commented by freebeer (2018-06-28 20:56:34+00:00): That usage got the bug-report hidden from normal view, but that was shortly before the public report-a-vandal became available, in a personal message wherein I wondered if such merited an DWG intervention.  Seems the answer there is yes.  Same for the poppy-seed eaters.
The user was an anonymous note ``contributor'',  This remains a loophole for vandalism and the like as well as constructive feedback.
I looked at the comment history for scout Notes to come to the conclusion that more were rubbish than useful.  Have not noticed new ones for a while though.  Sometimes I have the feeling the same is true for anon notes, many of which are from actual OSM users who fail to log in.  But I'm not far enough to make a call on that yet.  Seeing how now Notes have a report function, it seems that OSM is starting to treat the notes as less an unwanted stepchild, where almost anything goes, to something under the multiple arms of the Kraken, yet still allowing the superficial anonymity that allows for offensive postings under the assumed guise of un-traceability, which, with proper logging, is rubbish.
There is, however, in OSM, a separation between the OWG (operations, i.e. server herders) and the rest, with protections that never bothered me as jury, judge, and executioner with full access as admin to the logs as well as user-visible info, oh, those were the days of 'net fascism.
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For info, as I see no reason to keep this private, I've submitted two Notes-related Reports to the Moderators.  No, only one was notes-related to which I received a reply.
However, the info I got was helpful as far as the rate of reports goes, which at the time seems to be roughly the number of new notes that aren't rubbish in the US of A.  Sorta.
It is for me an interesting question as what qualifies for `moderator' action.  As the API allows access to notes back to the epoch, there are probably some apps out there that use that, not just JOSM, which is why I would like to see rubbish notes far removed from reality to be disappeared from the database.  This has to do with spammers who don't care for anything but getting a pin on the map which appears in, oh, maybe maps.me, I dunno, something motivates people to open notes for purely advert purposes without bothering to add the data to the OSM database.
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(some time passes since I wrote that and further bothered the moderators.  The primary notes categories are spam spam spam eggs and spam, abuse and self-abuse, and personal info.  direct feedback is not always forthcoming.)
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For feedback, I'm getting the idea from some moderators that if address data is present and the item seems potentially mappable, no moderator action will be taken in one case where the note was pinned to a lake at least five or six km from the closest possible address location, but no local community had added any addresses to the lengthy road.
https://www.openstreetmap.org/note/1432458
On the other hand, a different moderator nuked a UK note I reported later where I forget the details.  And one note with no mappable address info was hidden as expected.
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Of late, I've been adding the distance the marker is from the actual or likely position of the business as I resolve the note.
http://www.openstreetmap.org/note/1439136
or
http://www.openstreetmap.org/note/1439154 where I have no idea other than the street name matches the spam's town name.
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I've also reported
https://www.openstreetmap.org/note/1437937
which I have not checked whether a german-located advert for a US business qualifies as worthy of action.  Same for a business with a NYC address and marked maybe 250km distant in NY state.
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Then the recent user activity for
http://www.openstreetmap.org/note/1410589
makes me wonder where a resolved but not hidden note remains visible.  I resolved this almost a month ago as misplaced spam, today actually searching for the possible location after it was re-opened a few days ago for a spammy update, then closed by the submitter as seems to be true for half the US spam notes following this common template of interminably lengthy spammy self-promotion.
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It depends how much the moderators are willing to undertake.  I typically close five to ten spams per day, mostly US, occasional Canada or UK, and random others which isn't bad as extra work to hide, now labelling them as spamvertisement.
The question then is how much leeway do we want to allow spammers who just want to pollute the map without taking the time to do the work themselves.  If spammers learn they can open markers within a few km like now with impunity from DWG action, that would not be a good precedent, as like Usenet or e-mail, it costs them nothing to open notes, but it generally takes as much time as it takes me to try and find where the business belongs.
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Naturally if there are sites giving easy access to older OSM notes, or spammers have benefit to having their resolved spam remain visible, then there's good reason to have them hidden.
Back when I was resolving the backlog of hundreds of these such spams per week that hadn't been attended to, many of which had no mapping info, just a clickbait URL, that would have been a burden on the moderators, just as if someone dumped all notes and started to report resolved spams that can still be pulled up.  However, I reckon the US is largely free of these as unresolved blemishes after some concerted action.  Let up on vigilance and at present rate, after a year, one to two thousand will plaster the US.
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Real Life?  It's bigger than a breadbox.  It has somewhere between one and four legs.  And it deprives OSM of my worthless time for most of the day/week.
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500 days (now :11:13 up 509 days,  2:46,  5 users,  load average: 0,28, 0,22, 0,23 ) only means I've suffered no catastrophic power supply failure yet and have a UPS-like battery to take care of the yearly power glitches that used to plague me after several hundred days, the cold solder joints don't affect day-to-day operation, I don't suffer hairballs, and I haven't gone down any buggy code paths yet, more due to luck than choice of kernel.
The same cannot be said for a different piece of equipment which had been running 90 days until the bozo restarted it for no good reason, but only stable because I modified its operation to avoid the codepath
<4>[ 7239.330000] [<80e8aa70>] ath_tx_aggr_wakeup+0x360/0xae8 [ath9k]
which would be hit anywhere after 15 seconds to maybe 30 days of uptime.
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The only benefit is that I can safely leave my equipment which others rely upon alone when away for days or weeks, not think about it, and they can get 24/7 service and any problems are certainly elsewhere, until the caps decide to go bad.  A lot more reliable than my tablet as standalone device with the android memory management that kills and restarts my work whenever I do something, not good for my OSM so-called work, yet now I appear to have been working since 22.Apr with tablet as X11 server and no memory issues.  Other than on the client-acting server machine I used to use directly through a string of failing devices from the internal screen onwards, but that's my fault for the hundred open work-in-progress OSM tabs taking memory I should devote to Potlatch (as a separate killable process) and edit for a change.
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Enough of that, mine really isn't that big and I hardly do anything with it.
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As far as I know, I've fixed the golf club here as best I can from afar.  The park, not yet, I have to re-close that polygon after deciding how best to engulf the midget Lincoln Park that wrought this unholy mess.  But like the basin in Houston slowly being sacrificed to development after those mapped areas were well underwater, and the three fake Pokemon parks near me (six looking nearby) I've not forgotten to dig out of my TODO pile, Real Soon Now.