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How to Report a Spammer using dA Help Desk (OOD)

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UPDATED TO REFLECT dA'S NEW SPAMMER REPORT TICKET INTERFACE. So the spam names you can see in step 5 & step 6 in the image don't match anymore.

Out of date since dA went to its horrid mobile-optimized layout.  I am retired from dA so I am not going to update it.  Most of the links should still work.  If anyone wants to use the image to make their own updated help image (though honestly I recommend taking new screenshots), they're free to do so and link it here.



First, I have to say I am really disappointed in how dA has been handling the influx of spammers. Although this is the worst yet, this has been occurring over months. There needs to be a way for the community to self-moderate. It is tedious and time-consuming for the deviation's owner to flag spam comments one-by-one, and also tedious and time-consuming for a regular user (like myself) to locate and type up a report to the website's Help Desk. I want to track down the spammers and :fork: them.

Anyway, here is my guide to reporting deviantART spam accounts. The deviations seen for Step 4 in the screenshot were uploaded by kirawinter, kaminary-san, Nelleke, and Aeternum-Art. No infringement is intended... but there was no getting around my need for a real example. :cookie: :cookie: :cookie: :cookie:?

__________________________

~~~!!IMPORTANT!!~~~
~~~The Help Desk creates a session token that expires after a certain amount of time has passed since the web page requested by your computer. In layman's terms: You only have 5-7 minutes* to submit your report before their system decides to stop waiting for you. If you have a metric ton of usernames and comment URLs (like I did), do steps 4-6a in Notepad, Word, LibreOffice, etc, FIRST.~~~

*I don't know how much exactly. I'm guess-timating. :shrug:


Edit: Log in to your dA account before doing this.

[1] To the dA Help Desk! You can locate the link by clicking "More" near the top-right corner of the web page, underneath the "Favorites" link. "Help and FAQ" will be the last in the list. Or you can visit help.deviantart.com. :)
[1a] Actually, depending on your set-up, the drop-down arrow will be near the top-left corner of the web page.


[2] Find and click the link labeled "Contact the Help Desk" in the left-most column of the web page.


[3] Under "Category," choose "Spammer Report." For "Subject," just type in 'Spammer Account' or something similar.


[4] Here's the ugly part. In a different tab or browser window, go to the deviation that has the spam and locate the offending post(s).


[5] Next to the username of the account that created the post, there is a time/date stamp. This is actually a link! Right-click the time/date and choose "Copy Link Location" (Mozilla Firefox) or "Copy link address" (Google Chrome). Microsoft's Internet Explorer is a little more complicated. Right-click the time/date and choose "Properties" at the bottom. When the Properties box appears, hold down the left mouse button and drag the cursor to select the URL next to "Address:". Right-click the selection and choose "Copy".


[6] Switch back to "Contact the Help Desk" tab or window. Paste the link into the Comments Link box using Ctrl+V (Windows), or Cmd+V (Mac), or mouse right-click and choose "Paste."

[6a] If the same account has multiple spam comments on the same deviation page, pick out two of them, ignore the rest and move on to the next deviation. Otherwise, you'll spend all day on this.

[6b] Come to think of it, most of the spambots names are strings of gibberish. Copy the name and paste it in the Comments Reported User box.


[7] By now, you ought to have something that looks like this: morncreek.deviantart.com/art/t… . Well, hopefully not being as long as that one. Ugh. Anyway, if you were doing this using Notepad or another text editor then now is the time to copy & paste that behemoth into the Comment box. Click the "Finish" button. I give you pretty star! :star: You deserve it because you can now only report one spammer account per ticket instead of (previously) in a batch. Let me give you more. :star::star::star::star:
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WWTheBlenderLogos's avatar
I tried to do that, oh well. :shrug: