Suggestion about newbies

[BlackHatCoiner]

The forum is going crazy with all these newbies scammers. I just saw a topic in which a newbie is presenting a miner "he just finished". It is clearly some kind of malware and we can understand it from the 5kbs of data. None of the available miners is 5kbs, it is just a sort of executable that will damage your pc. Now this one was a stupid person, but a smart one could upload a real miner that copied from an open source project and add the malware inside. Then he could announce it on english and not gloch, the language of spammers. Someone from the 100 of the people that will read the thread, could download it and test it which would lead him into trouble.

I would like to propose a solution about these newbies that don't do anything than damaging and spamming the forum. Once a newbie creates a new topic, the moderation team must approve it first. I wouldn't suggest posts generally because there may be some honest newbies that face an issue. Just for their topics.

[Rikafip]

Now this one was a stupid person, but a smart one could upload a real miner that copied from an open source project and add the malware inside. Then he could announce it on english and not gloch, the language of spammers. Someone from the 100 of the people that will read the thread, could download it and test it which would lead him into trouble.

That is already happening on a daily basis, scammers make fake announcement thread (usually copy some known project) and then include malware link, just see reports in Report Malware and Suspicious Links here so Mods can take Action ! and yeah, they can be pretty creative sometimes, like sharing legit link first, and then later on replacing with malware affected one. At least mods are pretty responsive and usually delete those malware topics very fast.

I would like to propose a solution about these newbies that don't do anything than damaging and spamming the forum. Once a newbie creates a new topic, the moderation team must approve it first. I wouldn't suggest posts generally because there may be some honest newbies that face an issue. Just for their topics.

Somehow I don't see that happening, as it would out even more strain the mods, that already have enough on their plate with spam posts. I saw others suggesting various restrictions for newbie accounts, but I have a feeling that those in charge are not willing to put extra restrictions on new accounts as It's already hard enough for a brand new account, even though it is probably  true that majority of new accounts are used for scam/bounty purposes.

[OcTradism]

The topic of Lafu can help newbies too

Guide and advice for new Users before you Download anything from the Forum !. I am shame of myself and don't remind why I did not list his topic in my compilation for security and privacy things till today.  

[Charles-Tim]

I would like to propose a solution about these newbies that don't do anything than damaging and spamming the forum. Once a newbie creates a new topic, the moderation team must approve it first. I wouldn't suggest posts generally because there may be some honest newbies that face an issue. Just for their topics.

That will not be good enough, moderators like other members to see for themselves that a post is worthy of deletion before deleting it, if certain numbers of members have reported a post, it will be deleted by moderators certainly, this is the best approach. Even, as scam is said to not be moderated, not like scam posts that are reported, I have reported some of the scam posts before, and was later deleted by moderators. Also, there are many newbies joining the forum daily, you can not leave the work for only moderators, we too need to report (useless and scam posts) so that moderators can concentrate more on the reported ones but also trying to review others.

[khaled0111]

It will be too much work for moderators and with all due respect, not all of them have the technical knowledge nor the time to analyse files and detect malwares.
Besides, it will give users, especially newbies, a false sense of security. Newbies tend to trust moderators and they will download whatever file they see just because a mod approved it.

Imo, restricting newbies from posting links seems a more reasonable and more effective approach to fight this kind of scam.

[BlackHatCoiner]

It will be too much work for moderators and with all due respect, not all of them have the technical knowledge nor the time to analyse files and detect malwares.
Besides, it will give users, especially newbies, a false sense of security. Newbies tend to trust moderators and they will download whatever file they see just because a mod approved it.

Imo, restricting newbies from posting links seems a more reasonable and more effective approach to fight this kind of scam.

I didn't say that moderators have to detect the files. Of course not, that's the last thing a mod should do, but you see files like I mentioned are surely malwares, you don't have to download them.

Restricting newbies from posting links will only damage the honest ones. The spammers will find another way to share their scammy links. (e.g PERFECTCASINO .GAMES)

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Once a newbie creates a new topic, the moderation team must approve it first. I wouldn't suggest posts generally because there may be some honest newbies that face an issue. Just for their topics.

No offense, but assuming this is your only (or oldest) account, you've only been on bitcointalk since roughly the time COVID-19 started becoming a real problem.  And the reason I bring that up?  Because it's obvious to me that you haven't done enough reading--because if you had, especially in Meta, you'd know that suggestions like yours have been brought up before and they invariably get ignored by Theymos.

Scams aren't even moderated on the forum, so there's no way Theymos is going to put the burden of judging the legitimacy of a newbie's thread onto the moderators.  And I'm not even saying it's a bad idea, just one that you can pretty much forget about. 

My suggestion to you is to read more and figure out what the culture is like on the forum, how things work, what the "leadership" is like here, and so forth before you start making recommendations on how to improve bitcointalk.

[hilariousandco]

I would like to propose a solution about these newbies that don't do anything than damaging and spamming the forum. Once a newbie creates a new topic, the moderation team must approve it first. I wouldn't suggest posts generally because there may be some honest newbies that face an issue. Just for their topics.

I've suggested this before and I still don't think it's a bad idea as it will stop the majority of spam bots of malicious users, but this alone wouldn't stop the current eth pill scammers as they've seemingly hacked hundreds of older accounts including many higher ranking ones which are used to spam the malware.

[BIT-BENDER]

Malware/scammers are not only posted by -newbies- even if -newbies- posting are moderated they can still go out buying account/hijacking one -an account above them- and do their bidding and this time with that account its better convincing than a newbie account.
Why would you be in the forum for a long while and take sensitive thing from anyone, a newbie at worse with reckless caution? My opinion the forum don't need to save us from newbies if we can still get same attack from anyone.

[Smartvirus]

I would like to propose a solution about these newbies that don't do anything than damaging and spamming the forum. Once a newbie creates a new topic, the moderation team must approve it first. I wouldn't suggest posts generally because there may be some honest newbies that face an issue. Just for their topics.

This would be a lot of work for the moderators and would require them to be online 24/7 which is very much undesirable for anyone. Having lights steadily flashing your eyes is a danger to health.

I didn't say that moderators have to detect the files. Of course not, that's the last thing a mod should do, but you see files like I mentioned are surely malwares, you don't have to download them.

Restricting newbies from posting links will only damage the honest ones. The spammers will find another way to share their scammy links. (e.g PERFECTCASINO .GAMES)

This feels like a direct contradiction of the above #Yourself. I don't see how they are to approve the topics before public review if they have the freewill to create topics directly on the boards. Or maybe I'm not getting you correctly but, so long as they are allowed to post contents directly on the boards, the result is always going to be same as now. Hence, it's up to users discretion on the links they click.

For a fact, newbies don't really mean your new to the forum as some could be Alts of existing or previously band users hence, a user reviewing any suffisticated content posted by a user should be very cautious as to how is the newbie so knowledgeable at that beginner stage and also with the knowledge that Alt accounts are mostly used to scam others as it means very little to the users, you exercise a lot of caution in accessing files on such post.

[Insanerman]

Imo, restricting newbies from posting links seems a more reasonable and more effective approach to fight this kind of scam.

Have you known that theymos have mentioned that he had been hesitant to imply more restrictions to newbie as it really doesn't help the good newbies?

One reason that I was hesitant to do this before is that there are an awful lot of newbie restrictions, and I don't want the forum to be unwelcoming to good newbies. I'll think about tying some of those to activity instead of rank in the future.

Yes, there might be tons of users that keeps attempting scam related activities or posting malicious links or files through other file-hosting platforms, but that doesn't mean that we must justify the Newbies in general the same as we judge those that do awful things to other users. I've seen a lot of users that really are interested in learning about crypto yet having another standard/barrier to their capability to contribute in this forum. If we really wanted to help stopping such scam activities/attempts, reporting them and tagging them is I guess a better way than having another set of rules and restrictions on the general Newbie rank.

[nelson4lov]

The forum is doing enough already to curb issues like this (there's been hundreds, if not thousands of related posts since the inception of the forum). There are measures already put in place. For instance, You can :

- Report threads/posts with malwares here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5182222.0

- What if the post was a plagiarized one? Report here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1926895.0


At the end of the day,  the best way to avoid attempts like this is best done on an individual level. Being in a decentralized space means we're responsible for our activities and safety. So it's best to think long and hard before clicking suspicious links.

[bmoconnotoo]

Yes, there might be tons of users that keeps attempting scam related activities or posting malicious links or files through other file-hosting platforms, but that doesn't mean that we must justify the Newbies in general the same as we judge those that do awful things to other users. I've seen a lot of users that really are interested in learning about crypto yet having another standard/barrier to their capability to contribute in this forum. If we really wanted to help stopping such scam activities/attempts, reporting them and tagging them is I guess a better way than having another set of rules and restrictions on the general Newbie rank.

So much this.

I'm a "Newbie", because my old account was part of the password breach and since I've been out of the crypto space for so long I never bothered to get it turned back on. After being a "Newbie" for about a day, I now have an email in to the provided address when I try to log in, but have yet to hear a response.

I absolutely believe that it's important to impose limits on new members to prevent the spread of spam and malicious links, but as someone who is experiencing it right now, the system could use some improvement. For example, I have a post in the market place that is generating a lot of PMs, but I can only send one PM an hour... and a maximum of two PMs per day. This is a ridiculous system, and if I was actually someone new to crypto and trying to learn and become part of this community, I would be quickly discouraged.

Even the "Copper" paid membership doesn't help here, as it really only allows "Newbie" users to post images. Ideally the system would account for incoming PMs and allow the "Newbie" to respond via PM (on a 1:1 basis) without hitting impossible limits.

[Upgrade00]

For example, I have a post in the market place that is generating a lot of PMs, but I can only send one PM an hour... and a maximum of two PMs per day. This is a ridiculous system, and if I was actually someone new to crypto and trying to learn and become part of this community, I would be quickly discouraged.

Someone who is new to the forum would naturally not need to use the PM option as regularly because, they are just learning how to navigate the forum. The PM restriction comes from the standpoint that newbies are new to the forum and would need sometime to adjust, if they are not new to the forum, then they should have a higher ranked alt account they can use for PMs. Anyone who is sending unsolicited PMs is likely spamming or trying to scam.
Cases like yours is an outlier and does not reflect a failure of the system, it's sort of a necessary evil to protect other members from spam PMs.

Even the "Copper" paid membership doesn't help here, as it really only allows "Newbie" users to post images. Ideally the system would account for incoming PMs and allow the "Newbie" to respond via PM (on a 1:1 basis) without hitting impossible limits.

Buying a copper membership gets your account automatically whitelisted and reduces the PM restriction to an extent, refer to this thread - New PM Limits

[bmoconnotoo]

Buying a copper membership gets your account automatically whitelisted and reduces the PM restriction to an extent, refer to this thread - New PM Limits

Ohh thanks for that, sorta wish all the info was in one spot. Like the page I linked about Copper specifically says that it has no affect on PM limits.

I agree, my circumstances are definitely not the norm. I still think a system where a Newbie can respond to PMs they receive would be better than what is in place. That way they still can't spam, but they can also reply to people who send them PMs without the person who sent the message thinking they are being a jerk or blowing them off.

Guess once I get my activity up, I'll see about buying Copper for this account if I still haven't heard back about my original account.

[RapTarX]

Can moderator guarantee that the post contains no harmful link? Don't newbie have the privilege to edit their post after getting approved? Now, after moderator approved a link with malware or after getting approved, if the poster edit the post, who will bear the risk? Who will you blame to? Definitely the stalkers around will have another words to say mlderator is manipulating the forum, spreading malware to steal data etc. Even it can be possible that moderator themselves will create new account and approved the post to steal other people's money (I mean it's possible).
Imagine the above scenerio and compare that with current. Which one is better? People now consider a link as risky before being 100% sure but once there is a moderation process, people will be 100% sure that the link is safe and they may get tricked easily.
That's why the rule is there, "Scam and/or possible scam isn't moderated here." I would be stickied with the current system; no one to blame. It's you who can save yourself.

[The Cryptovator]

The idea is good which I would agree with. But it would be a hard decision for admin and we have seen similar suggestions previously which had been ignored by admin. Admin will have to assign more moderators for that (IMO). Of course, then we might see lots of blam thread against moderators. Is it was concern about spam then admin would think about it, but about scams, it wouldn't possible since it hasn't been moderating by the forum. But you may help the forum by reporting malicious links. Moderators would remove such as link as far as I know. Spreading virus via the forum is against forum rules, doesn't matter if that virus using for scam or not.

[Lafu]

The Idea for looking into created Threas from Newbies before they get published may be good !
But as others already have written this will be not happened as it would be to go beyond the scope!

- If Moderators will check every new Topics from Newbies they will doing not anymore other things as this only

- The queue for publishing Topics will grow every day as there are to less Moderators ( They also have a Real Life and are not 24/7 online )

- This will end up that the Reports will be get not handled as they should

Just report the Posts or Threads you find to the Moderators and if possible with a reference (you can do this in my thread for Malware or Suspicious Links)
We are fighting now over an year against this thing .

[Stedsm]

@OP,
This has been clearly stated in the "Unofficial rules" that I forgot myself for which zasad@ reminded me about the same in a specific thread where a newbie was trying to offer doubling TRX tokens in a few days. Scams cannot be moderated here and so, your appeal is not going to work. It's better for the newbies to read as it is in their favor only and will help them take wise decisions about where to invest and where not to, as warning them is our responsibility but remaining safe is their own.

[Rengga Jati]

Actually, there have been so many topics that notice how to be a good newbie and member of this forum. However, everybody is different, it will depend on the newbies whether they really want to contribute well or not, whether they want to read and learn or not.
But special for the scammers, whether they are newbies or not, they will always ignore the rules, and they will always only focus on spreading scams, attracting many more victims.
That is why we are as members here can report their post or thread to the moderator and then the moderators will execute them.

[PrimeNumber7]

I would like to propose a solution about these newbies that don't do anything than damaging and spamming the forum. Once a newbie creates a new topic, the moderation team must approve it first. I wouldn't suggest posts generally because there may be some honest newbies that face an issue. Just for their topics.

This is simply not scalable because as the forum grows, there will be more posts by newbies, and newer users. It will also mean that someone wanting to get around this restriction will simply make a handful of posts over a few weeks, including one good enough to receive one merit to rank up before opening a topic. Or a scammer could hack an account to create a thread.

Currently, there is the patrol that brings attention to posts by newbies, and there is a large subset of moderators that have the ability to moderate threads by newbies. If not already implemented, reports against newbies should be given priority in the moderator queues.

[Onuohakk]

Once you suspect any spamming or scamming activities in a post, simply report it to the moderator. As simple as that. There are hundreds of post every hour in this forum. The moderators are not robots to crosscheck every post.
This forum is open for everybody, as long as you're ready to learn about crypto. Restricting newbies from creating new post, it's not necessary or right