The Newbie/spammers problem. Solution anyone?

[Retty]

Hi guys, i feel a bit cheeky posting this having only been here a short time.  

I just thought i'd give you my perspective (as a Newbie) on what I have seen so far and what seems to be a real problem- spammy,crappy posts/profiles.

I'm not sure if this has went on for years or whether there has been an influx of people arriving here since the price of Bitcoin went as high as it did. One thing I can tell you though is that every time I see one of these "what is bitcoin, "when price go up" posts i literally shake my head because another dummy has joined the club- and i have only been posting here for a week, so god only knows how the people who've been here for years must be feeling about it?

The Problem

Obviously there have been a few guys from a poor/disadvantaged background slipped through the net here and are possibly making very good sums of money (for the country they reside in) for literally bringing nothing to the table, quite happy to sit here in the shadows and not contribute or make any effort. Then a snowball effect as they tell their friends and they tell theirs etc etc. I don't know the numbers but can only assume there are a hell of a lot of new people joining here on a daily basis that aren't genuine or here to contribute. Don't get me wrong here, I'm sure a few of the shitposters are trying their very best to learn and fit in with the status quo, though i suspect a lot are here for a meal ticket.

The Impact

I had a look at the Alexa ranking before and had no idea this place would be as highly ranked as it is. Amazing! Its testament to you all for making it the place it is! It just concerns me that with the influx of fakes  and crappy posters that come here, it may harm genuine visitor retention (in the long term), potentially harm future campaigns/bounties/revenue source as advertisers get fed up of unscrupulous profiles talking gush. Above all, i'm concerned that the user experience won't be quite what it was? This is total assumption by the way. It may have always been like that round here i don't know.

The Solution

Is there one? I'm unsure what has previously been tried or tested. For the record, I think the Merit system that has been implemented here is one of the best moves you could have made, and was VITAL for the longevity of the site. It surely will keep out a lot of the trash, which surprisingly- a lot of people fail to see.

To give my 2 cents, i'd say there needs to be a more thorough registration process, stopping a little short of a KYC , but certainly requiring a little more information from each individual to verify if they are genuine or not. If someone has the potential to make bank from here, they shouldn't be able to register multiple accounts to exploit and cheat the system, at the expense of other peoples work, knowledge and insight.

Anyhow, thanks for sticking with this, I apologise in advance if i'm repeating something previously discussed. I might have this totally wrong and I stand corrected if that's the case but i'd love to hear your thoughts too?

[1714806060]

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[1714806060]

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[bitart]

...
The Solution

Is there one? I'm unsure what has previously been tried or tested.
...

The problem you describe exists and known. Several ideas were already mentioned and the merit system was implemented. There's no 'holy grail' for this situation, the forum needs to find the balance between strict rules and the freedom of speech, and this is not easy...
Read back a bit (in Meta) if you want to see possible solutions already mentioned here.

[1miau]

At first: I’m also a Newbie, if my comment is a little bit far-fetched please correct me. I think a rank is one thing, the other thing is what you are writing about. I’ve seen some Full Members or higher ranked accounts writing posts they are, let’s say a little bit meaningless. (I don’t want to criticize anyone, but it is how it is)

@Retty: I appreciate your report and I can confirm a lot of this. Thank you for sharing!

I don’t know about the situation before the merit system, but I’m right there with you this is a good measure to prevent cheating and only users sharing meaningful comments will rank up over time. The quality of posts should be affected in a positive way.

We all know how unequally the money in the current system is distributed. There are only a few very rich people and the main part is very poor especially in developing nations. They are suffering from poverty and if they have a chance to get money they will take it. That is why I can understand all the effort of them, even if it’s very limited.
The problem is the current money system and its distribution, Bitcoin wants to stand up against this.

And yes, the result of their participation is a huge amount of meaningless spam, especially for bounties. Stopping this will be very likely not possible, I think if the price per Bitcoin raises again we’ll see another bunch of new members only interested in bounties coming in here.


I agree that a merit system like we have it today is one of the most important things in addition to the moderators giving their best to clean up the most bullshit.

But I have some concerns launching a registration process like a KYC. One of the main points Bitcoin stands for is anonymity (at least you can see the transactions but it isn’t related to a name). The most of the latest upcoming ICOs require KYC, even some bounties or airdrops and I don’t know if this is the right direction. This was never the idea from Satoshi and I don’t know if he’d liked the idea to implement a KYC in this forum.  
It’s true a KYC will complicate cheating but we would have to pay this with everyone’s privacy.

To prevent cheaters and scammers there are already many measures to prevent this. We have the merit system, the trust system and after all the bounty managers.

This is my main point we can still improve: every bounty manager should run less campaigns but do more research about the participants joining his campaigns. There are lots of things we can improve regarding bounty management, so only a short conclusion:
- less but more meanigful comments per week for signature campaigns
- stakes distribution only if a certain amount of merit is reached during the campaign
- check connected accounts and weed out signature cheaters / excessive shitposters
- check carefully if the translations are original or from a Google-Translate-cheater (therefore I’ve created a thread in the German section to prevent and report this, translation cheating seems to be a big problem in the Altcoin section)
- a blacklist of cheaters (valid for every section of the bounty like content, social media…) used by every bounty manager (difficult to implement, but quite effective I think)
…

Finally OP has mentioned an important issue. Thank you for that and I think it is possible to have a good solution everyone can arrange with

[Retty]

Thanks for the very thorough reply 1miau, i agree with pretty much all you've said.

It is a bit of a double edged sword for me this topic, as on the flip side i honestly and genuinely do feel sorry for some of these people who will be absolutely desperate for cash, in some places the money they would collect from bounties is a kings ransom. That said, I have always been a believer that if you work hard- you get your reward. Cut corners and cheat- you get found out.

On a moral level, i'd be interested to see how a weekly/monthly 'Merit point leaderboard/awards challenge' open to all, categorized to best post of week/month, best newbie, best senior, most improved etc etc- you get my drift. Don't have to be offering large amounts of Merit, but its milestone to reach and i think it could encourage learning, reduce crap posting, and perhaps increase the overall quality across the site.   

[coolcoinz]

If someone has the potential to make bank from here, they shouldn't be able to register multiple accounts to exploit and cheat the system, at the expense of other peoples work, knowledge and insight.

Why? More than one account doesn't have to mean spam. There are people here who have more than 1 account and are not making any money on it. At the same time there are people here with more than one account and only one in a campaign. Don't put them all in one basket with newbies who come here hoping for a good and easy gain.
Making sure each person has only 1 account would reduce spam for sure, but how would you enforce it? Confirmation links would be an improvement but you can make a new mailbox almost instantly. A phone maybe? But what about those who have a couple numbers? I think it can't be done.

[Retty]

I hear you coolcoinz i do! 

I know what you mean and where you're coming from. As mentioned on this thread its tough to create a magic formula and one that everyone is in agreement on.

[Welsh]

The Solution

The perfect solution doesn't exist. The only thorough 'solution' would be to impose restrictions. Whether, that would be completely removing signatures, bounties, and campaigns or limiting certain sections to certain ranks. I've made this clear a few times that I'm normally against restrictions, however this particular issue is effecting the forum in every aspect. Therefore, restrictions may well be justified in this case.

The thing is about the other solutions we could ask the campaign managers to set stricter rules until we are all blue in the face, but they aren't going to do anything, unless there's punishments for their actions. The advertisers which hire the managers aren't interested about those who spam, and only that their name gets out there. So convincing them would to request stricter rules would also be a lost cause.  

They are suffering from poverty and if they have a chance to get money they will take it. That is why I can understand all the effort of them, even if it’s very limited.

Effort? If they put in a effort there wouldn't be a problem. I'm not against people who want to make a living off the forum if they can. But, breaking the rules, and making the forum unpleasant for others isn't something I tolerate.

The fact of the matter being is they put in minimal effort even though they claim they can make a living from the payments they receive from campaigns. I don't know about you, but if I was getting paid well I would be motivated to further my skills, and keep that job. It's well known that money is a good motivator, and is often offered as an incentive. For example, promotions are often chased after by existing employees resulting in increased workload from them.

So what I can't understand is why these very people don't work on their posts, and language skills. But, I guess we already know it's a lack of moderation from the campaign managers. If there was much stricter rules put in place on who gets accepted only the best of the best would be accepted. Resulting in a cleaner forum, better posts, and legitimate people who put in the effort getting selected.

Currently, the majority don't make any effort at all. All they make an effort in is ranking up their accounts, and getting accepted. Then they are set, and spam throughout the forum.

And yes, the result of their participation is a huge amount of meaningless spam, especially for bounties. Stopping this will be very likely not possible, I think if the price per Bitcoin raises again we’ll see another bunch of new members only interested in bounties coming in here.

This could be stopped if there was restrictions imposed. Although, I don't think this is the best solution it's definitely a option right now which I'm hoping theymos is at least considering if the other options don't work.

There's also more moderation, however this also has it's drawbacks, but I would prefer to have a few more mods that complete restrictions.

But I have some concerns launching a registration process like a KYC. One of the main points Bitcoin stands for is anonymity (at least you can see the transactions but it isn’t related to a name). The most of the latest upcoming ICOs require KYC, even some bounties or airdrops and I don’t know if this is the right direction. This was never the idea from Satoshi and I don’t know if he’d liked the idea to implement a KYC in this forum.  
It’s true a KYC will complicate cheating but we would have to pay this with everyone’s privacy.

Alright, yeah I can agree on you with this. I think it's worth mentioning that KYC wouldn't completely prevent it either. There's several ways that someone could submit faked documents, and the process would require quite a bit of manpower to verify this sort of information as well as storing it securely which is probably one of the biggest concerns. KYC would never be implemented on Bitcointalk, but campaign managers might go down this route.

I don't see why KYC would actually help the spam issue really.

This is my main point we can still improve: every bounty manager should run less campaigns but do more research about the participants joining his campaigns. There are lots of things we can improve regarding bounty management, so only a short conclusion:
- less but more meanigful comments per week for signature campaigns
- stakes distribution only if a certain amount of merit is reached during the campaign
- check connected accounts and weed out signature cheaters / excessive shitposters
- check carefully if the translations are original or from a Google-Translate-cheater (therefore I’ve created a thread in the German section to prevent and report this, translation cheating seems to be a big problem in the Altcoin section)
- a blacklist of cheaters (valid for every section of the bounty like content, social media…) used by every bounty manager (difficult to implement, but quite effective I think

1/2. Ideally posts would be restricted to a merit system which you would be required to earn a certain amount of merits per period. However, I understand that many great posts don't receive merit so this could be an issue as it's then based on RNG especially given that some of the payment periods are 1/2 weeks.

3. Probably hard to do if they haven't already been tagged. Quite frankly most campaign managers don't do any research into their participants other than looking at their first page of history.

4. This is very difficult if you don't speak that language yourself. It can be easy to spot Google translations now, and again. But, sometimes Google translations can be surprisingly accurate as well. You would have to speak the language yourself or have someone on your team able to speak it which kind of defeats the point of hiring someone to translate posts then. Translations are based on trust which unfortunately gets abused due to it being difficult for the non speaker to verify if the translation is accurate.

5. Several lists exist. The fact of the matter being is campaign managers don't care about who they employ to spread their name as long as it's happening. To them the more the merrier.

Why? More than one account doesn't have to mean spam. There are people here who have more than 1 account and are not making any money on it. At the same time there are people here with more than one account and only one in a campaign. Don't put them all in one basket with newbies who come here hoping for a good and easy gain.
Making sure each person has only 1 account would reduce spam for sure, but how would you enforce it? Confirmation links would be an improvement but you can make a new mailbox almost instantly. A phone maybe? But what about those who have a couple numbers? I think it can't be done.

Every system that's imposed to prevent those from registering multiple accounts will be bypassed. It's simply to hard to determine whether an account is connected if the proper measures are taken. Plus, I don't see the problem with alternate accounts. Many people have alternate accounts for many different reasons. I'll give a few examples; 1. Bot accounts to scrape data from the forum, or post charts. 2. To access the forum on a insecure connection/device. 3. Separate their personal opinions from that of their business.

There's probably many more reasons to have alternate accounts that I'm not listing here. Alt accounts fundamentally aren't malicious.

[NavI_027]

Making sure each person has only 1 account would reduce spam for sure, but how would you enforce it? Confirmation links would be an improvement but you can make a new mailbox almost instantly. A phone maybe? But what about those who have a couple numbers? I think it can't be done.

That's what I am thinking right now. If 1 account = 1 person system is the most feasible way to eradicate spamming and shittyposting then I agree with you that it is very hard to implement. Making fake accounts or even identities is now easy with the kind of technology we had right now that's why making a gateway in making alt accounts here is not impossible anymore. Another, IMO bitcointalk is not too strict when it comes to new member applications, I mean even though there is a rule stating that creating an alt account is wrong, it still remains a word — don't have enough power to enforce what being said. That's why the "suspect" (creator of alt account) still don't care and comfortable to insist doing such act because nothing bad will happen on him (he will not be punished or able to be blacklisted here personally).

What if every account registrations here requires basic personal information like real name, age, birthday with verification system like presenting a government issued ID. I know this sounds risky because you leak datas about yourself but this is the only thing I know to avoid having so many accounts with the same user. What do you think?

[seoincorporation]

What if every account registrations here requires basic personal information like real name, age, birthday with verification system like presenting a government issued ID. I know this sounds risky because you leak datas about yourself but this is the only thing I know to avoid having so many accounts with the same user. What do you think?

No, no and NO. The crypto world was born under the idealism of anonymity. This is a Bitcoin forum, even its creators bet for anonymity since the very beginning. Now, by having the real names and the ID from users only puts the forum into danger.
How many attacks the forum has? Uncountables!!! Also, with all the persecution towards the crypto users coming from the government, if they ask for government ID, it can become a hacker's feast. Besides, for sure, most of the most important users in here will abandon the forum forever if such kind of request is introduced (which is not going to happen, anyway).

This is the most unthoughtful reply I've ever read.

To me, the restricted use from newbies is the best way. They will be able to write just on one board, and, at the moment they have 5 merits they will become juniors (yes, I think Newbies should need to earn merits to become JRs) and be able to go out their board. Even so, this is difficult, for they can just buy some merits, but at least will maintain clean the rest of the forum. Of course, the newcomers' board should offer to the newbies the possibility of earning merits for good participation by having seniors around there searching the one's deserving reward.
This is one possible way to stop all the spamming feast the forum is becoming, at least it will mean that newbies can't just make money since the very first moment, but they have to work and to create some good topics in order to be able to go away their board.
It can be a possible solution, though.
Another one is already implemented: the report to moderator button, do not be afraid of using it.

[Retty]

Well said SEOcorporation, I as a newbie (at present) would fully support that move of having the 5 merit to move up a level, as at the minute its just a bit of a free-for-all and some-not all- are clearly treating this place as a meal ticket, which in turn reduces the quality content, which in turn increases the bounce rate as people simply do not want to see bullshit posts.

Let me reiterate, i'd be happy to lose my bounty sig if it means it's for the greater good and i will wait patiently to 'rank up' to junior. Anyone who is here to genuinely participate will surely increase their knowledge and effort here in order to attain merit, and therefore be awarded the rewards that come with it.

[seoincorporation]

Well said SEOcorporation, I as a newbie (at present) would fully support that move of having the 5 merit to move up a level, as at the minute its just a bit of a free-for-all and some-not all- are clearly treating this place as a meal ticket, which in turn reduces the quality content, which in turn increases the bounce rate as people simply do not want to see bullshit posts.

Let me reiterate, i'd be happy to lose my bounty sig if it means it's for the greater good and i will wait patiently to 'rank up' to junior. Anyone who is here to genuinely participate will surely increase their knowledge and effort here in order to attain merit, and therefore be awarded the rewards that come with it.

To me, to be in a campaign doesn't mean to be a shitposter. Notice I wear a signature, as well, for I need the money and I always try to do my best in my posting activity. To be a shitposter is to be a lazy person, willing to suck the forum to your own selfish reward. Of course, Campaigns managers should be responsible for checking out the quality of the posting activity of their employees, for if they took this path, probably the quality if the discussion in the forum would be increased in a 300%.
Lazy people, in a resume, is the biggest problem in here, as well as managers and newbies.
How to change it? Well, by being more strict with the quality and with the manager's work.

It seems far to be accomplished, though. The Internet is making the people lazy as hell, they don't read anymore, they just don't care... this is difficult to change how it works, but maybe is necessary to create a newbies' jail and to implement a further control to bounty's and signature's quality.

[mu_enrico]

<...>
The Solution
If someone has the potential to make bank from here, they shouldn't be able to register multiple accounts to exploit and cheat the system, at the expense of other peoples work, knowledge and insight.
<...>

Multiple accounts are allowed according to the rule:

18. Having multiple accounts and account sales are allowed, but account sales are discouraged.

<...>
The Solution
i'd say there needs to be a more thorough registration process, stopping a little short of a KYC , but certainly requiring a little more information from each individual to verify if they are genuine or not.
<...>

I think you came to the wrong conclusion solution here. The problem is with the post itself so the solution should be in the posting mechanism, not registration mechanism. Restricting registration won't stop the existing spammers who already ruin the forum. So the solution should also affect existing members. Reputation point (merit) seem to be the best lame solution here. In addition to merit, maybe this forum should implement a captcha for posting, at least to break the bots?!

[coolcoinz]

To me, to be in a campaign doesn't mean to be a shitposter. Notice I wear a signature, as well, for I need the money and I always try to do my best in my posting activity.  strict

Most forum members have it, it's not about wearing a signature but about your behavior.
I have a signature, because why not? If somebody is willing to pay me for nothing, I'll always take the money. I'm not posting a lot and my campaign is one of the low paying ones, but I don't care. It's that free bottle of whisky once a week or free Internet, because my sig sponsor pays for it. The problem starts when greedy people start treating it like a full time job.

It seems far to be accomplished, though. The Internet is making the people lazy as hell, they don't read anymore, they just don't care... this is difficult to change how it works, but maybe is necessary to create a newbies' jail and to implement a further control to bounty's and signature's quality.

I think a merit requirement for every rank might be interesting. Other things like ID's are impossible to enforce and verify. This would require many hours of work and people could still use fake, stolen, or bought IDs.

[actuallytwolamas]

OP I had the exact same thoughts when I joined the forum, almost all threads flooded with shitposts, nobody reading other people answers, or trying to discuss something, everybody just spamming almost the same answers. I had thoughts about creating a similar thread but I just can't express my thoughts as good as you in English.

KYC is definitely is not a solution here.

As other members mentioned similar solutions, but I think this would be pretty effective.
Newbies can't post on any board on the forum except new Newbies board, Announcements (Altcoins), and on Bounties threads.  
Users should be promoted to Jr. Member when you reach 5 Merit, and then you can unlock all forum, and post everywhere except in boards where is higher rank requirements.

So most of the spammers will be locked, in those 3 boards, and could spam all day long, without earning any Merits. You just couldn't spam your way out of these 3 boards, so after some time, I think they just lose hope, and leave or will start to create meaningful threads or participate in discussions.

Just my two cents.

[Retty]

Good to hear all of your thoughts. Being totally honest here i do feel a little apprehensive coming here saying the things I have said in this post, as i obviously haven't been here a fraction of the time most of you have. In terms of anything iv'e said, please don't think for a minute i am throwing my weight about and saying we should do this or we should do that. I think maybe my words weren't clear enough on what i wrote about multiple accounts too. If someone has 20 accounts and they are posting great content that's awesome, i was in truth referring to "bounty hunter" accounts when i said that.

 It just seems that from what iv'e read in the short time since i arrived here, is that the issue has been worsening, hence the amount of threads of a similar nature. I could be wrong of course.

I thought that perhaps some established members may want to hear about the whole merit/shitposter/scammer problem from a fresh perspective. To let you know what newbies think when they see these ANN bounty threads 80-90 pages long all with the same "great project sir" bullshit parasitic intentions.

[coinlocket$]

Now that we have merit an "hard solution" is to limit the altcoin section to Member+ since a lot of newbie accounts, in my opinion, are created as alt accounts from 3rd world countries to abusing bounties and they will never rank up, sure they can buy merit 1 time, 2 times, 3 times but the airdropped merit will end and if they will get redtrust 3-4 times for them it will be over.
They can easly rank up few accounts but for farmers with 100+ accounts is a great "hard solution".

And for users above here, KYC is not what we looking for forum.

[jonemil24]

.....
potentially harm future campaigns/bounties/revenue source as advertisers get fed up of unscrupulous profiles talking gush. Above all, i'm concerned that the user experience won't be quite what it was? This is total assumption by the way. It may have always been like that round here i don't know.
.....

The problem started with bounty campaigns, and I think that bounty managements should be the one to solve it. If you roam around the forum, you will see reports of bounty cheaters who spammed the forum.

.......
To give my 2 cents, i'd say there needs to be a more thorough registration process, stopping a little short of a KYC , but certainly requiring a little more information from each individual to verify if they are genuine or not. If someone has the potential to make bank from here, they shouldn't be able to register multiple accounts to exploit and cheat the system, at the expense of other peoples work, knowledge and insight.
.......

One of the biggest community management who handled various of bounty campaigns, have made their first step to verify if their participants are genuine by doing KYC on their own system.

If all of the bounty managements from this forum will do the same thing, the problem might be solved.

[NavI_027]

What if every account registrations here requires basic personal information like real name, age, birthday with verification system like presenting a government issued ID. I know this sounds risky because you leak datas about yourself but this is the only thing I know to avoid having so many accounts with the same user. What do you think?

No, no and NO. The crypto world was born under the idealism of anonymity. This is a Bitcoin forum, even its creators bet for anonymity since the very beginning. Now, by having the real names and the ID from users only puts the forum into danger.
How many attacks the forum has? Uncountables!!! Also, with all the persecution towards the crypto users coming from the government, if they ask for government ID, it can become a hacker's feast. Besides, for sure, most of the most important users in here will abandon the forum forever if such kind of request is introduced (which is not going to happen, anyway).

This is the most unthoughtful reply I've ever read.

I'm so sorry sir, I already think of that to be honest. I just came to that idea maybe because I'm frustrated on finding solutions for what's happening right now. Maybe I'm just panicking since merit system is although working but seems not strong enough (just my opinion) because shitposters/spammers can still be able to their stuffs and only permabanned from the mods can stop them. Don't get me wrong, I'm just considering the sake of our mods because I'm sure they get tired of banning those bad posters. Once again, I'm sorry.

[lottery248]

in regard of banning the certain spammers as you have mentioned, i have been thinking of the same.

first of all, about how to decrease the spammers through the ban:
rather than banning them permanently, or the ban strike(s) stand(s) forever instantly as they spam, except it is evident that the targeting user is bot, i would recommend the bitcoin forum to refer what Google will do about the strike policy, each ban strike is expired 90 days after the violation, and they will not be considered anymore once it expires. this is aimed to, in case the spammers are willing to get it corrected, decrease the account creation intended to spam. ^{FYI i was banned for 'spamming' with a further reason of 'using translators' but that day i did only 2 posts, for at least 14 days with signature campaign.}

next, let's have a minimum visible character limit per post, and do not count as activity if their posts do not meet the minimum requirement of visible characters. spammers just want the rank, but they might not have enough words per reply.

i think forum can further limit posts allowed per IP per minute, or require captcha to post if they exceed the quota per minute, especially for the people who are probably using the VPN to bypass the ban.

those are my opinion

[seoincorporation]

Once again, I'm sorry.

Don't worry, don't take it personal.

in regard of banning the certain spammers as you have mentioned, i have been thinking of the same.

first of all, about how to decrease the spammers through the ban:
rather than banning them permanently, or the ban strike(s) stand(s) forever instantly as they spam, except it is evident that the targeting user is bot, i would recommend the bitcoin forum to refer what Google will do about the strike policy, each ban strike is expired 90 days after the violation, and they will not be considered anymore once it expires. this is aimed to, in case the spammers are willing to get it corrected, decrease the account creation intended to spam. ^{FYI i was banned for 'spamming' with a further reason of 'using translators' but that day i did only 2 posts, for at least 14 days with signature campaign.}

Maybe, because banning them permanently just causes them to come back with another account...

next, let's have a minimum visible character limit per post, and do not count as activity if their posts do not meet the minimum requirement of visible characters. spammers just want the rank, but they might not have enough words per reply.

The problem is that sometimes a line is more than enough, and the spammers will copy-paste anything in order to continue spamming the forum. I think the only way is to return to the newcomer's jail and to implement merits for becoming a JR.
If you need merits to become a junior, two things are going to happen:
1.- They will farm, and exchange merits (either for sex, money or other favors), but, given the jail, it is going to be far more easy to see.
2.- Most of the newbies seeking to spam and each some cents will be soon discouraged.