There's some really great projects being worked on by some very smart people. I'm not one of them! My current project is to make a system to tag Hubski posts as #spam, the idea being I maintain a list of users and occasionally (manually but automatically would be an option) check for new posts and add the community tag. I was going to build it then clear it with mk, better to ask forgiveness rather than permission ;), but the community has some very strong opinions on that tag and I don't want to step on any toes!
Hmm, interesting. Perhaps use a tag with less connotations... not that I can think of one right now. I was always very intrigued by Wikipedia's scarily accurate ClueBotNG which iirc uses heuristics. Problem is that you need massive datasets, which few sites have - and Hubski definitely doesn't.
Way I figure it, if someone disagrees they can change the community tag. I intend to have the script ignore posts with existing community tags which would allow users to correct any they disagree with, but the spam problem that has manifested itself on Hubski tends towards single post users, or serial posters who do not engage in the site and simply use it for syndication. Have a look at iamyourddy's profile, joined 25 days ago, zero engagement with the site other than to post very click-bait links for a total of three sources. Would it be fair to label all his posts as spam automatically? Some may disagree, and I'm sure I'll be told that it's not necessary due to the way Hubski promotes posts to user feeds. What about desivip? Member for 224 days, zero engagement other than to share links. A wider range of sources, but still some overlap with the first user. I want to discourage low-effort canvassing on Hubski. I'm certainly not against self promotion, aplusb at least made some effort to engage the community when spreading news about his PC case and I wouldn't consider marking that as spam. But then his alternate account esplin2966 was the last we heard of him and would certainly meet my criteria for spam (single post, clickbait title) -- so why is he exempt? I totally get why people would be against this sort of thing, so maybe Hubski needs to have a proper discussion on this issue first.
esplin2966 was an account I made before I decided I wanted to go with the name aplusb instead, so I don't really use it anymore. That account should be deleted. Sorry for any confusion. It's a lot of work to design a PC case and I hope to be able to continue to get feedback from people at hubski.
There are some delays getting the second prototype because of a miscommunication with our manufacturer. As of last wednesday, the issue has been resolved and we are back on track :) Once we get our second prototype out to some reviewers we should be getting close to crowdfunding.