I think it is likely already clear to the mods, but just to make it common knowledge: There's a spam attack currently active, which takes the form of messages that copy-paste the beginning of another upthread comment (I assume, to look like a valid comment to someone not following closely), followed by a spam link.

This seems clear-cut enough (and unlikely to be a pattern a human would follow) that it might be possible to auto-delete with code, saving our mods the need to delete manually. I can't take this project on in the immediate future, but perhaps someone reading this can.