Bitcoin Forum

Yesterday, I missed the massive spam wave that last for minutes or around one hour. That spam wave reminds me that I noted some helpful threads on effectively reports spam.

Two types of spam:
(1) Spam with non-sense posts, but different in contents (part of them plagiarised, or use some templates).
(2) Spam with complete post contents: like what happened yesterday

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How to report those spam posts?
(1) You apply those steps that presented in that guide (from forum staff)
They make spam posts, but there is no reason to nuke them if they make spam post in the first or second times. I meant for those cases, you report their posts and the ultimate purpose is to delete their posts only.
There is a guide on this (from a forum staff):
[Guide] Reporting effectively (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4519248.0)
You should spend your time to read that guide thoroughly.
Briefly, there are some ways/ tools to help you to do this:
- Report to moderator button: This button is on the right corner at the bottom of each post.
- Patrol (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=recent;patrol): This page help you to fastly have overview on real-time spam situation in the forum, on all boards.
- Report History (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=reportlist;mine) - Modlog (https://bitcointalk.org/modlog.php):
- Seclog (https://bitcointalk.org/seclog.php):
- Plagiarism checkers: Edubirdie.com (https://edubirdie.com/plagiarism-checker); Grammarly (https://www.grammarly.com/plagiarism-checker); Small SEO tools  (https://smallseotools.com/plagiarism-checker/).
- Additional tools (userscripts):
[HACK] One-click mod report, not for the faint of heart (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5103488.0), which I suggest you to use for reporting.
[Userscript] Report to moderator on post history (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5101823.0)
[Userscript] Bitcointalk Post Filter (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5103320.0)
[Guide]How to detect rule-breakers.Techniques and tips. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3831432.0)

(2) For those case. The main purpose to report them is: nuking their accounts. By nuking their accounts, it is obviously that you don't have to report all their spam posts.
For example:
- If a spam farm has 100 accounts, each account already make 10 spam posts (with same contents). All things you have to do is pointing out those 100 accounts, and their post-template. It's enough, and you don't have to report 100 x 10 = 1.000 posts of that farm.
I suggest the report template:
Account name, profile link
For example, with that account, you can report like this:
Alinochka_bw_Py, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2602925
After that account get nuked, you should edit that report like this. Doing this to announce forum staffs that the reported account already been nuked.
Alinochka_bw_Py, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2602925, Nuked!

Of course you can do this:
Alinochka_bw_Py (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2602925).
Nevertheless, doing this cost time, and I don't think we should spend too much time for spam reports.

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Customize your patrol page

There are so many things to report, that you can find here: Unofficial list of (official) Bitcointalk.org rules, guidelines, FAQ (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=703657.0). Below, I only listed most common things, among which the rule #22 is the one I only learned recently.

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Where to report?
The first thread you should think of when you want to repot spam is that one:
[CLUB] The SpamBusters! First anniversary! We made a change thank you :)  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4720640.0)

Please do not forget that at any time from now, you might get your reporter badge
Seeking reporter badge images (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4742257.0)

Recent topics on Yobit spam (you don't need to create new threads)
Spamming service massively. Please nuke! (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5169754.0)
Massive spam bot attack underway (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5169753.0)
Spam, abuse of multi accounts, account farming (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5169757.0)

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Some other tools
Browser Addon That Helps You Ignore Spammy Comments (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5098306)
New options for patrol pages and ignore board preferences (profile page), please (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5182572.0) (There are helpful things to help your report works easier)
Active users and top posters on Bitcointalk.org in the past 1 hour/ 24 hours/ 7 days (3 time-frame options) (http://loyce.club/active/) (this page is very helpful to check above-newbie spammers.

Just leaving this here:

I don't report nearly as much as I should but this will surely come in handy for anyone that does. It is really time consuming and I have respect for those that do it constantly. I don't even have 200 reports yet and even those took me a lot of time to gather. 

I thought I was the only one who noticed that crap. It lead me to several other spam accounts.

Damn I love reporting a Junior Member all the way back to Newbie.

Keep on reporting people! 8)

Should we increase our reporting to moderators?  :)

I am thinking not to bother moderators to much, and I often go only with adding Negative Trust for specific user.
Sometimes I go with report + negative trust

I also had missed few recent spam waves, I haven't seen any of these posts.
To be honest, I report posts very rarely in recent posts. Mainly because I'm not seeing much spam, and I'm not reporting generic shitposts. Offcourse, I don't visit worst place of this forum like Speculation or whole Altcoin board, so I probably miss tons of shitposts. In past when situation on forum was worse, I reported posts more actively and I even have 100% accuracy.
And another thing - I must admit that I'm too lazy and I'm not happy about it. Lack of time is another thing. I know these excuses sounds stupid...

Reports and negative trust should be mutually exclusive for the most part, unless it's to do with ban evasion.

Negative trust should not be used for spam.

Reporters will be able to see their Report history if they report up to 300 in total. You can read more here, if you have intetersts. Remember that if your total report is less than 300, when you click on the link Report history link (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=reportlist;mine), you will get the message

Well, I'd assume moderators are getting paid for their efforts so you should definitely keep reporting.

Negative trust would put taint on users account, so better just report, that'll give them enough warning to not spam again.

Correct. Due to misusages, misunderstandings on Trust system, and drama relates to Trust system; theymos divides original Trust system into two parts: Trust & Flag. After that, Trust feedback should be used in the way theymos guided below.

The trust system really isn't meant for dealing with spam or anything like that. You are not bothering the moderators by reporting, there's a reason we are moderators. We accepted the role, and therefore we expect to deal with reports. Also, we always appreciate those that do report, and it makes our job easier!

I just discovered interesting things on patrol page, so I updated the thread today.

Now, let me presenting what I discovered.

Beside the standard patrol page, that most of us know, at: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=recent;patrol ⁽¹⁾
There is another 'hidden' patrol page, in which posts made in bounty threads disabled by default, at: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=recent;patrol;nobounty ⁽²⁾. I knew about that page by @suchmoon or @Vod, and originally it was disclosed in Russian board.

Generally

• The (1) page is overwhelming spam posts, and there is no reason to find spam posts in bounty threads, with abundant proof of authentication or weekly report posts
• The (2) page is more helpful, but by default, there are still so many posts over many boards

So, what users can do if they want to limit posts in their interest boards, such as Altcoin Discussions?
There is solution, but users have to manually customize their patrol page. Here is a guide, given by @o_e_l_e_o
What users have to do (if they want to customize patrol page) are:
- Having a list of interest boards/ sub-boards and their identifying figures of those boards/sub-boards
- Bookmarking the customized patrol page: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=recent;boards=X
- Changing the X-value to their interest boards/ sub-boards at specific timepoints when they want to check spam posts.
Notes:
Users can includes multiple boards/ sub-boards in the customized patrol page
I listed a few boards/ sub-boards and their identifying numbers

• Meta: 24
• Bitcoin Discussion: 1
• Altcoin Discussion: 67
• Trading Discusion: 8
• Gambling Discussion: 228

Well, can I start also reporting posts with disaster grammar? As I was irritated while reading and making my brain spinning while I am trying to understand what the person is trying to say, or they used a translator with the wrong translation?

Grammar is not the only issue of bad posts, but for whatever reasons behind bad posts, if they are non-sense, off-topic, seriously English-broken and no one can understand it, you can report such posts.

But, such posts are rarely in my opinion. Nowadays, even if people use Google translation, they can easily to make understandable posts. Of course, such posts made by Google translation are not perfect in English, and contains some vocabularies or grammartical mistakes, but they are understandable.

If someone have ideas and use Google translation ask help for their posts, I think their posts will be understandable.

Most of reported posts are nonsense, off-topic or very short posts without meanings.

Ideas behind posts are utmost important, vocabularies and grammar are supplementary components !

If I sort out three factors: ideas, grammar, and vocabularies, in importance. They will be in order like this:

• Ideas
• Grammar
• Vocabularies

I went through a stage of reporting semi regularly but I lost motivation for doing it & have slacked off the last few months.

I hit the report to Moderator button every day normaly and report everything i see and think its worth to report !
There was a huge changing when the bump thing was implemented from theymos but if you look around on the forum there is always something to report.
You can do this as full time job too because there is still some crap and everyday there comes more spam to it .

The spam is certainly still happening, because projects still like to create fake conversations, and reviews of their service which usually turns into unsubstantial "this project is great because it does x, y, and z. Although, the difference now is most of the forum who doesn't venture beyond the first few pages is not seeing it. The spam still exists, but at least the exposure to it has greatly reduced.

When just do an review on the Spam thats happend when i was starting reporting and to the Spam that is happen now
its for sure reduced i guess about maybe 50 % or something like this .
Specialy in the Altcoin board its reduced.
But other boards like the Bounty section i guess its still a lot of Spam there .

It seems the spam bots aren't without a sense of irony.   :D

Honestly can't tell if it was deliberate or just a glorious fluke.

Seems like a few users still report hundreds of posts in quick succession now, and again. Plus, there is still fake conversations going on where a lot users got banned. It has probably dipped down, but I would say its not anywhere near a 50% reduction.

Without seeing exact numbers, and judging by the amount of reports than I'm receiving I'd say its pretty close to what it was before, however a lot of users haven't realized the new bumping rules yet, because lets be honest those types of users don't check Meta, and only care about spamming their project up to the top.

I’m sure you could but people like to get paid for full time jobs. We don't even have the reporter badges we were told would be implemented at some point.

I know incentives would build the queue of unhandled reports for mods/staff but that’s what we want isn’t it - A cleaner forum?

Even just adding the reporter badges would make people more actively report.

Edit - For shits & gigs I probably just reported somebody down from Jr Member to Noob (bad shit-poster)

;)

With reference to the above post - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=258360

Jr Member demotion to Noob - Mission Accomplished  8)

I still have a number of users to check (today) and a backlog of users to go through with reports, however I do notice that the spam is far less rampant in the big four sections that I take a look at: {Bitcoin, Trading} Discussion, Economics, Speculation.

This is good. Some past notorious users have also either been banned or been able to improve their post quality drastically.

It's unbearable with users participating in the Cryptotalk sig.

It comes to the point I'm desperate to report them because there are so many or because It can be pretty subtle/vicious so there is probably a high chance a mod will keep the report "unhandled" (unhandled= I wasted people time). Not always easy to make the report short for the moderators as well.

When you see a member who joined the forum ~4 years ago and participated in various ICOs/shitcoins (so we can say he knows 'How to') but you seem him suddenly opening a thread to ask newbie questions like "how to save the fees from exchanges" "what's the cheapest one".

Isn't this member considering us as an imbecile? After 4 fucking years, he doesn't know the simple things? There are a lot of like this one and the whole threads should be trashed honestly.

Looky here, I'm in that campaign and I am doing my best to outshine my coworkers who are all a bunch of dirty heathens.  Looking at their output and the fact that I have to be associated with them by reputation, it is like showing up to work only to find that someone has dropped a deuce in the urinal and then graffiti'ed the men's room mirror with lipstick in a language only the perpetrators know.

I just reported two posts in a thread about volatility and if it's beneficial to day traders:


The above posts are almost identical and they're both egregious examples of idjits forcing out a bloated post in a thread they really don't understand.  Since I tend to hang around the altcoin sections, I am seeing a lot of this lately and yes, the cryptotalk campaign members are among the worst.