Users who are blocked without even writing a single post on the forum

[meanwords]

I've registered to forums that made me wait a few days before I could post. That's terribly annoying! But if you're a spammer who registers hundreds of accounts, the 14 days don't matter at all. Take a look at loyce.club/patrol/: almost all of the first posts made by 100 new users are spam. And that's despite the current restrictions on new users.

But what if we reduced it to 1-3 days and on top of that, they have to do a bunch of things before they can post, maybe like 1-3 daily log in requirement, Bitcoin address requirement (It doesn't have to be their BTC that they are using, it's like for verification only), Bitcoin message signature (maybe if it can be somehow be checked automatically). It's like email verification but it's Bitcoin address that we are verifying.

For spammers, this will be a very tedious thing to do than finding a clean IP and spamming registration on that IP.

This will give new users 2 options, do that or pay the fee.

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[ranochigo]

But what if we reduced it to 1-3 days and on top of that, they have to do a bunch of things before they can post, maybe like 1-3 daily log in requirement, Bitcoin address requirement (It doesn't have to be their BTC that they are using, it's like for verification only), Bitcoin message signature (maybe if it can be somehow be checked automatically). It's like email verification but it's Bitcoin address that we are verifying.

For spammers, this will be a very tedious thing to do than finding a clean IP and spamming registration on that IP.

This will give new users 2 options, do that or pay the fee.

Won't do. Some of the new users that I've seen were urgently seeking some technical help with their transactions and would probably won't come back if they're made to wait. It is very easy to circumvent log in requirements or address verification. It is not tedious for them to farm large number of accounts at once.

On the contrary, with every trial of finding a clean IP, they need to solve the annoying captcha, register and see the warning. While they can probably shorten their time by using different IP range per trial, it would still be more tedious than buying a bunch of IPs and automate those tasks that you mentioned.

[actmyname]

But what if we reduced it to 1-3 days and on top of that, they have to do a bunch of things before they can post, maybe like 1-3 daily log in requirement, Bitcoin address requirement (It doesn't have to be their BTC that they are using, it's like for verification only), Bitcoin message signature (maybe if it can be somehow be checked automatically). It's like email verification but it's Bitcoin address that we are verifying.

For spammers, this will be a very tedious thing to do than finding a clean IP and spamming registration on that IP.

No. Anything that can be automated will always make it marginally more difficult for the people you want to keep out than the Newbies that are going to have to deal with the crap.

Think of it almost like purchasing power inequalities: you can sell something for $1 and raise it to $1.50, but it affects people of different statuses differently.And if spammers don't need to pay the fee directly, they'll "pay the fee" via the low cost of getting such automation built for their platform.

[Rikafip]

I wonder how many users that had no previous contact with bitcoin, never bought or sell any would do that for the first time just to get an access to this forum. By the way, how much is that evil fee at the moment?

Not much, but presumably some if they are low enough.

Based on that older data that LoyceV found, approximately 2% of those paid the fee but what surprised me is that fee is much higher than I expected. I somehow thought that it is in the range of a few k satoshis, so more like a symbolic amount, but not 0.0011BTC. So high enough to stop abusers but not too high in order not to deter people from bitcointalk. And those are the numbers of users that paid the fee when BTC was much lower. If there was no evil fee reduction in the meantime, that would mean that someone would have to pay almost 40 USD to remove that thing. In that case, percentage can be only lower.

One more question: when you pay the evil IP fee, does this resets "evil" back to zero so IP is clean from that moment?

[ranochigo]

I somehow thought that it is in the range of a few k satoshis, so more like a symbolic amount, but not 0.0011BTC. So high enough to stop abusers but not too high in order not to deter people from bitcointalk. And those are the numbers of users that paid the fee when BTC was much lower. If there was no evil fee reduction in the meantime, that would mean that someone would have to pay almost 40 USD to remove that thing. In that case, percentage can be only lower.

It's capped at the price of the copper membership which is currently 0.0006BTC.

One more question: when you pay the evil IP fee, does this resets "evil" back to zero so IP is clean from that moment?

No. It only unblocks the account. Units of evil decrease with time.

[Daniel91]

I wonder how many users that had no previous contact with bitcoin, never bought or sell any would do that for the first time just to get an access to this forum. By the way, how much is that evil fee at the moment?

Not much, but presumably some if they are low enough.

Based on that older data that LoyceV found, approximately 2% of those paid the fee but what surprised me is that fee is much higher than I expected. I somehow thought that it is in the range of a few k satoshis, so more like a symbolic amount, but not 0.0011BTC. So high enough to stop abusers but not too high in order not to deter people from bitcointalk. And those are the numbers of users that paid the fee when BTC was much lower. If there was no evil fee reduction in the meantime, that would mean that someone would have to pay almost 40 USD to remove that thing. In that case, percentage can be only lower.

One more question: when you pay the evil IP fee, does this resets "evil" back to zero so IP is clean from that moment?

This is a really big amount, bigger than I thought.
I think real scammers will easily bypass this payment and register from another IP address so this will not prevent them from registering on the forum.
On the other hand, people who have nothing to do with bitcoin and any scams and have heard for the first time about bitcoin and this forum will simply give up and never come back.
Is that really what we want to achieve with this rule of evil fee?

[LoyceV]

But what if we reduced it to 1-3 days and on top of that, they have to do a bunch of things

Read this:

Limiting newbie participation is very harmful for a community. Newbie jail will never return: I consider the newbie-jail period to have been extremely damaging to the forum. When barriers to participation are too high, then the best people often just won't go to the trouble of joining, and the people who are willing to jump through the hoops are often people who aren't good for the community: people with nothing better to do, scammers, get-rick-quickers, etc. Having a permanent newbie jail policy would improve things a lot in the short-term, but would end up being a fatal poison to the community.

that would mean that someone would have to pay almost 40 USD to remove that thing. In that case, percentage can be only lower.

It's capped at the price of the copper membership which is currently 0.0006BTC.

Before the cap, things were even worse:

Your account contains 19,955.70 units of evil. To atone, you must pay a total of 0.00576923 bitcoins (5.76923 mBTC; 576923 satoshi).

That's $58!