Not questioning the decision to lock it, obviously a good call. I’m just a little concerned about the clickable link in the OP. He said he’d been randomly redirected there, which raises concerns that there could be malware on the site. I haven’t checked it (nor will I) but shouldn’t that link be flagged with a warning just in case or at least made unclickable?
Did you report it?
Moderating
While the OP may not have intended that post as a spam, the link looks pretty spammy to me. I’ve removed the thread for now.
Definitely. The site calls it an “advertorial.” Sounds spammy to me.
Thanks, **engineer_comp_geek **.
When I saw that thread yesterday it seemed to me the OP was complaining that they were redirected to the site they linked to while browsing the SDMB - e.g. bad ads. It probably belonged in one of the existing ATMB threads about ad redirects where we are asked to provide links and screen shots, etc. when redirected to a spammy site.
It didn’t seem like he was complaining to me. It seemed like he was shilling the product (a memory pill), claiming it was endorsed by Stephen Hawking, etc. It seemed like he was taken in by clickbait and wanted to share.
I guess it’s possible a new strategy for spamming is to post a message claiming you were just redirected to a website and then link to it, but that idea is seriously flawed even to the mind of a spammer.
To a new poster “General Questions” might seem like the right place to complain about being redirected to another site. And we are currently having a big problem with people being redirected to other sites.
I don’t recall the post I’m thinking of having any mention of Stephen Hawking or otherwise, just a statement that he was redirected to a website and a link to it. Maybe we’re talking about different posts. If you mean the site itself had claims about Hawking and memory pills, etc. that isn’t any indicator the OP intended to make those claims.
What is at the other end of any link a poster reports they have been redirected to by an ad here is going to be some spammy site.
Other than the streaming spammers, I’ve seen plenty of “I just stumbled across this site and thought you guys might be interested.”
This is kind of abstract now because the thread is invisible and I don’t remember it word for word. But at the time it didn’t seem to be that type of post. I may be wrong. Never a good idea to bet on a new poster putting a link to a spam site being an honest mistake but from what I remember that is how it appeared to me.
Missed edit, but it would be easy for the mods to determine if this were the case. If the link to the spam site included the advertising ID the SDMB has with its ad providers it would be pretty clear they meant to report a redirect that happened to them here.
Why does SDMB think I might be interesting in a web site that will tell me if I have schizophrenia or not?
*My time coming, anyday, don’t worry about me, no
Been so long I felt this way, I’m in no hurry, no
Rainbows and down that highway where ocean breezes blow
My time coming, voices saying they tell me where to go.
*
Perhaps because you’ve made some interesting posts. 
Here’s the exact quote as archived, minus the link, which I won’t repost:
[QUOTE=Stubycluby]
I have recently randomly been redirected to this link <redacted>
This link will bring you to a page that talks about how famous athletes have recently been talking this brain pill just read it.
[/QUOTE]
It’s correct that he didn’t mention Hawking. My mistake. But he does talk about how famous athletes are taking it and says “just read it” at the end. He doesn’t say he was redirected to it from the Straight Dope, and “just read it” sounds as if he’s trying to attract views to it.
He says he’s new to internet forums, but if I were complaining about a link, I’d break it to make it non-clickable.
(I can link to the archived view of the thread on request, but I won’t link to it here because it still has the spam link in it.)
Excessive ellipses is one of the 10 warning signs of schizophrenia…
Yeah, that’s all fine and dandy, but does the pill work? I want to be as smart as a professional athlete. Bring back that thread!
I’m already so smart that my brain hurts.
Would you like to be as smart as Kyrie Irving and his belief in a flat Earth?
You may not need a pill for that.
OK the “just read it” part is indeed incriminating. When I first saw the thread I moused over the link without clicking it and it looked like a link one might be redirected to by an ad here.
No need to post the link but as I said if the “site ID” or “affiliate ID” or somesuch I remember from the link is the SDMB’s it was probably not spam. If it isn’t, it probably was.
I noticed thisGQ thread about a popup ad encountered here and remembered the reference to Hawking, um, hawking smart pills.
I’m more confident the subject of this thread was an attempt to reference an ad here after all.