I just came across this Review in the First-Post Queue.

It is obvious that it is not an Answer, but could it be considered spam? There are a lot of Posts which seek styling help and include a link to their Homepage, not all of them are spam but geniune attempts to seek help. How should one proceed when encountering these kind of posts?

I believe both Flags go to the moderator Queue to be handled there, so does it make any difference which flag is raised?

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When in doubt, google the link. That link is appearing a lot of times, and there is even an older account using the site name and other attempts at creating innocent looking user content.

Given the subject of the site, I'd say it is spam in this case, trying to seed their link for SEO purposes. I flagged it as such.

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    Shouldn't that account be destroyed if it's linked to a spam site? – AStopher Mar 10 '15 at 16:03
  • @ʎǝʞuoɯɹǝqʎɔ: perhaps; I have no idea what deleted posts (if any) are connected to that account. Then again, the account appears abandoned, not sure destroying it would achieve anything. – Martijn Pieters Mar 10 '15 at 16:05
  • the relevant answer appears to be removed (which is somewhat irritating in this context), but I take it the OP original question was OK? – JosephDoggie Mar 10 '15 at 18:55
  • @JosephDoggie: paraphrased the post was iam using position=fixed in my blog's left sidebar but <vague problem description about mobile browsers and online website snapshot services>, here you can see <link to SEO site>!, spelling and grammar errors from the original. – Martijn Pieters Mar 10 '15 at 18:59
  • @JosephDoggie: it was too vague to be called a question, posted as an answer, linking to their site. If you go to the google search I link to and page past all the SEO sites to the 'user content' links you'll find more such posts claiming to have problems with the site in various contexts, all equally vague, all tailored to the context, all inappropriate. – Martijn Pieters Mar 10 '15 at 19:02
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    Good heavens – Lightness Races in Orbit Mar 11 '15 at 11:56
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    I love the reply they got on the Opera forums. – user2629998 Mar 12 '15 at 3:43

Spam flag treatment differs in a number of ways from NAA. For one thing, spam flags don't go to the LQP queue for 2k users to vote on; for another, enough flags automatically resolve it as spam with no moderator action at all. Further, there's an automatic downvote applied for every such flag raised (by Community), and finally, a spam flag that is decided as spam slaps -100 rep on the account, trains spam filters in the SE software against that IP, and has a few other penalties.

In other words, they are not the same thing at all. That said, Martijn has given good reasons why this was, in fact, genuinely deserving of the full weight of antispam.

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    6 spam flags in total are required for the system to automatically handle the post as spam. Spam flags also go to the moderator dashboard so moderators can instantly take action on it. – AStopher Mar 10 '15 at 16:02

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