They probably wouldn't see it until they wake up in the morning, unless they perhaps have an alarm that goes off each time they get an email from TUG reporting spam. Which I suspect is doubtful.
Uh-huh. Can't you just hear it- the AOL-like voice arousing you from a sound sleep. . ."You've got SPAM!"
http://tugbbs.com/forums/index.php?threads/sticky-how-to-call-staffs-attention-to-a-post.33143/
That's exactly what we want you to do. When posts have been reported, this system doesn't send mods email, it places a red clickable alert at the top of the page for mods when they log in so they can go straight to the reported posts and deal with them. And don't worry that you might be overloading the system with reports of the same post - only one entry is created for each reported post, and it indicates the number of times the particular post was reported. When reporting obvious spam, a one word 'spam' description is all that's needed, no need to knock yourself out with longer descriptions.
Savvy human spammers easily get around this scheme by just entering a handful of posts saying "Glad I found this forum", "good information", etc., then post their spam.
Probably not a good idea to allow regular users the ability to mark posts as spam that results in instantly banning a user. That could potentially be a lethal weapon.
You may be right as some may do this if they do not like a regular post.
Please issue a separate report for each spammer username. The report includes direct links to the offending spammer and the reported post, making it quick and easy for the mod to deal with it. Mentioning other usernames in the same report doesn't provide those links.
Regular users can REPORT a post as spam, but it will take a mod to review the report and post and decide whether to act on the report.
