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All is in the title :).

When seeing a spam, it could seem useful to delete the link, make it non-clickable or hide it to ensure that no user will be tempted to click on it.

The obvious solution would be to edit the spam post, but I have the impression that there is a high number of drawbacks, notably:

• The automatic StackExchange spambot will be fed with invalid data,
• The account of the legitimate user having edited the spam may be linked to spamming activity (technically all following flags are made on his own edit, not on the original post),
• The spammer just have to rollback the edit to cancel all spam flags made on the edit,
• Other users may feel less concerned and may not feel necessary to flag the post as spam anymore, the problem being already handled by others.

A few references related to the above statements:

• What are the spam and offensive flags, and how do they work?,
• What should I do when I see spam posts?
• spam attack…is there anything else that the community can do to help the moderators?

So my question: is there any clean way to handle such links, or should we just let go and tough luck if any user clicks on the links while it is available?

All is in the title :).

When seeing a spam, it could seem useful to delete the link, make it non-clickable or hide it to ensure that no user will be tempted to click on it.

The obvious solution would be to edit the spam post, but I have the impression that there is a high number of drawbacks, notably:

• The automatic StackExchange spambot will be fed with invalid data,
• The account of the legitimate user having edited the spam may be linked to spamming activity (technically all following flags are made on his own edit, not on the original post),
• The spammer just have to rollback the edit to cancel all spam flags made on the edit,
• Other users may feel less concerned and may not feel necessary to flag the post as spam anymore, the problem being already handled by others.

A few references related to the above statements:

• What are the spam and offensive flags, and how do they work?,
• What should I do when I see spam posts?
• spam attack…is there anything else that the community can do to help the moderators?

So my question: is there any clean way to handle such links, or should we just let go and tough luck if any user clicks on the links while it is available?

All is in the title :).

When seeing a spam, it could seem useful to delete the link, make it non-clickable or hide it to ensure that no user will be tempted to click on it.

The obvious solution would be to edit the spam post, but I have the impression that there is a high number of drawbacks, notably:

• The automatic StackExchange spambot will be fed with invalid data,
• The account of the legitimate user having edited the spam may be linked to spamming activity (technically all following flags are made on his own edit, not on the original post),
• The spammer just have to rollback the edit to cancel all spam flags made on the edit,
• Other users may feel less concerned and may not feel necessary to flag the post as spam anymore, the problem being already handled by others.

A few references related to the above statements:

• What are the spam and offensive flags, and how do they work?,
• What should I do when I see spam posts?
• spam attack…is there anything else that the community can do to help the moderators?

So my question: is there any clean way to handle such links, or should we just let go and tough luck if any user clicks on the links while it is available?

All is in the title :).

When seeing a spam, it could seem useful to delete the link, make it non-clickable or hide it to ensure that no user will be tempted to click on it.

The obvious solution would be to edit the spam post, but I have the impression that there is a high number of drawbacks, notably:

• The automatic StackExchange spambot will be fed with invalid data,
• The account of the legitimate user having edited the spam may be linked to spamming activity (technically all following flags are made on his own edit, not on the original post),
• The spammer just have to rollback the edit to cancel all spam flags made on the edit,
• Other users may feel less concerned and may not feel necessary to flag the post as spam anymore, the problem being already handled by others.

A few references related to the above statements:

• What are the spam and offensive flags, and how do they work?,
• What should I do when I see spam posts?
• spam attack…is there anything else that the community can do to help the moderators?

So my question: is there any clean way to handle such links, or should we just let go and tough luck if any user clicks on the links while it is available?

All is in the title :).

When seeing a spam, it could seem useful to delete the link, make it non-clickable or hide it to ensure that no user will be tempted to click on it.

The obvious solution (as some users already seem to do it) would be to edit the spam post, but I have the impression that there is a high number of drawbacks, notably:

• The automatic StackExchange spambot will be fed with invalid data,
• The account of the legitimate user having edited the spam may be linked to spamming activity (technically all following flags are made on his own edit, not on the original post),
• The spammer just have to rollback the edit to cancel all spam flags made on the edit,
• Other users may feel less concerned and may not feel necessary to flag the post as spam anymore, the problem being already handled by others.

A few references related to the above statements:

• What are the spam and offensive flags, and how do they work?,
• What should I do when I see spam posts?
• spam attack…is there anything else that the community can do to help the moderators?

So my question: is there any clean way to handle such links, or should we just let go and tough luck if any user clicks on the links while it is available?

All is in the title :).

When seeing a spam, it could seem useful to delete the link, make it non-clickable or hide it to ensure that no user will be tempted to click on it.

The obvious solution would be to edit the spam post, but I have the impression that there is a high number of drawbacks, notably:

• The automatic StackExchange spambot will be fed with invalid data,
• The account of the legitimate user having edited the spam may be linked to spamming activity (technically all following flags are made on his own edit, not on the original post),
• The spammer just have to rollback the edit to cancel all spam flags made on the edit,
• Other users may feel less concerned and may not feel necessary to flag the post as spam anymore, the problem being already handled by others.

A few references related to the above statements:

• What are the spam and offensive flags, and how do they work?,
• What should I do when I see spam posts?
• spam attack…is there anything else that the community can do to help the moderators?

So my question: is there any clean way to handle such links, or should we just let go and tough luck if any user clicks on the links while it is available?