The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam

[TheBeardedBaby]

Now this made me curious   , before that the interval between 10k accounts was also 699.208 seconds.
So somewhere between Sep 28 and October 01 we witnessed a new spike in users interested in bitcoin some ICO bumpers got new clients.

It's more likely a new wave of bots coming towards us coz many got banned last month, and it takes a bit of a time for the puppeteer to figure all out.

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[DdmrDdmr]

<…>

It’s highly likely a batch of accounts prepared for bots as you say. Looking at the interval we focused on, using @Loyce’s system I managed to narrow down a huge peak of new accounts created on September the 29th 2018, with over 7K accounts created in the span of 24 hours, way above average:

Code:

UserId    Date Registered                                   Hours and minutes to next block of 1k accounts
2409000    September 27, 2018, 11:59:27 PM                   23:59
2410000    September 28, 2018, 07:49:28 PM                   19:50
2411000    September 28, 2018, 11:06:53 PM                   3:17
2412000    September 29, 2018, 03:12:44 AM                   4:05
2413000    September 29, 2018, 06:56:44 AM                   3:44
2414000    September 29, 2018, 11:11:30 AM                   4:14
2415000    September 29, 2018, 02:15:30 PM                   3:04
2416000    September 29, 2018, 05:36:53 PM                   3:21
2417000    September 29, 2018, 08:36:16 PM                   2:59
2418000    September 30, 2018, 02:58:29 PM                   18:22
2419000    October 01, 2018, 09:25:49 AM                     18:27
2420000    October 01, 2018, 07:43:00 PM                     10:17
2421000    October 02, 2018, 02:13:11 PM                     18:30
2422000    October 03, 2018, 09:07:42 AM                     18:54
2423000    October 04, 2018, 02:20:10 AM                     17:12
2424000    October 04, 2018, 09:51:51 PM                     19:31
2425000    October 05, 2018, 07:50:27 PM                     21:58

Fits my peak and @stompix's narrowed down version.

[LoyceV]

@DdmrDdmr So some spammer registered about 6000 accounts in the time that normally 1000 accounts would have been registered. That means 6 out of 7 accounts in that block are owned by a spammer, and somewhere in the future they'll be running spam bots.
I checked a few usernames, and see very similar patterns. And this comes on top of the normal spam accounts that are created already!

Some usernames:
Af7er68957h3da
usedA3ri31a
d3l0r4As1e3p3241
Alys5mi5sion
l4r63karoly
Eachzaria5005

And they probably use different patterns too.

[DdmrDdmr]

<…>

Yes, it rather interesting and dam well worrying to see these sorts of patterns, creating large set of accounts waiting to be set in motion at some point (or going through evil IP issues and spinning IPs somehow until they get accounts created that are free of this concept). Maybe the subscription process could/should be tightened a bit at some point somehow. It seems just too easy to program a burst of automated account creations right now…

[bitart]

...
So in the end, those 20%-30% are where it really matters,and if a few (hundred) mega threads would be trashed it would probably still be some hope to save the bitcoin discussion section.
...

I always suggest to just delete those megathreads and 99% of the off topic section, that would decrease the activity count of the farmed accounts....
I know that there is a lot of useful post in the spam megathreads too, but anyway... "Wo gehobelt wird, fallen Späne." (similar in engish: "You can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs")

[LFC_Bitcoin]

Loyce, what would you have done here? Found myself in two minds a while ago. This poster made a good, constructive post. I checked his post history though & it was litteted with crap posted in the Bounty/Altcoin subsection.

I was going to send him the 1 Merit he needed for the original post but decided against it because I’d be the one responsible for him ranking up.

Merits can be earned by posting high quality topics and a topics that can produce a good discussion ! Yes it's a reality that only high rank members get a lot of merits and us newbies or low ranks gets nothing because of these reasons:

1. High rank people has more knowledge and experience in this forum thus they can produce a good topic and discussion
2. Mostly high ranking people gets the chance to create & manage bounties (legit and high quality bounties gets a merit from participants or reviewers)
3. High rank people are not afraid to post a comment or topic because they know all the rules to avoid a ban

Those are some of the major reasons I think... if there is some other reason just qoute it !

Here is a reason why newbies or low ranks don't get any merits or less merits:

1. Low Rank people or newbies has less/no knowledge and experience thus they cannot produce a good topic or a good comment in this forum
2. Low Rank people or newbies (those accounts who are not owned by ICO's) didn't get the chance to create & manage bounties for the reasons that ICO's base only on trust, ranks & importantly experiences
3. Low Rank people or newbies is afraid to post a comment or topic because they really don't know fully the rules to avoid a ban

And also in addition many says that merits are just created just to ruined the lives of newbies and low ranks they are created to make the people on top more rich. Maybe that's true but its up to you newbies & low ranks if you want to make your rank up ! You need to make more effort and have more learnings about this business for you to be able to make a good topics and discussions to produce merits ! Everything cannot be owned without efforts ! Face it ! Don't compare yourself to those high ranks make your own name and be on top and you can make a change by helping those newbies go up also !

I was going to send you 1 Merit for this post but I checked out your post history & it’s littered with Bounty Hunting spam so I’m not going to now, sorry.

You’ll never rank up if the majority of your posts are in that shit hole of the forum. More posts like this though & you’ll rank up.

[LoyceV]

OP updated, and calculation slightly changed:

• In the first week after the announcement, 286408 posts were made (-19.05%).
• In the second week after the announcement, 280503 posts were made (-20.72%).
• In the third week after the announcement, 259694 posts were made (-26.60%).
• In the forth week after the announcement, 263685 posts were made (-25.47%).

Loyce, what would you have done here? Found myself in two minds a while ago. This poster made a good, constructive post. I checked his post history though & it was litteted with crap posted in the Bounty/Altcoin subsection.

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I'm with hilarious on this one:

But isn't this attitude counter-productive? We're meant to be rewarding users who make decent posts and if a user makes one then that post probably should be merited. I get your logic though ~

But on the other hand I'm with DdmrDdmr too:

~A decent post does not make up for a lame prior posting history. ~

To conclude my mixed feelings: I've merited all posts on the subject in that thread, including the "bounty spammer". It's all worth reading. Since he (she?) is a Copper Member anyway, and received 1 Merit by the time I read the post, one more Merit isn't going to change anything. I'd like to encourage users to stop spamming, even if it's just one post.
The worst case would be if it's one of many alt accounts that receives 1 Merit for 1 good post, after which the spammer continues spamming with his army of alt accounts. If that's the case, he'll never continue making good posts.
On the other hand, if it's a real user, he might put in a bit more effort in at least some of his posts in the future. If my Merit can help accomplish that, it's well worth it.
There's another thing: as much as I hate spammers, I don't really mind them as long as they stay on their own bounty spam board. Theymos created that board for that reason, and as long as theymos allows it, who am I to judge them?

[MagicSmoker]

But isn't this attitude counter-productive? We're meant to be rewarding users who make decent posts and if a user makes one then that post probably should be merited. I get your logic though ~

But on the other hand I'm with DdmrDdmr too:

~A decent post does not make up for a lame prior posting history. ~

I'm mostly in DdmrDdmr's camp, too, but I also get the point hilariousandco is making. If newbies haven't made at least a couple of decent posts in the month since the new requirements for jr. member took effect then it's probably safe to say they will never get better. Conversely, if a former shitposter/bounty hunter has managed a few good posts in that time then I am less opposed to meriting them. I, personally, won't merit anyone whose post history mostly consists of bounty reports, but that's just a personal preference and, like I said, I see the point hilariousandco is making w/r/t encouraging those users who (might) have realized the error of their shitposting ways.

[Armagh1234]

Of course this is going to happen. This is no mystery. You removed the signature of so many users by demoting them to newbie. All the users and multi-account owners that were shitposting non-stop to get to 15 posts a week for the signature campaigns.

You want to make it even better? How about this:

This is my humble suggestion: :
Have a MAXIMUM number of activities or posts for junior and Member ranked profiles in Bitcointalk per week or month.
I see people with 200+ activities and only one merit that they probably bought/scammed someone to get. THESE accounts are the real shitposters.

[hilariousetc]

But isn't this attitude counter-productive? We're meant to be rewarding users who make decent posts and if a user makes one then that post probably should be merited. I get your logic though ~

But on the other hand I'm with DdmrDdmr too:

~A decent post does not make up for a lame prior posting history. ~

I'm mostly in DdmrDdmr's camp, too, but I also get the point hilariousandco is making. If newbies haven't made at least a couple of decent posts in the month since the new requirements for jr. member took effect then it's probably safe to say they will never get better. Conversely, if a former shitposter/bounty hunter has managed a few good posts in that time then I am less opposed to meriting them. I, personally, won't merit anyone whose post history mostly consists of bounty reports, but that's just a personal preference and, like I said, I see the point hilariousandco is making w/r/t encouraging those users who (might) have realized the error of their shitposting ways.

This is why I think we should make the merit requirement ten. Nobody has time to go through a users post history to check it and this is something we shouldn't even have to do. I'm fine with one merit for becoming a Junior, but not to get a signature. Lets remove Juniors sigs completely and make the merit requirement ten to get one. That way we can be way more liberal with merits and at least a shitposter will have to redeem themselves by making multiple quality posts so their previous history shouldn't be something we have to worry about as they've probably redeemed themselves if they've managed to get the ten merit. Ten merit is also obviously ten times harder/more costly to abuse and one is far too easy to get or abuse right now. I think this benefits everyone and will probably make it easy for users to get the merit, or at least make them put more effort in over several posts rather than just hoping they get the merit for one decent post (which users are obviously reluctant to merit if it's an anomaly).

[MagicSmoker]

...
Lets remove Juniors sigs completely and make the merit requirement ten to get one. That way we can be way more liberal with merits and at least a shitposter will have to redeem themselves by making multiple quality posts so their previous history shouldn't be something we have to worry about as they've probably redeemed themselves if they've managed to get the ten merit.
...

Hmm... the phrase I underlined is an interesting point which I hadn't thought of despite that I already agreed with your 10 merits to enable sigs suggestion. I definitely would be freer with handing out merits if it took 10 to enable sigs and though I would still check posting history because that's just the way I am, I rather suspect I wouldn't be nearly so thorough about it - just skim the first page, rather than actually read each post on the first 2-3 pages. But this is mainly because of the new form of insidious bump-bot I've been hunting, which engages in "low value discussion" (that is, a two-way conversation that is devoid of real content, as opposed to low value posting, which is basically unidirectional).

[coin8coin8]

Hello, I have been a member of forum since 7-8 months now and was ranked a Junior Member a few days back but recently i coudn't login due to bad health for quite some time and now finally when I was back and healthy and logged in, it showed my rank to be a Newbie. Can anybody elaborate what actually happened? Sad Huh Huh Huh Huh Huh Huh

As you can see my activity is more than 30, which is required for anyone to become a junior member. However, it has become newbie rank. I don’t understand why this has happened. Has the ranking system changed? do I need to appeal for my rank? What do I do?

Kindly, someone help me out with this query. I don’t know what to do.

Thanks.

What went wrong with my account because I have been on a Jr member position and have opened my profile today when it has changed to a newbie, what's the problem???

Questions about 1 merit/newbie have created some sort of new spam. You can see similar topics every day in Beginners & Help section. Don't you think these topics are spam?
If they are not lack of reading ability, the topic that is repeatedly posted by these lazy people should be considered as spam.
Maybe a rule should be added to the forum rules. “Post questions about Merit/rank are not allowed.”

[farelada33]

It's reduced the amount of posts, doubt that the average quality has changed that much. I see just as much junk posted from high level accounts as from Jrs.
Giving old accounts a lot of merit when the system was released was a mistake, they've since mostly been giving merit out to eachother.

I disagree with your opinion, sometimes the rank of Jrs also needs their aspirations to be asked in this forum.
I don't think all Jrs accounts make junk posts, but need to be reminded if their posts aren't quality.

[chokomenia]

You are absolutely right, you will easily notice it if you are a regular reader or commenter on the altcoin section of the forum, the amount of comments and new topic has reduced since the implementation of the 1 merit to Jr.Member, this has got to show that many Jr member in the forum are farm account. The next place admins should focus attention is on the bounty section. 

[LoyceV]

OP updated:

• In the first week after the announcement, 286408 posts were made (-19.05%).
• In the second week after the announcement, 280503 posts were made (-20.72%).
• In the third week after the announcement, 259694 posts were made (-26.60%).
• In the fourth week after the announcement, 263685 posts were made (-25.47%).
• In the fifth week after the announcement, 240339 posts were made (-32.07%).
• In the sixth week after the announcement, 240045 posts were made (-32.15%).

Note how close the fifth and sixth week's number of posts are.

[erikoy]

OP updated:

• In the first week after the announcement, 286408 posts were made (-19.05%).
• In the second week after the announcement, 280503 posts were made (-20.72%).
• In the third week after the announcement, 259694 posts were made (-26.60%).
• In the fourth week after the announcement, 263685 posts were made (-25.47%).
• In the fifth week after the announcement, 240339 posts were made (-32.07%).
• In the sixth week after the announcement, 240045 posts were made (-32.15%).

Note how close the fifth and sixth week's number of posts are.

This means that the number of farm accounts post has stabilized and reduced to nearly -32.15%. This is really a good news to the forum and bad news for the user account farmer. I bet spam post will be minimize and users will be encourage to post constructively.

I am more than happy for this because it is so difficult to jump up a discussion with pointless idea posted in a certain thread. I'm afraid that hundreds of post per thread are all pointless and spam which is not good for a discussion process.

[stompix]

OP updated:

• In the fifth week after the announcement, 240339 posts were made (-32.07%).
• In the sixth week after the announcement, 240045 posts were made (-32.15%).

Note how close the fifth and sixth week's number of posts are.

So, have we hit bottom?   
To be honest I would have expected the numbers to be back in the green from a week ago as more and more newbies get promoted the right way or by buying their rank and the initial shock is long gone.

Probably the only thing that will cut spam and bring the number even lower will be a decrease in ICOs and that might prove even more devastating for account farmers than this 1 merit requirement

[LoyceV]

I forgot to update this thread last Monday, here it is:

• In the first week after the announcement, 286408 posts were made (-19.05%).
• In the second week after the announcement, 280503 posts were made (-20.72%).
• In the third week after the announcement, 259694 posts were made (-26.60%).
• In the fourth week after the announcement, 263685 posts were made (-25.47%).
• In the fifth week after the announcement, 240339 posts were made (-32.07%).
• In the sixth week after the announcement, 240045 posts were made (-32.15%).
• In the seventh week after the announcement, 219689 posts were made (-37.91%).

So, have we hit bottom?  

No, the number of posts dropped further!

To be honest I would have expected the numbers to be back in the green from a week ago as more and more newbies get promoted the right way or by buying their rank and the initial shock is long gone.

I think most of the deranked Jr. Members are still Newbies. To my best knowledge, many tens of thousands of Jr. Members were deranked, and at most a couple of thousands received at least 1 Merit or bought Copper Membership.

Probably the only thing that will cut spam and bring the number even lower will be a decrease in ICOs and that might prove even more devastating for account farmers than this 1 merit requirement

Possibly

[TheBeardedBaby]

Slowly going towards the 50% drop. Soon we have to celebrate.The homographs are gone (almost 100% based on the forum search engine). Some sections look way better than before, including the Off-topic.

[tranthidung]

It is possibly that the new rank requirements, which specifically target at Junior Members [abundant in the forum before the implementation] has shown its strongly long-lasting effects.
Despite of merit abusements from demoted Juniors who ranked up again, but it is obviously that there are so many guys who can not abuse the system and have still got stucked at Newbie.
Most of them stopped showing their shits around the forum.

No, the number of posts dropped further!

One more thing, the total merits distributed within the week from 28th of October to the 4th of November fell dramatically.

Therefore, it is interesting to wait for next weeks to see that whether we will see the first week that has total merits distributed below 2.5k.
2.5k is a figure which imply potential outliers 25th quartile.
More details analysed and presented there:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2818350.msg47817456#msg47817456