Signature spam - how to force users to read before replying?

[UserU]

Reporting a thousand post to moderators only make it harder for them to focus on another area of the forum. We need to understand and know that people see things in different ways, as an Agricultural and food processing engineer I was taught that in every chemical processing there is always negative or positive reactions, the way people read and understand differs, the way people write also differs.

I've seen someone write 8 sentences without making a single meaning just to avoid their post being deleted or reported because the generation we have now caught a glimpse of a two-liner post as spam.

Does the forum have another meaning of what spam is?

Although reporting a thousand posts seems a little extreme, that's the job of the moderators.

Mods are paid positions, so they help keep the forum clean. As they are unable to cover every nook and cranny of the forum, that's when the reporting feature comes in.

[1713591189]

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[Rikafip]

I've seen someone write 8 sentences without making a single meaning just to avoid their post being deleted or reported because the generation we have now caught a glimpse of a two-liner post as spam.

Don't hesitate to report such posts. I've done it many times, and more often than not drivel gets deleted, no matter how long it is. And if someone gets enough posts deleted, maybe he change his ways, or at least ask what he is doing wrong, as they occasionally come to meta asking exactly that.

[Igebotz]

Don't hesitate to report such posts. I've done it many times, and more often than not drivel gets deleted, no matter how long it is.

This is it, this is the point individual differences play in, different understanding and how people react, the mod might react positively to the Same post I reacted negatively about. The only solution to reduce spam is to replace the " Report to moderator" with the " likes and dislike" button where a reply with more dislike get deleted

[Rikafip]

This is it, this is the point individual differences play in, different understanding and how people react, the mod might react positively to the Same post I reacted negatively about.

So what if mod doesn't delete the post your are reporting? It's not a big deal at all, and anyone who reports the posts regularly will eventually experience that ( I have 71 report marked as "bad") , but that doesn't mean the we should stop reporting.

The only solution to reduce spam is to replace the " Report to moderator" with the " likes and dislike" button where a reply with more dislike get deleted

I can see various ways in which that like/dislike system would get abused. There is something similar on reddit, where comments with more downvotes than upvotes get hidden, but I am not sure that it would work here.

[shield132]

It's really annoying when some users post something really good and there isn't even a single reply on their post and meaningless posting continues from meaningless users.

There are some ways that come to my mind:
1. We should report every similar post with the title: Meaningless! But that can be an extra pressure on moderators to check every post.
2. We should tag the users who don't read anything and reply blindly (not a great idea).
3. We should create a crowdsourced blacklist of those users and anyone will be able to add them in their ignored list (If it's possible, let's hide Ignored users from the threads they post, like they don't exist).

It will just make their "work" meaningless and logically should lessen the attempts. Otherwise, we can't really force anyone.
Maybe if we PM those users and ask to read before a reply can do the trick, who knows...

[Lucius]

You can't force anyone to do anything. It's a free discussion board and if you feel that they're shitposts report them. I'm afraid, though, that the problem is that you have nothing to gain from this procedure. These people don't even pretend to be interested in the topic and they want to get it done so they can get paid. If you report them, you're firstly losing your valuable time and secondly, you're just making it harder for them, but they'll keep repeating it.

I think you are wrong when say that someone cannot be forced to change their habits, and that it is a waste of time - if we had had such an attitude a few years ago, this forum would have literally drowned in spam - but some members then strongly opposed to that and took matters into their own hands - @hilariousandco took over the old YoBit signature campaign, and @Lauda BitMixer which immediately gave visible results - and was ultimately further enhanced with the merit system.

Furthermore, the forum was cleared of spammers thanks to someone who processed the forum from all plagiarized posts, and as a result thousands of such members were permanently eliminated - for those of us who have been on the forum for 5+ years, the change is more than obvious.

If more people were constantly reporting such posts and if such posts were regularly deleted and after x deleted posts such users get a temporary ban, I think it would be more than a clear message for them to start reading and stop being ordinary spammers for a change.

I report such messages from time to time. I add a note saying something like "The user repeats exactly what has already been said in the post <number x>". It has always been effective, but sometimes I'm so frustrated that I am so lazy to report the post concerned.
They're smart, they repeat 90% and add 1 unique sentence, just to look "original"

I have also reported such posts and have had no success so far, unfortunately they have remained unhandled - and I believe that mods do not have an easy task handling such reports, and it certainly takes time to read all the relevant posts.

@OP I suggest that you report few such posts just to try it out, and if its marked good, then continue doing so. Maybe we need some coordinated action against that, that could be done via Spambusters club.

I'm going to try, not only because I think it's the worst thing to ignore someone and pretend it's normal, but because sometimes I feel like I'm communicating with stupid bots and not living people.

[Igebotz]

I can see various ways in which that like/dislike system would get abused.

I'm curious to learn about them and keep in mind that there is no perfect system as every system has it own flaws, what we've been operating on the forum is a closed system where the mod do everything behind the scenes and make decisions on their own, while Reddit operates an open system whereby the people on the thread decide what reply is quality and which is not thru the downvote and upvote system without reporting to mod.

I've been here for 4 years and one thing I found out, I think there were a lot of spam in the system compared to what we have now all thanks to the merits system.

2. We should tag the users who don't read anything and reply blindly (not a great idea).

Don't abuse the trust system, spammers are not scammers.

[Welsh]

Reporting a thousand post to moderators only make it harder for them to focus on another area of the forum. We need to understand and know that people see things in different ways, as an Agricultural and food processing engineer I was taught that in every chemical processing there is always negative or positive reactions, the way people read and understand differs, the way people write also differs.

If there's a thousand posts which are report worthy, that signals that there either needs to be more moderation in that particular section or there isn't enough users reporting there. There should be more than enough moderators between us to handle extra reports. If there isn't, that signals to theymos that there needs to be additional moderators considered.

Its never a bad thing to report a post that you genuinely think breaks the rules. Only good comes from it. You either; get a better feel for the forum guidelines, remove spam from the forum or get better coverage of the forum by indicating there needs to be more moderators to theymos.

There are some ways that come to my mind:
1. We should report every similar post with the title: Meaningless! But that can be an extra pressure on moderators to check every post.

As I posted above, users shouldn't really factor whether they report a post or not on the pressure or workload of the moderators. Just report it. The worst that'll happen is it'll either get marked bad or remain unhandled if missed.

3. We should create a crowdsourced blacklist of those users and anyone will be able to add them in their ignored list (If it's possible, let's hide Ignored users from the threads they post, like they don't exist).

This has been tried, and tested before. It never really caught on. The thing is, there's so much bias, and subjection when it comes to creating a list, genuinely good users might be bundled into the list simply because the user curating it has a vendetta against them. Plus, its almost impossible to remain unbias especially without any real defined guidelines to users added to the list. So, there will be a huge difference in severity of user, the problem with that is they all get branded as one.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

And if we can otherwise force people to finally start reading posts and give some meaningful answers.

And how are we to achieve that, we can't force change if those we're forcing it on aren't willing to change. The sad truth is that we can't stop spam totally on the forum and to some extent they're needed to differentiate between quality post and the rest.

Although the merit system was introduced to do this, it hasn't been so effective so far since we're still have the spammers with their ranks. The merits didn't do anything harmful to them, it only reduced their chances of increasing in rank but that doesn't mean they can't join paid campaigns.

Obviously the campaigns they'll be chances to enter isn't as quality as the ones requiring high earned merits but still, we have to understand the spammers don't care. As for what we can do, self moderating the threads will create could help in reducing the level of spams we see on our created threads and for boards such option aren't available we continue reporting the spams and keep hopes in the hands of the moderators to do the needful.

[BlackHatCoiner]

I think you are wrong when say that someone cannot be forced to change their habits, and that it is a waste of time - if we had had such an attitude a few years ago, this forum would have literally drowned in spam

You misjudged me. I didn't say that scammers shouldn't be caught or we should stop exposing them; if anything, it's pretty obvious that scammers should be busted and I encourage every user from every marketing forum existing to fight them. What I did say is that trying to stop someone from making shitposts is a loss of time, which is different.

You should fight for plagiarized papers, but how can you stop a guy like the one below from making non-stop meaningless posts?

BTC price will drop. The same with all others assets. Thats how market works

You can't. Even if you report them with accuracy and get it banned, he'll just create another account and continue doing it, if he hasn't a hundred left. You'll just ruin your time. The solution for this problem is to cut his incentive, which would mean manager responsibility.

[Lucius]

You misjudged me. I didn't say that scammers shouldn't be caught or we should stop exposing them; if anything, it's pretty obvious that scammers should be busted and I encourage every user from every marketing forum existing to fight them. What I did say is that trying to stop someone from making shitposts is a loss of time, which is different.

I understood you perfectly, but this is not about scammers at all, we all know that scam is not moderated on the forum - it is not clear to me why you compare scammers and signature spammers in question here? I still think that nothing that makes the forum a better place is a waste (loss) of time, because you've only been here a little over 1 year - and you have no idea what the forum was like 5 years ago - some campaigns were run by bots, there was no selection process, post control...

You should fight for plagiarized papers, but how can you stop a guy like the one below from making non-stop meaningless posts?

BTC price will drop. The same with all others assets. Thats how market works

As far as I can see, this user has an advertisement in his signature, but this year he wrote only a dozen posts and is not regularly active at all - such users are not a problem for the forum - but he is certainly a shitposter, there is no doubt about that.

You can't. Even if you report them with accuracy and get it banned, he'll just create another account and continue doing it, if he hasn't a hundred left. You'll just ruin your time. The solution for this problem is to cut his incentive, which would mean manager responsibility.

You forget that it is not easy to start from scratch, and it is difficult for every shitposter to earn even 1 merit - let alone the 10 needed to become a Member rank and enter a signature campaign. Members who have hundreds of alt accounts are a different story.

The only thing I agree with is that campaign managers need to raise their standards, but I wrote before that there is a problem with a very small number of quality members who can fill places in new campaigns - and they are faced with the dilemma of filling places with members who are available (regardless of their quality), or that the campaign does not achieve the desired visibility due to lack of participants.

[DdmrDdmr]

<...>

This is in line with another good example you mentioned recently, whereby on a given thread in Bitcoin Discussion with barely a few pages of posts (at the time I made the stat), the ratio of those that understood and commented on a given idea was 1:5 (1 understood it for every 5 that did not).

Granted that the OP of that thread wasn’t very clear in his exposure, and that proper comprehension was achievable only after reading the referenced source within the thread’s OP, but quickly triggered answers solely based on the heading seemed to be a constant there.

As you state,cases whereby a proper answer is given, and the subsequent posts revert back to simply answering the OP’s post, instead of building on the provided answers are rather frequent too unfortunately.

Not much to be done though. Reporting for being clueless of blatantly wrong is not a factor, unless it’s done within a low value post (which would be the sustainable basis).

[The Cryptovator]

First of all we can encourage anyone to make a good post on topic, but we can't force them at all even not by the forum. Deleting their posts isn't going to prevent them and they will do it rapidly since they need to get paid from the signature. Most probably it will hard for moderators to judge moderators either post should delete or not without reading the all replies on the main thread. If you ask me if am I reading all the replies on a thread, then I will answer no. Because it's quite complicated and a waste of time. Because some people just repeating the same thing by changing or spinning words. But of course, I have been trying to read replies by constructive users, because I can learn from them. To be honest, a lower pay rate campaign can't expect high constructive users, as a result, this Kind of spam happening.

[hosseinimr93]

Deleting their posts isn't going to prevent them and they will do it rapidly since they need to get paid from the signature.

Yes, as long as they can make new posts, they will continue to spam without any notice to deleted posts.
For example, take a look at post history of this user (Archived). You can't find any meaningful post. The user is still posting while he/she has more than 300 deleted posts. (Reference: BPIP)

There is no doubt a user with that high number of deleted posts should be banned.
I am not saying any user with more than X deleted posts should be banned. But we definitely need more strict rules for spamming.
Many of users who spam for their signature campaigns are high-ranked members. I feel moderators never ban high-ranked users for spamming?

[libert19]

~

I feel moderators never ban high-ranked users for spamming?

I feel that there is some leeway to higher ranked memebers, when I used to be full member I used to get my posts deleted frequently but since I became senior it seems to be less and less. It could sure be some kind of fallacy ofc.

[Rikafip]

I'm curious to learn about them and keep in mind that there is no perfect system as every system has it own flaws, what we've been operating on the forum is a closed system where the mod do everything behind the scenes and make decisions on their own, while Reddit operates an open system whereby the people on the thread decide what reply is quality and which is not thru the downvote and upvote system without reporting to mod.

Let's say for example you report some scammer/abuser, and he retaliates by activating his army of alts that are following you around and keep disliking/downvoting your posts. If mods have to intervene in those cases, that would just mean more work for them. Bare in mind that bitcointalk is different than reddit (which I also regularly use for many years), with all these signature campaigns and financial incentives. Another thing that you can be sure of is if something can be abused here, it will be.

If more people were constantly reporting such posts and if such posts were regularly deleted and after x deleted posts such users get a temporary ban, I think it would be more than a clear message for them to start reading and stop being ordinary spammers for a change.

Exactly this. Even the most notorious shitposters will start asking themselves what are they doing wrong, and maybe even come to Meta asking, as many of them did exactly that after few dozens of their posts got deleted.

Although the merit system was introduced to do this, it hasn't been so effective so far since we're still have the spammers with their ranks. The merits didn't do anything harmful to them, it only reduced their chances of increasing in rank but that doesn't mean they can't join paid campaigns.

I don't think that merit system failed, and that it's purpose was to remove all spam (which is impossible anyway). If that was indeed the case, theymos would simply make everyone start from the beginning instead airdropping the merit based on activity. The way I understand it, one of the ideas behind introducing the merit system is to make it much harder for new  shitposters/spammers to rank up, therefore reducing amount of spam done via signature campaigns.

As someone who started from scratch and went through that "grind", I must say that shitposter will have a very hard job  reaching anything above Member rank, meaning merit system works. Maybe its not perfect, but what is?

[FIFA worldcup]

~

I feel moderators never ban high-ranked users for spamming?

I feel that there is some leeway to higher ranked memebers, when I used to be full member I used to get my posts deleted frequently but since I became senior it seems to be less and less. It could sure be some kind of fallacy ofc.

I don't think that there should be any kind of discriminations based upon the ranks. The posts should be deleted by the moderators if they think it is not up to the mark and not first check, what is the rank of the user.

It could be the case that since few of your posts were deleted, you now giving more aatention in your post and therefore they are being not deleted and it is not linked with your Sr Member rank.

[UserU]

I feel that there is some leeway to higher ranked memebers, when I used to be full member I used to get my posts deleted frequently but since I became senior it seems to be less and less. It could sure be some kind of fallacy ofc.

I remembered game-protect, a Legendary member got permbanned for plagiarism though so I guess we're still not out of the woods

[Lucius]

~snip~

I'm glad you're back on that thread, it's not just an obvious example that people don't read - but that they persistently refuse to understand what it's all about. Even the OP continues with its thesis about 1 BTC -> 60 cars, after all that has been written - which is really amazing, maybe we are dealing with a poorly trained artificial intelligence

Not much to be done though. Reporting for being clueless of blatantly wrong is not a factor, unless it’s done within a low value post (which would be the sustainable basis).

If more people were constantly reporting such posts and if such posts were regularly deleted and after x deleted posts such users get a temporary ban, I think it would be more than a clear message for them to start reading and stop being ordinary spammers for a change.

Exactly this. Even the most notorious shitposters will start asking themselves what are they doing wrong, and maybe even come to Meta asking, as many of them did exactly that after few dozens of their posts got deleted.

I did a test and report 3 posts from this thread, by using this in report "The user repeats exactly what has already been said in the post" as suggested by @LeGaulois and all 3 post are deleted. I know that some will surely hate me because I will report such posts, but I believe that it can have a good effect and that some users can change for the better.

[lovesmayfamilis]

I did a test and report 3 posts from this thread, by using this in report "The user repeats exactly what has already been said in the post" as suggested by @LeGaulois and all 3 post are deleted. I know that some will surely hate me because I will report such posts, but I believe that it can have a good effect and that some users can change for the better.

In addition to your post repetition report, you can ask the moderators to close this thread.
Sometimes a lot of the same topics appear, we cannot fix it. Every year, views on this or that thing may be different. Therefore, let there be many similar topics, different in the time of creation and timely closed. This is better than the existing mega streams, in which information flows "from empty to empty", at a time when everyone understands that no one will read posts written long ago.