UX Solution for Potential Spam Activity

Question

My application implements a stream of activity for different activities. One of the activities is associated with another virtual currency that the user can accumulate. For example, a user can accumulate "Points" to post a comment, vote on a topic, etc. If I didn’t do filtering or aggregation, you would receive a lot of self-generated spam throughout the entire hour, for example:

• Earned 5 points for comment (total = 505)
• Earned 10 points for voting (total = 515)
• Earned 5 points for comment (total points = 520).
• Earned 5 points for comments (total points = 525)
• Earned 5 points for comments (total points = 530)
• Earned 10 points for voting (total = 540).
• Earned 10 points for voting (total points = 550)
• Earned 10 points for voting (total points = 560).
• ...
• ...
• ...

How could you prevent this potential for self-generating spam, but also imagine the flow of actions in such a way as to invite your friends to see what you are doing?

Answer 1

I can present a couple of options. The first is data aggregation. I don’t know how many activities you have, but you can separate what you placed up to 2 items:

• <Name> made <x> comments and scored <x * 5> points!
• <Name> voted for <x> .

You can make each of these list items viewable and show details. So, after clicking on the summary of comments, the user will see this:

• <Name> made <x> comments and scored <x * 5> points!
  • Earned 5 points for comment (total = 505)
  • Earned 5 points for comment (total points = 520).
  • Earned 5 points for comments (total points = 525)
  • Earned 5 points for comments (total points = 530)
• <Name> voted for <x> .

You can use something like a jQuery UI accordion to implement this.

Facebook's approach assumes that it uses a sample message, and then lets users know that more items are available, for example:

• Earned 5 points for comment (total = 505)
• <x> more comments made

Then, when the user clicks on "Made <x> more comments", the user can see each comment (for a certain period of time).

Answer 2

Assuming you want to see at a glance if the user was recently active and as recently, I would suggest the following:

I’m not sure where you would like to show this, but perhaps on the profile page or in the list of “friends”. I would show an aggregation that would show the most recent time interval that was active by the user, and what she did:

eg.

• just commented
• made comments and votes in the last hour
• made comments and votes today
• made comments and votes this week

And you would only show the last of them. Therefore, if the user has just commented (in the last five minutes), display the first line. If she was active in the last hour, show the second line. And so on ... This clearly shows that the user has been active and for how long. I think this is the most important.

You can combine this with the display of the total score, showing how active the user as a whole is.

Maybe something like:

 <name>[<total_score>] has just commented on <x> 

or

 <name>[<total_score>] has made <x> comments and <y> votes in the last hour. 

Mmmmmm I want the message to be shorter:

 <name>[<total_score>] has earned <x> points in the last hour. 

Clearer? Not sure.

This message will then be interactive, and to connect you with a pop-up chart / chart showing activity (voice / comments / points) for the last week / month. Chart because it is very compact and very understandable.

What do you think?

Answer 3

I would personally use the warning as using the stack to instantly notify me of immediate actions. They quickly warn, and then leave the road. If you make them clickable, the user can expand the details if he wants.

Then, somewhere, as in the account section, I listed all the actions using jQuery DataTables so that they could be sorted, unloaded, filtered, and delivered through the Ajax pipeline. Simple, efficient and convenient!

The user interface is a community that allows the user to feel comfortable in an environment that they have not yet been, representing familiar interactions. You will see the same template used on sites such as StackOverflow, Swagbucks, MyPoints, etc.