monkey wears an expression of seriousness... but the monkey is serious because he itches."(No/No)
I think the perspective needs to change, here.
First, any platform will have to deal with spammers. The moderation tools and team are always finding new ways to fight back, but that battle will never be "over". That's just the nature of the internet.
More importantly, one should remember that we are not USENET. There was more than a touch of elitism and intellectual arrogance in the original phrase "Eternal September": "The influx of new users are not up to our standard or high intellectual plane. Sniff What plebs."
DEV has always aimed to be something different. We want to be welcoming to people who don't know what they're doing, and that means being patient with "noise". The war against the "noise to signal ratio" was what made Stack Overflow so unfriendly towards newbies.
As one of the tag moderators, I usually see more of the scum posts than most members, and I can't really say it's gotten that much worse. I think there are three components to this:
The DEV crew is always improving the algorithms for the Feed. Follow tags you like, upvote articles you appreciate, follow excellent authors, and you'll find that more good content than bad comes shows up for you.
It's like the desert analogy: you find what you look for. If you look for life and beauty in the desert, you'll find plenty of it. If you look for death and desolation, you'll find plenty of it. Focus on, and promote, the positive. Ignore or flag the bad.
Make DEV what you want to see. If it doesn't feel welcoming enough to new members, make it more welcoming. (We even have a Welcome Thread to make it easy!) If you want to see more content like a certain article, like it, comment on it, even promote it on your social media. And then, of course, flag problematic content so it can be dealt with.
By the way, if anyone is wanting to help deal with the spam problem, especially within particular tags, we can always use more tag moderators! Just email
yo@dev.to.Just in case anyone is unaware, the following types of posts are generally discouraged, if not outright disallowed, depending on the exact circumstances:
Affiliate link collections. (Some major tags forbid them, all the rest require clear indication they're affiliate links.)
"Linkback" posts, including "article previews", meant to drive traffic elsewhere. The whole article should generally be posted on DEV.
Advertising products or services. We encourage Listings to be used instead.
Showing off a project should be limited to
#showdevand the appropriate technology tags.The moderators are always adapting policy and approach to keep DEV clean.
Thanks Jason, all excellent advice to try and keep the ship right-side-up :)
I did wonder if I used the right metaphor with eternal September, was struggling to find something else, perhaps an SO reference would have been better - also I probably fell victim to click-bait titling!
As I mentioned in another reply, it feels a little like admitting defeat if I have to use filters to remove things that shouldn't be here in the first place, however, it also helps lower the impact of those doing bad and they are likely to go away if their return on investment / effort is too low.
I should probably report a few more things and follow some tags ;)
Yeah, I agree the best response is really two-fold:
Use tags (and the experience setting in
Settings > Miscto filter out the content that isn't right for you.Report content that doesn't belong on the site at all.
That isn't admitting defeat at all, but rather addressing the actual problem so it can be curbed.
And, of course, if this is something that you feel really passionate about, you could always volunteer to be a community or tag moderator! Then you get some additional tools for helping fight back against spam.
🏜️Sign me up!🏜️