[Imc-web] Hiding Spam Target Threads

[Mike Lehman]

I have been deleting a number of spams in recent months we get that are 
targetted at a few old articles. Unlike the spam comments that are 
titled with what they're selling, these ones have the format "Re:____" 
based on the title of the original article. Thus, they are somewhat 
harder to pick out, except for the fact that the same article appears to 
be the target repeatedly in each case.

It appears that the article URL is itself the target of the spammers. If 
we change the status of the article to deleted but not purged, then no 
further comments -- or spam -- can be posted to it, saving time deleting 
this stuff and frustrating the spammers. Unfortunately, in the case of 
Features, this may not be so straighforward. I may have to convert it 
back to a regular article, but I want to try to see if it works to 
prevent future spamming and lessen our workload.

The first article I will be doing this to is Wendy's collage and poem 
"The Baghdad Hillbillies" from Oct 2, 2004 that was made into a Feature:
http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display_any/20683

If anyone has concerns about this, let me know. There is only a handful 
of these articles and in every case it has been months since any 
legitimate new comments were posted.
Mike Lehman