The Spam Folder: April 2026

@vauweh, all done! Thank you :)

@ahmadawick the answer was appropriately deleted by my kumpel iRobot. Their answer was neither spam nor offensive. There is not enough cause to ban the user. In dubio pro reo!

@ahmadawick, thank you for the submission. I agree with OT here. Let's keep an eye on them for now. If you notice any spam or offensive contributions, please let us know.

@redratchet21, got it! Thank you for catching this one.

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@ahmadawick|new_window=true] absolutely not! Just because "it was first moderated by a moderator" is no reason for banning users. There was a proper vote on the action by a total of 8 users, including 3 moderators. Remember that all moderators are "trusted moderator" so no reason to make that distinction. "I think we should ban the OP" is not a reason to do so. You have not made a single argument for why you think so.

The motion to delete the question as Spam/Offensive has failed. You are attempting to invalidate this vote. Not cool!

In this case, while the OP’s comparison between his computer hardware and his future wife, was certainly in poor taste and showed a misogynistic undertone, it just isn't enough for a ban. It’s very possible the OP thought they were just being "funny". They may not even realize their own misogyny. We don't ban users for this. We monitor for trends.

Moderators have the ability to remove any offending material and yes, even to ban members, but we are not judge and jury. In cases that are, let's say marginal, we put it to a vote, just like any other user. This particular question is a detailed, legitimate request for help which does make it "not spam". Anyhow, a ban is just not justified. You might have had more success to argue to delete the question as Spam/Offensive but not to use the ban hammer on this OP.

I am concerned with your fixation on getting people banned. You need to learn to understand that Answers is Community. We should always look for sufficient reasons before removing someone from the community. A ban is the most "powerful tool" and it must be used sparingly (like Mjölnir). Most of the time, a helpful comment or a vote on the content should be enough to keep things proper. Let's focus on being a supportive space where we "keep each other straight" without actively looking for reasons to push people away.

@vauweh, all done! Sorry for the delay.

@ahmadawick, this user was just sharing a link to the part on eBay, so this isn't considered spam. As a reminder, make sure to review the activity before reporting, sometimes contributions get marked as spam incorrectly too. Thanks again for your help!

@fixerofstuff it does not include any suspicious links or even excessive keywords. Sure, looks like somebody practicing with AI. I figure it's safe to delete as off-topic but not Spam. Lets' keep an eye on the user and see if they pop up somewhere with some more refined answers :-)

Okay, so I just checked the user's profile to see if they'd made any more recent AI posts, and it turns out that there are a lot more than just this one. The most recent one that is almost certainly AI was made just under a month ago. It looks like every post made after that is AI generated. I'll send the link to the user's profile so you can see for yourself. Not that you're wrong, we can wait and see if the posts get better, but at this point I'd say that that's unlikely at best. Anyway, here's the link: https://www.ifixit.com/User/Activity/472... (You might have to copy paste it because I'm not entirely sure how to insert links in comments)

@fixerofstuff a while back it was decided that "AI can help you put together a pretty solid answer MUCH faster than you can type it out. Though it's important to remember that when the AI doesn't know the answer, it tends to "hallucinate" and make up the answers—it will never say "I don't know."

So, I don't mind if people are using it to write faster or more efficiently, but they need to check for accuracy and safety 100% of the time." and it is okay to use. All we are asking is that the user is transparent about the usage of AI and that they validate the answer as being correct. The user posting the AI response will always be responsible for that. Bottom line, AI answers are not Spam by default. If in doubt, downvote the answer with a comment to the OP or mark as "Remove as duplicate or off topic". Let the community decide.

That's really the concern here. They don't seem to be saying that they're using AI. If they were disclosing it in their answers, I wouldn't be that concerned. But they don't seem to be doing that. And a lot of the answers seem to mention things that don't make sense in the context of the question. The failing printer answer says to make sure the printer is powered on and connected to the internet, but I don't think print release interfaces let you send a job to a printer that's not powered on and connected to the internet, and while this is somewhat trivial, it does suggest that maybe they weren't paying the most attention to what they were posting. Again, you're not wrong, but we should still keep an eye on this.

@oldturkey03 For research like if I need to find a TSB but I wrote the answer 100% otherwise that doesn’t need it. That is just using it as a research aid.

@fixerofstuff that situation has been take care off.

@vauweh, all done! Thank you. :)

@fixerofstuff, this one is interesting. I see they updated their profile page with their business. Do you still see the story? I went to look for it and it 404'd. Maybe they caught themselves and updated their profile instead?

Actually, it looks like it got marked as spam. Except it didn't? I don't see the story either, and it looks like it got deleted as spam, but doesn't that also dock 100 rep? I did start the vote for it, and it looks like it went through, but the user still has 21 rep. Do you know what that might mean?