Bitcoin Forum

I am going straight to the question: Is it possible to delete announcement threads that have no real interest, OP is not sharing news/updates and basically only ones that are active are shill accounts? I know that usual practice is to delete those threads that organize giveaways in exchange for payment (breaking the rule nr 28) , but why not expand it to announcement threads that are doing almost the same thing by hiring one of those "marketing agencies"?

Here are few examples  of threads which are tirelessly spammed for months and meet the above mentioned criteria (no activity from legit members, inactive OP, huge amount of posts deleted due shill account spam):

1. ZYX Network (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5265765.20)
Ponzi scheme previously known as PZM Cash. According to https://loyce.club/archive/details/topic_5265765.html more than 650 posts were written in the last couple of months, while currently there  are only 32, making it more than 95% posts deletion. Out of those 32 still there, 14 were written by OP who is inactive  for more than a month, 2 posts were written by what it seems to be legit members, and rest is just spam made by shill accounts, waiting to be deleted.

2. Baex dApp (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5278713.0)
This ANN is even more explicit example. According to https://loyce.club/archive/topics/527/5278713.html, 221 posts were written there, while currently there are only 33 posts. Out of those posts that are still there, only first post was written by OP, after which he went AFK, and all others posts were made by shill accounts and are also waiting to be reported and deleted by mods after which deletion rate will be 99% This one failed to generate any interest whatsoever since creation once month ago, there are only shill accounts active day after day while OP is completely inactive.


@icopress recently created topic in scam accusation board about few similar threads ANN Removal Request: Uncommonn, Amepay, MSKMINER, Monolith (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5278823.msg55281064#msg55281064) but unfortunately there was no response and threads are still there. One comment from @nutildah made me thinking about possibility to start nuking those threads instead playing whack-a-mole.



Can be topics like those be seen as breaking the rule nr 1 and delete them on that basis? They have no interest and very low value since the only ones active are shill accounts.

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Thoughts/opinions?

If the thread is not actively participated by the OP and it promotes scams instead of a healthy discussion of ideas and arguments then I think that it is fair that the thread to be deleted. This has to be applied to the most extreme cases where it is occasionally bumped by unhelpful replies that are there for the sake of bumping the post, the reasoning behind that is most scam threads tend to fade in obscurity with most replies telling that the thread promotes scam.

I rarely saw topics deleted entirelly. But I saw many topics locked by mods. Even this approach would be a good one for such topics mentioned by you. But it would be nice to have a confirmation from a (global) mod that if you report those topics they'll be locked indeed and to ensure you that such reports won't remain unhandled (or, even worst, flagged as bad).

Problem with doing this is that it would take a lot of time to delete or nuke all those crap topics, and there would be no real result because they will just create new topics.
They are mostly self-moderated, so you can't report them to moderators, but maybe instead of nuking them, they can be moved to Archive or some other Junk section.
I think it is time for some autumn clean in forum, don't you think so? :)

Sure, even locking would be better than what we have at the moment. And yeah, it would be nice to hear mods opinion of that, so I know if there is a point in reporting such threads, instead getting "unhandled" or "bad" mark.


Well, shit topics are regularly deleted, either because of  low level of discussion there or simply due being redundant so it wouldn't be something that never happened, albeit not in the Altcoin Announcement section (at least not that I know of) but I've seen it happening in Bitcoin Discussion board. My argument is that those two threads that I gave as an example are low value and redundant, and imho should be deleted/locked/archived. It doesn't even have to be done to every single crap topic, but just to those worst cases where there is absolutely no real interest, only shill accounts asking stupid questions while OP doesn't even bother answering them. If that is not a low value topic, I don't know what is.


It would be nice, to make more room when we reach new ATH and bunch of new people come :)

How an announcement thread fall into rule no. 1? Announcement thread wouldn't consider pointless or zero value post either its scam or not. Doesn't matter no one is interested in an announcement thread, useless they broke forum rules, moderators can't take action. If someone using a bumping service then they are breaking rules and the thread would be trashed. For that, I have been writing PM to moderators about why I believe thread should be trashed. And good thing is, I got positive responses from the moderators. I don't think simply use the report for the whole thread would be effective. Otherwise, you have to report one by one spam post. But it wouldn't trash the main thread IMO.

I know that whether its scam or not is not important due scams not being moderated, but if some topic only has shill accounts and no one else, I am asking can it be seen as low  value and therefore deleted. And if not, maybe its time for a change of policy.


Both of those examples in my first post (ZYX and Baex) are using bumping services, hence the all those shill accounts spamming there. As a matter of fact, here is a list of more than 70  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5236143.0) of those, that have been identified by others and me. I honestly had no idea that by simply proving they are using bumping service is a reason enough for thread deletion. If that really is the case, then all those threads from the list should be deleted and that basically answers my question as I mentioned that as one of the criteria to be met before nuking the thread.

I feel like such dead threads are better locked rather than removed. For instance, there's one dead bounty thread (which I previously posted on) that people are still posting because they don't even bother to check the OP's activity/ update.

Unless they're seriously violating guidelines which warrants a removal.