<p>No, don't edit out the spam. Downvote the post. Flag the post as spam. Then let the system do its job.</p>

<p>Editing out the spam text places an unnecessary barrier in the way of other people flagging it as spam, because you're now relying on them to go into the revision history to verify that it's spam, and then flagging it.</p>

<p>The bots use the spam in the version present upon deletion. Deletion happens automatically and quickly once enough people have flagged it as spam. So stop editing out the spam. Just flag it and move on.</p>
