Proactive fighting with spammers. Doing it the right way

[rizzlarolla]

"What do you think about personal responsibility of signature campaign managers in regard to the quality of their members posts?"

They must carry some responsibility, but surely the mods/admin are more responsible for stopping organised spam posting. I thought spamming was an offence in the "rules", and sig spammers were going to be looked upon harshly-ish. No sign of any of that happening.

I like that Lauda is trying to think of the bigger picture, but i'm a bit worried by hilarious saying "punishments for people who run the campaigns very poorly." - is just poorly ok?

"It is beyond doubt that the quality of posts has massively gone down during the last few years primarily due to the influx of shit posters..."

And they are mainly "mass farmed" accounts. Without addressing this issue, spam cannot be tackled effectively.
Of the 400 accounts i have identified, probably 90% can be assigned to 1 farmer.

"banning individual spammers won't help much..."
Agreed. It doesn't matter if say, zalucia (265) is banned, Zaducis (132)*** is still here spamming, if he is banned, Zacudis (168) will carry on, or Zicadis (24), Zocadas (25), Zulucia (28), Zosuda  (22), Zadicar  (860), or Zudalar (22), or 391 other accounts. (my farmed list of 400 is not complete - there are hundreds more) All the same person.... But taking action against blocks of "mass farmed" accounts would make a difference.

I would like to see a clear statement on this subject from global mod/admin. But... if no one else thinks so?
Of course macwika (20) will disagree, as will madwica (612), mandica (295), mastica (39), molsewid  (22), Malsetid  (22), Mastsetad  (1344), michkima (28), miakama (24), misakama (23), mistanama (23),  mitkala (20) and miayama (125).
They outvote me 12 to 1. But they are just 1 person.

[deisik]

This had to be expected. How can they be held responsible for some users posting shit? Did they enroll these users themselves? No, they didn't.

Do you even properly read other input before thinking about your own method again?

Signature campaigns are not started by bots. There is always some user who fires up a signature campaign thread. That user could be deemed as a campaign manager and should be dealt with appropriately...

As far as I know bots only count posts

Mitigation 2: Sign up for campaigns outside of forum. While they keep figuring out ways to mitigate this, we've lost a lot of time and effectively accomplished only minor results.

Could you please reference a campaign which had a sign-up process outside of the forum? Anyway, in this case the service is out of reach while spamming users should be handled on a person-by-person basis

[Lauda]

I like that Lauda is trying to think of the bigger picture, but i'm a bit worried by hilarious saying "punishments for people who run the campaigns very poorly." - is just poorly ok?

I don't think that *poorly* should be acceptable at all. They are taking the advertising on BTCT via signatures for granted, which should not be happening. They need to prove that they are competent and willing to strictly manager their participants IMO.

Of the 400 accounts i have identified, probably 90% can be assigned to 1 farmer.

The list is hefty as it is, but still has to be completely handled.

Signature campaigns are not started by bots. There is always some user who fires up a signature campaign thread. That user could be deemed as a campaign manager and should be dealt with appropriately...

As far as I know bots only count posts

So exactly what happens when the campaign manager is banned? Nothing. Bot keep counting for the existing members, they keep participating. The campaign manager goes off to create another account, or buys another one and contacts the service discretely to become their *new* manager. We'd be playing whack-a-mole with manager alts.

[deisik]

I like that Lauda is trying to think of the bigger picture, but i'm a bit worried by hilarious saying "punishments for people who run the campaigns very poorly." - is just poorly ok?

I don't think that *poorly* should be acceptable at all. They are taking the advertising on BTCT via signatures for granted, which should not be happening. They need to prove that they are competent and willing to strictly manager their participants IMO.

Of the 400 accounts i have identified, probably 90% can be assigned to 1 farmer.

The list is hefty as it is, but still has to be completely handled.

Signature campaigns are not started by bots. There is always some user who fires up a signature campaign thread. That user could be deemed as a campaign manager and should be dealt with appropriately...

As far as I know bots only count posts

So exactly what happens when the campaign manager is banned? Nothing. Bot keep counting for the existing members, they keep participating. The campaign manager goes off to create another account, or buys another one and contacts the service discretely to become their *new* manager. We'd be playing whack-a-mole with manager alts

In this case you have only one entity left out of the three you started with, i.e. spammy and non-spammy users. And the spammy ones should be dealt with as with any spamming users out there, with or without a signature...

As you can see, it still boils down to either taking out the manager, and if this doesn't work out banning the spamming users

[achow101]

Signature campaigns are not started by bots. There is always some user who fires up a signature campaign thread. That user could be deemed as a campaign manager and should be dealt with appropriately...

As far as I know bots only count posts

-snip-

Could please reference a campaign which had a sign-up process outside of the forum? Anyway, in this case the service is out of reach while spamming users should be handled on a person by person basis

Bitmixer.io's signature campaign is the perfect case study of this. Their thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=425135.0 was started by the service themselves. It is wholly managed by them, and their bot.

They accept, check posts, and pay out, via a bot on their website. The BITMIXER.IO user has not been online since September, and he last posted in July. He has been PM'ed warnings multiple times by the mods but he has never responded. They are doing absolutely nothing to curb spam from their sig campaign participants. Even punishing the BITMIXER.IO account wouldn't do anything because that account is not really used and everything is done entirely through a bot.

The only thing that could really be done with bitmixer is to completely shut down their campaign by trashing the thread, blocking the bot, and forcibly removing their signature from all participants.

[deisik]

Bitmixer.io's signature campaign is the perfect case study of this. Their thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=425135.0 was started by the service themselves. It is wholly managed by them, and their bot.

They accept, check posts, and pay out, via a bot on their website. The BITMIXER.IO user has not been online since September, and he last posted in July. He has been PM'ed warnings multiple times by the mods but he has never responded. They are doing absolutely nothing to curb spam from their sig campaign participants. Even punishing the BITMIXER.IO account wouldn't do anything because that account is not really used and everything is done entirely through a bot.

The only thing that could really be done with bitmixer is to completely shut down their campaign by trashing the thread, blocking the bot, and forcibly removing their signature from all participants.

I don't think that shutting down the whole campaign makes sense since that would in effect be equal to cancelling signatures altogether in the most indiscriminate way. It is obvious as well that not all users enrolled in this campaign are evil spammers, but this doesn't in the least mean that there are no spammers without any signature, either. It might well be the case that this service attracts the greatest number of shit posters across the forum, but this alone doesn't make it anywhere near guilty for them posting outright spam. Since you can always find a number of die-hard spammers who wear no signature at all. On the other hand, nothing prevents all these Bitmixer.io spammers from starting posting sense (or at least refrain from posting garbage) if they really wanted to. As you can see, their failure to comply with the quality standards of the forum is not Bitmixer.io's fault...

Given that, these spammers should get banned just like any other spammers here

[achow101]

I don't think that shutting down the whole campaign makes sense since that would in effect be equal to cancelling signatures altogether in the most indiscriminate way. It is obvious as well that not all users enrolled in this campaign are evil spammers, but this doesn't in the least mean that there are no spammers without any signature, either.

Ever hear of the saying "A few bad apples ruin the bunch"? That is exactly what is happening here. If those users who are not shit posters actually post with decent quality, they should have absolutely no problem finding another signature campaign willing to both pay them more and accept them into the campaign.

It might well be the case that this service attracts the greatest number of shit posters across the forum, but this alone doesn't make it anywhere near guilty for them posting outright spam. Since you can always find a number of die-hard spammers who wear no signature at all. On the other hand, nothing prevents all these Bitmixer.io spammers from starting posting sense (or at least refrain from posting garbage) if they really wanted to. As you can see, their failure to comply with the quality standards of the forum is not Bitmixer.io's fault...

It is entirely bitmixer.io's fault for paying the shit posters and not enforcing their own anti-spam rule. It is entirely their fault for enabling those shit posters/account farmers to continue to post and be paid for it. They are encouraging shit posting by continuing to pay for it; and that is entirely their fault.

While yes there are still spammers without sigs, most spammers that I have seen do wear sigs and they shit post because they have an incentive to shit post; they are still paid for those posts. Furthermore, it is known that many campaigns are lax about who they accept, so newer members without sigs still shit post so that they can get to the right activity requirement to join one of those campaigns. Again, they are all motivated by being paid for their shit posts.

If it is known that the forum staff will harshly crack down on signature campaigns who allow their participants to shit post and do not properly check new members, then a lot of spam will be cleaned. Campaigns that enabled shit posters will be shut down, thus the shit posters will either have no incentive to post anymore or they will have an incentive to post constructively in order to join a campaign with higher standards. Furthermore, newer members will then have an incentive to post constructively in order to join the sig campaigns. The bar will be set higher, and thus post quality will increase.

Given that, these spammers should get banned just like any other spammers here

Many are, but many still continue to shit post after their bans or they come back with alts to complain about their bans. However there is enough evidence to suggest that many of those spammers spam because they are being paid by poorly managed campaigns. Thus instead of treating the symptoms of the problem (i.e. the spammers), we need to treat the source (i.e. the campaigns themselves and the people who run them).

About punishing the services as well as the campaign managers: this is because the campaign managers are hired by the service. Most services advertising here have a forum account. They hired a campaign manager to handle their sig campaign. If a campaign for a service is to be found to be spamming, both the service and the campaign manager should be notified. It is up to the service to fire their manager and hire someone else who can do the job better. If they do not, then they are not doing anything to help even when warned. Thus, the service should also be banned from using sig campaigns for advertising.

[Blazed]

I do not think punishing the managers is going to do much, but why not give it a shot. Obviously, the best solution is to ban campaigns and end the broken english spam...

[girlbtc.com]

punishments for people who run the campaigns very poorly is needed

or this forum will be full of rubbish.

[LoyceV]

Mitigation 1: Campaigns run by bots. Mitigation 2: Sign up for campaigns outside of forum. While they keep figuring out ways to mitigate this, we've lost a lot of time and effectively accomplished only minor results.

Countermeasure 1: reroute links in their signatures somewhere else? That will for sure stop playing whack-a-manager with alts.

Most campaigns don't want users with red trust. A red trust label "spammer" from a Moderator could make the account worthless to farmers. It may also be possible to disable the signature for any account that has red trust on a certain DT level.

Ever hear of the saying "A few bad apples ruin the bunch"? That is exactly what is happening here. If those users who are not shit posters actually post with decent quality, they should have absolutely no problem finding another signature campaign willing to both pay them more and accept them into the campaign.

Yesterday I saw a good post from someone with a Yobit-signature. I checked his post history, and it really felt like such a waste to see him in that campaign. The image of the signature really makes his posts look bad, while they're not.

It is entirely bitmixer.io's fault for paying the shit posters and not enforcing their own anti-spam rule. It is entirely their fault for enabling those shit posters/account farmers to continue to post and be paid for it. They are encouraging shit posting by continuing to pay for it; and that is entirely their fault.

Clearly, they earn from it. And as long as there are no repercussions for them, they keep earning.
Devil's advocate: why do more work to earn less?

Many are, but many still continue to shit post after their bans or they come back with alts to complain about their bans. However there is enough evidence to suggest that many of those spammers spam because they are being paid by poorly managed campaigns. Thus instead of treating the symptoms of the problem (i.e. the spammers), we need to treat the source (i.e. the campaigns themselves and the people who run them).

Go for it Usually I read topics filled with complaints about spam, I might have missed some topics, but this is the first time I read about plans to take action against it.

[Lauda]

Mitigation 1: Campaigns run by bots. Mitigation 2: Sign up for campaigns outside of forum. While they keep figuring out ways to mitigate this, we've lost a lot of time and effectively accomplished only minor results.

Countermeasure 1: reroute links in their signatures somewhere else? That will for sure stop playing whack-a-manager with alts.

There are always going to be ways to counter something. However, if you do this then you should be permanently blacklisted. It would also get detected quite quickly IMO.
Anyhow, what I'm proposing is an "all-out attack" of the problem:
1) Stricter evaluation and bans.
2) Ban users.
3) Ban managers.
4) Ban services.
5) Negative ratings for all 3 groups.
If you aren't willing to work towards a better environment for everyone, and you are actually making it worse, then why should anyone tolerate you?

[deisik]

I don't think that shutting down the whole campaign makes sense since that would in effect be equal to cancelling signatures altogether in the most indiscriminate way. It is obvious as well that not all users enrolled in this campaign are evil spammers, but this doesn't in the least mean that there are no spammers without any signature, either.

Ever hear of the saying "A few bad apples ruin the bunch"? That is exactly what is happening here. If those users who are not shit posters actually post with decent quality, they should have absolutely no problem finding another signature campaign willing to both pay them more and accept them into the campaign

As Fedor Dostoevsky said, better acquit ten guilty men than punish one innocent. I understand that forum administration has the right to do what they want, but would this be quite in line with their own Constitution and ten Commandments?

Or are laws carved in stone rewritten in blood?

It might well be the case that this service attracts the greatest number of shit posters across the forum, but this alone doesn't make it anywhere near guilty for them posting outright spam. Since you can always find a number of die-hard spammers who wear no signature at all. On the other hand, nothing prevents all these Bitmixer.io spammers from starting posting sense (or at least refrain from posting garbage) if they really wanted to. As you can see, their failure to comply with the quality standards of the forum is not Bitmixer.io's fault...

It is entirely bitmixer.io's fault for paying the shit posters and not enforcing their own anti-spam rule. It is entirely their fault for enabling those shit posters/account farmers to continue to post and be paid for it. They are encouraging shit posting by continuing to pay for it; and that is entirely their fault

I have to disagree, for the sake of justice. Bitmixer.io is not part of BTCT, so they cannot possibly be found guilty or faulty by the forum laws. But if we extended the forum rules on them, even in that case they cannot be convicted and sentenced. Why should they try to enforce their own anti-spam rule if this is exactly what mods should do? I don't like shit posters maybe even more than you, but you are evidently trying to first humanize and then villainize the service. Right now I can't come up with a decent solution in respect to how resolve such and similar issues, but outright banning services would be highly counterproductive...

Unless they do or offer something really nasty, of course

Given that, these spammers should get banned just like any other spammers here

Many are, but many still continue to shit post after their bans or they come back with alts to complain about their bans. However there is enough evidence to suggest that many of those spammers spam because they are being paid by poorly managed campaigns. Thus instead of treating the symptoms of the problem (i.e. the spammers), we need to treat the source (i.e. the campaigns themselves and the people who run them).

That's what I suggest myself. But banning services just doesn't cut it. Punishing whole campaigns themselves would essentially mean that you openly admit your failure to resolve the issue efficiently and effectively

[1Referee]

There are always going to be ways to counter something. However, if you do this then you should be permanently blacklisted. It would also get detected quite quickly IMO.
Anyhow, what I'm proposing is an "all-out attack" of the problem:
1) Stricter evaluation and bans.
2) Ban users.
3) Ban managers.
4) Ban services.
5) Negative ratings for all 3 groups.
If you aren't willing to work towards a better environment for everyone, and you are actually making it worse, then why should anyone tolerate you?

Banning users should indeed be the top priority, and not the managers.

I am quite active here and stumble over all the broken English shitposters, account farmers (which mostly are not enrolled in a campaign) that are posting 3 or 4 times in a row in the same thread with their alts in just a matter of 10 minutes or so, and still I keep seeing them every day shitposting again.

It's too obvious that these people are active, and I'm not the only one that is able to spot them. But the fact that I see them everyday doing the same, just shows that the ban hammer isn't being used enough.

I pointed out a few accounts to you Lauda, but the person operating these accounts is still shitposting with his over-obvious way of writing and sentence line up.

[clickerz]

I do not think punishing the managers is going to do much, but why not give it a shot. Obviously, the best solution is to ban campaigns and end the broken english spam...

End - broken - English spam - this makes me smile but I encounter several of this posts. All I cant tolerate is a newbie,posting an off-topic thread promoting products with their links. Usually health consumables,pills, and drinks.They should be eliminated.

[Lauda]

Banning users should indeed be the top priority, and not the managers.

I am quite active here and stumble over all the broken English shitposters, account farmers (which mostly are not enrolled in a campaign) that are posting 3 or 4 times in a row in the same thread with their alts in just a matter of 10 minutes or so, and still I keep seeing them every day shitposting again.

It's too obvious that these people are active, and I'm not the only one that is able to spot them, but the fact that I see them everyday doing the same, just shows that the ban hammer isn't being used enough.

I pointed out a few accounts to you Lauda, but the person operating these accounts is still shitposting with his over-obvious way of writing and sentence line up.

Banning users only is not efficient. Banning an account or ten of someone who owns a e.g. a hundred secret other alts is not going to do much especially if the service and manager keeps letting their accounts in (shitposter quality). Obviously we won't ban managers on sight, you will be informed in the coming guidelines.
Regarding the accounts: I've already reported both IIRC. If they are not banned, then you can blame either:
1) Global moderators.
2) Forum admins.
All other staff members are unable to ban (excluding nuking newbies).

All I cant tolerate is a newbie,posting an off-topic thread promoting products with their links. Usually health consumables,pills, and drinks.They should be eliminated.

Those already get nuked on sight/report. This argument is invalid.

[veleten]

I agree that the amount of spam and nonsensical useless posts has grown,the problem has to be curbed
I have several proposals:
1.punishment system: enable mods to check(random check several participants,for example) campaign members,"award" negative trust to users AND campaign managers who are blatantly ignoring  warnings
2.encourage mods to run the said checks,require every signature campaign make a deposit before their campaign start(could be a set sum or a percantage of the monthly expenditures,easily counted via sheets)
the deposit is refundable (50-100%) if no rules were broken during the campaigns' run ,if there are consistent transgressions-keep the deposit and redistribute it among moderators
3.introduce global "post quality" rating,along with "trust"
4.signature campaign must become a privelege and a sign of a quality poster,not like today ,where people are creating own "black lists" to put every commercial signature bearer on to it,regardless of how good their posts are
for that to happen campaign managers should run more stringent screening process and campaigns must be limited to,lets say,twice less people and 2-3 times less posts weekly/monthly as it is now
this should result in higher per-post price,less total spam and higher quality posts

[deisik]

There are always going to be ways to counter something. However, if you do this then you should be permanently blacklisted. It would also get detected quite quickly IMO.
Anyhow, what I'm proposing is an "all-out attack" of the problem:
1) Stricter evaluation and bans.
2) Ban users.
3) Ban managers.
4) Ban services.
5) Negative ratings for all 3 groups.
If you aren't willing to work towards a better environment for everyone, and you are actually making it worse, then why should anyone tolerate you?

Banning users should indeed be the top priority, and not the managers.

I am quite active here and stumble over all the broken English shitposters, account farmers (which mostly are not enrolled in a campaign) that are posting 3 or 4 times in a row in the same thread with their alts in just a matter of 10 minutes or so, and still I keep seeing them every day shitposting again.

It's too obvious that these people are active, and I'm not the only one that is able to spot them. But the fact that I see them everyday doing the same, just shows that the ban hammer isn't being used enough.

I pointed out a few accounts to you Lauda, but the person operating these accounts is still shitposting with his over-obvious way of writing and sentence line up.

Assigning personal responsibility to campaign managers in regard to what users enrolled in their campaigns post should work better. Kicking a spammy user from a signature campaign would most certainly make him stop posting altogether without banning him directly. Die-hard spammers who are spamming regardless of whether they are wearing a signature or not should be the mods' concern, of course. I'm curious if you understand that your own posts are considered as spammy simply because you post under the signature campaign which is claimed to encourage shit posting?

Personally, I'm free from such prejudices, but there are different opinions

[1Referee]

There are always going to be ways to counter something. However, if you do this then you should be permanently blacklisted. It would also get detected quite quickly IMO.
Anyhow, what I'm proposing is an "all-out attack" of the problem:
1) Stricter evaluation and bans.
2) Ban users.
3) Ban managers.
4) Ban services.
5) Negative ratings for all 3 groups.
If you aren't willing to work towards a better environment for everyone, and you are actually making it worse, then why should anyone tolerate you?

Banning users should indeed be the top priority, and not the managers.

I am quite active here and stumble over all the broken English shitposters, account farmers (which mostly are not enrolled in a campaign) that are posting 3 or 4 times in a row in the same thread with their alts in just a matter of 10 minutes or so, and still I keep seeing them every day shitposting again.

It's too obvious that these people are active, and I'm not the only one that is able to spot them. But the fact that I see them everyday doing the same, just shows that the ban hammer isn't being used enough.

I pointed out a few accounts to you Lauda, but the person operating these accounts is still shitposting with his over-obvious way of writing and sentence line up.

Assigning personal responsibility to campaign managers in regard to what users enrolled in their campaigns post should work better. Kicking a spammy user from a signature campaign would most certainly make him stop posting altogether without banning him directly. Die-hard spammers who are spamming regardless of whether they are wearing signature or not should be the mods' concern, of course. I'm curious if you understand that your posts are considered as spammy simply because you post under the signature campaign which is claimed to encourage shit posting?

Personally, I'm free from such prejudices, but there are different opinions

I understand your point. I am part of the Bitmixer campaign for the simple reason that I like the service that they offer since I use it very frequently, and I like the fact that it is an automated campaign with barely any issues.

Do I get bothered by other spammers from Bitmixer? Yes, of course, but these people should either get a heavy warning to up their quality to a level where people can understand what they are saying, and that their posts are at least related to the OP or the post that they quote, or they should simply have their signatures removed by an administrator or a global moderator (if it's at least within his power) including with a temp ban or a full ban depending on the intensity of the shitposts.

It's actually very simple, administrators have the power to hand out bans to spammers, let them do it.

[deisik]

Assigning personal responsibility to campaign managers in regard to what users enrolled in their campaigns post should work better. Kicking a spammy user from a signature campaign would most certainly make him stop posting altogether without banning him directly. Die-hard spammers who are spamming regardless of whether they are wearing signature or not should be the mods' concern, of course. I'm curious if you understand that your posts are considered as spammy simply because you post under the signature campaign which is claimed to encourage shit posting?

Personally, I'm free from such prejudices, but there are different opinions

I understand your point. I am part of the Bitmixer campaign for the simple reason that I like the service that they offer since I use it very frequently, and I like the fact that it is an automated campaign with barely any issues.

Do I get bothered by other spammers from Bitmixer? Yes, of course, but these people should either get a heavy warning to up their quality to a level where people can understand what they are saying, and that their posts are at least related to the OP or the post that they quote, or they should simply have their signatures removed by an administrator or a global moderator (if it's at least within his power) including with a temp ban or a full ban depending on the intensity of the shitposts

Now we have a service which does something good to the whole Bitcoin ecosystem directly as well as indirectly by allowing a lot of users to earn bitcoins and thus letting them get involved with the Bitcoin community. We have users who are actively advertising this service in a constructive way. And then someone wants to ban it simply because some (well, a lot of) users promoting this service are posting shit...

Would that do any good to Bitcoin?

It's actually very simple, administrators have the power to hand out bans to spammers, let them do it

I would venture a guess and say that banning these users would be a shameless abuse of the ban-hammer. Yes, they are mostly posting total shit, but this is evidently not enough to start giving out bans

[Lauda]

I would venture a guess and say that banning these users would be an abuse of the ban-hammer. Yes, they are mostly posting total shit, but this is evidently not enough to start giving out bans

No, it is not. Read the list of forum rules properly. People have been getting banned for years because of this.