How to deal with bumping via fake conversation?

[The Sceptical Chymist]

It really depends on the individual case for me. I'll delete it if its of low content, and if its particularly a problem I'll message the users involved.

Ugh.  I wouldn't want your job.  The problem with what MagicSmoker is talking about is that these posts look just enough like legitimate ones that you'd be hard-pressed to state with 100% conviction that they're not actually people responding to one another.

What can you expect when you hire someone to bump your ANN thread?  If it's completely obvious that it's being bumped with "great project" posts, the entire thread might get shitcanned.  This way, it puts enough doubt in a mod's mind (if it's even noticed) such that the thread stays alive--and always on top. 

There will come a day when the ICO market crashes.  People are going to figure out that most of them are scams and that there's no money to be made by investing in them.  When that happens, none of this is going to be a problem anymore.  Can't wait till then.

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[CoinNextTrue]

Hello, I'll explain what happened: how you see my account is CoinNextTrue, up to a few months ago my account was CoinNextE, then I was stolen, I tried to make it present to the assistance of the forum, but I have not had an answer .

 So, the "gentleman" who stole my account, he did it with others and now (according to my opinion) easily has multiple accounts that serve to make false arguments, and then cheating the people involved.

 Now, if you want you just have to check and see that I opened the account in July 2015 and I'm Italian, and I did business with Italian forum users, who stole my account is not Italian. Anyway, I told you, ban and give me back my account. Just read the 2015 forum posts to understand that the current "owner" of the CoinNextE account is a scammer.

I forgot, when I was stolen the account I had more than 80 messages and I was Junior Member, this to tell you that the "gentleman" who steals account does not do it by chance, but chooses accounts that are unlikely to be suspicious.

Bye.

Read: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=789852.msg11822698#msg11822698

[MagicSmoker]

It really depends on the individual case for me. I'll delete it if its of low content, and if its particularly a problem I'll message the users involved.

Ugh.  I wouldn't want your job.  The problem with what MagicSmoker is talking about is that these posts look just enough like legitimate ones that you'd be hard-pressed to state with 100% conviction that they're not actually people responding to one another.
...

Yeah, the approach currently being taken by the mods just isn't going to work. There's a new batch of bump-bots (apparently using stolen accounts; see next reply below), some of which aren't plagiarizing (yet), but clearly the conversation is manufactured. I mean, what are the chances than an ANN thread will have 10-100 pages of conversation among 6-12 users then when that group of users are banned the thread grinds to a complete halt only for a new batch of 6-12 users to show up and have the exact same style of low-value conversation once again?

I mean, any human can see these conversations are totally fake, but even when I nail some of the participants for plagiarism the reports are staying unhandled 2+ days later. One report of plagiarism with proof provided should be sufficient to get a user banned. Period. Since that isn't happening for me, I have to assume that mods either don't trust my reports (despite 99% good) or else they just aren't processing them. Regardless, it's getting rather difficult to believe anyone on the staff really cares about addressing the spam problem when the reports from people like me who take the time to investigate abuse on an organized/massive scale are ignored.

Really, at this point the NEOGAME.IO, SafeInsure, BIOHAL, DBX and Neluns threads should be locked, if not totally nuked, as they all are filled with fake conversation between bump-bots and precious little real discussion.

Hello, I'll explain what happened: how you see my account is CoinNextTrue, up to a few months ago my account was CoinNextE, then I was stolen, I tried to make it present to the assistance of the forum, but I have not had an answer .
...

Yeah, we figured most if not all of these accounts are stolen, as many of them date back to 2014 but with little or no post history until this year (likely the older posts were wiped to cover up a glaring change in style or language used).

[MagicSmoker]

(Unpaid) bump - I've been reporting more users for plagiarism in the Neluns, Neogame.io, DBX, SafeInsure and Biohal threads but I think at this point these threads need to be either locked or outright trashed as more newbies are being brought online to bump and not all of them have committed plagiarism (lawd knows I'm looking for it).

[MagicSmoker]

Ehmagerd... All of the aforementioned threads are still getting bumped because replacements are being brought online within hours of the existing bump-bots getting banned. I then tried reporting the OP of the Neogame.io thread with the recommendation the thread itself get locked/trashed, but that report has remained "unhandled" for 5+ days now. Since the global mods appear reluctant to deal with this in an efficient fashion on my word alone I am asking for at least a few other people to report the OP's of the Neluns and Neogame.io threads for using a paid bumping service (ie - a roundabout way of incentivizing posting) and recommend that the threads be locked.

[tmfp]

Ehmagerd...  I am asking for at least a few other people to report the OP's of the Neluns and Neogame.io threads for using a paid bumping service (ie - a roundabout way of incentivizing posting) and recommend that the threads be locked.

Let's see what, if any, human response we can get with the direct approach too....

[MagicSmoker]

Let's see what, if any, human response we can get with the direct approach too....

Thanks for the help, but notice that the plagiarizing bump-bots just rolled right over both of us!   You would think they'd be happy to have some new material to work with, but no, they are too busy recycling the same conversations that their (now banned) bot brethren used before them. The only good news is that the bumping service is only deploying 2 or 3 accounts at a time now, and the accounts are "old newbies" - that is, dating from 2015 or earlier (ie - from before this forum was hacked) but with their entire post history zeroed out.

Oh, and be on the lookout for your post to get deleted by the OP since it is a self-moderated thread.

[tmfp]

Let's see what, if any, human response we can get with the direct approach too....

Thanks for the help, but notice that the plagiarizing bump-bots just rolled right over both of us!   You would think they'd be happy to have some new material to work with, but no, they are too busy recycling the same conversations that their (now banned) bot brethren used before them. The only good news is that the bumping service is only deploying 2 or 3 accounts at a time now, and the accounts are "old newbies" - that is, dating from 2015 or earlier (ie - from before this forum was hacked) but with their entire post history zeroed out.

Oh, and be on the lookout for your post to get deleted by the OP since it is a self-moderated thread.

Yeah, it's like talking to the wife - completely ignored

Re: Self mod, that was part of the experiment, OP hasn't been online for a couple of weeks.

[MagicSmoker]

Yeah, it's like talking to the wife - completely ignored

Re: Self mod, that was part of the experiment, OP hasn't been online for a couple of weeks.

Yeah, it'll be interesting to see if milonite (OP of the Neluns thread) reacts to our posts. The OP of the Neogame.io thread deleted one of my warning posts 3 days after I made it so he/she/it is relatively on the ball, but milonite might be a stolen or sold account - much like the bots being used to bump the thread - as prior to starting the Neluns thread he/she/it mainly wrote low-value comments about less well-known Equihash coins (e.g. - Sumokoin and Komodo).

[tmfp]

The Neluns thread farce continues; it now averages ~4 views per post, with tag teams of reactivated 2013/4 spammers ready and waiting to replace those which are deleted, with bumping pseudo conversations.

[MagicSmoker]

The Neluns thread farce continues; it now averages ~4 views per post, with tag teams of reactivated 2013/4 spammers ready and waiting to replace those which are deleted, with bumping pseudo conversations.

Yeah, but we managed to provoke a real response out of one of the paid bumper accounts! Now, if only mprep would just go ahead and lock both the Neluns and Neogame threads rather than individually nuke what may be a nearly infinite supply of stolen accounts this would go a lot smoother. I mean, I have personally had 100+ accounts posting in those two threads banned for plagiarism over the last month - how much proof do the global mods need that something nefarious is afoot?

[morvillz7z]

According to ICOBench, Neluns completed their ICO a month ago, didn't they? Why are these shill/bot accounts still active? There is no point in creating fake buzz now after everything has finished. Hmm, I'm missing something here...

Maybe bots are hired for a certain period of time, which obviously has not ended yet... and they have to fulfill their contract, otherwise, these hardworking employees might not get paid by Neluns.

[bitart]

If these bots are bumping the treads with posts in every 5-10 minutes, you just won't be able to report (and mods to delete) the posts in time before the next bumping post if I understand it well.
If you report the most recent post, by the time it gots deleted, a new bumping post will come and the whole work with the previous post would worth little because the topic would still be on the top, thanks to the new bump...
We need something else for the bumping bots because pure reporting seems just waste of time and resource...
What happens if we start to deal with topics instead of individual posts?
Let's say if a topic has 100 posts in it and 10 of the posts has been reported (and deleted by a mod), it means it's not a 100% topic, but just 90%. If 50 posts are deleted, the topic is only good for 50%.
If a topic reaches the 50% in reported posts, worth locking or delete or anything...
I know that bumping bots and shills could use this to kill the competitor topics, but in the ANN section this is the same with bumping the first 10 topics, all of the others are nearly killed because people just can't find them on the first few pages...
Just an idea...

[tmfp]

According to ICOBench, Neluns completed their ICO a month ago, didn't they? Why are these shill/bot accounts still active? There is no point in creating fake buzz now after everything has finished. Hmm, I'm missing something here...

This $136,000,000 ! ! ICO seems to have flown under most people's radar on here, including mine.
Not only an exchange, a bank too. Not only an exchange and a bank, an insurance company too....

I'm looking at a rather complex scenario which interests me at the mo involving several U.S. based entities. I came upon Neluns thru the back door, so to speak, so decided to test the water with a post or two in their [ANN] thread.
The behavior described (and other factors) has piqued my interest further and, although I'm some way from an effortpost, it's likely that Neluns strange media approach may well end up being counter productive in the bigger picture.


Today's bot interaction confirms the average time between each post in this game of spam Pong is six minutes, involving sets of ~eight posts/replies.

[MagicSmoker]

Welp, I just reported 3 posts each of the latest pair of plagiarizing bots, but, yes, the far better solution at this point - and the one that would truly punish the projects - would be to ban the OPs and lock the ANN threads.

I imagine the global mods are reluctant to lock a thread, especially if only recommended by a single full member (ie - me), but if more of you report the OP for likely using a paid bumping service and cite the vast number of posts being reported for plagiarism (as in, pretty much all of them!?) there's a better chance the thread gets locked/trashed and the OP banned (and for your reporting convenience I provided direct links to the OP of each thread in a post above).

[morvillz7z]

What happens if we start to deal with topics instead of individual posts?
I know that bumping bots and shills could use this to kill the competitor topics

I don't think that moderators will be willing to take action and lock/trash announcement threads because of:

• bots and shills
• % of deleted posts
• banned accounts
• pyramid quotes and fake conversations

As you said, it could be used as a tactic to damage/undermine legitimate projects and because we can't prove that these accounts have any direct connection with the project itself, although they bump threads with spam and copypasta, mods can't do anything other than delete posts and ban individual accounts reported for plagiarism...this is at least what I noticed so far.

This $136,000,000 ! ! ICO seems to have flown under most people's radar on here, including mine.
Not only an exchange, a bank too. Not only an exchange and a bank, an insurance company too....

They had a lowkey shill topic in 'Economics' claiming project have raised $1 billion dollars _{(smart contract contributions are around $150k USD)} 

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5044166.20

Is this something breath taking for you guys ? Do you guys think that NLS (Neluns) will come straight into Top 10 coins after they get listed this month ?

[MagicSmoker]

I don't think that moderators will be willing to take action and lock/trash announcement threads because of:

• bots and shills
• % of deleted posts
• banned accounts
• pyramid quotes and fake conversations

As you said, it could be used as a tactic to damage/undermine legitimate projects and because we can't prove that these accounts have any direct connection with the project itself, although they bump threads with spam and copypasta, mods can't do anything other than delete posts and ban individual accounts reported for plagiarism...this is at least what I noticed so far.

Ah, but both the Neogame.io and Neluns threads are self-moderated... Like I (successfully) argued for the locking of the Roomdao ANN thread, if there is that much spamming/plagiarism going on - where conversations are literally recycled from just a few days ago - then the OP can and should be held responsible.

[morvillz7z]

Neogame.io and Neluns threads are self-moderated...then the OP can and should be held responsible.

Oh yeah, I meant announcement threads in general, sorry I didn't specify which one I had in mind.

As for self-moderated ones, if those who started them allow plagiarism and spam posting behavior for an extended period of time, they should be held accountable, no doubt about it.

[marlboroza]

According to ICOBench, Neluns completed their ICO a month ago, didn't they? Why are these shill/bot accounts still active? There is no point in creating fake buzz now after everything has finished. Hmm, I'm missing something here...

According to whitepaper they will run IPO in 2020, maybe that's why?

[morvillz7z]

According to whitepaper they will run IPO in 2020, maybe that's why?

I guess MagicSmoker has to report fake conversations in Neluns thread for two more years.