PARTIAL ANSWER TO THE SIGNATURE SPAM PROBLEM !!!

[BurtW]

The answer is very simple, from now on:

Only start moderated threads
Only converse in moderated threads
Simply delete all signature spam posts
Eventually all the signature spammers will die off
Eventually the entire market for farmed accounts will die off
We can still have signatures
But we will not have to put up with people that do not read the thread

Voilà!  Bitcointalk becomes a useful, clean, happy place once again.

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[RawDog]

Wala!  Bitcointalk becomes a useful, clean, happy place once again.

Been studying your French again I see. 

[BurtW]

Wala!  Bitcointalk becomes a useful, clean, happy place once again.

Been studying your French again I see. 

Thanks.  Fixed.  See everyone, that was a constructive post so it gets to stay.

[poptok1]

This might be one of the ways to go, no doubt.
I have one self moderated thread and I try to keep it as clean as possible, however it may be painful at times.
One must devote additional time and work to keep his thread tidy and we all now how precious time is, not everybody will take the hassle, some just don't care etc. There is a case of deleting obvious spam posts, pasts and gibberish talking but how to determine correctly which is which? People will get angry, some will start to troll, just to test OP patience, along with it trust abusing comes to mind. Tough nut to crack.
Nevertheless worth a try, my experience with self moderation is more than fine.

[Joel_Jantsen]

The answer is very simple, from now on:

Only start moderated threads
Only converse in moderated threads
Simply delete all signature spam posts
Eventually all the signature spammers will die off
Eventually the entire market for farmed accounts will die off
We can still have signatures
But we will not have to put up with people that do not read the thread

Voilà!  Bitcointalk becomes a useful, clean, happy place once again.

Did you forget to mention ,'Start your Own forum' and Voilà  you never have to log onto bitcointalk ever again ? That seems like the most feasible solution if you only wanted to converse with 'like minded signature hating individuals'.

On a serious note : Concerned people are taking steps to reduce the forum spam. Lauda,Lutpin,(SMAS) to mention a few.

[robelneo]

The answer is very simple, from now on:

Only start moderated threads
Only converse in moderated threads
Simply delete all signature spam posts
Eventually all the signature spammers will die off
Eventually the entire market for farmed accounts will die off
We can still have signatures
But we will not have to put up with people that do not read the thread

Voilà!  Bitcointalk becomes a useful, clean, happy place once again.

Did you forget to mention ,'Start your Own forum' and Voilà  you never have to log onto bitcointalk ever again ? That seems like the most feasible solution if you only wanted to converse with 'like minded signature hating individuals'.

On a serious note : Concerned people are taking steps to reduce the forum spam. Lauda,Lutpin,(SMAS) to mention a few.

I agree Lauda and Lutpin are doing excellent job,you can do your share by reporting spam post,I don't trust moderated threads especially in the altcoin announcement,this is a sign that dev do not want to be transparent and will only answer questions that are easy and will not question the legitimacy of their project,it's one of the sign I'm looking for if the dev is running a good project.

[Pearls Before Swine]

You know damn well most of the threads here are started by shitposting shiteaters who could care less about deleting anybody else's posts.  In fact, these people start stupid threads just so their alts can pile in and shitpost.  This is a forum where you should have to pass a literacy test before being allowed to sign up.  Too much of Asia and Africa is represented here, and culture mixing doesn't work on an English language forum.  Forget about humor and subtlety of language.   That flies over the heads of 80% of people here.

[BurtW]

I have one self moderated thread and I try to keep it as clean as possible, however it may be painful at times.

Agreed, there is extra effort involved.  I plan to take on a few threads that interest me and see how it goes.

Did you forget to mention ,'Start your Own forum' and Voilà  you never have to log onto bitcointalk ever again ? That seems like the most feasible solution if you only wanted to converse with 'like minded signature hating individuals'.

On a serious note : Concerned people are taking steps to reduce the forum spam. Lauda,Lutpin,(SMAS) to mention a few.

I have been here a long time.  I do not want to abandon this place - I want to help clean it up.  It is tempting though:  sell my account and leave.  I have the same quandary with respect to the United States.  I was born here and have spent a lot of time here however after my run in with the whole policing for profit "justice" system our family has often contemplated just leaving.  Instead, we all actively speak out against the abuses of power and, it appears, some progress is being slowly made (I have three talks scheduled this month).

I agree Lauda and Lutpin are doing excellent job,you can do your share by reporting spam post,I don't trust moderated threads especially in the altcoin announcement,this is a sign that dev do not want to be transparent and will only answer questions that are easy and will not question the legitimacy of their project,it's one of the sign I'm looking for if the dev is running a good project.

I have started to report spammers when I see them.  I do not know if they get banned.  Do they?  Perm banning accounts for spamming is a great idea.  Maybe people who pay a pretty penny for a Hero account will be more careful to read threads and contribute if they fear losing their investment to a perm ban.

I understand the pitfalls of moderated threads.  Obviously some thread will need to remain un-moderated as you suggest.

You know damn well most of the threads here are started by shitposting shiteaters who could care less about deleting anybody else's posts.  In fact, these people start stupid threads just so their alts can pile in and shitpost.

I do not care about stupid threads started for the whole purpose of account mining.  I do not read those threads.  However, every once in a while, someone asks a legitimate question and we try to have a legitimate conversation and here come the spammers to pollute a perfectly good thread.  It is those threads that, from now on, I will moderate.  The spammers can have their circle jerk threads.  Do not care.

[Lauda]

This is no answer on a global level. This merely fixes it on a local, or per thread problem. I've been creating primarily self-moderated threads for whatever I do for months/years now in order to combat spam & trolls in them.

Only start moderated threads
Only converse in moderated threads

The latter would be nice, but that still does not solve anything. If you have e.g. 3 self-moderated threads and 17 non-moderated & spam threads in B. Discussion, the problem is very much relevant. The only real benefit is that spammers can't flood threads in which you truly are participating in (i.e. can't bury your responses).

On a serious note : Concerned people are taking steps to reduce the forum spam. Lauda,Lutpin,(SMAS) to mention a few.

This is not enough until >95% of the signature campaigns are either run by SMAS participants or run by people enforcing SMAS.

I have been here a long time.  I do not want to abandon this place - I want to help clean it up. 

To "help" clean it up would imply that someone is actually cleaning it up already. Small hint: There is almost no actual moderation of spam since BadBear left besides some extreme cases (or generic spam bots/copy-paste bots).

[BurtW]

To "help" clean it up would imply that someone is actually cleaning it up already. Small hint: There is almost no actual moderation of spam since BadBear left besides some extreme cases (or generic spam bots/copy-paste bots).

Sad to hear. 

OK, I will just do what I can to make my own personal experience here better.  For me that is to do my own moderated threads on subjects I care about.  This thread is a great example.  Clean, easy to read, not choked by spammers.  Here is another perfect example:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1895455.0;all

The thread where we originally tried to discuss this became unbearable:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1891830.0;all

And this is nowhere even close to the worst thread where I have tried to participate.

[minifrij]

This thread is a great example.  Clean, easy to read, not choked by spammers.

You should lock the thread very soon if you want it to stay that way. It's a matter of time before the cleanliness of this thread goes down the toilet.

Here is another perfect example:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1895455.0;all
The thread where we originally tried to discuss this became unbearable:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1891830.0;all

This is also partly due to the section that the threads are in. Signature spammers don't go into the technical sub forums as they know they can't shitpost there easily. On the other hand, Bitcoin Discussion is possibly the easiest section to do so in.

And this is nowhere even close to the worst thread where I have tried to participate.

Expect it to get much worse. I'm convinced that the majority of new active members only join here to post trash with shitty altcoin signatures.
theymos doesn't care; the staff don't care, not all signature managers care. It's a matter of time before the signal to noise ratio of this forum gets to unbearable levels for the majority.

[ibminer]

DT Users could start tagging spammers but for a serious spam cleanup this type of moderation would have to happen on a higher level, from moderators. Tagging them at least removes their profit potential from most campaigns and would probably "burn" the account enough for them to stop using it. But I don't believe this is what the trust system is meant to be used for. I would report more spam posts if I could but my time is usually limited and I try to use it wisely... I'd spend more than half my time reporting posts and wouldn't have time to look or do much else.      

Some of the others here on this forum must not work or have a life because they seem to have way too much time on their hands.   

[minifrij]

DT Users could start tagging spammers but for a serious spam cleanup this type of moderation would have to happen on a higher level, from moderators. Tagging them at least removes their profit potential from most campaigns and would probably "burn" the account enough for them to stop using it.

Lauda tried this and they received a lot of backlash for doing so. I don't much understand why myself, perhaps it was because Lauda was doing it, but regardless.

I would report more spam posts if I could but my time is usually limited and I try to use it wisely... I'd spend more than half my time reporting posts and wouldn't have time to look or do much else.

You'd be wasting it reporting spam posts anyway. Unless these posts are copy and pasted from somewhere else there is a cat in hell's chance they would be removed.

[Lauda]

OK, I will just do what I can to make my own personal experience here better.  For me that is to do my own moderated threads on subjects I care about.  This thread is a great example.  Clean, easy to read, not choked by spammers. 

That's the bset thing that you can do. Harshly moderate your own threads and promote this kind of behavior to other users who are not spammers.

Here is another perfect example:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1895455.0;all

The thread where we originally tried to discuss this became unbearable:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1891830.0;all

Thanks for sharing that. It's worth a read (the one that you've started).

On the other hand, Bitcoin Discussion is possibly the easiest section to do so in.

This.

theymos doesn't care; the staff don't care, not all signature managers care.

And this.

DT Users could start tagging spammers but for a serious spam cleanup this type of moderation would have to happen on a higher level, from moderators. Tagging them at least removes their profit potential from most campaigns and would probably "burn" the account enough for them to stop using it. But I don't believe this is what the trust system is meant to be used for. I would report more spam posts if I could but my time is usually limited and I try to use it wisely... I'd spend more than half my time reporting posts and wouldn't have time to look or do much else.      

I have been tagging people who were either:
1) Selling accounts (retracted most of those).
2) Heavily account farming (once exposed via reasonable proof).
3) Abusing signature campaigns or SMAS in any way.

That said, your thinking aligns pretty much with mine. However, the last time a few people got tagged for this, there was strong opposition from shorena & Quickseller. I'll let you guess why.

[ibminer]

DT Users could start tagging spammers but for a serious spam cleanup this type of moderation would have to happen on a higher level, from moderators. Tagging them at least removes their profit potential from most campaigns and would probably "burn" the account enough for them to stop using it. But I don't believe this is what the trust system is meant to be used for. I would report more spam posts if I could but my time is usually limited and I try to use it wisely... I'd spend more than half my time reporting posts and wouldn't have time to look or do much else.      

I have been tagging people who were either:
1) Selling accounts (retracted most of those).
2) Heavily account farming (once exposed via reasonable proof).
3) Abusing signature campaigns or SMAS in any way.

That said, your thinking aligns pretty much with mine. However, the last time a few people got tagged for this, there was strong opposition from shorena & Quickseller. I'll let you guess why.

I usually can't find enough proof to bring myself to tag anyone for those 3 things, how do you determine abuse of a signature campaign?  Most of the posts I see can be considered "on topic" but are utterly useless posts or just repetitions of some other post in the thread, same content, different words. In my mind it is a tough thing for a DT user to come up with real proof or justification for leaving feedback. I believe moderators/admins have a better shot at mitigating it because they probably have more insight but I'm sure there is a good amount of work and time involved for them as well.... but aren't they the ones getting paid?   

Just put multiple captcha codes on every post, then you'd have to be really determined to post something. 

[Lauda]

I usually can't find enough proof to bring myself to tag anyone for those 3 things, how do you determine abuse of a signature campaign?  

Campaign have rules. For example, recently it was discovered that a severe signature farmer was avoiding the SMAS list by enrolling with an alt account into Bitmixer (whilst having 1 account banned from there). This is a clear case of abuse which deserves negative ratings.

In my mind it is a tough thing for a DT user to come up with real proof or justification for leaving feedback. I believe moderators/admins have a better shot at mitigating it because they probably have more insight but I'm sure there is a good amount of work and time involved for them as well.... but aren't they the ones getting paid?  

What if you've been a moderator for +- 1 year and have been reviewing hundreds of users/thousands of posts for several months by managing signature campaigns (as is in my case)? I'd say this makes you pretty qualified (probably more than a fair number of moderators). There are a few cases of DT members who have been signature campaign managers for long (e.g. Lutpin & Yahoo).

[LTU_btc]

Your idea is good, but it will not solve signature spam problem. I will explain why. Take a look for example at Bitcoin Discussion threads. Many of threads are started by newbies who don't have knowledge about bitcoin, they don't know forum rules and they don't know anything about signature spam.
Another part of threads is started by casual members of forum who will not waste time to delete replies made by spammers. In mostly cases, member who started thread, later stops to follow topic and it's become perfect place for spammers, until someone from moderators locks the thread.

[awesome31312]

The only reason I am enrolled in a signature campaign is because of posts like these. People should have the freedom to do business with whomever they please. Don't like it? Log out.


Stay mad.

Peace.

Meanwhile, I'm rolling in Bitcoin.

[minifrij]

People should have the freedom to do business with whomever they please. Don't like it? Log out.

Yeah man, it's totally unreasonable for someone to care about something that they've spent thousands of hours on. How dare he want to make the forum a better place for everyone that actually matters. He should just leave the forum for the next generation of quality posters who care so much for the forum, right?

Fuck off.

[_nur]

imho to fight spam just migrate to discourse