Shouldn't bounty managers clean up spam posts in their thread ?

[friends1980]

Disclaimer: I do not claim that bounty managers are spammers!

So I've been spending the past few days cleaning up some bounty threads by reporting several messages as spam. ALL of them were accepted with a 100% accuracy rating. I am talking especially about these two types of posts:

1. "you are great sir you project i see great future go to moon you have my support".

These come mostly - but not always - from Newbies without Merit, or from the infamous 1 Merit Junior Members. No doubt some of these come from fake accounts, especially if their activity is 1.

2. Bounty campaign updates for campaigns that finished weeks and even MONTHS ago!

You've seen these things before, surely:

WEEK # 17 (21/09 - 27/09)
TWITTER
Twitter Link: XXXX
Likes and Retweets:
1. XXXX
2. XXXX
3. XXXX

FACEBOOK
Facebook Link: XXXX
Liked and Shared Posts:
1. XXXX
2. XXXX
3. and so on...

They are part of the bounty game, so I suppose we just have to live with them. But continuing to post these horrible things, while quoting themselves from the weeks before that, not only weeks but sometimes even MONTHS after the campaign has ended, can only mean two things: either you don't care enough about this forum and the campaign to just read the OP from time time. Or you're a robot.

Some examples are this (ended August 15th). Or this (ended July 31st). And this (ended 4 months ago, it's even marked in the thread's subject but people still post updates). Sigh...


Suddenly it occurred to me: what the heck am I doing? Cleaning up someone else's mess? My respect for the mods on this forum who have to try and keep these threads spam-free has only grown bigger... Sometimes they really must have the feeling the situation is hopeless...


I have nothing against bounty management or against bounties - heck, I am participating myself, so I would be a huge hypocrite if I would have a problem with them. Some managers really make the effort of adding "ENDED" to the subject thread, but that doesn't help against robots. I just think the amount of spam in the bounty threads could be seriously reduced - and the forum mods could be relieved from a serious part of the spam cleaning - if this responsibility would be delegated to the bounty managers. Same goes for translators of bounty threads.

My gentle suggestions:
1. Keep your threads self-moderated.
2. Clean up nonsense posts.
3. Clean up bounty updates once the campaign is over.
4. Close the thread as soon as all bounties have been distributed.

If the bounty managers were to take this responsibility, it could also create an indirect but nonetheless very important extra advantage: it could largely improve the quality of the bounty campaigns, and at the same time reduce the number of fake threads. Cause if you are responsible for keeping your thread clean from spammers and robots, you might think twice before opening yet another fake or spam airdrop or bounty thread.

If you've read some of my other posts, you'll already know that I don't like to impose rules. But bounty managers could for instance keep their thread self-moderated on a voluntary basis for anti-spam reasons. At the same time, it could also give their campaign and their management skill an extra credibility boost.

In a nutshell, bounty managers, forum mods, forum members and even crypto-project leaders and teams: everyone could profit from this!

[suchmoon]

It looks as if bounty campaigns might be causing spam. I may need a few days to recover from this shock.

Seriously though, commendable attitude, sadly nothing's gonna happen until theymos decides to reign them in.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Good job in doing your part, OP.  Keep reporting those shitposts--especially from the 1-merit wonders. 

And you know, I'm kind of in the mood to do some spam reporting myself.  I think I'm going to un-ignore some of the altcoin sections and see what I can find.  I'm damn sure I won't have to look very hard.

Also, I totally agree that bounty managers ought to be more diligent about keeping their threads clean, but unless they suffer some consequences for not doing so, they have no motivation to do it.  The managers should do a lot of things they don't currently do, like weed out shitposters and alt accounts, but most of them could care less.  It's sad.

[friends1980]

Also, I totally agree that bounty managers ought to be more diligent about keeping their threads clean, but unless they suffer some consequences for not doing so, they have no motivation to do it.  The managers should do a lot of things they don't currently do, like weed out shitposters and alt accounts, but most of them could care less.  It's sad.

I try to see their side from the story too. Even if campaigns cause spam, the spamming itself is not done by the campaign managers, if you know what I mean. But I'm not trying to defend them either. The story is just not one-sided and indeed, they really could do A LOT more.

Nonetheless, if they would at least start reporting spam in their own bounty thread, or if they would actively clean up spam themselves, it could actually help them to gain some respect from the other members in the community and relieve the mods a bit.

Really man, just try to clean up one of the links that I posted in the OP. Reporting spam posts one by one. I can tell you, after 50 reports I started asking myself some serious existential questions... Poor mods...

[Theb]

This isn't avoidable as they are using the thread as a way to report their requirements and it won't change until they find a solution externally. Also cleaning up hundreds of post will be an impossible task for the bounty manager as he is only one person. The solution I am currently seeing is for the future post reports done by the members which are to be sent elsewhere and they can do this maybe by sending their reports outside of Bitcointalk maybe with the help of Google Docs/GForms, with this way we won't be flooded by these kinds of posts in the future, and that we can maybe clean the past reports without any worry that it will pile up with new ones.

[coinlocket$]

Yes they should do but ofthen those are not self-moderated threads.
The spam in the bounty threads that noone will ever read (maybe not even the good manager) is one of the best ways to find abusers.
The most part of this report when the campaing is over, its done by bots and you can check back their post history to find the original higher rank account.

like this one
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4456229.msg46146141#msg46146141

From post 7406 till 7412 I can bet they are multiaccount-bots.

[friends1980]

Also cleaning up hundreds of post will be an impossible task for the bounty manager as he is only one person.

I am only talking about the posts made in the bounty thread itself. It's not at all "hundreds" of posts, and if you close the thread at the end of the campaign, you'll hardly have to clean up a thing.

If they have the time and energy to manage, calculate and distribute hundreds of bounties, they really won't mind spending one minute a day to keep their thread clean and the community happy, don't you think? And if they don't want to self-moderate, they simply can hit the "Report to moderator" link and the cleaning will be done by the mods.

If they don't, the cleaning will have to be done by other members and especially by the mods. And then, indeed, we won't be talking about hundreds but about thousands of posts, which is exactly where we stand today.

[khufuking]

I have noticed this and was always wondering if this just bots!! or there are people behind this accounts!! Trust me it is hard to believe that there are real people that dumb behind this accounts, I am a member of many bounty channels and I saw how much managers keep warning that making more than one post to report the work will result in a disqualification from the bounty, I know that's this is not enough but that is not my point here, my point is they will not get paid! So if you are a real person how you can miss this? So are they bots? Is there even a possibility that there is a bot exist that can do all this work? From the tweet, share, like, and so on...!

All bounty have a bounty group in Telegram, so I think all bounty thread should be locked after ended and if anyone has a problem he/she can connect with the manager in the Telegram channel. Maybe this is a rule that needs to be forced on all the campaigns. But that will not solve the report quotes spamming.

[shield132]

My gentle suggestions:
1. Keep your threads self-moderated.
2. Clean up nonsense posts.
3. Clean up bounty updates once the campaign is over.
4. Close the thread as soon as all bounties have been distributed.

There is no need to keep threads self-moderated, just click "Report to moderator" and shit post will be removed as soon as possible.

It looks as if bounty campaigns might be causing spam.

Yeah, I can see see posts that are worse than google can translate lol and usually those members wear signatures of different ICO projects.
I say and repeat again, hang on those members, also reminder: you can rarely see spammers in Development & Technical Discussion and Bitcoin Technical Support, thanks to gmaxwell and achow101 too.

[TheBeardedBaby]

We need a general guidelines for the bounty managers as well as for the Ann thread managers.

I suggested something a day ago I'll just quote it here.

If you wanna manage a campaign you should follow some guidelines (rules - but we don't like this word as we don't want to enforce any restrictions but somehow we have to put the things in order) even if you are a newbie/copper member.
Maybe it's time someone to make one list and have it pinned in the bounty sections.
Something like >

1. Every bounty manager should provide information rearing the holder of the funds (escrow) for the campaign, and also provide a signed message from the address with the bouny reward capital.
2. To participate in signature campaign, a certain amount of earned merit should be required.
3. All the reports should be made off the forum or in a single post, edited for all the week updates. 
4. Low quality posts should not be counted (eligible for payment).
5. Multiple low quality posts should result in user disqualification from the campaign and receiving no payment for the whole period of the campaign.

I'm sure people with more experience can come up with more of guidelines. Those a just the ones that came to my mind now.

[friends1980]

We need a general guidelines for the bounty managers as well as for the Ann thread managers.

I considered adding ANN threads to my OP, too, but then I thought we really can't expect people to follow up their ANN threads for months or - if the project is successful - even years. Or can we? At least, for a bounty thread, the final date is already known from the start and the manager will (or should) be there during this whole period.

[TheBeardedBaby]

We need a general guidelines for the bounty managers as well as for the Ann thread managers.

I considered adding ANN threads to my OP, too, but then I thought we really can't expect people to follow up their ANN threads for months or - if the project is successful - even years. Or can we? At least, for a bounty thread, the final date is already known from the start and the manager will (or should) be there during this whole period.

Normally, bounty thread should be locked around a month after the final distribution of the rewards. This is the ideal case. The problem is that those managers don't take their work seriously and just leave the mess after the end of the campaign. The Ann threads should also be controller no matter how successful the project is, this will give the project better reputation at the end.

Well I guess this will never happen as theymos is following "the less rules the better" philosophy.

[OgNasty]

The crazy part is that some bounty managers have the audacity to claim they're preventing spam...  They need higher standards as to whom they allow to participate, but they only care about getting as much money as they can.  I believe some go as far as to create scam ICOs using alt accounts just to get people to invest so they have money to pay themselves to run these spam campaigns, act as escrows, and then participate in the campaigns using their alt accounts.

We are seeing a step towards reigning in these members with the introduction of merit and the restriction of lower member levels making it a bit more time consuming for them to continue with these tactics.  It is sad that theymos is having to start taking steps to address the issue of paid managers failing to protect the forum from spam, but I think with some more restrictions and eventually the banning of those found to be acting in bad faith with regards to bounty programs, ICOs, and alt accounts, we may see some improvement down the line.

(not limited to "their own thread" in my thinking, but relevant to the underlying problem)

[jcriss]

STAKE AN ADDRESS!!! That's all you have to do, stake any public key that can be signed and you're good to go, why can't people learn this?

As I'm still new and learning, is there away (code in wallet source) to use the verify messages to stop bounty farming. Kind of a way to lock 1 wallet to one user on here no matter what address he/she/it/thing (there is like 40 something gender identities these days)

So I've asked this question before

Yes there is. I think I get what you mean.
But that would be for bounty managers to do? And turning down free advertising is just a joke...

was answered the admin should be holding the bounty managers to a higher standard.

[ice18]

Well said @OP, I can see many bounty threads that already finished months or weeks ago and abandoned by the bounty managers  (like this) but still many newbies and even higher ranks still posting their bounty reports, there are only two persons can blame in this kind of problems the participants for not even reading the updates on op and the bounty managers who doesn't even care to closed the thread properly if the campaign was already  ended.

[vit05]

I do not think the bounty topics are so damaging to the forum. I do not see problems for the forum in these reports. Of course, there are several possibilities of this being avoided. And locking the topic up when the campaign ended would be great. But in a high moderate topic, there will also be many doubts about the project and the manager. But the big problem of spam in the forum is not in those who are reporting comments made on facebook and twitter.

The problem is in the comments in sections that should be more serious like Bitcoin Discussion. Altcoin etc. And in these situations, Bountys Managers should use their power to exclude users who only write spam. But they would not have the ability to delete the comments made by these users.

[hilariousetc]

Shouldn't bounty managers clean up spam posts in their thread ?

Well they should, but the problem is they don't.

1. "you are great sir you project i see great future go to moon you have my support".

Most love any sort of comments because they keep threads bumped to the top so it doesn't matter what gets posted in there as long as something is.

These come mostly - but not always - from Newbies without Merit, or from the infamous 1 Merit Junior Members. No doubt some of these come from fake accounts, especially if their activity is 1.

Most of them are bots and there's thousands. The rest are mostly just bounty and account farmers looking to easily rack up their post count.

2. Bounty campaign updates for campaigns that finished weeks and even MONTHS ago!

You've seen these things before, surely:

WEEK # 17 (21/09 - 27/09)
TWITTER
Twitter Link: XXXX
Likes and Retweets:
1. XXXX
2. XXXX
3. XXXX

FACEBOOK
Facebook Link: XXXX
Liked and Shared Posts:
1. XXXX
2. XXXX
3. and so on...

They are part of the bounty game, so I suppose we just have to live with them. But continuing to post these horrible things, while quoting themselves from the weeks before that, not only weeks but sometimes even MONTHS after the campaign has ended, can only mean two things: either you don't care enough about this forum and the campaign to just read the OP from time time. Or you're a robot.

These aren't that much of an issue to me, especially when they're confined to the bounty sub, but we could disallow this sort of claiming and only allow the announcement there and their TWITTER/Twitter Link: XXXX/Likes and Retweets claims would be prohibited and only allowed to be claimed off site somehow. They are an eyesore and completely pointless. 99% of the people claiming them are probably using multiple alt accounts and completely fake twitter and facebook profiles anyway but the ICOs don't care.

Suddenly it occurred to me: what the heck am I doing? Cleaning up someone else's mess? My respect for the mods on this forum who have to try and keep these threads spam-free has only grown bigger... Sometimes they really must have the feeling the situation is hopeless...

It is. Sadly theymos and cyrus don't seem to care too much and anything that requires much work or time from them is just ignored. Plenty of solutions have been made and some of them are very simple and things like adding more staff and distributing workload between current staff could be done within minutes and the board would benefit instantly. The best we get after a year of complaining is a one merit requirement which is a small step in the right direct but clearly isn't enough to tackle the huge abuses that are going on here and we're already seeing how easy it is to get around: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5037225.msg46135292#msg46135292

My gentle suggestions:
1. Keep your threads self-moderated.
2. Clean up nonsense posts.
3. Clean up bounty updates once the campaign is over.
4. Close the thread as soon as all bounties have been distributed.

If the bounty managers were to take this responsibility, it could also create an indirect but nonetheless very important extra advantage: it could largely improve the quality of the bounty campaigns, and at the same time reduce the number of fake threads. Cause if you are responsible for keeping your thread clean from spammers and robots, you might think twice before opening yet another fake or spam airdrop or bounty thread.

This is sadly too much to ask. Most ICO Managers are lazy and greedy and because there's no repressions for doing a bad job they will just do the least amount of work possible and spam the forum in any way they can do to maximise exposure for their ICO. This is obviously something that needs to change and several solutions have been proposed, one of the most effective being punishing ICOs who come here and do nothing but contribute to the destruction and unreadability of the forum. If that was to happen then the culture of spam here would soon change.

[Jet Cash]

If you change your signature to promote your new project, then the constant bumping of your old threads will promote the new project.

[Tszunami98]

Well I guess this will never happen as theymos is following "the less rules the better" philosophy.

I am very active in that section and i can tell you that things are slowly changing, nothing happens over night. There are bounty managers who already moved the reporting phase on their own platform.

Maybe there is a need of more competent bounty managers. Anyway, things have progressed.
Last year managers like Jamalaezaz Cancer accepted users in various bounty campaigns only if we could keep a percentage of their reward at the end. Now, there is no such behaviour among managers...as far as i know.

Adding too many rules can get confusing and, like in every ecosistem, the worst thing you can do is to attack it's economy.
Small and well thought steps along with competition will eventually eliminate bad behaviour.

There has to be as less rules as possible, because if you study economy, you will understand that the market always finds a way to regulate itself.

[Jet Cash]

if you study economy, you will understand that the market always finds a way to regulate itself.

But not always for the general good - look at banking for example. If banking hadn't been self-regulating, then Bitcoin would never have been created.