[LIST] ANN threads that are using bumping services

[GazetaBitcoin]

[ANN] ✨✨✨ Shuna Inuverse ✨✨✨ Next-gen gaming NFT utility initiative
[ANN] ✨✨✨ SAWA ✨✨✨ Crypto Fund Syndicate Protocol
[ANN] ✨✨✨ Fomo Chronicles ✨✨✨ Where NFTs Meet Art
[ANN] ✨✨✨ LaCucina ✨✨✨ New and exciting ways to succeed in DeFi with NFTs

Great finding indeed, holydarkness! And I also noticed you active in first topics, meaning the ones mentioned by Rikafip. I observed you while I was cleaning them. I already cleaned these 4 more topics, reporting 29 posts from all of them. I will also add them on the watchlist, together with the ones found by Rikafip and together with those from post284 of this thread. If you have time, you can also take a look at them, to see if spam reappeared.

Thanks again for getting involved in the cleaning operations!

[Welsh]

Had an issue with my machine recently, so I wasn't active the last few days. Shouldn't have any issues going forward hopefully, especially annoying since I recently took the step back from off forum work to free up my schedule a bit. Anyway, I'm going to go through the remaining threads that have been mentioned over the coming days.

GazetaBitcoin, how many actually got handled in the end? I've seen this a few times, but I believe in most cases they do eventually get handled. I'm not sure if there's a limit to how many get handled within a certain amount of time or if trashed threads get added to the back of the queue. I'm not entirely sure. This isn't something I could provide a definite answer on, more like speculation.

[GazetaBitcoin]

Heads-up:

Since my last post I cleaned the following topics:

🔥🔥[ANN][ICO]AMANPURI – Ultimate exchange – PRIVATE SALE🔥🔥
[ANN][PRIVATE-SALE][IEO] BITWINGS: OFFICIAL CRYPTOCURRENCY OF WINGS MOBILE

AMANPURI topic was reduced from 71 pages to 16. BITWINGS was reduced from 62 pages to 16.

All in all, I reported 2019 posts from these topics!


Now there are only 3 topics remaining to be cleaned:

⚽ [ANN] ⚽ MyTVchain - Live sports, powered by blockchain ⚽
[ANN] Relictum Pro | Blockchain 5.0 of the latest generation

[ANN] DECENT - Decentralizing Content Distribution

Who wants a good laugh, read this post of nutildah, which highlighted one of the most ridiculous spammer possible

Isn't an iOS app yet?

If the team does not develop quickly, IOS users are stuck

I heard AMANPURI waiting for APPLE side approval
It is common sense that APPLE APP approval always takes time.
Android is always fast.

I heard AMANPURI waiting for APPLE side approval
It is common sense that APPLE APP approval always takes time.
Android is always fast.

Dude, are you nuts? You just copy/pasted the same response from one alt into a comment by the next. How much does this cheeseball exchange pay you to do this? People would have to be crazy to put their coins in an exchange that uses such a stupid spamming service. You make them look like a scam.

Bonus: nutildah being acused of spaming, by a spammer, within same thread

And from this post made by nutildah we can find out that spammers are paid with 2.38$/post. Or, at least, they were, in 2019. Probably the payment rates are higher now. Pretty good, right? Not many signature campaigns can pay this amount.

Bonus 2: while cleaning BITWINGS topic I encountered this user: Motherfuckerthynos Oo

GazetaBitcoin, how many actually got handled in the end? I've seen this a few times, but I believe in most cases they do eventually get handled.

Fortunately, all but 2 posts from SwapZilla trashed topic were  handled after all. They were handled with sort of big delay (2 days ago I still had 170 reports appearing as unhandled, but 168 of them were handled until this morning) and I hope that the remaining 2 will also be handled.

Excepting those 2 posts I have 2 more unhandled for a few days now, from BITWINGS topic (post IDs msg55043799 and msg55051100):



Do you think that you can take a look at these four posts remaining, please?

I'm not sure if there's a limit to how many get handled within a certain amount of time or if trashed threads get added to the back of the queue. I'm not entirely sure. This isn't something I could provide a definite answer on, more like speculation.

Oh, I see... Then, at least can you help me with this information, please?

Do you know anything about this previous post of mine?
"Now I have 170 unhandled posts from that trashed topic and I am afraid they will not be handled in proper time and I will remain forever with them as unhandled. And I'm saying that because, as you know, report history shows now only last 5000 reports. So if I make more than 5000 reports before those unhandled reports being handled, they will not be seen by mods anymore and I'll remain with them unhandled forever."

Practically, my question is this: do mods also not see anymore (similar to users) reports made over making already 5000 reports, no matter they are done in less than 30 days? I know that for the 30 days rule both mods and users can not see previous reports; does this happens also in case someone makes more than 5000 reports (in less than 30 days) -- meaning the reports with number greater than 5000 are not visible anymore for mods too (knowing they are not visible for users anymore)?

Due to this fear I had, that in case I will make more than 5000 reports these days and those unhandled reports could not be seen by mods anymore, I stopped myself from making reports until having almost all those reports handled... Therefore it would be good to know how things are - if the reports greater than 5000 (in less than 30 days) are seen by mods or not. It does not matter if I can not see them anymore, but they can be seen by mods. Otherwise, if mods also can not see the reports greater than 5000 (in less than 30 days) imagine this worst case scenario: I make 1000 reports per day. This means that in 5 days I make 5000 reports. This means that from day 6, when I make also 1000 reports, I can not see anymore the reports I made in day 1. And I continue making 1000 reports per day until day 10, when I can not see anything from my reports made in days 1-5. Now let's imagine that not all those 5000 reports from my first 5 days were handled in proper time; let's say that maybe only 1000 of them were handled. In this case, if in day 10 mods would like to handle the remaining 4000 reports I made in days 1-5 they would not be able to anymore, as they would not see the reports anymore. And this would mean a huge effort and time spent for nothing -- for finding topics where cleaning is needed, for reading all those topics, for making the reports and so on. Not to mention that it would also imply a huge queue of 4000 unhandled reports which would be visible in my reporting history forever.

Does my question have any sense...?

[Rizzrack]

Due to this fear I had, that in case I will make more than 5000 reports these days and those unhandled reports could not be seen by mods anymore, I stopped myself from making reports until having almost all those reports handled... Therefore it would be good to know how things are - if the reports greater than 5000 (in less than 30 days) are seen by mods or not. It does not matter if I can not see them anymore, but they can be seen by mods. Otherwise, if mods also can not see the reports greater than 5000 (in less than 30 days) imagine this worst case scenario: I make 1000 reports per day. This means that in 5 days I make 5000 reports. This means that from day 6, when I make also 1000 reports, I can not see anymore the reports I made in day 1. And I continue making 1000 reports per day until day 10, when I can not see anything from my reports made in days 1-5. Now let's imagine that not all those 5000 reports from my first 5 days were handled in proper time; let's say that maybe only 1000 of them were handled. In this case, if in day 10 mods would like to handle the remaining 4000 reports I made in days 1-5 they would not be able to anymore, as they would not see the reports anymore. And this would mean a huge effort and time spent for nothing -- for finding topics where cleaning is needed, for reading all those topics, for making the reports and so on. Not to mention that it would also imply a huge queue of 4000 unhandled reports which would be visible in my reporting history forever.

Does my question have any sense...?

The queue of "active" reports is not capped. The only thing is they get removed after a certain amount of time if no resolution is given and remain unhandled.
The queue of handled reports (good and bad) is not capped at a certain number either. Assume they are still displayed for a month or so in case of mistakes or whatnot. I see over 10k already handled reports and those are just the newbie ones...

Most likely those limitations (5k reports for users) are there to eliminate redundant server strain and potential attack vectors. But staff is not subject to the same rules.
So nothing to be afraid about 

[GazetaBitcoin]

The queue of "active" reports is not capped. The only thing is they get removed after a certain amount of time if no resolution is given and remain unhandled.
The queue of handled reports (good and bad) is not capped at a certain number either.

Thank you for your reply. I understand that you / mods can see more than 5000 good reports. But I was mostly referring to unhandled ones. Can you also see more than 5000 of the same user (assuming there is any user which has at this moment more than 5000 unhandled reports -- which is very unlikely, I suppose).

Most likely those limitations (5k reports for users) are there to eliminate redundant server strain and potential attack vectors. But staff is not subject to the same rules.

Roger that. But still, staff also can not see anymore the reports older than 30 days, right (for more information please see post #290 of this topic)? Or has this limitation also been removed? If so, this would be great news as, in case of unhandled reports which remain in this state for more than 30 days, they would still have a chance to receive a resolution.

[Rizzrack]

Can you also see more than 5000 of the same user (assuming there is any user which has at this moment more than 5000 unhandled reports -- which is very unlikely, I suppose).

Hope I understood the question...
If a report is not attended by any mod and after the specific time period, 30 days or what ever, receives the "unhandled" status it is no longer displayed in any report queue. Only the user that reported the post can see it in his/her report history or maybe theymos in the db. It magically vanishes from the mod report page.

There are 2 types of unhandled reports.
- "not yet" handled (<30 days old) - a mod can still check and mark it good or bad
- "never going to be" handled (>30 days old) - will remain unhandled for all eternity

[GazetaBitcoin]

Hope I understood the question...

Actually, I meant if you can see more than 5000 unhandled reports, all being made in less than 30 days. Imagine someone reporting 1000 posts / day for 10 consecutive days and, for some reason, they are not handled. That user can see only his last 5000 reports. But can you see all 10.000 unhandled reports?

If a report is not attended by any mod and after the specific time period, 30 days or what ever, receives the "unhandled" status it is no longer displayed in any report queue. Only the user that reported the post can see it in his/her report history or maybe theymos in the db. It magically vanishes from the mod report page.

About that, also the user can not see anymore the reports older than 30 days. They disappear also from user's reporting history, not just from mods' queue...

[Rizzrack]

Actually, I meant if you can see more than 5000 unhandled reports, all being made in less than 30 days. Imagine someone reporting 1000 posts / day for 10 consecutive days and, for some reason, they are not handled. That user can see only his last 5000 reports. But can you see all 10.000 unhandled reports?

Yes

About that, also the user can not see anymore the reports older than 30 days. They disappear also from user's posting history, not just from mods' queue...

Yes

[Welsh]

I think Rizzrack answered that question quite efficiently .

And from this post made by nutildah we can find out that spammers are paid with 2.38$/post. Or, at least, they were, in 2019. Probably the payment rates are higher now. Pretty good, right? Not many signature campaigns can pay this amount.

I'm not surprised by users recycling content, I'm sure you've noticed with the amount you've reported, that these bumping services which are being used, are very likely being run by the same people. Since, they're pretty much identical to one another. It's absolutely ridiculous, the amount of accounts which are posting the same stuff every day, and have been doing that for years. Plus, taking a look at that link Nutildah I can now understand why we've got such a problem, apparently its good money to make minimal effort posts. I'll be honest the amount of money these people are earning has surprised me. Although, the bumping changes definitely have impacted it like I've suggested previously, if not the amount that are offering these services, and performing at least nowadays less users viewing the altcoin section are being subjected to the spam. I slowly think we're making progress towards curbing this though.

Do you think that you can take a look at these four posts remaining, please?

I've handled all remaining reports I have in my report queue.

[DaveF]

I know I have commented before here, but since I have been busy this last week I have been spending more time just reading through the trash that the alt & token boards are.
I have have to say I just don't get it. If I was looking around and saw what these people are positing I would be running the other way if I was at all interested.

Is it just me just really loosing patience and tolerance for these people or has it always been this bad? I really think those sections used to be at least a bit better.

-Dave

[Welsh]

Currently going through all three of the threads, most spam is deleted in the two smaller ones. I will be double checking though as it's easy to miss posts. The bigger thread, I'm currently going through.

Is it just me just really loosing patience and tolerance for these people or has it always been this bad? I really think those sections used to be at least a bit better.

I like to think there has been improvements over the years, I think personally we're in a much better position now, than we were a few years ago. The bumping changes definitely made an impact on that. Unfortunately, as its been pointed out before, other websites actually rate their review higher based on the activity of a Bitcointalk thread, so there's an incentive there to get these bumping changes, also there's the fact that some users will actually fall for the hype from these comments. It's also worth mentioning that sometimes these bumping services don't actually say anything promising about the project at all, it was just a way of creating a discussion, and therefore bumping the thread (when this applied, which it no longer does).

Altcoin section definitely has huge issues, however we are in a better place now than we were years ago. Partly thanks to the changes made by theymos, but also because of the effort being put in by the community.

[Rikafip]

Another group of ANN threads that hired bumping service just discovered. If anyone has any doubt about what's going on, just look at the screenshot below and the same group of 7 accounts working across at least 6 threads. There are probably more but this was enough to make a point and provide enough proof.



Ann threads:
Horizon Protocol is a differentiated DeFi platform
[ANN] Cypherdog - innovative company operating in the IT, cyber security sector.
MAVATRIX, THE LEGEND OF REWARDS!
[ANN] WELCOME TO PKT! Internet By The People, For The People!
[ANN] Affyn - Reimagine a Play-to-Earn Metaverse
[ANN] ROBO INU FINANCE The community-owned crypto inspired by NASA


On top of writing in same threads, some accounts also have certain similarities when it comes to merit: 2 Member rank accounts used Bordijo and Efarilino got 10 merit each from two merit giveaway threads, [Merit] Hey Newbies! Can You Sign A Message? and [Merit] Hey Bitcoiners! Can You Send Encrypted Messages? which then they used to rank up other at accounts. That's just the tip of the iceberg though as several other accounts that can be connected to this group did the same; they got the merit from those merit giveaway threads and then shared them to their alts.

[examplens]

I would call them "sup fellas..." spammer fellowship.
they all have an identical way of writing, just a few of them from Mavatrix thread (this is how every post starts, I cut out the rest of the nonsense)

sup everyone, please help me.

sup fellas, I need your advice.

wazzup fellas, I have a question.

sup fellas, how are you?

"sup fellas, seems like all this news and updates a

wazzap fellas, I need your help.

[Rikafip]

I would call them "sup fellas..." spammer fellowship.

Hah yeah, I guess person behind those sock pupper accounts is a big Scary Movie fan

they all have an identical way of writing, just a few of them from Mavatrix thread (this is how every post starts, I cut out the rest of the nonsense)

wazzup fellas, I have a question.

I quoted Indacoin as I think that there is a big chance that this account was either sold or hacked. That's the official Indacoin account here on bitcointalk and AFAIK Indacoin is a legit crypto exchanger and somehow I doubt they would bother with thread bumping.Then again, looking at their bpip profile, I don't see any email or password change.

[examplens]

wazzup fellas, I have a question.

I quoted Indacoin as I think that there is a big chance that this account was either sold or hacked. That's the official Indacoin account here on bitcointalk and AFAIK Indacoin is a legit crypto exchanger and somehow I doubt they would bother with thread bumping.Then again, looking at their bpip profile, I don't see any email or password change.

it seems more to me that he was part of the Indacoin team ^{or he is just hired for that part of the job}, but at some point, they ^Indacoin decided they didn't need this forum anymore. so the one who managed it gave him a new purpose, bump spamming over the forum.
this is just based on current feedback on his profile. Also on his profile, we see .com domains while the official indacoin on .io extension. (currently .com has also been redirected to .io)

[holydarkness]

Another group of ANN threads that hired bumping service just discovered. If anyone has any doubt about what's going on, just look at the screenshot below and the same group of 7 accounts working across at least 6 threads. There are probably more but this was enough to make a point and provide enough proof.

[...]

Uhh... 13, you're missing some others. I color coded them here. Aside from bumping --and shilling as their post shows fake enthusiasm-- they also cheated several bounties by enrolling their accounts altogether. Proof of connection in form of transactions between wallets are also documented.

[Welsh]

Whenever we get through a pile of threads, there's always more to keep us on our toes . I'll take a thorough look of these later on. Though a quick glance suggests a global moderator will likely be needed to ban the higher ranked users.

Although, I'm still going through the Decent thread, and I suspect that'll take pretty much all of this weekend. So, another staff might have taken care of it before then.

[GazetaBitcoin]

Heads-up:

Since my last post I cleaned the following topics:

1. The "sup fellas group" (this sounds so amusing Maybe instead of my usual "Heads-up" I'll use "Sup fellas" from now on )

Horizon Protocol is a differentiated DeFi platform
[ANN] Cypherdog - innovative company operating in the IT, cyber security sector.
MAVATRIX, THE LEGEND OF REWARDS!
[ANN] WELCOME TO PKT! Internet By The People, For The People!
[ANN] Affyn - Reimagine a Play-to-Earn Metaverse
[ANN] ROBO INU FINANCE The community-owned crypto inspired by NASA

From these topics I reported 240 posts.

2. Then I took another quick clean-sweep over the previous mentioned topics: the group found by Rikafip on March 3rd and the similar group, found by holydarkness, on March 4th. Fortunately, the lattest group is inactive and no new spam appeared since my previous intervention.

3. Lastly, I took another look over the active topics from the post I made on March 1st.

All in all, I reported 298 posts from these topics!


Starting tomorrow I will take care of last two topics which needed to be cleaned from the old group of threads -- MyTVchain and Relictum -- and, afterwards, I will start digging into Decent thread.

I think Rizzrack answered that question quite efficiently .

Yup, all clear now!

I've handled all remaining reports I have in my report queue.

Thank you, Welsh. My last two reports from the trashed SwapZilla thread were also changed from unhandled to Good.


Other than that, in this weekend I achieved a very nice number of reports!  This was possible, of course with all contributors to Rikafip's thread, which mentioned so many topics full of spam -- therefore I thank you all!

[Rizzrack]

And from this post made by nutildah we can find out that spammers are paid with 2.38$/post. Or, at least, they were, in 2019. Probably the payment rates are higher now. Pretty good, right? Not many signature campaigns can pay this amount.

TBH I was surprised to see there is a fair number of users on fiverr still ofering bumping services.
On the other hand I was not surprised to see that their reviews are fake old habits die hard I guess...

Should there be a new flag type for "fake discussions" ? Not sure if it would break more than it would solve but might be worth discussing at least

[GazetaBitcoin]

Sup fellas (big lol)

Since my last post I cleaned the following topics:

⚽ [ANN] ⚽ MyTVchain - Live sports, powered by blockchain ⚽
[ANN] Relictum Pro | Blockchain 5.0 of the latest generation

After 562 reports, MyTVchain was reduced from 37 pages to 8. Relictum was already cleaned by someone, as when I bookmarked it it had 35 pages, but when I started to clean it I saw it has only 13 pages and most of the remaining posts are made by OP. I had to report only 4 posts here.

Having this said, all topics posted by Rikafip in the first two posts of this thread can be considered cleaned. It was a huge work, which took about 4 months, but it's finally done!


Now wish me luck, as I started working on what is, probably, the longest thread ever to be cleaned: Decent thread which had, at start, 788 pages.

[ANN] DECENT - Decentralizing Content Distribution

I'll let you know when I finish (probably in about 25 years, when I'll also retire from work