Bitcoin Forum

After the idea of creating a blacklist  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5366504.msg58244285#msg58244285)of some sort for altcoin campaign translation cheaters (and thus, spammers), I've finally found some time in order to create the topic accordingly. I honestly want this to be used, and even if I'm being way to optimistic thinking it will actually help reduce spammy and shitty translations, I still hold some hope.

The list is available on its own thread, on the Altcoin Bounty boards; where the intended target usually roams (altcoin bounty managers); who knows, if we get lucky, they may actually take a look at it.

The only problem with this, is that it doesn't prevent spam from happening the first time, but if a user is caught using shitty translations and is added to the list, there's a slim chance he won't get accepted in a new campaign; besides having the translated ANN deleted (and they'll create new accounts until one of the sides can't take it anymore).

The list will remain as a locked thread (and self moderated I'm hella stupid and forgot to mark the option) to prevent spam getting there, so this thread will be linked as a place for discussion/reporting of this wannabe translators. They may even try prove their innocence here, but if they've made this far down...

Now that I've introduced the thread(s), I'll get to writing the first actual report on a spammy translator  ;) may that serve as reference if someone wants to deal with them this way!

[BLACKLIST] Translation campaign cheaters (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5367737)

PS: This thread has been created on the reputation board since it is directly linked with the reputation of the so called translators on the forum overall.

this is probably a good initiative, cheaters should be separated and marked.
but why not make a translator green list as well? shouldn't they also be rewarded in some way for good work? I believe that would help managers and project owners when assigning jobs to someone.
I think there was even one such list, but it probably hasn't been updated for a long time.

That's a great initiative started by you Csmiami, but do you really think bounty managers do care? I believe it's either out of their knowledge (the languages I'm talking about) or they just give away the stakes after considering the translated Ann, website and/or whitepaper as complete and as most of the altcoin related (local) boards are either empty or overlooked by most members here, I hardly believe anyone would care enough to complain. Still, the language I know better, i.e.; Hindi, if I find anything irrelevant or incorrect in the translations by any translator in our local boards, I'll definitely update. :)

First user that is going to get his terrible job exposed on this thread, I'm almost nervous!

User: lKSLMNSLKnkndlksnkJ (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1749739)

I first noticed this user on the spanish local altcoin ANN board  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=254.0)since more than half of then ANNs had been posted by him. This is usually a yellow flag in my book, since I've first-hand experienced in the past how brain damaging these translation jobs can be (and in most cases, you wouldn't get paid and stopped working for similar ones). Upon a closer examination, my eyes started to bleed a bit; I'm going to quote a few gems that make me be sure this guy either doesn't know spanish at all, or is copy pasting on a machine translation tool without proofreading.

Example 1 (https://ninjastic.space/post/58223955):

The highlighted ones go as follows:

1- The way this is worded makes no sense. If it the original said something similar to "rebought after burning", the translation should be something similar to "se recompra despues de haber sido quemado".
2- "Sostenerlos" means to literally hold something. Literally being physically.
3- There's articles missing and the choice of words is so poor it's not possible to grasp the meaning even by context.

Example 2: (https://ninjastic.space/post/58130702)

This one is actually hilarious; the original text must have said "prize/reward pool", and the machine took the "pool" for its literal meaning: swimming pool

No person that knows spanish would make such a mistake, and even if I could go more in depth to explain why this is not done by a spanish speaking person, this particular pool one convinced it's impossible to manually do such a mistake...twice!

Edit: what the fuck, I just went to the guys' profile to give the negative feedback and much to my surprise the campaign manager has given him a positive for the translation (today!)... this is about to get funny

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Well, I got busy with some other stuff and couldn't post and now there are already 2 replies here, let me answer you gentlemen:

I haven't made a greenlist because there are already at least 2 that I'm aware of, whereas there was no blacklist as of yet.
List 1 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5214430.0)
List 2 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5222178)
I didn't want to make something that already exists, or make it look like I'm merit fishing by giving the impression I've spent time in doing something that is worthless. I really want to get rid of this kind of particular spammer.

I don't know if it's gonna work, but at least they won't be able to say they didn't know they were hiring a garbage doer. It may also serve as a reference post for the negative feedback that will come with the report

Wow, what an amazing find!
I'm more surprised when I saw julerz12's trust feedback just below yours which says that this guy lKSLMNSLKnkndlksnkJ worked as a translator in one of the bounties julerz12 managed, and I don't know what made him recommend that translator. I'm not aware with whether julerz12 understands Spanish language personally or gave this feedback just because that guy translated the given material (or else, something's fishy maybe?)

I'm more inclined to think it's the second case. However, I've pm'd him linking to this thread to see if he can reconsider said feedback. It's just a coincidence that both feedbacks have been given today, and honestly, I almost find it funny

I don't speak Spanish. I made positive feedback since there were no issues regarding his translations that I know of (until now). I do this on all of the translators who I think made a great contribution through their translation services. I simply trusted him. I guess I was wrong to do so.
I have revoked his reservations in my currently active campaigns and all of his translations in the previews campaigns will be reviewed as well.

While the initiative is great, I think that you're doing it wrong.

First of all, aside of the posts where these guys are exposed, their usernames have to be in a properly visible list in the start of the thread, else nobody will search.

I'd add even more: maybe put in the same topic a list of good translators and a list of bad translators. This way whoever is looking of a translator can see who should he prefer and who he should avoid.
So maybe a "supporting" topic, only with these lists, is the next step to be done.

Woops, I thought I had linked the list thread here... turns out didn't! Changing that in a sec!

I guess I could add a reference to the already existing 2 lists of "good" translators, but adding them to a new list seems a bit stupid.

Hello Everyone,

While I agree that there is a lot of spam on BTT, the amount of translation spam is minimal compared to the bulk of spam posted around other parts of the site.

I’ve been on Bitcointalk for almost 5 years.  I’ve been suspended a couple of times, but who hasn’t; we all need to learn, right?  Overall, I’ve been a good user with decent contributions.

I’ve carefully read this thread a couple of times, and this feels like a smear.  To me, it is a case of a couple of mistakes being blown out of proportion to cast me in a bad light by a user who is looking for merit points, despite stating to the contrary (this thread garnered the poster two new merit points.)

I translate as a husband-and-wife team.  The errors quoted in this thread above were made as updates to a thread and were not passed by my partner first.  I did this for expediency at the time.  That was my mistake, but to use this to start a new thread to expose translation spammers and put my name as the first entry over a couple of minor mistakes is so overblown, I don’t know what else to say except I am shocked and disappointed at the rush to judgement that can be found on this website in so many cases.

While I don’t doubt there are people who submit spam translations to BTT projects, blacklisting anyone for a couple of mistakes sounds more like a witch hunt when there is less of a need.  As Stedsm stated: “That's a great initiative started by you Csmiami, but do you really think bounty managers do care?”

Everyone makes mistakes now and then.  My point is, will you recognize this to be true among human beings and realize rushing to judgement and punishing people like that is counterproductive for the site?

Although, I am optimistic that you can, I do not hold out hope that anything will change here.  It sounds like judgement has already been passed and the rest is just semantics. 

I pray that I am wrong.

Kind Regards,
Mark

Hey Mark, we already know what you've explored now. In fact, this thread was made with the purpose to "specifically" weed out bad translators.


You might also think that me and everyone posting here is doing it for the sake of merits? I guess not. We are just trying to appreciate Csmiami for his works. Simple as that.


I stated that to point out the failure as well as irresponsibility shown by many bounty managers here.


We are none to judge or punish you, it's you who do your karma and then either repent or feel discouraged like you are ATM.


Even if your name is kept here, doesn't mean the doors of translations have been closed for you here completely. But being an honest friend of yours (like everybody else's), I'd urge you to take care not to repeat the same thing later because then, that won't be called a mistake committed but rather an intentional behavior just to get the tokens. I hope you understand.

Hi Stedsm,

Thanks for chiming in.  I respect your opinion and I am in no way discouraged at the moment.

I've been involved in a couple of back and forths with veteran members and once an accusation is made against you, it is very difficult to get anyone to admit a mistake was made and reverse it.  Very difficult.  Almost like a peasant trying to convince the king.  Likely doesn't happen too often.

And while I respect someone taking the initiative to make a list to make it easier for bounty managers to choose translators, I was made an example of, somewhat conspicuously, over a couple of mistakes, and the poster did score points for it ultimately.

In this case, my opinion is the reaction to my work was excessive and tarnished my reputation on BTT.  That can't be undone unless my name is removed from this brand-new list and my trust score returned to the previous one.  And, I am also of the opinion this list is unnecessary.  For one thing, it is the project managers themselves (not the bounty managers) who ultimately pass judgement on people's work, and for another, any translation spam on the BTT threads is a drop of water compared to the tsunami of general spam across the rest of the site.

Sorry to rant, I am just passionate about my BTT account.

Kind Regards,
Mark

That's the reason ALL spam should be reported and deleted; there is no such thing as a "better" spam.

I haven't, and the big majority of the contributing members have never faced a ban. Yes, we do all need to learn in order to improve, but there's stuff and stuff.

Stop deflecting, you've been caught and now you are trying to shif the attention towards me. I already have a legendary ranked account, merits only mean that people like/appreciate what I do or say; but if that'll make you feel better, I have no problem PMing theymos and asking him to remove those 4 merits I have on OP ::)

Again, stop deflecting. You were paid to do something and you didn't. You went the easy way and got caught. You only happened to be the first user I came across (second actually, if you consider the first thread I made a while ago), and there is no way on earth you are calling these minor mistakes! You literally mixed a prize pool (money) with a swimming pool! No person that knows the language even the slightest is going to manually do such a mistake! Cheating does have consequences, own your mistakes.

Again, it's not "a couple of mistakes", these are systematic mistakes that could only happen if only a translation tool is being used without even proofreading it.

More deflecting

Trying to appeal to other members' feelings is an overexploited technique by... (guess this one) spammers and cheaters!

I shouldn't have the energy to be doing this, but I've selected a few random threads you've posted. Since you claim these mistakes only happened on updates because they were done by someone else, I'll stick to the OP.


Just a few "minor mistakes" on a bounty campaign OP (haven't posted all of them, because even if it's sometimes hard to believe, I have a life outside the forum).


Red=general mistake
Yellow=different wording for the same translated word
Green= extremely redundant

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I could go search for more, but I think I've already lost enough time. I honestly think you went off the forum in 2019, and after seeing how bitcoin pumped in 2021, you came back to the forum to try milk as much as possible out of it. You tried doing a translation in  a language with close to 0 activity in the altcoin boards, and since no one seemed to notice, you've kept on doing it

Thanks for taking such a step to separate those spammer who are not the perfect translators. It is hard for bounty manager as well as project owner to understand either the translator did the translation perfectly or used any blackhat method. For such a step it will be easier to avoid fake translators. It will be better if there is a list of good translators sothat bounty manager/project owner can find out the perfect translators.

Yes, everybody knows "reward pool" is actually translated as "loteria de mierda."


Sorry, that's all I actually had to contribute, other than saying this is a good initiative and I notice fake translations have been a problem for almost the entirety that I've been here.

I prefer to try to get them banned for plagiarism, which might be easier than you think... These are very lazy people, after all.

Just to have a quick idea about these kind of users:

@pedrillo0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=715872
has left a retaliation negative trust to @Csmiami
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=903175
After he was caught producing fake translation in Spanish section (if you look post history ... and use than GT ;) just few words are changed, it's pretty clear this user seems unable to speak correctly Spanish).
Plus it was pointed out as usually the same shit. No one that really can speak this language would translate in such way!
(loteria de mierda ;D LOL ;D

However I am not a spanish expert. I don't really care if he is able to talk or not.
Definitely I am an Italian expert ;) YES (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5365814.0)

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but why no one has already left a negative trust for this SCAM?
https://web.archive.org/web/20211027205311/https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3343158.msg34981734
It's just a fake airdrop/huge scam. I can't believe any hero member would advertise that s*it / don't delete / remove etc etc....


At this point (at least for me),
translations issue, it's just the "tip of the iceberg" .

Behind there are just criminals that are ready to make money in any possible way.

- fraud to project owners/ forum users that waste time
- promoting ponzi
- promoting fake airdrop/scam
- altaccount
- (there is a group of "translators" ::) that has been involved also in a FAKE ICO !!!)
- altaccounts used for scam and other purpose

Check connections... https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5365814.0
I am updating with new alts every other day (I don't want waste too much time since it seems just few users are really interested to "solve" this issue .... :( (

It's clear we should have 0 tolerance with this kind of user if we want to keep our community safe and a place that deserve our precious time.

Many probably don't care. Especially those managing scam/fake projects, and those who don't plan to pay their bounty members anyways.

Anyone active in the Croatian local board has seen the low quality "translational work" by our leading bounty translator. All you have to do is go here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=273.0), and you will see which lad has opened most of the threads if you are wondering who I am talking about. Despite his negative ratings, that never stopped bounty managers employing him as their CRO translator. He recently got banned for another issue, so he has stopped.   

For what I can see...He has several alt-account and at least with (1) wasubii (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=145495) he is actually evading ban account.

@sunce33
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1911429.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1911465.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1911421.0

https://web.archive.org/save/https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1911429.msg18965034#msg18965034 (all links are archived)

it seems a kind of call center ::) and not a skype account because the same account is used also by:

wasubii (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=145495) BANNED

safram (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1444132)

hellscabane (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=84020)

Accounts48h (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1105345)

 iPhoneK1LLA (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=120412)
https://web.archive.org/save/https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1936312.msg19228670#msg19228670

(there is not difference with lower/upper cases in skype nickname.... ;) )

@lKSLMNSLKnkndlksnkJ,
Hope the bold part helps you out (but for you to prove yourself innocent if you can).
I would rather urge Csmaimi (on a friendly note) to not give negative ratings straight away and warn the users (obviously except those who have been caught with alt accounts here) to either stop doing machine translations and even come and commit it here that they did it, and will not do machine translations again. If this one and only warning works out to spread its charm and the person literally changes his behavior towards his work, then your initiative will rather help people change and become good by getting back on the right track, or the next time they do it, we may all give such users red marks and personally ask bounty managers not to hire them for any translation jobs, be it bounty related or any other documents related translations.

Hi Stedsm,

Thanks for the kind words.  It's nice to hear a moderate voice on these boards.

I didn't want to reply to this thread anymore.  The point was made and taken, but the damage is done to the account.  Sadly though, I can't imagine it getting reversed, so I am ready to move on and do a better job in the future.

Thanks again and best of luck to all.

Kind Regards,
Mark

I guess I'll say the obvious, but still ... I will repeat myself in the hope of saving you time and effort in the long run.  ;)

1. Your initiative is, of course, commendable, but as for me, this thread will eventually get lost in the open spaces of the forum ^{[I think pretty soon]}.
2. Therefore, the best solution would be to simply mark such pseudo translators with a red tag and not return to this again ^{[the idea of plagiarism is also reasonable]}.

LOL :D



I suppose that, for better or worse, there are local boards where the problem is bigger than in the Spanish one, after all (but all should be improved).



I am a bit pessimistic too, but why not give it a try? Not in order to flag other member's accounts like lKSLMNSLKnkndlksnkJ's, maybe (I don't feel any pity for him since he has lied again here when he talked about his wife's tandem, as no Spanish native speaker could ever make the kind of mistakes highlighted by Csmiami in this thread) but to expose them, so any interested member in this forum can find them in this thread and know that they are not trustworthy for one language or another. Well, I may not be so pessimistic after all...

Just found another one!



it's not just "translation" but it's full of fake "multilingual". if anybody come from outside in a local board can't understand if the forum is still active or it's just "a board full of multi-ethnical trolls posting meaningless contents".

I'm not sure if this topic will get lost in the void of this forum, but it seems like a good initiative. As Pmalek pointed out, the Croatian section has seen many shitty translations over time, and I have reported a few of them myself. The question is whether bounty managers will take the list into account or will they continue hiring such translators? Perhaps we should compile a list of bounty managers who do not respect community opinion and do not follow the good practice in this forum?

A blacklist it's something useless to have since there are thousands and thousands of connected accounts.
Please take a look on this post. Generally Speaking it's a well known issue, but most of these fake translators have not being red trusted by DT1 member. If you take a look on their post history, they are still active trying to get other translations.

lKSLMNSLKnkndlksnkJ (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1749739)
he has applied again for Spanish translation.
Since bounty managers seems really not interested in this no-ending issues,
if we (locals) don't stop this bad habits (with RED TRUST) or promote some new/effective rules it's just a waste of time for us and next for the whole community or people just interested in crypto currencies.

2 of his 3 applications are in bounties where the managers themselves are red-tagged.
I see there some sort of "infinite loop" and the red tag seems to be a "detail" too many just ignore, as long as they may(or may not) earn a few extra dollars here and there.

I think that somehow more than red tag is needed, but I'm not sure what, since all the ideas I can think of are against the forum's policy vs "freedom of speech", so I won't express them :)

Honestly... I think the best thing to do is to have no mercy with their posts. Report everything and let the mods delete them. BUT having a place (thread) to quote for the negative tag is also necessary. I'm not particularly good finding multi-accounts; I only get a few sold ones when there's too much of a change of posting habits.

As I said, the best solution is to get the mods to work; even if it's a known issue, it's still an issue that's there and that many people decide to ignore. Shadowbaning users with less than X earnt merit on the altcoin boards when creating threads could be another solution, but "newbie jail" is a no go for theymos (again) AFAIK.

Something needs to be done, even if it's not easy