Proactive fighting with spammers. Doing it the right way

[Joel_Jantsen]

It is not so simple. There were, and most likely still are, huge campaigns that recruit hundreds of users while there may be not so many good posters, thus the campaign managers which are chosen to run these campaigns might not have any other option but to accept almost anyone who knows how to sign up for a campaign and not make a dozen mistakes therewith...

Forum does have a lot of good quality posters.Just that campaign managers are too quick recruiting the shitty ones.I'm not saying add only members who are as good as DannyHamilton but at least a two sentenced descent post which actually adds something to the topic and not repeats the same posted in 100 comments above is expected.

On the other hand, the services themselves may be more interested in the sheer exposure their ads get than in the quality of posts

Wouldn't they get the actual exposure if the person wearing the signature seems knowledgeable and fluent?

[deisik]

It is not so simple. There were, and most likely still are, huge campaigns that recruit hundreds of users while there may be not so many good posters, thus the campaign managers which are chosen to run these campaigns might not have any other option but to accept almost anyone who knows how to sign up for a campaign and not make a dozen mistakes therewith...

Forum does have a lot of good quality posters.Just that campaign managers are too quick recruiting the shitty ones.I'm not saying add only members who are as good as DannyHamilton but at least a two sentenced descent post which actually adds something to the topic and not repeats the same posted in 100 comments above is expected

But some services evidently seem to be quite happy with that. Who is that DannyHamilton, by the way?

On the other hand, the services themselves may be more interested in the sheer exposure their ads get than in the quality of posts

Wouldn't they get the actual exposure if the person wearing the signature seems knowledgeable and fluent?

A good poster can't make more than, say, 15 posts daily on a regular basis, and daily might really be a hefty overstretch. Sometimes you don't feel like posting at all. Shit posters simply don't have such issues altogether, and the service easily gets the required volume of exposure without making fuss over what the members are actually posting and whether what they post does in fact add anything to a discussion. Sheer size may matter after all...

Note that this doesn't say anything about the legitimacy and utility (or lack thereof) of the service itself

[DannyHamilton]

Who is that DannyHamilton, by the way?

I think he's talking about me.

I'm just a computer programmer from Illinois (USA) with an interest in the bitcoin protocol. I do what I can to help others learn and understand.

[actmyname]

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.

Spamming should not be condoned - it should be as simple as that. If any person could kindly tell me why spammers help the bitcointalk ecosystem (apart from pointless traffic for ad revenue) in any way at all, then I will certainly change my ways and turn into a hardcore one-line spammer myself. After all, I can easily pump out hundreds of useless posts to grind out those cents!


I personally do not think that spamming would ever be useful. I also do not condone posting in threads where there are scores of pages (exceptions are there, but in general) since they're just filled to the brim with regurgitated content and vague/general agreements and replies. You might see two users replying to one another, but they know what they're doing (if they aren't alts of each other that is) - they're feeding off each other, helping the other spam hoping to be able to reply to them to get those precious cents in return.


On the topic of whether

I will not mention any because I believe that if I play any gambling games, I will win and lose. The scenario is most likely happening on luck based game like dice. It doesn't mean that if I won several times, I am already good at dice, right? Same case on others, I think it's not only me. This is just my point of view though. Of course, on games like sports betting, poker or the like, skills are also used. However, we can't deny the fact that luck will always be part of every game

is a shit post or not, I think it's important to note the fact that the post is literally lengthened only to increase the character count. Do you see how much the user is repeating themselves, and just trying to add on more words? "Same case on others, I think it's not only me. This is just my point of view though." etc. etc.


Here's a couple more posts that I personally find to be spam:

to me i think i am too much good in playing gambling on cricket, as i have a good experience of cricket as i was a good cricket player i also know about all the good cricket players therefore it is very easy for me to play gambling on cricket and make good money.

yeah i think most people would agree with you here as well. we all have a sport that we are interested in and betting in those sport gives us a decent chance of winning especially if we're following a specific team or league. it's also more fun as you'll be rooting for the team that you prefer. compared to gambling games that you just sit out and wait for results. i think it's also one, if not, the most entertaining gambling type that you can try. as you get to enjoy not only your wager but the game as well

yeah these sports are actually those gambling type games that doesn't rely entirely on luck. i can say i'm pretty experienced with poker as well. it's very entertaining especially if you play with actual players instead of online. the excitement and the fun is different when you do it with real people. also sports betting. i' ve won quite a lot already with basketball and boxing betting since those are the sports that i' m interested at and i have quite a lot of knowledge about

Source: Is it just me or has the quality of this forum dropped immensely - me


Do you really think that agreement posts are useful? Sure. It's advertisement for whatever service they're getting money from, but it shouldn't matter what they're advertising - this is a forum, and at the end of it, you need to consider their post quality.

If I spam on random forums with crap and advertise bitcoin.org in my signature, is that acceptable? I hope not.

[rizzlarolla]

 ^^^ "Spamming should not be condoned - it should be as simple as that."

Malsetid is farmed. (others unchecked)

November 24, 2015, 09:09:15 AM - November 24, 2015, 10:12:52 AM
Time scale 1 hour. 12 farmed accounts, 2400 spam posts.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=663111  Zosuda  (22)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=663116                           molsewid  (22)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=663122                                                    Bamselk  (21)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=663129                                                                              fasdorcas  (22)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=663136  Zadicar  (860)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=663142                           Malsetid  (22)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=663146                                                    Bamsed  (67) ***
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=663156                                                                             Fasdurcas  (23)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=663174  Zudalar (22)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=663185                           Mastsetad  (1344)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=663190                                                    Blamsud  (21)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=663195                                                                            Farstdury (23)  

Farmed accounts are only ever going to spam. (or scam) Whatever standard of post they need to achieve to carry on, they will achieve. (lets face it, the bar is unlikely to be set very high) Their posts will still be spam, just longer.

Admins could find these farmed accounts far easier than me, they have the tools available. Still, I can find them easily enough, although the 400 farmed accounts i have found were generally created a year ago. I am a year behind.

If this problem was dealt with, then moderators could be serious about stopping spam.
As you see above, 12 farmed accounts created in 1 hour, 11 months ago. Malsetid, 22 posts when i listed this account, now has 142 posts!
Mastsetad  (1344) now 2129, molsewid  (22) now 240 that is 1100 posts in 4-6 weeks from 3 of 400 accounts on my ignored by mods/admin farmer list.

The list is good. No serious objection from any account listed!

[Decoded]

I do believe that it is mostly a campaign manager's responsibility to look over the post quality of their campaign's participants. 

I was a campaign manager myself for two weeks, in which (I think) I looked over post quality relatively well, I hope.

[hilariousandco]

Guess who just randomly decided to respond to my pm? Bitmixer. What a coincidence! I'm sure someone with about ten accounts on their campaign mailed them in a panic or something.

[Lauda]

Guess who just randomly decided to respond to my pm? Bitmixer. What a coincidence! I'm sure someone with about ten accounts on their campaign mailed them in a panic or something.

Someone has either been closely watching this thread, or has been replying here under a certain agenda. What a surprise. If they don't make drastic changes soon, they should still be removed due to the damage that was already caused.

[deisik]

Who is that DannyHamilton, by the way?

I think he's talking about me

Nice to meet you!

I'm just a computer programmer from Illinois (USA) with an interest in the bitcoin protocol. I do what I can to help others learn and understand.

But this is evidently not what you are famous for here. I have a bad memory for names, so your name didn't tell me anything, I'm sorry. Until I saw your signature. I had bookmarked your Ignore thread long ago, and when I see somebody starting to proclaim themselves as being among the top posters across the forum, I consult with it and more often than not find them in your Ignore list. Not that I would particularly care, but it still gives me some comfort and peace of mind, lol

Guess who just randomly decided to respond to my pm? Bitmixer. What a coincidence! I'm sure someone with about ten accounts on their campaign mailed them in a panic or something.

I hope you came to an agreement with them in regard to stricter moderation of Bitmixer's signature campaign members?

[hilariousandco]

I've told them what needs to be done and the consequences of not doing anything about it so it's just up to them now.

[LoyceV]

It is not that simple. There were, and most likely still are, huge signature campaigns that recruit hundreds of users while there may be not so many good posters, thus the campaign managers which are chosen to run these campaigns might not have any other option left but to accept almost anyone who knows how to sign up for a campaign and not make a dozen mistakes therewith...

If there are not enough quality posters, the campaign should not hire that many people. Simple as that. If they want more posters, campaigns could compete with other campaigns on the price they offer.

On the other hand, the services may be more interested in the sheer exposure their ads get than in the quality of posts the enrollees make

Obviously. So I'm in favour of banning campaigns if warning them doesn't help.

I think he's talking about me.

I've seen your posts And would like to give you a "thumbs up" on your posts if I could. Instead of just Activity, based on just the number of post spread over the years, it would be really nice to have a +1 or -1 option to like/dislike posts as a quality-indicator for the user. But I think the army of Alts will quickly mess that up too.

A good poster can't make more than, say, 15 posts daily on a regular basis, and daily might really be a hefty overstretch. Sometimes you don't feel like posting at all. Shit posters simply don't have such issues altogether

It's a day job to them. I've done the math, it can produce a very nice income in a lot of countries. In my experience it's mainly Asians (Indonesia/Philippines), which explains the bad English. And the more people discover this, the worse it gets. Until the market/forum is saturated with spam and the price per post goes down. Or until the moment the ban hammer hits them hard.

Spamming should not be condoned - it should be as simple as that. If any person could kindly tell me why spammers help the bitcointalk ecosystem (apart from pointless traffic for ad revenue) in any way at all, then I will certainly change my ways and turn into a hardcore one-line spammer myself. After all, I can easily pump out hundreds of useless posts to grind out those cents!

It seems it has become more or less accepted to post this way. And because people post like this, others see it's accepted and do the same.

Guess who just randomly decided to respond to my pm? Bitmixer. What a coincidence! I'm sure someone with about ten accounts on their campaign mailed them in a panic or something.

So just the idea of bans is already paying off!
Any idea what the timeline on the stricter rules for spammers is?

[BITMIXER.IO]

I'm sorry for the late answer, just returned from vacations.
We are definitely going to clean up our signature campaign very soon. May be hilariousandco help us in this work.

I think the problem should be resolved at the level of forum's admins, not sig campaign managers. They could ban users who spam on the forum.
Because our banned spammer may register on other sig campaign and continue fill forum with spam, then try another campaign, etc. But if he was banned on the forum, he can't.

[Lauda]

I'm sorry for the late answer, just returned from vacations.
We are definitely going to clean up our signature campaign very soon. May be hilariousandco help us in this work.

I think the problem should be resolved at the level of forum's admins, not sig campaign managers. They could ban users who spam on the forum.
Because our banned spammer may register on other sig campaign and continue fill forum with spam, then try another campaign, etc. But if he was banned on the forum, he can't.

You're looking at this from a limited perspective though (local). If you globally observe a environment where everyone is working together we have:
1) Services that don't hire bad managers/properly manage their own campaigns -> Spammers can't get in.
2) Managers that properly hire their campaign/hold to a high standard -> Spammers can't get in.
3) Staff that bans/tags the ones (users, managers, campaigns) that don't participate.
Tl;dr: With everything working together it becomes much more efficient.

[deisik]

I'm sorry for the late answer, just returned from vacations.
We are definitely going to clean up our signature campaign very soon. May be hilariousandco help us in this work.

I think the problem should be resolved at the level of forum's admins, not sig campaign managers. They could ban users who spam on the forum.
Because our banned spammer may register on other sig campaign and continue fill forum with spam, then try another campaign, etc. But if he was banned on the forum, he can't.

There is already tough competition for slots in any decent signature campaign on the forum. If you clean up yours, the shit posters won't be able to join anywhere else here, at least, in such amounts. You are trying to lay your own fault (and that of other negligent campaign managers) at the moderators' door. As I have already said it, banning users exclusively for shit posting would be an exercise in both futility and hilarity since they would just register again and then "continue fill forum with spam". In any case, kicking a few campaign managers to do what they should seems to be the most efficient way to get rid of spam...

Barring total and indiscriminate signature removal, of course

[deisik]

Well, I slept on this (even twice), and I have a new suggestion regarding spam issues and how to efficiently resolve them. What I come up with essentially boils down to disabling signatures for all new users (disabling them retrospectively for all users doesn't feel quite right), and if a user wants to join a signature campaign or just wear some signature, he would ask a mod to enable it for him. The mod would then look at the applicant's post history and decide for himself whether this particular user is worth posting with a signature or not...

In this way, even new users would be prompted to post sense if they aim to enroll in a signature campaign later

[actmyname]

Well, I slept on this (even two times), and I have a new suggestion regarding spam issues and how to efficiently resolve them. What I come up with essentially boils to disabling signatures for all new users (disabling them retrospectively for all users doesn't feel quite right), and if a user wants to join a signature campaign or just wear some signature, he would ask a mod to enable it for him. The mod would then look at the applicant's post history and decide for himself whether this particular user is worth posting with a signature or not...

In this way, even new users would be prompted to post sense if they aim to enroll in a signature campaign later

Doesn't this add a ton of extra workload for mods, given that they would have to deal with report posts along with these? It's practically asking them to do a campaign manager's job.

[deisik]

Well, I slept on this (even two times), and I have a new suggestion regarding spam issues and how to efficiently resolve them. What I come up with essentially boils to disabling signatures for all new users (disabling them retrospectively for all users doesn't feel quite right), and if a user wants to join a signature campaign or just wear some signature, he would ask a mod to enable it for him. The mod would then look at the applicant's post history and decide for himself whether this particular user is worth posting with a signature or not...

In this way, even new users would be prompted to post sense if they aim to enroll in a signature campaign later

Doesn't this add a ton of extra workload for mods, given that they would have to deal with report posts along with these? It's practically asking them to do a campaign manager's job.

Let's be unbiased here. Reading shit posts and giving out temporary bans only to read pretty much the same crap all over again after the ban is lifted wouldn't be a lot easier. In fact, these two seemingly separate jobs can be done simultaneously, i.e. if the user posts sense he could be allowed to add a signature without asking for a permission. On the other hand, the right to assess the quality of users posts as well as allow them to add signatures if they qualify could be granted to, for example, a default trust user group...

Indeed, this doesn't in the least exempt the campaign managers from doing their job

[Lauda]

@Suggestion above: This is an interesting and unusual idea (I have not seen it before). The initial workload would indeed be high, and there would be a backlog. However, this would go down with time and there certainly are enough moderators to do this. The problematic that I do see:
1) How exactly do we decide? (e.g. approval by 1 or multiple mods per user)
2) Subjective decision making (e.g. some other mods are likely going to be softer than me. How do we reach consensus?)
3) "My signature is disabled but user X with bad or equal post quality has a signature?!?" threads.
These are the first few things that come to mind.

[deisik]

@Suggestion above: This is an interesting and unusual idea (I have not seen it before). The initial workload would indeed be high, and there would be a backlog. However, this would go down with time and there certainly are enough moderators to do this. The problematic that I do see:
1) How exactly do we decide? (e.g. approval by 1 or multiple mods per user)
2) Subjective decision making (e.g. some other mods are likely going to be softer than me. How do we reach consensus?)
3) "My signature is disabled but user X with bad or equal post quality has a signature?!?" threads.
These are the first few things that come to mind.

All these three points can be equally asked about the process of how users get banned right now. So, when banning a user:

1) How exactly do we decide? (e.g. approval by 1 or multiple mods per user)
2) Subjective decision making (e.g. some other mods are likely going to be softer than me. How do we reach consensus?)
3) Threads starting with "I was banned for shit posting while the user X with worse or equal post quality wasn't"

I guess you can essentially apply the same rules for allowing (or not allowing) signatures as for banning users. I think the gory details as well as differences in and of the process should not be very significant. Obviously, the forum authorities can easily work out the specific rules regarding this case without my or anyone else's help...

Ultimately, if nothing helps you can still apply rule #23

[Lauda]

The process of banning on this forum is properly defined (e.g. who can, can't). Your idea isn't defined, ergo the argument is invalid. You should work on defining a proposal, not avoiding criticism with red herring.