Spam reserved post, edit later to hit post quota is back

[tranthidung]

Old story, it repeats again.

Spammers and shit posters (nothing wrong to call them like this) use this approach to hit post quota and manage to earn money from their shit posts.

How do they do that?

• Posting reserved posts. Likely they do it because the time of weekly post counting in their campaign is ending
• Returning back, minutes or hours later, to edit those posts with zero-valued contents.

• Posting reserve? (old story, 2 years ago)
• New story. It is bad as the user is from 1xbit campaign
• I believe we can find more in 1xbit campaign
• Another example: (AndySt) The next abuser of stake campaign?

I think if campaign managers see such shit posts that were edited, they would have one more reason to not count those posts for weekly payment.

For other members, we can report such posts as spam.

[un_rank]

I think if campaign managers see such shit posts that were edited, they would have one more reason to not count those posts for weekly payment.

For other members, we can report such posts as spam.

1xbit campaign is a scam contest, and users who apply and participate in it willfully promote such scams, to the detriment of their profile.
It is really little surprise that such dishonest members would try to cheat the campaign. The manager of the campaign most probably would not care about such edited posts, they just want to be in peoples faces, with the way they are throwing money into advertisement on different platforms.

I have a question about reporting such posts, If the user edits the post before a moderator can check out the report, what would be an appropriate response to it? Especially if the new post is not worth deleting.

[tranthidung]

The manager of the campaign most probably would not care about such edited posts

Manager (and forum users) can only see edited if they visit a specific topic to see that post. If the manager only count posts in post history of a participant, it is impossible to know that post was edited or not.

I have a question about reporting such posts, If the user edits the post before a moderator can check out the report, what would be an appropriate response to it? Especially if the new post is not worth deleting.

First, such reserved post is non-sense and should be trashed.
Second, moderators can check content history of a post.
Third, they can use unofficial resource to check, like from https://loyce.club/archive/posts/

[un_rank]

Manager (and forum users) can only see edited if they visit a specific topic to see that post.

I am aware of this, I was trying to say that the 1xBit campaign manager might not care about how the participants go about the campaign, as long as they keep on spamming. Many of the posts and replies advertising them are low value, but they are all accepted.

[tranthidung]

I am aware of this, I was trying to say that the 1xBit campaign manager might not care about how the participants go about the campaign, as long as they keep on spamming. Many of the posts and replies advertising them are low value, but they are all accepted.

You are newbie but your posts make me curious. Too knowledgeable about forum and 1xbit campaign, then checking shows that

Your first post (1 day after your account registration day) in this forum is jumping to Meta and answering questions about forum rules.  

[un_rank]

Your first post (1 day after your account registration day) in this forum is jumping to Meta and answering questions about forum rules.  

I do not see how that is relevant here, I was not even trolling you. Besides, I stated that I had done a bit of reading around the forum before making my first post.

-replying to your edit: I would not say I am very knowledgeable, the 1xBit debacle is not easy to miss, for someone who frequent the forum. My goal is to learn about bitcoin, but first I need to get familiar with the forum features.

[jackg]

I have a question about reporting such posts, If the user edits the post before a moderator can check out the report, what would be an appropriate response to it? Especially if the new post is not worth deleting.

First, such reserved post is non-sense and should be trashed.
Second, moderators can check content history of a post.
Third, they can use unofficial resource to check, like from https://loyce.club/archive/posts/

I'd imagine the post would include and could be reported for plagiarism (especially if it's done near the start of the thread).

Mods are normally fairly happy to remove posts that don't add value to a topic or mention something new/different (that could count as plagiarism - in this case they might be copying from someone else but rephrasing entirely what was said so the two don't look identical).

[_BlackStar]

Solosanz caught a user behaving like this a while back: (AndySt) The next abuser of stake campaign?

I think it's a bad habit for signature campaign participant. This campaign pays participants to spread awareness on their site which should be done evenly over 7 days, but this way I believe they have hired the wrong people.

I think if campaign managers see such shit posts that were edited, they would have one more reason to not count those posts for weekly payment.

If it happens to the 1xbit campaign, then let it be because I don't think we should help the scammer who was scammed by his signature participant. For other campaigns, yes I will agree with your suggestion.

[LTU_btc]

Since we are talking 1xbit campaign, I think there is no chance that manager of their campaign will pay attention and take some actions. But there is another problem - such posts don't add any value to discussion and it goes against forum rules. It's not even some generic shit writen, it's just empty post. So, it should be reported to moderators. I don't know how much time it takes for him to fill post with content after he published it, but if mod will act fast enough, such posts will be removed.
If it would be normal campaign, such user would lose his spot soon, but 1xbit don't really care about it.

[Hispo]

I don't know how much time it takes for him to fill post with content after he published it, but if mod will act fast enough, such posts will be removed.

It is not difficult to catch this kind of campaign cheating techniques, even if they managed to edit their blank posts before the moderator checked, we have tools that help to visualize un-edited post from any user. However, just in case I took the liberty to report seveal of their blank posts to moderators.

[UmerIdrees]

I don't know how much time it takes for him to fill post with content after he published it, but if mod will act fast enough, such posts will be removed.

It is not difficult to catch this kind of campaign cheating techniques, even if they managed to edit their blank posts before the moderator checked, we have tools that help to visualize un-edited post from any user. However, just in case I took the liberty to report seveal of their blank posts to moderators.

Even it is difficult for the moderators to find and punish these cheaters as they will have to look for the previous version of every reported post. Since there are too many posts being reported, it may be time consuming for the mods to use third party tools.

My suggestion is that if anyone sees any such "Reverse posts", they should mention that profile here and also take that blank post screenshot. All members can then keep track of their posts and report them. When there will be many reports against the same post, mods will definitely take action against them.

[Lucius]

I think that there are very few people who try to fight spam in general, and when someone uses such insidious techniques, then the matter becomes even more difficult because people have a hard time deciding on any action. I personally haven't seen too much spam regarding the sig campaign mentioned above, which means that they chose parts of the forum that are not the focus of active reporters.

I have a question about reporting such posts, If the user edits the post before a moderator can check out the report, what would be an appropriate response to it? Especially if the new post is not worth deleting.

A problem arises for the moderator, because the post is obviously not what it was initially reported for, and it all boils down to whether the moderator wants to check it in the database of archived posts, or whether the reporter archived it and added a link to the description of the reported post. I'm not sure what the moderator would do in such a case, but it seems to me that the majority would leave such a report unhandled or maybe even mark it as bad.

[un_rank]

A problem arises for the moderator, because the post is obviously not what it was initially reported for, and it all boils down to whether the moderator wants to check it in the database of archived posts, or whether the reporter archived it and added a link to the description of the reported post. I'm not sure what the moderator would do in such a case, but it seems to me that the majority would leave such a report unhandled or maybe even mark it as bad.

Thank you for the response Lucius. As I understand it, the mods would act on their discretion.
Would the report being marked as bad or unhandled affect the users ratings, like succeeding reports not being taken as serious, or is it of no importance.?
Can I also see the status of my reports to the moderator?

[DaveF]

Can I comment here as a "so what".
1X and a few campaigns really don't care.

The better campaign managers like DarkStar_ , Hhampuz , Yahoo62278 , and many others would bounce out out so fast your head would spin.

It's a bit of a self correcting system. If your manager does not care, you spend money for crap posts that get you nothing, you don't generate more business so you leave.
There are of course exceptions to that, like 1X that are doing it for different reasons. They just want their name out there to scam people.

-Dave

[tranthidung]

Solosanz caught a user behaving like this a while back: (AndySt) The next abuser of stake campaign?

Another example. I think they come from a same farm so they have same posting behavior. When weekly time is ending, they make such reserved posts to avoid missing weekly payment. Then, they will return to edit it with zero value content.

I think it's a bad habit for signature campaign participant. This campaign pays participants to spread awareness on their site which should be done evenly over 7 days

With this style, they can do it 7 days a week. If a manager requires to spread posts in 5 or 7 days a week, they still can do it. No issue from lazy participants like this.

but this way I believe they have hired the wrong people.

They even don't know about that. Very few members in forum know about that approach from shit posters, not only campaign managers.
When you see such posts, there are two possibilities:

• Misclick
• To reserve weekly posts

[NeuroticFish]

Maybe we should have a rule that only the OP can add "reserved" posts into his topic and a bot should have a list of keywords and report the rest of "reserved" posts at sight?
.. Just an idea I've got now...

Edit: of course, if mods choose to not remove those, not much that can be done.

[Lucius]

Thank you for the response Lucius. As I understand it, the mods would act on their discretion.

Exactly, although they have some kind of guidelines by which they act, each of them has their own personal attitude towards how they act in a certain situation.

Would the report being marked as bad or unhandled affect the users ratings, like succeeding reports not being taken as serious, or is it of no importance.?
Can I also see the status of my reports to the moderator?

If nothing has changed, you can see the report history in the last 30 days only after 300 reports, and as for the percentage of success, of course it changes with the number of good/bad/unhandled reports. Although I only have a little more than 20 bad reports, my accuracy level is 100%, so you can have a few bad reports that will not affect that part of the statistics if it is important to you.

[tranthidung]

Maybe we should have a rule that only the OP can add "reserved" posts into his topic and a bot should have a list of keywords and report the rest of "reserved" posts at sight?

LoyceV has a scraper for unedited post (free) and a paid service for signature campaign managers.

• LoyceV's convenient (paid) service for signature campaign managers
• 60M posts! View unedited/deleted posts (search per post, per user or per topic)

I believe he can do it easily and it will help managers to have a list of suspicious reserved posts. Then they can compare it to editing time, check content more carefully for post count, etc.

It is normal if a user reserves posts in a single topic (for updates, etc.) but it is abnormal if a user reserve many posts in many topics in short period of time.

However, it should be a paid service, not free one. So I think managers will less likely to use it.

[NeuroticFish]

However, it should be a paid service, not free one. So I think managers will less likely to use it.

I expect good managers find that out. Actually good managers may not allow such users into campaign in the first place...
Bad managers don't care already, so they won't pay for such a feature.

All we can do is for the sake of the forum (since such behavior is abnormal and leads to shitposts) and clean the weed, but, in my idea, an actual rule is also needed so the mods have the reason to actually remove those when reported. A bot will be a later step (some mods have their own bots too helping in the cleanup work).

[The Sceptical Chymist]

For other members, we can report such posts as spam.

Definitely; I would encourage everyone to report "reserved" posts or ones with ellipses (og kush420 didn't even write a full ellipsis, just two periods, lol) to the mods. 

I realize this is probably just one campaign we're talking about here (1xbit), but how can any campaign manager accept an unfinished post for payment at the end of the pay period?  I'm a bit out of the loop: who's managing the 1xbit campaign, anyway?  It almost looks like the old Yobit campaign style of management, which was to skip having a manager altogether and just rely on post count via an automated bot.

Can I comment here as a "so what".

I rarely venture outside of the few sections I frequent, but if I were an active browser of sections like Bitcoin Discussion or the altcoin sections, seeing people get paid for making a post that consists entirely of ".." would infuriate me--and in the past, it's done exactly that.  The years from 2015-2018 to be exact, which is the time I spent on the forum prior to the merit system.  I used to get so pissed at these shitposting idiots that I'd tag them as a spammer.  You can't do that anymore, but my point is that it's annoying at the very least to a lot of people, myself included.

I think that there are very few people who try to fight spam in general, and when someone uses such insidious techniques, then the matter becomes even more difficult because people have a hard time deciding on any action.

If Theymos allowed me (or DT members in general) to start negging these morons into oblivion, I'd be spending hours each day doing it.  Unfortunately, that wouldn't do much good for 1xbit's collection of shitposters, since the one OP pointed out (og kush420) has lots of red trust, and not even for his posting.  There's a tag from Vod from a few years ago involving an actual scam by that user, and obviously 1xbit doesn't give a shit about who's advertising for them.

It might help with shitposters in other campaigns/bounties, though.  But it's still not a good use of the trust system, hence why people stopped doing it.