RIP?

Is this something new, or have I just never noticed it before?

Have you smudged out the user names or is that part of your question?

Tim instituted a much stronger automatic Spam detecting program in October. Discussion was limited to the Spam Fighters group.

The tombstones don't usually show up in the regular Talk list. There is a special (secret!) Spam list where they are isolated and disposed. It's a very cool system. Yesterday, there were several groups that had a new user resurrecting old threads with non-relevant posts. It was finally decided by staff that he was violating TOS and that's why you saw the tombstones.

>2 2wonderY:

They do show up on the regular Talk list if the person has posted in an ongoing thread.

That's so cute.

But not as cute as the Tinycat logo. That one breaks my cute-o-meter every time I look at it. Best icon ever.

While I had seen the "This user has been removed as spam" message on the persons posts, I'd never seen the tombstone before. While I can't say for sure, could just be because that persons post was actually the last in a thread this time around.

Yeah the tombstone has been there for months, as >2 2wonderY: explained. It's not often seen in the main Talk area because those users usually don't wind up in that area, and when they do they tend to be gone pretty quick. It's only when one posts on a regular thread that it happens, and then of course only until another user posts.

>6 .Monkey.:. I'll second that. I joined a couple of groups with tons of old threads and the tombstones showed up there and that is many months ago. As >5 rastaphrog: notes it's quite visible when they got the last word (I think quite a few of those I noticed were the member oakes, i.e. Tims brother who seldom missed a chance for picking a fight with Tim and eventually got his account terminated.)

I think the tombstone only jakes up if you're a member of the spam group. Am I wrong?

I _think_ it shows up in some places even if you're not a member of the spam group. (I'm not, but I just took a look in Christianity, hvor oakes posted something in May 2009 and got the last word, but the tomb stone didn't show up). I'm positive that I've seen it, so I'll go tombstone hunting :-)

ETA: Ha, that was easy. I used Talk / Your Groups / Last Message and went to
http://www.librarything.com/talk?offset=27200&mode=yourgroups
where the tombstones showed up on LaraUCTLibrarian and dekesolomon (for October 2009)

http://www.librarything.com/topic/74575

So the tombstones show up in the "Your Groups" overview, but not when you look at the specific thread. I'm not a member of the spam group, so YMMV :-)

Yeah they show in the Talk list not in threads themselves. Membership not required. The reasons they're mostly only seen/noticed by the spam fighters are those described above.