What on earth is going on in here? (crapflooding)

[Bramen]

I keep seeing a ton of totally pointless comments in numerous threads from dozens of people, most of them have zero content or contribution to the discussion - although often staying vaguel on topic -, making youtube comments look coherent. Poor command of English doesn't explain all of them, as many just post over and over again. Just take a look at any recent page on this thread for examples.

I'm guessing some of that is due to ICOs encouraging posting of comments about them in various topics, which some abuse by posting nonsense to increase their "engagement". But I see crapflooding in other unrelated threads as well.

Has it always been like this? Will it get better? Signal-to-noise ratio here is abysmal as a result of this crapflooding, making any intelligent discussion really difficult.

Yes, I'm new here.

[jk_14]

I keep seeing a ton of totally pointless comments in numerous threads from dozens of people, most of them have zero content or contribution to the discussion - although often staying vaguel on topic -, making youtube comments look coherent. Poor command of English doesn't explain all of them, as many just post over and over again. Just take a look at any recent page on this thread for examples.

I'm guessing some of that is due to ICOs encouraging posting of comments about them in various topics, which some abuse by posting nonsense to increase their "engagement". But I see crapflooding in other unrelated threads as well.

Has it always been like this? Will it get better? Signal-to-noise ratio here is abysmal as a result of this crapflooding, making any intelligent discussion really difficult.

Yes, I'm new here.

I assume it's a mix of account activity and campaign post farming.

You need a certain amount of activity on your account to be able to apply for certain campaigns. These campaigns have various modalities, some pay you for the amount of posts per week that cross a certain threshold of characters within each post. Some just pay you for posting at least X posts per week. The pay always depends on the activity level though.
That does encourage some form of spam for obvious reasons. That's also why there is a thread (SMAS or something, measures against spam in signature campaigns), that compiles a list of these spammers. Some signature campaigns also try to create rules that encourage "healthy" posting.

I recommend just skimming over those posts. Since you are new to this forum: Do be very careful regarding anything you read on here, regardless of how reputable the person posting might seem. There are a lot of people who try to sway people's opinions in order to profit off of them. They will sometimes lie quite blatantly to get you to sell your coins for cheap (even on exchanges, not necessarily on the forums) or to buy overpriced shitcoins.

As long as you critically think everything through yourself from every side you should be good though.
Always think about how you could screw people over if you were a scammer and then make sure it doesn't happen to you. And don't turn into a scammer yourself, that's just a tactic to protect yourself. There are enough ways to build a fortune without screwing people over, so I hope you will refrain from going down that path in hopes of a quick buck.

P.S. Welcome.

[Pearls Before Swine]

Yeah, welcome to bitcointalk where people get paid to post.  This is exactly what happens, i.e., people from all over Asia and Africa (and many other places) come here, can't read or write English, and they just post complete garbage.  You're absolutely right, and it's not a new thing.

Any thread where you can stand to make money, like the thread you linked to, it's gonna be flooded with crap.  Guaranteed.

The signal-to-noise ratio is extremely low; you got that right.  

When you see crap posts, hit that 'report to moderator' button quicker than you can blink.  That's what I've been doing lately.  My percentage is something like 83%, but I don't care.  Some posts are so pointless that it hurts to even think they exist.

[jk_14]

Reporting posts actually does something? What does the "83%" imply? 17% of your reported posts getting removed? 83% posts getting removed?
Do you actually notice any decrease in spam by reporting, or is it just an extra way to kill time?

Also, are you German or does the Pearls quote actually exist in the English language as well?

[actmyname]

Reporting posts actually does something? What does the "83%" imply? 17% of your reported posts getting removed? 83% posts getting removed?
Do you actually notice any decrease in spam by reporting, or is it just an extra way to kill time?

Also, are you German or does the Pearls quote actually exist in the English language as well?

If you bothered to search in Meta you would find that 83% is the amount that were deleted.

And reports are useful.

[Pearls Before Swine]

Reporting posts actually does something? What does the "83%" imply? 17% of your reported posts getting removed? 83% posts getting removed?
Do you actually notice any decrease in spam by reporting, or is it just an extra way to kill time?

Also, are you German or does the Pearls quote actually exist in the English language as well?

I don't know if it actually does anything, but it's a great frustration reliever.  The 83% thing I believe refers to how much the moderators agree with my reported posts.  I don't know if they've actually done anything whatsoever, but it gives me peace of mind.

Never cast your pearls before swine.  It's the snob in me.  Yes, that exists in English which is why I chose it as my user name.

[TryNinja]

This is the reason the thread posted by you is getting heavily spammed:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2039055.0

* you can post 10 post a day.

Rewards : .0001BTC/per post.

How on earth can someone be able to post 10 times a day in the same thread without spamming nonsenses? The guy managing this campaign is legit asking people to spam on the forum for cents.

[jk_14]

This is the reason the thread posted by you is getting heavily spammed:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2039055.0

* you can post 10 post a day.

Rewards : .0001BTC/per post.

How on earth can someone be able to post 10 times a day in the same thread without spamming nonsenses? The guy managing this campaign is legit asking people to spam on the forum for cents.

At least he is kind enough to signal us which project we should be staying away from, isn't he?

[botany]

I keep seeing a ton of totally pointless comments in numerous threads from dozens of people, most of them have zero content or contribution to the discussion - although often staying vaguel on topic -, making youtube comments look coherent. Poor command of English doesn't explain all of them, as many just post over and over again. Just take a look at any recent page on this thread for examples.

I'm guessing some of that is due to ICOs encouraging posting of comments about them in various topics, which some abuse by posting nonsense to increase their "engagement". But I see crapflooding in other unrelated threads as well.

Has it always been like this? Will it get better? Signal-to-noise ratio here is abysmal as a result of this crapflooding, making any intelligent discussion really difficult.

Yes, I'm new here.

It will not get any better until the forum administrators take a tougher stand on signature spamming. A few bans to the blatant spammers will actually serve as a deterrent to others. Right now, copy-pasters and hacked accounts are getting banned, but not too many others.

[Bramen]

This is the reason the thread posted by you is getting heavily spammed:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2039055.0

* you can post 10 post a day.

Rewards : .0001BTC/per post.

How on earth can someone be able to post 10 times a day in the same thread without spamming nonsenses? The guy managing this campaign is legit asking people to spam on the forum for cents.

Incredible. Perhaps even more incredible is that such an announcement and activity is allowed.

[rizzlarolla]

What on earth is going on in here?

Admin control thousands of farmed accounts, and hundreds of thousand hacked accounts.

They are used for a variety of reasons, the main ones being -
Promoting scams/scam coins,
Destroying discussion or dissent.
To increase the forums "worth"
To allude to mass support.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1670807.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1826778.0

[AGD]

Paid signatures on Bitcointalk have to stop!

[Spoetnik]

The Off-Topic section should be deleted.

[Bramen]

The Off-Topic section should be deleted.

At least that section is easy to ignore. But crapflooders and no-content messages are harder to spot and skip.

[dothebeats]

Reporting posts actually does something? What does the "83%" imply? 17% of your reported posts getting removed? 83% posts getting removed?
Do you actually notice any decrease in spam by reporting, or is it just an extra way to kill time?

Also, are you German or does the Pearls quote actually exist in the English language as well?

I literally am staying all day long in this forum just to hit that little angel button at the bottom left of every brainless post. It helps, and mods are quick to respond whenever you hit that button. Also, the few staffs that we have here in this forum cannot handle the massive mess (especially for non-native speakers who joins a campaign and post nonsense) alone, so a little kind of initiative from the members is also needed as well.

[coolcoinz]

Reporting posts actually does something? What does the "83%" imply? 17% of your reported posts getting removed? 83% posts getting removed?
Do you actually notice any decrease in spam by reporting, or is it just an extra way to kill time?

Also, are you German or does the Pearls quote actually exist in the English language as well?

I literally am staying all day long in this forum just to hit that little angel button at the bottom left of every brainless post. It helps, and mods are quick to respond whenever you hit that button. Also, the few staffs that we have here in this forum cannot handle the massive mess (especially for non-native speakers who joins a campaign and post nonsense) alone, so a little kind of initiative from the members is also needed as well.

THey should make a bounty for people who fight spam. Give them some minimum rights, that would allow them to easily mark spam posts for deletion, skipping the normal report procedure. A designated person hits a button, post appears on the "to delete" list and a mod just clicks to confirm. If the spammers had half of their posts deleted every day it would start to discourage them.

[Bramen]

We got mod action!

The thread pointed to in the OP appears to have been deleted entirely. Just as well since it was clear there was no real product. What's shocking people put their names and faces on that project.

And another altcoin thread (edit: and another ICO thread) I follow has been locked by a mod:

Due to the bounty incentivising posting on the ANN thread (which is an on-forum altcoin giveaway in any and all definitions), this thread is locked. There is zero tolerance for those blatantly breaking the "no on-forum altcoin giveaways" rule.

So it does help to report!

I think the best way to do that is to go to the source: whenever there is a bounty on posting, either report that thread or point to it when people start crapflooding. Or both.