Can we restrict user registerations somehow?

[darklus123]

I'll agree on theymos's decision towards this thing. His intention of why this should not happen is pretty clear and fair.

This forum should welcome all type of new users. We should not get the opportunity for those who wants to learn or discuss anything about crypto by the reason of because most of the newbies just toxicate the community.

In fact we have a lot of newbies right now probably rank FM bellow are actually contributing more than the higher ranks (which are actually more toxic. I know that you know some of this higher ranks)

[Gloverwrt]

There has been lots of suggestions on how to reduce spam - restrictions from starting threads, higher merit requirement to enable signature, limited to specific boards and lots more, and majority of these suggestions are targetted an new entries and members with newbie rank.

This rank constitutes a bulk of the members here and hence contribute largely to spam. But if we take it by percentage, we may be surprised that a higher percentage of other, higher ranks could be spamming more than the newbies.
Newbie generalization on the forum is reaching an all time high, and the prejudice would discourage lots of eager members.

The system is good as it is now, as long as we keep reporting spam posts. Any major shift could have significant long-term effects.

[AverageGlabella]

I have already mentioned that I think restricting user registrations would probably be a little bit too overkill. But the fact remains and that is we have a massive problem with spamming and virus spreading. I have seen the altcoin board myself and there are many fake announcements trying to act as another project and trying to compromise users via a virus. They get banned and the topic gets removed and then they create a new account and do the exact same thing and the worst thing is people are falling for it and getting their systems compromised.

There has been lots of suggestions on how to reduce spam - restrictions from starting threads, higher merit requirement to enable signature, limited to specific boards and lots more, and majority of these suggestions are targetted an new entries and members with newbie rank.

This rank constitutes a bulk of the members here and hence contribute largely to spam. But if we take it by percentage, we may be surprised that a higher percentage of other, higher ranks could be spamming more than the newbies.
Newbie generalization on the forum is reaching an all time high, and the prejudice would discourage lots of eager members.

The system is good as it is now, as long as we keep reporting spam posts. Any major shift could have significant long-term effects.

None of these solutions prevent users from creating a new account to post their viruses/advertisement. Something has to be done about it as its kind of out of the moderators hands as all they can do is ban that existing account. Then it takes them 2 minutes to create a new account and expose their malicious post to another few hundred people.

[hilariousetc]

But what exactly are you suggesting? It's useless just saying 'restrict 'registrations'. Restrict them how? And how do we not penalise everyone else under the same net? If people are spreading malware then just keep reporting those threads or posts but until you're going to propose something feasible then it's pointless even disusing (especially given the fact that theymos is almost certainly not going to implement any restrictions that hurt everyone).

One thing I've suggested in the past is that all new users are essentially shadowbanned until their first post or two has been verified by staff before they go public. That way spam bots wouldn't get through and anyone spreading malware could be dealt with before they get the chance to infect everyone.

None of these solutions prevent users from creating a new account to post their viruses/advertisement. Something has to be done about it as its kind of out of the moderators hands as all they can do is ban that existing account. Then it takes them 2 minutes to create a new account and expose their malicious post to another few hundred people.

Don't click the links unless you trust them. We are not responsible for users personal security and that is something only the individual can protect against. People really should be more careful with what they click, download, or who they send their money to.

[AverageGlabella]

But what exactly are you suggesting? It's useless just saying 'restrict 'registrations'. Restrict them how? And how do we not penalise everyone else under the same net? If people are spreading malware then just keep reporting those threads or posts but until you're going to propose something feasible then it's pointless even disusing (especially given the fact that theymos is almost certainly not going to implement any restrictions that hurt everyone).

One thing I've suggested in the past is that all new users are essentially shadowbanned until their first post or two has been verified by staff before they go public. That way spam bots wouldn't get through and anyone spreading malware could be dealt with before they get the chance to infect everyone.

The bold part is exactly what I was hoping to be suggested. The aim of this thread was to maybe brainstorm and collect some ideas. I never wanted to propose that registrations would just be completely stopped and just limit to invite only. Thats stupid in my opinion.

What you have suggested though is actually a pretty good idea. If users don't know they are banned and their posts aren't showing up to the public then this might actually prevent them from realizing it and creating new accounts. People who are aware of shadow bans might check with another browser which isn't logged on. But what we could do is display shadow banned users to the public but not to registered users. This would then require them to actually make a new account to check whether they are banned which I doubt a lot of people will do if there are no indications that they are banned.

I don't know the best way to go about this or if theymos has said anything about it. But shadow bans could be pretty damn useful in my opinion. I would do it differently to how you suggest it though. I think instead of shadow banning every newbie until they are whitelisted you could just issue shadow bans when someone is breaking the rules. This way they won't expect that they are shadow banned. Or you could combine the two. I like your idea because it prevents bots from just posting garbage but would certainly increase the moderators work load. If the workload can be managed combining both of these could be a great idea.

The issue with your proposal is everyone is going to know they need to be whitelisted until their posts show up so they will make constructive posts for the first few and then they'll continue on their spamming ways. If we combine this with a shadow ban that moderators can issue then a lot of the users won't even notice.

[hilariousetc]

What you have suggested though is actually a pretty good idea. If users don't know they are banned and their posts aren't showing up to the public then this might actually prevent them from realizing it and creating new accounts.

They'll work it out eventually, especially if they have alts, but my suggestion isn't really to leave them languishing in some sort of digital limbo, but just to stop bots and malware spreaders from being a nuisance. They'll either just be accepted, or banned straight away if they're a bot or spreading malware. Users who post rubbish or break the rules in some other capacity like posting a ref link or something could be warned so they don't continue their behaviour.

I don't know the best way to go about this or if theymos has said anything about it.

He put it under the ok category:

OK in principle, would require thought/adjustment/implementation. Many of these things are more complex than they look at first glance.

• Requiring manually whitelisting of all new accounts before they can post. All new users will essentially be shadowbanned until they've been verified by a mod. This will eliminate 99% of bots and spammers before they even start. Spam threads can be trashed on sight before they even become spam megathreads.

But shadow bans could be pretty damn useful in my opinion. I would do it differently to how you suggest it though. I think instead of shadow banning every newbie until they are whitelisted you could just issue shadow bans when someone is breaking the rules. This way they won't expect that they are shadow banned. Or you could combine the two. I like your idea because it prevents bots from just posting garbage but would certainly increase the moderators work load. If the workload can be managed combining both of these could be a great idea.

I agree my suggestion would be useful and is pretty much one of the only ways to eradicate spambots and other nefarious characters, but I disagree with what you suggested and it wouldn't stop people spreading malware as they still get the chance to spread it before we catch them. Just giving people shadowbans after the fact isn't a great idea. If they break the rules then they should be banned, not just take up server space until they figure it out.

The issue with your proposal is everyone is going to know they need to be whitelisted until their posts show up so they will make constructive posts for the first few and then they'll continue on their spamming ways.

Spambots won't be aware of this and most people won't be aware of this feature who are just signing up to the forum. Most people won't even notice it as is the nature of shadowbanning, but it will catch all those who aren't familiar of the forum and how it works and it doesn't penalise everyone in the process.

[AverageGlabella]

I think you are right in that most people won't be familiar with it. But I think those that are spreading viruses and posting advertisement spam are probably more that familiar with Bitcoin and this forum. Spambots probably wouldn't notice. But don't spam bots just post 1/2 posts and then just create another anyway? even if they don't do this right now that would be a way of getting around it.

I think any system we put in would be beneficial even  if there are ways around it. A good example of this is when shadowbanning every newbie until they have been whitelisted. This would actually require the spambots or malicious users to post constructively first of all before they start their spamming and they would have to do this for every account which I think is the best possible way of reducing this. Not many people will be willing to go through all of that wait a few hours just to get their accounts banned right away.

I think that's the best solution and there's no real need of any other restrictions or anything.

[Infinixhot1996]

How many alts does a legitimate user need to have 10? 20?
In my opinion 3 or 4 alts are more than enough and it's quite easy to access 4 phone numbers or non disposable........

The rules are the rules and it states that multiple(unlimited)accounts are allowed,if we're to implement your suggestion,we will be changing the rules on that(which we wouldn't do)
Thus it's up to any user whether legitimate or "illegitimate" to own as many accounts as possible as long as such accounts do not break the forum rules,only when they do can they be tagged illegitimate and punishment meted out

This forum upholds user anonymity and would never request for phone number verification

[madnessteat]

To speed up the cleaning of the forum from spam, you can do so if the post has several reports to the moderator (5-15), it is automatically sent to the trash. Here is an important one for the automatic removal of a post should be counted only reports of users with more than 300-500 reported positions with an accuracy of 90-100%.

 We can't beat forum spam because we want to use anonymity. 

 I think that the complete restriction of registration is not correct, but to introduce the simplest KYC procedure for new users (old users may not pass, as already registered) is a great step to reduce fraud on the forum. Or as written above to bind your account to your mobile number.

After all, many exchanges began to use the KYC procedure, and before it was not needed.

Such thoughts. I apologize for my English, dear forum users.

[hilariousetc]

To speed up the cleaning of the forum from spam, you can do so if the post has several reports to the moderator (5-15), it is automatically sent to the trash.

Nope. Would be colossally abused. Anyone with 5-15 accounts (or however many you require to remove posts) could just silence anyone they want. With bots this would be easy to do and they could bot your posts to get them removed as soon as they appear.

I think that the complete restriction of registration is not correct, but to introduce the simplest KYC procedure for new users (old users may not pass, as already registered) is a great step to reduce fraud on the forum. Or as written above to bind your account to your mobile number.

After all, many exchanges began to use the KYC procedure, and before it was not needed.

We're not an exchange. We're a forum, and theymos has said he would never implement KYC and nor should he.

[AverageGlabella]

After all, many exchanges began to use the KYC procedure, and before it was not needed.

This is because they were made to do so to remain legal. It was not for the benefit of their users or the community. We've seen in the past many exchanges being compromised and only coins and certain sensitive information being compromised. But now if an exchange is compromised or the government has a back door into them they have all the information that they'll ever need and it could be catastrophic. Remember this forum has been hacked on a few occasions too. Are you sure you would want your personal information to be stored on the server? Theymos hasn't got the need or the budget (probably has the budget) to create a security system worthy of protecting sensitive data. Plus theymos would then have to abide by some laws because hes storing personal data.

To speed up the cleaning of the forum from spam, you can do so if the post has several reports to the moderator (5-15), it is automatically sent to the trash. Here is an important one for the automatic removal of a post should be counted only reports of users with more than 300-500 reported positions with an accuracy of 90-100%.

This would only work if we elected users that have good report accuracy and reported regular but at that point we might as well add them to the staff members anyway.

[Pmalek]

Restricting user registrations is a slap in the face for anyone willing to join this forum for good reasons. When crypto currencies become mainstream this forum will be one of the main sources of information and closing it for those who want to participate is not the right thing to do.

[madnessteat]

I understood. Then there is only one thing-to tighten the rules for obtaining the rank of Jr.Member to 10 merits. This will reduce spam, but will not solve the problem of one-day accounts for spam and fraud.

[coinlocket$]

My suggestion would be to add evilness retroactive. This too isn't perfect, but might help a bit too.

Yes, the retroactive point is the only thing can be good with the evil IP, but I don't think it will be possible to do it since we have millions of accounts with thousands of bots and alts and we have a huge amounts of data, over the time the file.txt will be huge and we will have space problem.

In the end, I'm against the restriction of registrations, it makes no sense because I still believe if we have a 0.1% of new good users it will be always a gain for the community, but I hope to see something against this massive abuse of alts and bots.

As always some people here on the forum are using over 200 accounts in the same bounty and this is disturbing my mental state  .

[eddie13]

The only way to fight them back is just to scratch them off the forum. The Ann section has to go, together with the bounties,airdrops,and sig. campaigns, then the bots will be gone (almost, part of them will move to service section, but just for a while, keep reading).
Then your spam, bot and shitposting problems will be solved.

Then we have to focus on the scammers problem. Again, there is no way to stop the scammers (for the same reasons I mentioned above) if you do not take their playground away- the Markedplace, which will be a disaster for many people but again, this is the core of the problem, there is no way to go around it and apply some "fixes". They just gonna fail, again...

You seriously suggest removing these sections of the forum?
If you think the forum would be better off completely without them then why don't you just put them on ignore? You should also remove your signature and ignore signatures.

Delete the marketplace too. No buying and selling anything allowed! No trades or transactions.

No money = No problem.

Change the name to nothingtalk.org ?
Just castrate the forum so it becomes docile.

Maybe satoshi will show up again

Oh, I'm sure he would just adore your ideas.

Emails can be hidden and not exposed yo public view, having a confirmation requirement does not reduce anonymity of a user

What about bitcointalk itself? Theymos and the moderators? Do they not count?

My suggestion would be to add evilness retroactive.

So I log in from my hotel wifi or mcdonalds and all of a sudden I'm banned until I pay an evil fee?
Every account that has ever logged in on an IP that collected evil just gets wiped out, and the next time any IP gains more evil all accounts that have used that IP get wiped out again.

As always some people here on the forum are using over 200 accounts in the same bounty and this is disturbing my mental state  .

How exactly does this effect you? Are they your competition?
They are just a bunch of fake twitter accounts spamming scams to other fake twitter accounts providing very little to no value to the company hiring them. So they are the ones loosing by paying them for garbage.
If they don't want to wise up to who they hire then let them fail. Why should we protect them?

IMO ETH token ICOs are one of the worst things that ever happened to cryptocurrency because they tarnish the image of crypto as a whole. They make crypto look like shit.
99% of them are get rich quick schemes at best and I don't much mind them getting a taste of their own medicine.
Just ignore the bounties board and whack em if they try to spam this forum outside of it.


In closing I guess I would just like to say that I value the ideals of Bitcoin and Bitcointalk more than I value the absence of scammers and spammers. Dealing with them is a small price to pay.
If Satoshi's priority was to stop scammers at all costs he wouldn't have made the BTC blockchain immutable, would have made transactions reversible, and would not have been concerned about anonymity. Satoshi's white paper has a section (10) just for privacy.
The only reason I am in Bitcoin is because I believe in freedom.

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety, Benjamin Franklin.

This isn't Twitbook. By coming to this forum you are venturing deeper into the internet.

[TheBeardedBaby]

~

I guess you took my comment wrong. I don't suggest anything, just pointing out the the main problems and the real solution to what everyone is wining about.
It is completely clear none of those suggestions (as you call them) will be ever implemented, so no worries.
The whole idea if there are free money on the table, there's always someone trying get more (all) so it's no way to have fair shares for everyone.

[eddie13]

~

I guess you took my comment wrong. I don't suggest anything, just pointing out the the main problems and the real solution to what everyone is wining about.
It is completely clear none of those suggestions (as you call them) will be ever implemented, so no worries.
The whole idea if there are free money on the table, there's always someone trying get more (all) so it's no way to have fair shares for everyone.

I have thought about this and still fail to see where this is implied in your post..
You even predict an outcome of such action to be where everything is peaches and cream, and Satoshi even comes back, lol.

When the unabashed communist stands with "If we just took all the money from the rich and gave it to the poor the world would be a better place", even though I know that will never happen, I will always stand against these ideas because that is what it takes to ensure it does not happen, action.

the real solution

Is it the real solution? Is it what you advocate for or not?
Or are you just making a mockery out of all those who are whining because the only "real solution" is complete catastrophe?

.
The whole idea if there are free money on the table, there's always someone trying get more (all) so it's no way to have fair shares for everyone.

I wouldn't consider it free
It's not supposed to be fair. If you are quicker, faster, and smarter you should get more. "Fair" is just feelings.

We have been chewing this topic for more than a year now. It is clear that more restrictions will not come any time soon ( or at all).
Basically you have two main problems :
-Money from advertising.
-Scammers.

When you have money involved like for advertising the genuine idea is really brilliant but also very utopian. It's almost impossible to stop those who try to abuse them and there is no way to control anonymous entities to follow some rules based only on moral values.
The only way to fight them back is just to scratch them off the forum. The Ann section has to go, together with the bounties,airdrops,and sig. campaigns, then the bots will be gone (almost, part of them will move to service section, but just for a while, keep reading).
Then your spam, bot and shitposting problems will be solved.

Then we have to focus on the scammers problem. Again, there is no way to stop the scammers (for the same reasons I mentioned above) if you do not take their playground away- the Markedplace, which will be a disaster for many people but again, this is the core of the problem, there is no way to go around it and apply some "fixes". They just gonna fail, again...

If those 2 problems are solved, the forum will turn into a quite place for discussions and development, and 99.9% of the active users at the moment will be gone. Ivory Tower will be blossoming again, and the Off-topic section will have only The Round- Earth Speculation thread active

No money = No problem.

BTW some of the old users may return. Maybe satoshi will show up again, if he likes the new environment

It's almost impossible to stop those who try to abuse them and there is no way to control anonymous entities to follow some rules based only on moral values.

The only thing that can be abused is rules. The more rules you have the more avenues for abuse their are. The most "fair" is no rules and survival of the fittest, may the best man succeed. This is why freedom and free markets work so well..

The only way to fight them back is just to scratch them off the forum. The Ann section has to go, together with the -SNIP- ENTIRE MARKET ECONOMY -SNIP-
Then your spam, bot and shitposting problems will be solved.

take their playground away- the Markedplace

Then we have to focus on the scammers problem. Again, there is no way to stop the scammers (for the same reasons I mentioned above) if you do not take their playground away- the Markedplace

there is no way to go around it and apply some "fixes". They just gonna fail, again...

The more rules you make the more rules you have to make and the end is complete authoritarianism.

If those 2 problems are solved, the forum will turn into a quite place for discussions and development

Everything will be just peachy.

Ivory Tower will be blossoming again

Wouldn't it just be obsolete with no signatures forumwide?


Didn't the first pizza transaction happen here?
Where would bitcoin be at all without the economy this forum has hosted since the very beginning?

I do not know if it has been suggested in the past, but instead of having email account confirmation, every new user should be able to register a Bitcoin address and send a signature with a unique code received at the time of registration. This address would become a way to recover the account as well.

If he did not do this, the new account would look like "on probation" and would be even more limited than the newbie account. It can be more easily nuke by moderators and not just administrators.

I like address integration ideas but I don't see how this would solve any of the problems of this topic.
BTC addresses are about the easiest thing to create anonymously in existence. A millionfold easier than anonymously making an account here and with no realistic limit.

[vit05]

I do not know if it has been suggested in the past, but instead of having email account confirmation, every new user should be able to register a Bitcoin address and send a signature with a unique code received at the time of registration. This address would become a way to recover the account as well.

If he did not do this, the new account would look like "on probation" and would be even more limited than the newbie account. It can be more easily nuke by moderators and not just administrators.

[Welsh]

I do not know if it has been suggested in the past, but instead of having email account confirmation, every new user should be able to register a Bitcoin address and send a signature with a unique code received at the time of registration. This address would become a way to recover the account as well.

If he did not do this, the new account would look like "on probation" and would be even more limited than the newbie account. It can be more easily nuke by moderators and not just administrators.

It has been suggested multiple times, although I'm not sure if it has received an official response from theymos or not. I imagine this will be implemented when the automatic account recovery is introduced to the forum.

I don't know whether putting restrictions on accounts which haven't included an address is a good idea though. Not everyone on this forum will have made an address, and might be simply researching into Bitcoin, and asking a few questions. We shouldn't be punishing legitimate users.

[seoincorporation]

Newbies are really limited accounts, they can't really do much... And form each 100 new users registered 1 should be a good element, so, for that one it worth to have the registration system just like the way we have it right now.

But if in future it becomes a problem, we can change the registration just like the steemit one and ask users to verify their account with a phone sms.