Notice
This page show a previous version of the articleHow to handle spam
Blocking spam accounts
To prevent a spammer from adding new sentences, you need to set the level to -1. Setting the status to "spammer" alone is not enough.
Marking spam sentences
Do not delete sentences right away. You should instead mark them as unapproved by setting the correctness to -1.
Setting the correctness to -1 has the following effect: - The sentence will not show up in the search with the default settings (by default "Is unapproved" is set to "No"). - The sentence will no longer be translatable. - The sentences will be excluded from the weekly export. - The sentence cannot be re-added (at least not in the exact same language) thanks to the duplicate detection mechanism.
The last point is the reason why you should not delete spam sentences right away.
Another reason is that deleting a spam sentence amplifies the spam because deletions are shown on the "Latest contributions" on the homepage. Therefore we end up with two log entries about the spam rather than just one.