Bunch of idiots/bots spamming the hell out of press board

[mexxer-2]

Title pretty much describes it. Just see the frequency of posts and the portion of total posts they consist of the spammer.

"Suspected spammers"/bots are :
1) hendra147 , with post frequency going up to 1 topic every minute.
2) klm bitcoin , with post frequency going upto 1 topic every 30 seconds.
3) shane a guy who probably finds it hilarious to spam the shit out of the press board. Just a page, for example:

4) a7mos a person who is quite a bit on the spammy side

And surprise surprise, two of them can't speak english well, certainly not understandable to me. And all of the press topics are just copy paste of the first(few) paragraph(s) of the article linked.

IMHO this describes it the best:

You know what's worse than people who only read the headlines?  - People who cut and paste entire articles from "news" sites into the Bitcointalk forum without so much as a single-word commentary of their own.   This type of post is at the very least in bad form and more-than-likely should be removed.

[shorena]

I skimmed a few posts and from the looks of it, they what they should do in this section. I see no doubles or other things that violate the rules:

-snip-
These general guidelines should help keep the board usable:

• Create a new thread for each new link
• Begin each thread with article date, YYYY-MM-DD format.
• Thread title should usefully summarize the link.  julz has suggested DATE-SITE-HEADLINE format, but use your best judgement.
• Duplicate links, off-topic, and meta discussions may be moderated (locked or whatever the mods prefer)
• Post a link to the NEW articles thread.

[mexxer-2]

I skimmed a few posts and from the looks of it, they are doing what they should do in this section. I see no doubles or other things that violate the rules:

FTFY. As for violating , well
1) They are making low quality posts
2) They have a paid signature
3) They are posting copied content(can't find that quote from hilarious, from the thread where you report people who copy others' post)
4) They are doing so massively, a few might be tolerable

And lastly, similar case which was reported by(now my alt) TheLegendaryOne and they were banned.

[shorena]

I skimmed a few posts and from the looks of it, they are doing what they should do in this section. I see no doubles or other things that violate the rules:

FTFY. As for violating , well
1) They are making low quality posts

Its a link collection sub board, what exactly do you expect? While a personal view on the article would be nice I dont think its needed.

2) They have a paid signature

I doubt their sig management wants them advertising in a section that is hardly seen, contacting them might get the section excluded.

3) They are posting copied content(can't find that quote from hilarious, from the thread where you report people who copy others' post)

Its properly quoted with a source though. They dont claim to have written even a single word of the post. IMHO thats a big difference.

4) They are doing so massively, a few might be tolerable

Well, yes. I can hardly say anything against that. I also agree that they probably do it for the sig payment, but on the plus side they create a neatly sorted archive of press articles. Exactly what the section was intended for, even though the "news sites" they quote might not be up to everyones standard. I think contacting the campaign manager(s) is the better idea. They will stop if they do it for the satoshi and it removes the need for staff to get involed when its not needed.

And lastly, similar case which was reported by(now my alt) TheLegendaryOne and they were banned.

I cant read that so I cant say what is what.

[mexxer-2]

Its a link collection sub board, what exactly do you expect? While a personal view on the article would be nice I dont think its needed.I doubt their sig management wants them advertising in a section that is hardly seen, contacting them might get the section excluded.
Well, yes. I can hardly say anything against that. I also agree that they probably do it for the sig payment, but on the plus side they create a neatly sorted archive of press articles. Exactly what the section was intended for, even though the "news sites" they quote might not be up to everyones standard. I think contacting the campaign manager(s) is the better idea. They will stop if they do it for the satoshi and it removes the need for staff to get involed when its not needed.

Either your logic is superior to mine or I just get swayed too easily, I'm quite leaned towards the latter.

I cant read that so I cant say what is what.

In short it was a bunch of spammers spamming the "Press" section of chinese board by copy-pasting content from news-sites. Another similar 'case' here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1268714.0 and the individual didn't even have a signature.

Nonetheless, I'm keeping this thread open to discussion

[shorena]

Its a link collection sub board, what exactly do you expect? While a personal view on the article would be nice I dont think its needed.I doubt their sig management wants them advertising in a section that is hardly seen, contacting them might get the section excluded.
Well, yes. I can hardly say anything against that. I also agree that they probably do it for the sig payment, but on the plus side they create a neatly sorted archive of press articles. Exactly what the section was intended for, even though the "news sites" they quote might not be up to everyones standard. I think contacting the campaign manager(s) is the better idea. They will stop if they do it for the satoshi and it removes the need for staff to get involed when its not needed.

Either your logic is superior to mine or I just get swayed too easily, I'm quite leaned towards the latter.

I just cant have you report 100s of posts

No seriously I thinks fine for the section, but maybe Im wrong, lets see.

I cant read that so I cant say what is what.

In short it was a bunch of spammers spamming the "Press" section of chinese board by copy-pasting content from news-sites. Another similar 'case' here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1268714.0 and the individual didn't even have a signature.

Nonetheless, I'm keeping this thread open to discussion

Sounds like the posts were mostly offtopic though. I understood the other thread as well, but I could assess the posts the thread was about.

[Monnt]

I honestly don't think we need a "press" section, or maybe in that section put a widget much like blockchain.info's, that shows all the new bitcoin news, and then make them link to a thread about that article plus the actual article.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Yeah I've noticed at least one of them spamming the press section.  I'm not so irritated that I report any of these topics, and in fact I think I'm going to put the press section on ignore all together.  I never read what's posted there, so why have the feed of new topics? 

The fact that they get paid for this sucks.  I have signatures turned off so I don't have a clue which ones they're running.

[Foxpup]

Sounds like the posts were mostly offtopic though.

The threads currently being spammed to the Press section still are mostly off-topic. I've complained about this before, but nobody listened.

[grue]

"Suspected spammers"/bots are :
1) hendra147 , with post frequency going up to 1 topic every minute.
2) klm bitcoin , with post frequency going upto 1 topic every 30 seconds.
3) shane a guy who probably finds it hilarious to spam the shit out of the press board. Just a page, for example:
http://snag.gy/LeALt.jpg
4) a7mos a person who is quite a bit on the spammy side

handled.

[mexxer-2]

handled.

Erm, you meant 'handling' right? Still see some posts by the users in the Press board. Nonetheless, is it established now that doing copy-paste from BTC news website, highly frequently will not be accepted?

P.S: There are lots of other users in the Press board, who now seem to have picked this for easy money

[grue]

handled.

Erm, you meant 'handling' right? Still see some posts by the users in the Press board. Nonetheless, is it established now that doing copy-paste from BTC news website, highly frequently will not be accepted?

P.S: There are lots of other users in the Press board, who now seem to have picked this for easy money

handled as in, banned. I was in the process of banning a few more. I will trashcan the topics made by the offending users soon.

[mexxer-2]

handled as in, banned. I was in the process of banning a few more. I will trashcan the topics made by the offending users soon.

Ah, thought signature gets deleted if a person gets banned. I guess that happens when you get temp. banned for sig farming. Thanks for the help

[mexxer-2]

Some more guys who are starting to think of it as easy money:
1) https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=100430;sa=showPosts (A warning might be enough)
2) https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=387580;sa=showPosts (possibly banned already)
3) https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=525057;sa=showPosts (possibly banned as well)
4) https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=219879;sa=showPosts (nearly all posts are press post, possibly farming his pot activity)

[grue]

Some more guys who are starting to think of it as easy money:
1) https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=100430;sa=showPosts (A warning might be enough)
2) https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=387580;sa=showPosts (possibly banned already)
3) https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=525057;sa=showPosts (possibly banned as well)
4) https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=219879;sa=showPosts (nearly all posts are press post, possibly farming his pot activity)

handled.

[tommorisonwebdesign]

I think there needs to be a CAPTCHA put in place to prevent this kind of spamming Recaptcha V2 (clicking the pictures) is a challenging bot check feature. although if the programmer is skilled enough, he could at the very least partially automate the spamming of this forum. IP bans are useless due to proxies/Tor.

[mexxer-2]

Some users that should be kept in mind, have started spamming several threads in a (very)small amount of time:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=100430;sa=showPosts
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=103397;sa=showPosts;start=0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=183724;sa=showPosts

[Bitinity]

I have reported some similar posts by a high rank member, and all his threads/posts which only a copy and paste post were deleted.
I keep monitoring him, but seems that he did not make it again after the deletion.

[mexxer-2]

Ok thought Bit-x wasn't paying people for spamming Press, but apparently it is ,and one guy has spammed all of his 400 last posts(threads, copy pasted) in that board: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=28364

[mexxer-2]

I doubt their sig management wants them advertising in a section that is hardly seen, contacting them might get the section excluded.

Apparently they do or are too lazy to make a simple exclusion of the board, no response(even though they have been online since morning):

Hey there,

Many of your participants(most likely bought accounts, bought solely for the purpose of spamming^[1]) are spamming a lot in the Press board. Many were/are being banned, but seems they care more about BTC made than the risk of being banned. Considering the section is not viewed or posted in at all, it would be best for your campaign to exclude that board to stop hemorrhaging BTC due to some spammers. The activity of your participants also poorly represents your Service as a whole.

Mesmer

[1] Many users are selling accounts enrolled in your campaign for a higher amount