^ or _ in comment trigger spam flag for new users

Platform: Website

Browser: Chrome

This flag (https://www.inaturalist.org/flags/486978) was generated for this comment (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/43001747#activity_comment_4436942), presumably because of either the ^ or _ in the emoji face. Haven’t been able to replicate it myself, so I’m assuming it’s because they’re a new user.

If you create a test account does it also always flag when the new user comments with those characters?

Here are around 1200 other examples of times “the system” flagged a comment as spam but users resolved the flag. (see also https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/false-positive-spam-flag-resolution/1343)

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You’re spot on, it didn’t. So what’s up with these, doesn’t seem to be anything in common for them to get flagged

Unfortunately there isn’t much transparency from Akismet about what exactly triggers a automatic spam flag, and we don’t really have much/any control over it. :/

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