Is there any point in reporting spam megathreads?

[YOSHIE]

What do you think about it?

If you find spam or report, and do so, you play an important role in helping the Bitcointalk Forum protect others from fraud.

Spam can be said is: clicking on something that is spam or the account in question makes unwanted posts, events, or conversations, including sending mass messages, sometimes spam is spread through clicking malicious links or installing malicious software. On other occasions, fraudsters get access to people's accounts, which are then used to send spam, gmail etc.

As Mister said.(iasenko)".

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.

Note:
"Of course it's useful, reporting megatread, spam to help people out of fraud".

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[MagicSmoker]

Might I propose a not-so-radical solution that can actually be accomplished without the intervention of staff?

We need to report the OP of spam megathreads in bitcoin discussion while hilariousandco needs to trust our assessment and nuke the thread.

Once enough threads are nuked the shitposters will miss their sig campaign quotas and not get paid.

And once they don't get paid enough times they will quit joining campaigns.

There will inevitably be some butthurt from legitimate posters, especially those who participated in the first few pages of a thread, but think of this as short-term pain for long-term gain.


EDIT - I've reported one thread in bitcoin discussion as a test case - "What if Government bans Bitcoins?" [sic] - which I've quoted the OP in case the thread is, indeed, nuked:

Looking at the decentralized nature of crypto-currencies,Wonder if govt bans Bitcoins in future??Is it possible let's say by blocking all sites which relate to Bitcoin wallets/payments etc over the internet.In that case what would happen to our existing coins held in those wallets??

[o_e_l_e_o]

We post proof, they call us liars.

Oh, don't get me wrong - these threads are still spam fests and probably should be locked. But if you look at some of the most recent posts in those threads (Examples: #1, #2, #3), people are at least reading what is written and are responding to each other.

Now if you look at a page from a spam mega thread in Bitcoin Discussion such as this one, every post is a one or two line, meaningless, sometimes barely even English, shitpost. There is no back-and-forth between users, and you can absolutely guarantee nobody is reading the posts that are made.

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.

Totally, but even a single dedicated mod for Bitcoin Discussion and Altcoin Discussion (which is where I assume most of the reports come from, although I don't know this), would free up a lot of time for hilarious and other higher mods.

-snip-

I think if they don't get paid a couple of times most of them will just spam harder or in different boards.

I regularly report spam mega threads and they always get locked or trashed. I don't think the issue here is the mods not trusting us. I think simply having a dedicated board mod who would monitor threads and regularly lock or trash then before they become spam mega threads would be a big step forward.

[Lafu]

I have reported some spam megathreads in the past , and i have reported  all spam posts and at the end reported the ANN .
One Spamthread i remember has got 400-500 reports and after i was finished the ANN got deleted.
Sure its a lot of work if you doing it this way but i guess  it is effective!
Just keep reporting this threads .

[MagicSmoker]

...
I think if they don't get paid a couple of times most of them will just spam harder or in different boards.

Maybe, but that's why I said there would be some short term pain. Besides, any other solution than us reporting entire threads for deletion will require changes made to the staff and/or forum (e.g. - hiring more mods).

I regularly report spam mega threads and they always get locked or trashed. I don't think the issue here is the mods not trusting us. I think simply having a dedicated board mod who would monitor threads and regularly lock or trash then before they become spam mega threads would be a big step forward.

The thread I provided as an example above didn't start off as a spam megathread, but it certainly became one at some point in its 58+ pages, hence I don't think preemptively nuking threads is the right approach. Also, there won't be any pain suffered by the sig campaign spammers unless you let them spam for a bit first.

What clearly isn't going to work is what @Lafu did - reporting hundreds of posts in one thread. That's way too much work for all involved and, besides, this is a fail in principle: we should not be spending as much or more time fighting spam as it would cost to simply read it.

[o_e_l_e_o]

The thread I provided as an example above didn't start off as a spam megathread, but it certainly became one at some point in its 58+ pages, hence I don't think preemptively nuking threads is the right approach.

Almost any thread in Bitcoin or Altcoin Discusion could develop in to a spam mega thread, regardless of the topic. The spammers are just there to churn out a line or two. They don't read and don't care about anything that came beforehand.

In the example you gave, even by page 3-4 there is no discussion going on, and the spammers have turned up with their usual great insights:

I think to block bitcoin sites need to be revisited in terms of governance because not a few people are dependent on bitcoin

no government, however rich and authoritarian, can totally ban the use of coin. Bitcoin is unstoppable.

There are so many people missing out here in the forumand all investors will lose their funds in bitcoin of course and will also lose bitcoin in banks I think it's great to suffer and lose work like a bounty hunter.

Bitcoin is such a big help for us it gives an extra income so i can pay some of our monthly bills. I can't imagine if our government will ban bitcoin.

This is the kind of thread that could have been nipped in the bud by a dedicated board mod looking out for these kind of things. This thread could have been locked on page 5 without losing any quality content. Instead, it remained open for another 1000+ shitposts.

[Don Pedro Dinero]

Following the recent discussion, if when I see a spam thread I start checking all those one-liners’ posting history and I see it all looks the same, can I report him for that? Even if the posts have some sense? Something like: “one-liner shitposter, look at the post history". I mean, I know that I can report anything I want, but would that be useful?

You can spot many of those in the last pages of the thread, they write a one-liner and they have earned no or little merit.

[jackg]

Following the recent discussion, if when I see a spam thread I start checking all those one-liners’ posting history and I see it all looks the same, can I report him for that? Even if the posts have some sense? Something like: “one-liner shitposter, look at the post history". I mean, I know that I can report anything I want, but would that be useful?

You can spot many of those in the last pages of the thread, they write a one-liner and they have earned no or little merit.

I do that quite a lot especially on bounty threads in the altcoin section.
If there's a lot of them, I like to leave a note in my comment to say "last page full of shitposts, could do with a bit of clensing" something like that.

[KocaEfe]

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.

It seems to me that after a short discussion, for example on page 2-3, you can already close the thread. Hang the lock. I am sure the one who asked the question has already received an answer to his question.
Another thing, when the discussion is some interesting news or events. There is of course, 10 pages and lock threads.

[kalstarzz]

I don't think it's easy to get rid of spam megabreads, because in my opinion a good thing will sometimes be brought to a spam discussion, and I often find it. I think there needs to be a new solution about this.

[TheUltraElite]

It seems to me that after a short discussion, for example on page 2-3, you can already close the thread. Hang the lock. I am sure the one who asked the question has already received an answer to his question.
Another thing, when the discussion is some interesting news or events. There is of course, 10 pages and lock threads.

Majority of these threads will incite vague answers for the pretext of making a thread asking some information are going to turn into spam megathreads. These are not created for the purpose of getting some insight or starting a proper discussion. They are made in order to spam for these bounties and thus they are made by the spammers themselves.

I have previously suggested a decent suggestion in this thread. Auto-lock threads after 25 pages because these OPs never return to address the replies nor do they want to discuss the points. These threads are as good as getting an "Abandoned" tag in front of them in the front page.

[Welsh]

Definitely worth it. It pushes actual worthy discussion down the page, and it will then be forgotten in an hour, and never return. You see this all the time. I appreciate it from the standpoint of a user of the forum, and I'm sure a lot of other moderators do too. Unfortunately, I only remove topics when there's not many replies, and they are pointless. Otherwise, I'll lock them, but if they are out of my jurisdiction I'll ignore the report, and allow another moderator with permission to lock it to deal with it.

I'd rather get to the point where we are removing these trash threads than simply just locking them. It's better to do that when they don't have any replies, and before they become a problem. There's several threads asking the exact same question or generic statement. I'm pretty sure they look down the page, and take inspiration from previous threads, and can't think of their own content so just use already existing content.

[krishnapramod]

Lately too many old threads on the discussions board are revived by these newbies. I'm quite sure all these accounts are connected.

RoyalLotus
Alice90
AnnaHom123
OliverDan
Dragongin
dovedove
WhiteGAN
BigSamson5
BillyBee
kangnam112
kimpack7461
Winifred2609
Zulema3382
necessary2609
cathalary153
Charmainekiss
Calantha5635
Charmaine52
Haroldsilve
salimRonn123
Matthewlee
Nathaniel_Jones
Tryphena5358
kimcuchospital
Rowena123
blossomnow
ubiheal200
RusellTim123
sohoadon82
HenryHope123
Lily_Mind123
raymond013
ArloFinn4
Stephen.88
RockerNun
Phoenixhall
Richarrego
RoyEvan
Nolan786
Spring_Butin
ChristinBenly
Zeldasmith
lavender271096
AlexSandree44
neilshetty

One post a day on a thread (40+ accounts, 40 threads) that didn't had any response for the last two weeks, a month, three months, six months. it's purposely done with a lengthy paragraph to look like it ain't spam (but definitely spun). Guess, there ain't any rule to ban them. These posts are simply opening up the window for all the spammers to post on a dead topic.

Guess, with the existing forum rules, these newbies intentionally bumping old threads can't be nuked. Reporting the whole thread with a reasonable reason is what can be done.

[MagicSmoker]

...
This is the kind of thread that could have been nipped in the bud by a dedicated board mod looking out for these kind of things. This thread could have been locked on page 5 without losing any quality content. Instead, it remained open for another 1000+ shitposts.

You've persuaded me that locking is better than nuking. While nuking spam megathreads would harshly punish the spammers, it would also discourage those who participated in good faith, which kind of misses the whole point of a forum, hence I am convinced.

That said, the thread I reported is still accumulating shitposts...

[jackg]

Definitely worth it. It pushes actual worthy discussion down the page, and it will then be forgotten in an hour, and never return. You see this all the time. I appreciate it from the standpoint of a user of the forum, and I'm sure a lot of other moderators do too. Unfortunately, I only remove topics when there's not many replies, and they are pointless. Otherwise, I'll lock them, but if they are out of my jurisdiction I'll ignore the report, and allow another moderator with permission to lock it to deal with it.

This is quite true that it pushes things down the page.
And jurisiction? We a country now or something?
It is a lot better to lock topics with a large number of replies. If you're after not paying people for their sigs, move the thread to archival (they usually don't get paid that way)...

I'd rather get to the point where we are removing these trash threads than simply just locking them. It's better to do that when they don't have any replies, and before they become a problem.

Yeah otherwise you get a lot of reports in meta going "welsh deleted my 50 copy-pased posts 50 pages down this spam megathread aargh".

There's several threads asking the exact same question or generic statement. I'm pretty sure they look down the page, and take inspiration from previous threads, and can't think of their own content so just use already existing content.

Probably when their "I'm interested in this too!" comment gets deleted .

...
This is the kind of thread that could have been nipped in the bud by a dedicated board mod looking out for these kind of things. This thread could have been locked on page 5 without losing any quality content. Instead, it remained open for another 1000+ shitposts.

You've persuaded me that locking is better than nuking. While nuking spam megathreads would harshly punish the spammers, it would also discourage those who participated in good faith, which kind of misses the whole point of a forum, hence I am convinced.

That said, the thread I reported is still accumulating shitposts...

There's also the thing that something that never started as a spam megathread in 2014/2015 has turned into one later down the line. There will be quite a bit of loss in activity points if this happens and a lot of spam in the meta section about how someone's be demoted from legendary to sr or something...

I have previously suggested a decent suggestion in this thread. Auto-lock threads after 25 pages because these OPs never return to address the replies nor do they want to discuss the points. These threads are as good as getting an "Abandoned" tag in front of them in the front page.

I did with all the megathreads I made. Still commenting on them every few pages or so...
I reported posts on them as spam in 2015/2016 (when spam seemed to be accepted) and then didn't report any ever since because they never got deleted.

[o_e_l_e_o]

I'd rather get to the point where we are removing these trash threads than simply just locking them. It's better to do that when they don't have any replies, and before they become a problem.

Agreed, but we run in to the problem of not enough mods again. I frequently report newly created threads for being spammy, low value, duplicate questions, etc. Sometimes these reports aren't acted on for 24 hours or more, by which time there can easily be 4-5 pages of spam replies.

[jackg]

I'd rather get to the point where we are removing these trash threads than simply just locking them. It's better to do that when they don't have any replies, and before they become a problem.

Agreed, but we run in to the problem of not enough mods again. I frequently report newly created threads for being spammy, low value, duplicate questions, etc. Sometimes these reports aren't acted on for 24 hours or more, by which time there can easily be 4-5 pages of spam replies.

The question remains also why a section so heavily moderated such as the mining section gets three mods whereas things like bitcoin discussion gets 1 (and that's a global mod so it doesn't really count) and project developement has no mods...

[o_e_l_e_o]

The question remains also why a section so heavily moderated such as the mining section gets three mods whereas things like bitcoin discussion gets 1 (and that's a global mod so it doesn't really count) and project developement has no mods...

It explains why the Mining board isn't a spam fest.

At the time of posting this comment, of the 39 threads on the front page of the Mining board, 31 of them are locked. Any thread that is low quality or spam is trashed, and any thread that has had OP's question answered is locked. OgNasty's thread is 14 pages, but there isn't a single spam post in it - that would be impossible in Bitcoin or Altcoin Discussion. Dedicated board mods not only help to keep a board clean (obviously), but they also free up the likes of hilariousandco and other global mods to deal with more important issues than deleting garbage posts.

[Welsh]

This is quite true that it pushes things down the page.
And jurisiction? We a country now or something?

We could be if we pooled all our money together for seasteading! Nah, for a lack of better word I used it. Someone who has all permissions to lock in that section or to that particular usergroup. So Global moderators or the moderator of that section.

The question remains also why a section so heavily moderated such as the mining section gets three mods whereas things like bitcoin discussion gets 1 (and that's a global mod so it doesn't really count) and project developement has no mods...

I'm not sure. Only theymos knows the answer to that. I'm guessing there's not a whole lot of reports going on in the project development section. I can only think of one person who I regularly see reporting there. Although, bare in mind I can only see newbies that are reported there.

[jackg]

It explains why the Mining board isn't a spam fest.

Because almost EVERY thread gets deleted. And without a Pm to say it has been so you can't go and repost it elsewhere without a bit of knowhow.

At the time of posting this comment, of the 39 threads on the front page of the Mining board, 31 of them are locked. Any thread that is low quality or spam is trashed, and any thread that has had OP's question answered is locked. OgNasty's thread is 14 pages, but there isn't a single spam post in it - that would be impossible in Bitcoin or Altcoin Discussion. Dedicated board mods not only help to keep a board clean (obviously), but they also free up the likes of hilariousandco and other global mods to deal with more important issues than deleting garbage posts.

Why can't we get this forum wide though?
And hilariousandco is just a glob mod, it's the same work no matter how many ways you split it. If there were three glob mods (instead of the two we have not) much more moderation could be done... Instead, Cyrus and Theymos have to moderate alongside the others...

This is quite true that it pushes things down the page.
And jurisiction? We a country now or something?

We could be if we pooled all our money together for seasteading!

Can we? All we need is a bit of preset concrete, some bricks and a few hundred 'servants' to really get out island built in a fast amount of time .

I'm not sure. Only theymos knows the answer to that. I'm guessing there's not a whole lot of reports going on in the project development section. I can only think of one person who I regularly see reporting there. Although, bare in mind I can only see newbies that are reported there.

-ck is a mod because he made a piece of mining software (cgminer as far as I remember). I'm not sure what the others have done, gmaxwell was a core dev though also...