How do you ‘report’ a thread?
Like for example https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=878148
I was looking around for a button or a menu item, but I haven’t seen anything.
Little red triangle, upper far right of the post in question.
There’s a red and white triangle icon in the top right corner of the post. Click that.
I believe the usual form (at least the one I have followed) is that you report an entire thread by hitting report for Post #1 and explaining things from there. For me its usually been for a change of forum but I did report an entire thread once for basically spinning out of control; actually a pretty rare instance here.
So that thread was deleted? Is that rare or I just happened it to see one via this thread? Out of curiosity, what was the year about?
It was a serial spammer. When that happens, the mods typically ban (or delete) the poster, and delete either the post(s) or the entire thread(s), as appropriate.
It’s often the case that serial spammers create multiple posts and even threads, hoping that the volume and variety will throw off the mods. Since our mods are extremely good, they are rarely (never?) fooled for long. From a spammer’s point of view, this must be the most unrewarding job they ever had, and I hope we can keep it that way.
Ahh.
Off topic: When I was younger, and my eyes worked better, I never had to ask questions like that. I just saw stuff. Now, I can still see stuff, but I don’t actually see it until it is pointed out.
There are none so blind as those that cannot see 
There are currently three deleted threads in GQ (I have the forum set to the default which shows the last two days), and three more threads that still exist but have deleted posts in them.
No, it’s not rare.
It’s rare that there’s NOT at least one deleted thread in any particular forum.
Minor hijack. I use Tapatalk for two message boards. I noticed a few weeks ago that my reporting ability for SDMB had disappeared but was still present for the other board. As of tonight, it’s still like that. Not that I am a serial reporter or anything, but I do find it curious. I haven’t tried reinstalling Tapatalk yet, but I will. I don’t have confidence that doing so will fix the issue.
Well kudos to you mods. I’ve never seen a spam thread in all my years here.
Depends on the reason. Spam messages turn up regularly and are deleted, usually within minutes. Threads deleted for trolling are rarer. Which was this?
Year?
Sheer volume of spam from a single spammer won’t deter us at all, because we have a button to press to delete it all at once.
And part of the reason why it’s rare for threads to spiral completely out of control here is because of users who alert us when problems are in their early stages, when they can be fixed relatively easily. It’s OK to report “I think this might go out of control”, just so we’ll keep an eye on something.
Nah, kudos to running coach. He sits here watching the boards 24/7 just waiting for an unsuspecting spammer to do their shit.
He reports the posts within nanoseconds of them appearing on the board. 
Not really. I do occasionally sleep.
Actually, the mods did something over a year ago that drastically reduced the daytime spam. The nighttime stuff gets caught before I wake up.
I think that engineer_comp_geek is about as vigilant as running coach. But of course, he doesn’t have to report it to anyone else, and just nukes it instantly, so non-mods wouldn’t notice his activity.