Is there any point in reporting spam megathreads?

[Don Pedro Dinero]

I’ve been reporting quite a few spam megathreads lately, but it has reminded me of the Sisyphus myth, where a man pushes a rock up a mountain, only to see it roll it down when he arrives at the top. Then, he goes down, and starts pushing it up again.

I’m saying this because I can report lots of threads, but new ones can be opened. In fact, they are opened every they. And in many cases, you cannot report them as soon as they are opened because their OP is somewhat interesting, but they turn into spam megatheads later on.

What do you think about it?

[TheBeardedBaby]

The more people report them the less they gonna be, now the sig. spam is reduced and the new threads should not be so many as before. Btw those megatheads are perfect for plagiarism hunting.

Hopefully soon Piggy and LoyceV can use their bots/scripts to scan through for copy/pasting.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Some of the boards almost needs a fresh start, kind of like what Flying Hellfish did when he became mod of P&S. There are loads of spam threads, and old ones that have been dead for a month or two are frequently bumped and then the spammers flood them again.

All spam megathreads need locked, and then any thread growing to over say 5 pages needs actively monitored by a dedicated board mod. Within 5 pages OPs question is usually (not always) answered, there is no ongoing discussion, and the comments are just generic one or two liners posted to meet bounty requirements.

[InvoKing]

Spam megathreads initially may contain some informations but once they pass few pages the discussion is literally a garbage and no one read the last pages for not saying the last post.
That's why i would like to see it locked once it passes let's say 10 pages for example.
You can report it but you will likely get some bad reports or it will remains unhandled.

[o_e_l_e_o]

You can report it but you will likely get some bad reports or it will remains unhandled.

I report several spam mega threads a day. They have 100% record of either being locked or trashed. I would encourage others to do the same.

[Theb]

You can report it but you will likely get some bad reports or it will remains unhandled.

I report several spam mega threads a day. They have 100% record of either being locked or trashed. I would encourage others to do the same.

It really depends on two things, the condition of the megathread as well as the moderator who is handling it. Some megathreads out there still has a good conversation going even if they have 20+ pages but some megathreads almost contain spam and they are the ones who need to be brought down. Also the final decision whether it gets trashed or not is the moderator reviewing your report, so it still comes down on their personal assessment on the thread. You are maybe just lucky that all your reports are accepted by a mod.

[shield132]

Is there any point? Of course there is, it's nice for our eyes and nervous to see less spammy threads. In Bitcoin Discussion section there are sometimes so shit threads like bitcoin can cure cancer and etc lol. And these people post here blindly, just to grow their post count and don't care how stupidity will be written by their hands, hands in best situation, otherwise google translate rises here.

[hilariousetc]

I’ve been reporting quite a few spam megathreads lately, but it has reminded me of the Sisyphus myth, where a man pushes a rock up a mountain, only to see it roll it down when he arrives at the top. Then, he goes down, and starts pushing it up again.

I’m saying this because I can report lots of threads, but new ones can be opened. In fact, they are opened every they. And in many cases, you cannot report them as soon as they are opened because their OP is somewhat interesting, but they turn into spam megatheads later on.

What do you think about it?

Well you've touched on a huge problem here that needs to be addressed, but what we need to be doing is tackling the issue at the source. And of course the source of the spam megathreads in the campaigns and their managers that pay these users to post in them continually. As long as shoddy campaigns can get away with paying spammers then nothing at all is going to change and a handful of reporters and mods is not enough to defeat thousands of shitposters shitposting every day. That's why there needs to be some community standards for signature campaigns and punishments for those that don't abide by them. Until there is then it's just like fighting a a hydra; you trash or lock one thread and then two more have already popped up in their place.

The more people report them the less they gonna be, now the sig. spam is reduced and the new threads should not be so many as before. Btw those megatheads are perfect for plagiarism hunting.

Well plagiarism is another huge issue in itself that we need to address, but we shouldn't be leaving threads up just so we can catch copy and pasters easier.

Some of the boards almost needs a fresh start, kind of like what Flying Hellfish did when he became mod of P&S. There are loads of spam threads, and old ones that have been dead for a month or two are frequently bumped and then the spammers flood them again.

All spam megathreads need locked, and then any thread growing to over say 5 pages needs actively monitored by a dedicated board mod. Within 5 pages OPs question is usually (not always) answered, there is no ongoing discussion, and the comments are just generic one or two liners posted to meet bounty requirements.

As I just said in another thread, theymos has all the stats of all the reporters in each separate sub board and there's already quite a few very high reporters to choose from including some very long-standing and pretty trusted users. I've suggested a couple in the past that I'm sure would make a huge difference, but leaving sub like Bitcoin Discussion without dedicated mods is only going to make it worse whilst putting more pressure on existing staff to handle the mountains of reports coming in which is never ending.

[Jet Cash]

I believe that every board should have a spam megathread. I'd rather the spambies posted in that, rather than pollute all the decent threads. I ignore most threads that have more than 40 or 50 replies, unless they are an interesting tech discussion of course.

It would be great if the mods moved the spam they don't want to delete into that thread as well. Who cares if it becomes a garbled string of non sequiturs, I won't be reading it anyway.

[Jet Cash]

Nah, few board/section such as Development & Technical Discussion (along with all child-boards), Bitcoin Technical Support and Serious discussion are fine without any spam megathread.

I agree with that, and I would add Ivory Tower.

I was thinking of Beginners', Bitcon Discussion, Political, Off topic, and maybe Meta, etc. It would be nice to maintain some interesting flows into some of the threads there.

[LTU_btc]

Nah, few board/section such as Development & Technical Discussion (along with all child-boards), Bitcoin Technical Support and Serious discussion are fine without any spam megathread.

I would add Beginners and Help. Few years ago it was full of spam megathreads, but then mods started to lock topics after question was answered. The problem that now this board is full of question about bounties, airdrops, merit and etc.
Also, after appointing dedicated mod in Politics and Society situation improved a lot there. But it's still not perfect.

[Vod]

I would add Beginners and Help. Few years ago it was full of spam megathreads, but then mods started to lock topics after question was answered. The problem that now this board is full of question about bounties, airdrops, merit and etc.
Also, after appointing dedicated mod in Politics and Society situation improved a lot there. But it's still not perfect.

Well, that is the kind of users this forum is attracting right now.

As long as a person can get paid a little bit for something as trivial as posting some words, this will continue.

[TheUltraElite]

Is there any point? Of course there is, it's nice for our eyes and nervous to see less spammy threads.

It would really help if the moderation of the Bitcoin Discussion section would be a bit more strict and threads would get trashed quicker. Something like a 25 Page reply limit before auto-lock would be great. After that if the discussion needs to be continued a section seperate for these Spam MegaThreads can harbor those threads. Never suggested this before and I wonder what others would say.

In Bitcoin Discussion section there are sometimes so shit threads like bitcoin can cure cancer and etc lol.

Only weed-hungry brain dead bottomfeeders would say that.

And these people post here blindly, just to grow their post count and don't care how stupidity will be written by their hands, hands in best situation, otherwise google translate rises here.

I try to troll some of them who post blindly without reading but these people dont ever come back to that thread to see if someone point out something or not. 

[jackg]

And these people post here blindly, just to grow their post count and don't care how stupidity will be written by their hands, hands in best situation, otherwise google translate rises here.

I try to troll some of them who post blindly without reading but these people dont ever come back to that thread to see if someone point out something or not. 

Not to mention that they probably didn't write it themselves and merely copied and pasted something 10 pages before...

[Vod]

Is there any point? Of course there is, it's nice for our eyes and nervous to see less spammy threads.

It would really help if the moderation of the Bitcoin Discussion section would be a bit more strict and threads would get trashed quicker. Something like a 25 Page reply limit before auto-lock would be great. After that if the discussion needs to be continued a section seperate for these Spam MegaThreads can harbor those threads. Never suggested this before and I wonder what others would say.

Agreed - 600+ pages of something as simple as "Is the earth flat?"... the answers the OP needs have been posted a hundred times already.  He is ignoring them and asking the same questions over and over.

Don Pedro Dinero - I stand with you.  Let me know how I can help shut down these idiot threads.  "Scientific proof of god" is another - you can't prove something that you can't test.

[Astargath]

Is there any point? Of course there is, it's nice for our eyes and nervous to see less spammy threads.

It would really help if the moderation of the Bitcoin Discussion section would be a bit more strict and threads would get trashed quicker. Something like a 25 Page reply limit before auto-lock would be great. After that if the discussion needs to be continued a section seperate for these Spam MegaThreads can harbor those threads. Never suggested this before and I wonder what others would say.

Agreed - 600+ pages of something as simple as "Is the earth flat?"... the answers the OP needs have been posted a hundred times already.  He is ignoring them and asking the same questions over and over.

Don Pedro Dinero - I stand with you.  Let me know how I can help shut down these idiot threads.  "Scientific proof of god" is another - you can't prove something that you can't test.

I do agree partially scientifically speaking, you can't, I know those 2 threads could have ended a long time ago, however I don't think the discussion was low quality even though, yes, sometimes we repeat ourselves (me and badecker since we are probably half of the replies there in the ''scientific proof of god'')

It's true it does open a window for newbies to spam, but they will find plenty of other threads to spam anyways. So personally I don't think those ones are really part of the problem, I'm guessing the gambling section is filled with those, bitcoin discussion definitely is.

[o_e_l_e_o]

-snip-

I think there is a distinction to made here.

Threads such as "Scientific Proof of God", "Evolution is a hoax", hell even the "Flat Earth" thread - although these threads are running in to the hundreds of pages, there is still discussion going on. People are quoting and directly replying to each other's points, even if some of those points are batshit insane.

In the spam mega-threads in Bitcoin and Altcoin boards, there is very rarely any discussion. It's just bounty spammers churning out the same generic meaningless posts to reach their requirements. The problem is that these bounty spammers will take over a thread almost immediately and any actual discussion that was going on in the first page or two is completely drowned out and lost. By page 5 onwards, it's pretty much 99% bounty spam guaranteed.

[Vod]

Threads such as "Scientific Proof of God", "Evolution is a hoax", hell even the "Flat Earth" thread - although these threads are running in to the hundreds of pages, there is still discussion going on. People are quoting and directly replying to each other's points, even if some of the points are batshit insane.

?  There is no discussion going on in those threads.  

We post proof, they call us liars.   600+ pages.   There is no more discussion, as things have not changed in billions of years.  :/

If they could post anything supporting their claims, we could discuss it.  But they don't, because they can't.

I believe threads going on for hundreds of pages supported only by trolling should be reported and closed.

[Astargath]

Threads such as "Scientific Proof of God", "Evolution is a hoax", hell even the "Flat Earth" thread - although these threads are running in to the hundreds of pages, there is still discussion going on. People are quoting and directly replying to each other's points, even if some of the points are batshit insane.

?  There is no discussion going on in those threads.  

We post proof, they call us liars.   600+ pages.   There is no more discussion, as things have not changed in billions of years.  :/

If they could post anything supporting their claims, we could discuss it.  But they don't, because they can't.

I believe threads going on for hundreds of pages supported only by trolling should be reported and closed.

Well, I'm just saying that there isn't that much ''spam'' or shitposting going on there. Most signature campaigns do not allow you to post in off-topic or politics anyways.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Some of the boards almost needs a fresh start, kind of like what Flying Hellfish did when he became mod of P&S.

I agree, and Flying Hellfish has done a great job from what I've heard (I don't visit P&S ever so I can't say firsthand).

I think hilariousandco is burned out as a mod, and I don't say that disparagingly.  There's only so much he can do, and he needs help--and I'm not even talking about an assistant, I'm talking like 2-3 additional mods for Bitcoin Discussion alone.  I'm sure that's not going to happen, but that's the scope of the problem.

Even if it feels hopeless to report posts, I would still encourage people to keep doing it.  If nothing else, it gives you a sense that you're actually doing something as opposed to throwing up your hands and declaring the problem to be insoluble.