Extension Warehouse Spam

[jim_foltz]

It looks like spammers have found the EW. If you have extensions available you may want to check them and report spam reviews.\

I have reported many of the spam reviews for the top extensions over the past few weeks, which have been cleaned up.

[d_b]

I just noticed a bunch of this pop up in the last month or so.

(And I would also like to apologize to the staff reviewing the notifications because I accidentally copied clipboard leftovers into one of the feedback comments. Oops!)

edit: changed 48 hours to month. Just noticed a bunch more.

[colin]

Sometimes people post spam in reply to one of your valid comments, and so you get email notification of that. I’ve been getting a few of those lately, from this page:

http://extensions.sketchup.com/en/comment/72166#comment-72166

[Whaat]

SketchUp EW Team:
Please do a better job of responding to moderation requests from the EW. My moderation requests appear to be simply ignored. Thanks
@ChrisFullmer

[Whaat]

EW Moderation requests continue to be ignored…

@thomthom

[thomthom]

Just got back from vacation. I’m checking the status of this one. I’m seeing these spam messages myself. Sometimes hard to spot. Almost seem like human spam farming. They create new accounts and only post one or two messages before moving on.

[DanRathbun]

@Whaat

EW Moderation requests continue to be ignored…

Uh, they’ve always been ignored. And so years ago I gave up even asking for moderation.

[eneroth3]

What if flagged comments where hidden until moderated? Then it wouldn’t really matter if it takes a long time for the Trimble employees to look into it, it could be done once a month or something. Perhaps developers could also be granted power to remove comments but that could be abused to remove critical comments on your own extensions.

[Neil_Burkholder]

It looks like spam is still a major problem! Whenever I try to review an extension it seems like all I see is totally unrelated spam. What a pain. This is ridiculous.

This one has 665 reviews and almost all of them spam.
https://extensions.sketchup.com/en/content/1001bit-tools-freeware

https://extensions.sketchup.com/en/content/ab3d#15
https://extensions.sketchup.com/en/content/lightup-sketchup

I suggest if possible users would need to have either a reputation or a maybe be a member for a few month before they can post reviews.

[Neil_Burkholder]

In fact this makes the review section so useless I suggest removing it completely if the spam can’t/won’t be controlled.

[jim_foltz]

I agree. Most of the reviews are spam or help requests rather than reviews. Just use a “like” system for extensions if you want to measure popularity. Redirect “get help” requests to the forum.

[tt_su]

Yes, spam is unfortuantly a big issue. We suspect it might be partially human spam-farms bypassing bot-checks.
We are working on improvements to EW that will allow us to make improvements more easily that what is currently possible.

Meanwhile, use the reporting functionality. We go through that list.

[DanRathbun]

@jim_foltz

Redirect “get help” requests to the forum.

I am proponent that each EW extension should get a dedicated help thread here in the Extensions category that has a “Ask a question” link just before the review listing.

@Neil_Burkholder

I suggest if possible users would need to have either a reputation or a maybe be a member for a few month before they can post reviews.

I’d like to see (and said it before) that the reviews are actually here in a special “Review” sub-category, and only displayed say via a iframe on the EW product pages. This way the posters need to login to the forum.

@tt_su

We are working on improvements to EW that will allow us to make improvements more easily that what is currently possible.

Also, it’d be nice if buttons for “Thanks” or “Like” (as Jim said,) were added to cut down the posts.

Maybe a list of avatars who’ve “Liked this extension”, etc.
(Some ppl love to see their avatar everywhere possible. Harmless vanity.)

@tt_su

Meanwhile, use the reporting functionality. We go through that list.

I’ve reported posts as spam and non-reviews that are still there years later.
So, I quit reporting. Why waste the time ?

The system should delete spam immediately after 1 (by the page owner,) or 2 flags by others.
And non-reviews say after 3 flags (or 1 by the page owner.)

[Neil_Burkholder]

@DanRathbun

I’d like to see (and said it before) that the reviews are actually here in a special “Review” sub-category, and only displayed say via a iframe on the EW product pages. This way the posters need to login to the forum.

I like the idea of people needing to log into the forum to post reviews.

[eneroth3]

@DanRathbun

I’d like to see (and said it before) that the reviews are actually here in a special “Review” sub-category, and only displayed say via a iframe on the EW product pages. This way the posters need to login to the forum.

I don’t think EW and the forum should be integrated. Some people use extensions without using this forum. Those that have problems with an extension should be able to comment and ask directly, without having to go to another website, sign in and figure out how the site works. It is bad for accessibility to have people take that many steps to perform a simple task.

@DanRathbun

Also, it’d be nice if buttons for “Thanks” or “Like” (as Jim said,) were added to cut down the posts.

I personally see no problem with comments just saying “Thanks!” or “This was exactly what I needed” in EW. I appreciate that appreciation and those comments makes it fun to keep making more extensions! That said I have no problem with a separate like button.

@DanRathbun

I’ve reported posts as spam and non-reviews that are still there years later.

So, I quit reporting. Why waste the time ?

Does this happen often? My experience is that flagged posts are usually removed in a few days now. The routines could have changed a lot in those 3 years.

[DanRathbun]

I didn’t say “3 years” … actually some still there since the beginning of EW, which is like 5 years.

@eneroth3

I don’t think EW and the forum should be integrated.

We will disagree. I think it should, Many advantages IMO.
Common interface for the user, open source Discourse backend, same maintenance team, etc.

@eneroth3

Some people use extensions without using this forum. Those that have problems with an extension should be able to comment and ask directly, …

It is currently a REVIEW list, not a help forum, and does not serve well when used as such.
(Ie, mixed use is messy.)

But, could get a tabbed interface where different types of posts had separate lists …

  +---------+  +-----------+  +--------------+
  | Reviews |  | Questions |  | Social Posts |
+-+         +----------------------------------+
|                                              |

But still it gets complex and more difficult to navigate, when you have one thread with many unrelated help questions in a tree structure. (Being able to collapse question nodes might help this.)

@eneroth3

… , without having to go to another website, sign in and figure out how the site works.

They will need to (log in) eventually in order to do direct installs from EW. The sooner they learn the better.
I would guess by the time they get here they’ve already learned how to “sign in” anyway as it’s almost a requirement with OSes these days.

Secondly, as I said above (and previously) it could be in an iframe (or a child window) and they need not ever actually leave the EW extension product page. (Ie, the question is transparently posted to the proper place in the forum.)

---

Another possibility would be allowing the EW developer to point to their own forum / social post handler that they can control themselves. (Similar to how GitHub extensions work.)

[Neil_Burkholder]

@DanRathbun

It is currently a REVIEW list, not a help forum, and does not serve well when used as such.

+1

@eneroth3

Those that have problems with an extension should be able to comment and ask directly,

Can you post a screen shot in the review section showing your problem? No because it’s for reviews.

The review section should be only for reviews and a rating (1-5) should be required for each review.

When I’m reviewing an extension to see if I want it, I’m only interested in reading reviews. I don’t want to wade through spam and support conversations.

@DanRathbun

Secondly, as I said above (and previously) it could be in an iframe (or a child window) and they need not ever actually leave the EW extension product page.

In fact I would even expand on that idea and have a ‘Request Support’ button on the ware house page that would link to starting a new PM. For developers listing a free unsupported extension there would be an option to show support button or no. Similar to the trial option.

[eneroth3]

@Neil_Burkholder

When I’m reviewing an extension to see if I want it, I’m only interested in reading reviews. I don’t want to wade through spam and support conversations.

Can’t agree. What problems people have with a piece of software tells a lot about it - both what problems it has and how well made it is in general.

@Neil_Burkholder

The review section should be only for reviews and a rating (1-5) should be required for each review.

The rating system in 3DWarehouse was abused quite a lot. Also people have very different ideas of what different ratings represents and the rating for a perfectly good extension could easily be spoiled by one user. I think it’s a better approach to just have likes, as in the new 3DWarehouse.

[Neil_Burkholder]

OK I’m alright with likes instead of ratings.

However we’ll need to agree, to disagree, about having ‘garbage’ in the review section. If support conversations must be there, then they should at least be in a different tab as Dan mentioned.

[tt_su]

@DanRathbun

I’ve reported posts as spam and non-reviews that are still there years later.

So, I quit reporting. Why waste the time ?

@eneroth3

Does this happen often? My experience is that flagged posts are usually removed in a few days now. The routines could have changed a lot in those 3 years.

For a while there was no one handling it because there wasn’t enough resources. But now we have some extra capacity.