Regarding the SpamBuster Thread

[khaled0111]

First, I would like thank all members participating in the fight against bots and spammers.

As you can see in The SpamBuster thread, more than 7000 accounts were reviewed and many of them were banned.
7000+ reviewed accounts is a huge number and we can't ask for more. But according to Alex_Sr post more than 23k new users joined just in last month. It looks like fighting shadows.

Most of spammers post in ANN threads, so we have shitposts and bots bumping those threads.
What about adding a captcha the user have to solve before being able to post. (only in Announcements sub forum).
Also, unable the user from posting more than once in a single thread, meaning that if he posts a reply, he will have to edit it for updates.
This will partially solve the bumping threads problem and make it easy to review posts. The inconvenience of this suggestion that it will make it hard to follow the latest updates (it can be solved by adding a feature to show posts according to which was last edited).

 
Does the above make any sense? is it feasible?

[AdolfinWolf]

As you can see in The SpamBuster thread, more than 7000 accounts were reviewed and many of them were banned.
7000+ reviewed accounts is a huge number and we can't ask for more. But according to Alex_Sr post more than 23k new users joined just in last month. It looks like fighting shadows.

I'm pretty sure that roughly 90% of the members is a newbie, and has never posted before, so the amount of accounts created really shouldn't be compared to the amount of accounts banned.

-- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4649770.msg41998196#msg41998196

What about adding a captcha the user have to solve before being able to post. (only in Announcements sub forum).

Adding a captcha before you can post kills any incentive for most users. If you want to drive everyone (and especially tor users) out, this is a great solution!

Also, unable the user from posting more than once in a single thread, meaning that if he posts a reply, he will have to edit it for updates.

This kills any real conversation users might have in a thread? Spammers won't care, and simply hop to the next thread? This merely limits "legit" users.

[stoat]

Just rangeban certain countries from the English speaking boards. Make a seperate area for foreign languages, which we already do have.

[bill gator]

It looks like fighting shadows.


What about adding a captcha the user have to solve before being able to post. (only in Announcements sub forum).
Also, unable the user from posting more than once in a single thread, meaning that if he posts a reply, he will have to edit it for updates.
 
Does the above make any sense? is it feasible?

It doesn't make much sense to me. It will certainly cut down on the spam, but it will probably cut down on regular posting more significantly as already mentioned. Making it so a user can only reply once within a thread would mean that a user would just delete their previous reply or would not reply and simply create a new thread. The solution you are proposing is more of another problem than it is a feasible solution. Captchas mostly only affect regular folks, because there are services that auto-solve captchas for spammers.

Fighting shadows isn't what I would call it. There are legitimately interested users that are joining and then there are those joining with malicious intentions. The amount of users being banned for spam, plagiarism, etc. is going to be significantly lower than the amount of accounts created for a handful of reasons. Imagine if there was 7,000 more spammers roaming the forum at this moment, you would certainly notice a difference then.

[DdmrDdmr]

<…>

One thing to take into consideration is that most newly created accounts stay as Brand New (i.e. with no associated posts), so the 23K accounts created last month are operatively many less in terms of actual posting accounts. Back in November I drew up some data related to created accounts and year of last activity (see Analysis - Bitcointalk Accounts – Date of Register vs Last Active per Rank).

If I summarize the data for 2018 we’ve got:
        895.158 created accounts in 2018 (*)
        680.255 were, at the time(*) still Brand New

That is to say, 76% of newly created accounts in 2018(*) do not post. Taking that on to the 21K new accounts created last month, and assuming that they maintain the same behavioural trend, that would leave around 4.200 of those accounts that do post at some point or other.

(*) Up until the first week of November 2018.

[suchmoon]

Also, unable the user from posting more than once in a single thread, meaning that if he posts a reply, he will have to edit it for updates.

This kills any real conversation users might have in a thread? Spammers won't care, and simply hop to the next thread? This merely limits "legit" users.

I think the OP meant to limit consecutive replies by the same user, which is against the rules. Should be easy to prevent or at least a stern warning requiring confirmation could be shown (in some cases e.g. due the size limit of posts it is necessary to post multiples).

I'm very much against captcha though.

[khaled0111]

I didn't start this thread only to propose those solutions, my intention is to pinpoint the problem and start a constructive discussion to find better solutions for it.
A kind of collective brain storming.

Adding a captcha before you can post kills any incentive for most users. If you want to drive everyone (and especially tor users) out, this is a great solution!

I suggested captcha only in the Announcements sub forum. But you are right, this will cause a problem for tor users.

This kills any real conversation users might have in a thread? Spammers won't care, and simply hop to the next thread? This merely limits "legit" users.

I proposed to add a feature for legit users, by activating it, you can read posts l'île in its actual form.
Most bots and spammers are paid to bump a single thread.

[Lafu]

Spambusters thread was and is a nice thread and shows that when a few work together on some things like ( Spamthreads , Botusers or else ) that they can be nice and great things so the abusers get catched and posts deleted and Accounts banned !

For sure the Spam will be never ends , but if all fighting them or the most it will bring some good thing to the Forum " It would be cleaner , and the Forum grow together to a more community as it always is "

Some Users doing it on there one way and others doing it together , just keep reporting and it dont depends on how much or little you doing that , just do it !  

[mikeywith]

unable the user from posting more than once in a single thread, meaning that if he posts a reply, he will have to edit it for updates.

This will make the shit posters migrate to other boards beside the once they have already colonized. as they will need to post somewhere, once the shity threads are full, they will spread to every other board, it will be a losing war against them then.


The captcha thing makes sense tho + 1

[Pmalek]

Also, unable the user from posting more than once in a single thread, meaning that if he posts a reply, he will have to edit it for updates.

Your suggestion would have a negative consequence on all those members who are interested in a normal conversation, asking and replying to questions, offering advice, which cant be done in one single post.

Another problem we have is that the ANN is full with Alts who post in the same thread as part of their bounty or whatever. So, all they would have to do in that case is use an additional account to continue their posting spree. 

[khaled0111]

...
This will make the shit posters migrate to other boards beside the once they have already colonized. as they will need to post somewhere, once the shity threads are full, they will spread to every other board, it will be a losing war against them then.

In fact, that can be a good thing since the task of spotting spammers will be spread among different moderators.

[mikeywith]

In fact, that can be a good thing since the task of spotting spammers will be spread among different moderators.

if increased number of Mods helps solve the "issue" why not add more mods on Alts boards then.

[bitart]

...
One thing to take into consideration is that most newly created accounts stay as Brand New (i.e. with no associated posts), so the 23K accounts created last month are operatively many less in terms of actual posting accounts. Back in November I drew up some data related to created accounts and year of last activity (see Analysis - Bitcointalk Accounts – Date of Register vs Last Active per Rank).

If I summarize the data for 2018 we’ve got:
        895.158 created accounts in 2018 (*)
        680.255 were, at the time(*) still Brand New

That is to say, 76% of newly created accounts in 2018(*) do not post. Taking that on to the 21K new accounts created last month, and assuming that they maintain the same behavioural trend, that would leave around 4.200 of those accounts that do post at some point or other.

(*) Up until the first week of November 2018.

There's something with brand new members, if they don't post for 3 months (?) they are locked or banned? I've read something similar somewhere.
Why not just make this period much shorter, e.g. 1 week?

To read the forum, before someone wants to post/ask something is possible without an account, so there's no need to create a brand new account for someone, who wants only to read.

What would happen to the rest:
Normal members will start to post and start to rank up if they post decent content.

Farmers will continue to create their farmed accounts, but:
-they will realize that they had to post somewhere at least one post in order to save the new accounts from deletion
-hopefully they will create a topic in Off topic or in Archive where they can do this one post thing for their accounts
-hopefully somebody sometime will find these topics and will ban the farmed accounts because of meaningless posts or something similar...

This will not solve the bot problem, but at least will make it harder for the farmers to farm and to bump

[khaled0111]

@bitart, they are just sleeper cells waiting for activation

[AverageGlabella]

In fact, that can be a good thing since the task of spotting spammers will be spread among different moderators.

if increased number of Mods helps solve the "issue" why not add more mods on Alts boards then.

I think this is the best approach as one of the moderators currently covering a lot of the altcoin boards is a global moderator and doesn't have time to shift through all the spam there. I think around 3/4 moderators there would probably be sufficient in at least containing the problem and bringing back readability to the board.

[DdmrDdmr]

<…>There's something with brand new members, if they don't post for 3 months (?) they are locked or banned? I've read something similar somewhere.<…>

I don’t think so. On @Vod’s BPIP an account that has been inactive for 90 days with 0 posts and no trust is move to Archived status, but I don’t think it is a forum feature. I do recall discussing it not long ago, but again I believe it is not implemented as such.

Some old inactive accounts did get locked at some point, and receive messages such as:

Sorry Guest, you are banned from using this forum!
Your account is locked because it sat inactive for years after the password hashes were leaked in 2015, and was therefore at high risk of being hacked. Email react-vdnp8@theymos.e4ward.com to get it unlocked.

(for example this case: Enable old account (from 2015) ... react-vdnp8@theymos.e4ward.com).