Function/Button to report users

[Forestidia86]

Is there a function/button to report users? Sometimes spam bots don't post anything but have links on their profile that are clearly spam and there seems to be no means to report that with forum functions.

But I can see that an easy ability to report users could be abused.

[ccexplore]

I looked quickly and I haven't found such a function or button, though perhaps there's a forum mod out there that could provide such a thing.  So far the forum doesn't have too big of a spam problem, so IMHO I'm not too worried about "sleeper spammers" that are registered users but somehow had never yet actually posted anything.  Once the user dares actually post a spam, we'll see it pretty quickly, remove the offending posts, and immediately ban the user for good.  For now if you want, I guess maybe you can PM me and namida a list of problematic silent users you've noticed, and we can preemptively ban them now on grounds of having spam links on their profiles.

[Forestidia86]

Thanks for the answer. (The current account I suspected was dealt with.)

[namida]

I honestly wouldn't worry about either report abuse or massive spambot attacks on this site - neither happen often enough to be a problem.

I've seen one user the entire time I've run this site who submitted malicious reports; mostly against people who criticized his levels (that were actually pretty damn deserving of criticism). Report abuse wasn't the only way he tried to hide / silence criticism of his content either; he also quickly built up a reputation for deleting and re-posting topics where people criticized his packs to get rid of their posts (which is why we now have a "Recycle Bin" for self-deleted posts), so he definitely wasn't a typical user in any way. Spambots seem to be an occasional problem, not a regular occurance, and they tend to get dealt with pretty quickly once they reveal themself - and most of our users are smart enough to recognize them and not click their links. We also tend to be at least slightly proactive here - if we notice a new account that seems suspicious, while we might not do anything publicly, chances are we've drawn attention to it on the staff-only board.

But if you do believe you've spotted any "sleeper" spambots, feel free to drop any of the admins a PM and we'll check it out.

[grams88]

Most people here seem to be okay. On the other forum I was on, there used to be people who were posting spam such as advertising their products or services which were way off topic and inappropriate.  I remember one time on this forum we had a lot of lady profiles and the picture was showing a picture of a lady on their profiles but I think these were fake profiles, this was a long time ago.

I wonder if this would be the right topic to post this but I was wondering what is a troll level, I've heard a few users use that term, I found that term interesting. Sorry if this detracts from the topic.

[namida]

what is a troll level,

Any level that's designed in such a way that it's unfair. This includes things like hidden / fake objects, an intentionally-impossible level, etc. This only extends to a level being misleading about its physics; a level where you can tell exactly what the physics are from looking, but merely misleads you into trying one approach when the correct solution is something else altogether (without misleading you about eg. whether a certain path is safe or if there's a hidden trap there) is not a troll level.

(There's also a level in Lemmings Plus III literally called "The Troll Level", though it does not by any means fit the definition of the term - rather, it's called that because the terrain is mostly made of trollfaces.)