A radical idea to partially clean up sig spamming.

[Jet Cash]

A lot of the problems seem to come from throwaway accounts spamming questionable products. My suggestion is that links in signatures should be restricted to two categories.

- A domain that is owned and hosted by the poster, and proof of ownership should be provided if requested.
- A website that is on an acceptable list that is monitored by a forum admin.

Obviously there are several ways to "play" the restrictions, but I think it would be another way to pick up some of the alt spammers, and it may restrict some of the fly posting links.

[1714902811]

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[bitperson]

A domain that is owned and hosted by the poster, and proof of ownership should be provided if requested.

Not going to happen in the crypto currency world, where no one uses their real name. Hell, even bitcointalk.org is registered to 'WhoisGuard Protected' in Panama

[Welsh]

The staff don't have enough time to verify that the website is owned by the user, and would take a lot to verify that they actually own it too. If signature campaigns only accept high merited users then that should exclude a lot of the spammers that we see. Anyway, some signatures have some awesome unheard of websites and by introducing a centralized list of websites which are allowed in signatures could stop these niche websites from getting noticed.

There's been many in the past, but take Vod's signature for example. Again, if we did have a list of websites that were allowed in signatures then this would have to be approved by staff members and they likely don't have enough time for that.

[Jet Cash]

OK - I accept that.

How about a blacklist of sites then?

[fxstrike]

How about a blacklist of sites then?

Again who will compile and verify the blacklist   I believe after using the forum for sometime we will be able to shoot our attention directly to the juicy part of the post and able to avoid landing our eye to the sig.

One way is, giving each user setting to filter or turn off sig on his view so he will be able to have clean slate view of the discussion text/image only, without any sig and personal text maybe.
That way we don't have to go hostile towards Newbie that probably in later time will contribute to the wealth of discussion

- A domain that is owned and hosted by the poster, and proof of ownership should be provided if requested.

Ask user to embed their BTC address on the their webiste metadata, therefore we know he owns the website if it match with the BTC address mention on their profile.

[Jet Cash]

How about a blacklist of sites then?

Again who will compile and verify the blacklist  I believe after using the forum for sometime we will be able to shoot our attention directly to the juicy part of the post and able to avoid landing our eye to the sig.

One way is, giving each user setting to filter or turn off sig on his view so he will be able to have clean slate view of the discussion text/image only, without any sig and personal text maybe.
That way we don't have to go hostile towards Newbie that probably in later time will contribute to the wealth of discussion

It isn't so much the members who are at risk - I use ignore more and more frequently these days. It's the lurkers and other visitors who don't have any control over viewing. Bad or scammy links give a very bad image to the forum, and this is reflected in the comments on some other forums.

Ask user to embed their BTC address on the their webiste metadata, therefore we know he owns the website if it match with the BTC address mention on their profile.

Google ask for a simple text file that they provide to be left in the root directory of the site. I suspect they check this regularly.

[fxstrike]

It isn't so much the members who are at risk - I use ignore more and more frequently these days. It's the lurkers and other visitors who don't have any control over viewing. Bad or scammy links give a very bad image to the forum, and this is reflected in the comments on some other forums.

Set Guest view by default to no sig and no personal text, only logged in User can turn on or off sig and personal text view, change some SMF config and its done sitewide
Otherwise staff will have to do lots of manual work that probably much better use for other things

[iqlimasyadiqa]

A lot of the problems seem to come from throwaway accounts spamming questionable products. My suggestion is that links in signatures should be restricted to two categories.

- A domain that is owned and hosted by the poster, and proof of ownership should be provided if requested.
- A website that is on an acceptable list that is monitored by a forum admin.

Obviously there are several ways to "play" the restrictions, but I think it would be another way to pick up some of the alt spammers, and it may restrict some of the fly posting links.

It is one of the best solutions to oversee forums from spammers who provide useless links. Yes there are some forums that have been moderated automatically so that when there is a user who made a post and the link is included to the list in the block then the link will not be displayed. There must be a big change that can make the forum much better, manual checking can actually be done, but it takes time and also the resources are not small. If we want to optimally then integrate with AI which is currently already being used and applied in various things including the website.

The use of increasingly advanced technology will help us develop this forum, as time goes by the technology must be renewed and we can not just stand still. Technology is running and we have to keep up with it.

[bitperson]

Ask user to embed their BTC address on the their webiste metadata, therefore we know he owns the website if it match with the BTC address mention on their profile.

Google ask for a simple text file that they provide to be left in the root directory of the site. I suspect they check this regularly.

Sorry to shoot down everything, but these solutions cause issues for users who don’t have access to the file system or who aren’t even able to put arbitrary meta tags in their pages. Think blog platforms.

On the other hand, proficient users can deploy redirects, links, intermediary pages and similar techniques to send the visitor from their compliant site to the intended target site.

[fxstrike]

It is one of the best solutions to oversee forums from spammers who provide useless links. Yes there are some forums that have been moderated automatically so that when there is a user who made a post and the link is included to the list in the block then the link will not be displayed. There must be a big change that can make the forum much better, manual checking can actually be done, but it takes time and also the resources are not small.

Going back to first step, Why need such radical moderation ? if it is to prevent lurker viewing unwanted links and spams, better turn off sig and personal text to Guest visitor from SMF, manually checking sig probably very time consuming and would not as effective because user will add link all the time 24 hours, staff doing checks needs to work around the clock

If we want to optimally then integrate with AI which is currently already being used and applied in various things including the website.

The use of increasingly advanced technology will help us develop this forum, as time goes by the technology must be renewed and we can not just stand still. Technology is running and we have to keep up with it.

Sounds overkill, can be accomplish with few lines of code if not already available on SMF

[fxstrike]

Sorry to shoot down everything, but these solutions cause issues for users who don’t have access to the file system or who aren’t even able to put arbitrary meta tags in their pages. Think blog platforms.

blogspot you can add meta tags but need to edit the template, this is just an idea probably there is some other better method can be employed to do this

On the other hand, proficient users can deploy redirects, links, intermediary pages and similar techniques to send the visitor from their compliant site to the intended target site.

Put small link for user to click once to report problematic pages with redirects and pop up, probably will not weed out everything but can help controlling it.

[AdolfinWolf]

I have an even more radical idea,



Simply disable everyone's signatures if they're of such great annoyance to you, (or if you're easily seduced by what people are offering through them).

Why would/should the administrators (which in this case comes down to theymos) scan EVERYONE's signature just to make sure some dumbass doesn't buy a product through a user's signature that turns out to be a scam? Where did everyone's common sense go?

The forum currently allows the posting of HYIP sites, there's even a dedicated board for it. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=207.0, and what i'm trying to say with that is; who's to determine what's a scam, and what is not?

One could argue that the product i'm advertising is used for money-laundering, while others could argue that it is a great tool to enhance your privacy (me!). What stance should the forum take? This will ultimately lead to the forum being biased towards certain products/services, which is something i personally really wouldn't want to see.

[bitperson]

I have an even more radical idea,



Simply disable everyone's signatures if they're of such great annoyance to you, (or if you're easily seduced by what people are offering through them).

The problem isn’t that signatures would be annoying or seductive. The problem is that the opportunity to advertise in the signature leads spammers to spew garbage posts that clutter up the forum, making it less useful and less enjoyable.

[Jet Cash]

I think you are missing the point. It isn't the displaying of the signatures that is the problem. It's the scamcoins that pay semi-literate posters to pollute the boards with garbled messages that are/were destroying the forum.

[fxstrike]

The problem isn’t that signatures would be annoying or seductive. The problem is that the opportunity to advertise in the signature leads spammers to spew garbage posts that clutter up the forum, making it less useful and less enjoyable.

This forum is rendered according to that user profile setting, once you set it to turn off displaying sig, you won't see that link/spam but other user who want to see it they can set it on, their forum experience will be cluttered with link/spam.


There is global sitewide option to turn it off but staff already decided that user should choose what their forum should look and feel

I guess what you say is

So far this is not working because you see lots of spam cluttered your experience, try turn it off and see what your experience feels like.


Whether spammer put link on their signature field or not will not determine it got display or not on other guess visitor or user's browser

[Jet Cash]

So far this is not working because you see lots of spam cluttered your experience, try turn it off and see what your experience feels like.

The cluttering spam is not the signature, it's the crap that has the signature hanging on its coat tails.

I do tutn them off, I use the ignore button. Unfortunately, non-members don't have that option, so they are faced with a load of semi-literate drivel when they visit the forum. Then they go off to another forum, and report on the low grade content on Bitcoin Talk.

The merit system is starting to make a difference in my opinion, but there is no single solution to the problem of increasing world unemployment, and the resulting attention that Bitcoin Talk aand other "money for doing nothing" projects seem to be getting.

[fxstrike]

I think you are missing the point. It isn't the displaying of the signatures that is the problem. It's the scamcoins that pay semi-literate posters to pollute the boards with garbled messages that are/were destroying the forum.

Turn off sig and avatar at specific board, like Meta for example so everyone at Meta won't see any spam or any signature at all

[fxstrike]

So far this is not working because you see lots of spam cluttered your experience, try turn it off and see what your experience feels like.

The cluttering spam is not the signature, it's the crap that has the signature hanging on its coat tails.

I do tutn them off, I use the ignore button. Unfortunately, non-members don't have that option, so they are faced with a load of semi-literate drivel when they visit the forum. Then they go off to another forum, and report on the low grade content on Bitcoin Talk.

The merit system is starting to make a difference in my opinion, but there is no single solution to the problem of increasing world unemployment, and the resulting attention that Bitcoin Talk aand other "money for doing nothing" projects seem to be getting.

Site admin have that option but they do not turn it off not sure why
Probably the best is communicate with them and ask, because all of us here do not have that access

[Bitfort]

....
The problem isn’t that signatures would be annoying or seductive. The problem is that the opportunity to advertise in the signature leads spammers to spew garbage posts that clutter up the forum, making it less useful and less enjoyable.

I second that.
Problem are campaigns requiring users to make given number of posts a week (or in general encouraging them to make more posts). That's the source. Baning or reporting/redmarking users does not help at all (they go and buy another account and all repeats).

Killing bees leads nowhere. What we need is to burn the hive and kill the queen.

[Jet Cash]

Killing bees leads nowhere. What we need is to burn the hive and kill the queen.

What a stupid thing to say. If there were no bees, ther would be virualy no food in the world. Honey is one of nature's great health foods as well.

We need more bees here, and fewer of the incompetents spraying verbal pesticides on them.