This is what I call spam feeders

[SamReomo]

What about to make the list of spam feeders in this thread? Everyone should put these people on ignore list. These people create topics, then bunch of spammers post in their thread and spam grows on this forum and that's bad.

Will that stop those spammers? The answer is "no" because the spammers won't stop spamming no matter if such spam feeding accounts are listed in a thread and actually most members of the forum may not visit the thread often only to see if someone is a spammer or not.

I agree with you that such people create threads often to get attention and some of the spammers might post in those threads as well to complete their weekly post quota but that doesn't mean in any way that genuine members who don't spam may not post in those threads.

Actually, most members don't really care if someone who created the topic is a spam feeder or a genuine person, in fact they try their best to help out with their knowledge or share their opinion when needed. I know that creating list of some members might be a good step but who knows if it will help spamming and spammers or not.

[Lucius]

In the long term, it will backfire on everyone, because advertisers will not pay to advertise on a forum where most of the posts will be so bad that no one will read them anymore.

Ah, but you're thinking past the immediate gratification of payment-for-shitposts, whereas the knuckle-dragging fools who are currently ruining the quality of our beloved forum can't see any possible negative outcomes like that or worse, they just don't give a shit.  It's no wonder my post count has dropped in the past year.  I thought it was me being typically torpid, but then I look at all of the crap threads in the sections I normally post in and there just hasn't been all that many that are original or can even hold my attention for 30 seconds.

Obviously, there are too few of us who think long-term, but this is simply the reality we have fallen into and it will be difficult to get out. Unfortunately, we have lost some very important members of the forum over the years, whether they were extremely high-quality posters or members who worked in the background fighting spam and scammers. I still find good members and their posts that are worth paying attention to, but the truth is that we lose quality much faster than we manage to make up for it.

This place needs a hot lead enema.

I had to check what "enema" means because it's not a word I've come across - and I have to admit that I somewhat share your opinion, but it's hard for something like that to happen on a forum where some kind of freedom of expression is guaranteed, even if it meant that in this freedom also includes spam.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

but it's hard for something like that to happen on a forum where some kind of freedom of expression is guaranteed, even if it meant that in this freedom also includes spam.

I don't think "freedom of expression" is ever absolute, anywhere, nor do I think Theymos thinks it should be on bitcointalk (as evidenced by some of the rules, the presence of moderators, and even his banning of the last Yobit campaign).  If there was absolute freedom, then spamming would be allowed--and it's not, and I think common sense would dictate that there are limits to how shitty posts/threads can be before they get deleted.  Otherwise it's just a set up for the implosion of this forum, a scenario where there's nothing but AI-written crap and sig shitposters driving away all of the good members.

And I wonder why a lot of those good members of old did go away.  Some of them we know the reasons for, but I have a feeling some left because the level of discussion quality here has deteriorated and it's become tedious to see the same thread topics come up over and over again.  I'd really, really like to know Theymos's thoughts on this, but I don't suspect he'll give his opinion anytime soon.

[Aanuoluwatofunmi]

Simply have a look at this user: Fullbear2222. 11 merits and 450 posts from which 242 are topics. Can you imagine? 242 topics.
What's his point? Nothing. He simply created new topics and feeds spammers.
Another one here: UTON Blockchain. 10 posts (8 topics).

I checked on the two accounts to see their respective ranks and i discover that one is a member rank and the other a newbie, then this caught my attention on thinking whether they have no idea on how to make posts or whether they are just doing this shits on purpose, but irrespective of what may be behind this, what is not good is not good at all, most of them were doing this on purpose to either get noticed and shill their spam post contents.

[PowerGlove]

I don't think "freedom of expression" is ever absolute, anywhere, nor do I think Theymos thinks it should be (...)

Yep, and I think Lucius is aware of all that (he did say "some kind of freedom of expression").

I think common sense would dictate that there are limits to how shitty posts/threads can be before they get deleted.

And therein lies the rub: the laudably permissive and even-minded moderation policy means that there's a ton of stuff the moderators can't really do anything about...

One thought I've had about this is to beef-up/renovate the ignore system (so that you can completely hide people, topics or even just individual posts) and, while doing that, add the ability to have multiple ignore lists, some of which are private, and some of which could be published for others to view and subscribe to.

It's tricky to see, but, that's just about all the groundwork that's needed for members to easily clean up the forum themselves without having to beg and plead with the mods or argue about rule interpretation or freedom of expression.

For example, nutildah might maintain one such list called "AI shitbirds" or something, containing borderline cases that the mods won't act on, which I'd happily subscribe to. There are a handful of other members (10 or so) that I'd personally feel comfortable "outsourcing" different curation-related decisions to. I'd probably subscribe to certain lists that identify accounts that have changed hands, or accounts that just troll or post low-value things non-stop [1], stuff like that.

The dark side of a system like this is that a lot of people will inevitably isolate themselves into narrow views of the forum that don't represent the whole, but, all things considered, that's a small price to pay, and anyway, it's really nobody's business how any given user decides to control their own information diet.

[1] I mean, I've been reading ~2011-era Meta recently, so, I can practically hear theymos' retort in my head, saying: "If someone is just trolling and/or posting low-value things non-stop, then report them.", but, as someone that has now spent ~2300 hours of my precious time on this planet digesting almost uniformly shitty Bitcointalk posts, I think I've come to the conclusion that sensible/neutral centralized moderation just can't raise the signal-to-noise ratio much beyond where it's at, no matter how enthusiastically people might report things.

[EarnOnVictor]

What about to make the list of spam feeders in this thread? Everyone should put these people on ignore list. These people create topics, then bunch of spammers post in their thread and spam grows on this forum and that's bad.

Instead of encouraging everyone to put them in ignore list which isn't realistic, why not consider a situation we report such users to moderators and moderators will enforce a punishment like "inability to start a topic for the next 7 days". This kind of measures could curtail or slow the spam feeders as you called them.

This is a good point, we shouldn't be that cruel and threads mustn't attract merits before it is good though those guys need to work more on their writing skills. I do not see a serious offence committed in most of the threads, we can't be writing well and be creative the same way. Some people might want to genuinely participate in forums like this, it's not nice to ignore them but to put them through the right path by warning them. I believe moderators are already getting at them with some of the posts moved to Off-topic, regardless, many of the posts are still valid. Whether they constructed it perfectly or not, so far as the gist is made, they are still good, they should only reduce the frequency of opening new topics and construct the subsequent ones better.

[Lucius]

I don't think "freedom of expression" is ever absolute, anywhere, nor do I think Theymos thinks it should be on bitcointalk (as evidenced by some of the rules, the presence of moderators, and even his banning of the last Yobit campaign).  If there was absolute freedom, then spamming would be allowed--and it's not, and I think common sense would dictate that there are limits to how shitty posts/threads can be before they get deleted.  Otherwise it's just a set up for the implosion of this forum, a scenario where there's nothing but AI-written crap and sig shitposters driving away all of the good members.

When was the last time you reported a post that you considered spam? Moderators on the forum act almost exclusively on the basis of reports, if there are none or there are relatively few of them, then it is clear that the majority of spam is not sanctioned, which means that it passes under the radar.

In other words, all the rules of this world are in vain if there are not those who point out their violation, and then those who impose punishments based on that.

And I wonder why a lot of those good members of old did go away.  Some of them we know the reasons for, but I have a feeling some left because the level of discussion quality here has deteriorated and it's become tedious to see the same thread topics come up over and over again.  I'd really, really like to know Theymos's thoughts on this, but I don't suspect he'll give his opinion anytime soon.

There are probably those members who have left the forum because they are dissatisfied with how things work, and the diminishing quality of posts and discussions certainly plays a role in that. If you start putting board after board on ignore and if you see that nothing changes for the better, then it is not strange that one day someone decides that there is nothing here for him anymore.

Although I would dare to say that the disappearance of sig campaigns that paid more than twice as much as the case today influenced some to leave the forum.

[Sandra_hakeem]

In the long term, it will backfire on everyone, because advertisers will not pay to advertise on a forum where most of the posts will be so bad that no one will read them anymore.

I'm afraid, but if it persist, then they'll definitely be no choice for the companies passing time around... The truth is, they've got representatives in here... The statistics are constantly evaluated to know if they're actually making the desired traffic and profits or not.
I don't wanna blame the MODs directly -- it ain't even easy to do their jobs, but what exactly do we all want for this forum at a long run? You and i, everyone else? Shall we all sit and watch a great community of intellectual people like this getting rubbed in the mud like it's nothing?

When was the last time you reported a post that you considered spam? Moderators on the forum act almost exclusively on the basis of reports, if there are none or there are relatively few of them, then it is clear that the majority of spam is not sanctioned, which means that it passes under the radar.

This wasn't about me, but I'm guilty! I really need to sit up and do what I'm supposed to do.

Some of them we know the reasons for, but I have a feeling some left because the level of discussion quality here has deteriorated and it's become tedious to see the same thread topics come up over and over again. 

It's sad that that could only be ^1/3 of the reasons why we've got old knowledge members falling out... Remember, alot of stories have been left unrevealed about sudden disappearance of well-known members.

[nakamura12]

~snip~
We can start counting down how long it will take for the moderators to run out of patience and ban it again.

Well observed, I had no doubt at all that he would return very soon with a new account. I've made 2 reports so far, so we'll see how long it will last this time, and given that he's a newbie, maybe not that long.

This guy would surely return sooner or later with another trash to spread in the forum putting more work for mods. Maybe this guy has some mental problems if not them I am wrong. If there's no merit being implemented them I wonder what this person would have done. We can only report the post since not all spam posts are being reported and some sre being missed being reported.

[Cryptohygenic]

Simply have a look at this user: Fullbear2222. 11 merits and 450 posts from which 242 are topics. Can you imagine? 242 topics.
What's his point? Nothing. He simply created new topics and feeds spammers.
Another one here: UTON Blockchain. 10 posts (8 topics).

What about to make the list of spam feeders in this thread? Everyone should put these people on ignore list. These people create topics, then bunch of spammers post in their thread and spam grows on this forum and that's bad.

Quit unfortunate that some of us think the privilege to write what we wanted is relatedly equivalent to social lives where misbehaviors is seem as content creations just in creating awareness of existence without undermining credibility.
These users must be ignorant pertaining their goals to the forum while flooded their profile walls with helpless Posts unremorsefuly. I think they need some breaks to stay stil and just have enough time reading across the forum in other to readjust else they are timely spreading worthless poster.
The number of merits earned has really not been a point to stress on because earning merits has not been too common after all I have been trying my best and has only earned 4 merits after creating 11 Topics and total of 60 Replies.
I don't want to see my current merit earn as mock by users or debunking on me.

[Lucius]

~snip~
I don't wanna blame the MODs directly -- it ain't even easy to do their jobs, but what exactly do we all want for this forum at a long run? You and i, everyone else? Shall we all sit and watch a great community of intellectual people like this getting rubbed in the mud like it's nothing?

It's not the fault of the mods that members contribute less and less when it comes to reports - but if you need to report someone dozens of times due to plagiarism and using AI to get a permanent ban, then part of the blame lies with them.

When was the last time you reported a post that you considered spam? Moderators on the forum act almost exclusively on the basis of reports, if there are none or there are relatively few of them, then it is clear that the majority of spam is not sanctioned, which means that it passes under the radar.

This wasn't about me, but I'm guilty! I really need to sit up and do what I'm supposed to do.
~snip~

It's very easy, if every day you report only 5 posts due to spam, plagiarism, use of AI and everything else (see the unofficial rules of the forum), that means you will have 150 reports during the month - if only 10 members participate in the same way, that means 1500 reports each month.


By the way, the last part of the post you quoted does not belong to me - a little more attention to such things is always desirable

[LoyceV]

One thought I've had about this is to beef-up/renovate the ignore system (so that you can completely hide people, topics or even just individual posts) and, while doing that, add the ability to have multiple ignore lists, some of which are private, and some of which could be published for others to view and subscribe to.

Have you read about the "glowing" Ignore button? It was before my time here, and supposedly the Ignore button would become brighter once more users have the user on Ignore. I think this feature was removed because it can be abused.
It may be possible to implement it again, and base someone's Ignore power on the Merits he's earned. Kinda like how the bump power works, but maybe minus something based on how many Merits the user earned.
While typing this, I realize this works in my favour. But most of the "glow power" should come from multiple users ignoring someone.

[PowerGlove]

Have you read about the "glowing" Ignore button?

Yep, I'm aware of that. (Only because I've bumped into posts about that accidentally; my reverse-reading of Meta hasn't got me there yet.)

I've always kind of liked the idea of giving users the tools they need to reliably keep shitposters from getting a foothold, and if this were my forum, I would totally experiment with all kinds of different schemes, but, in the end, I think most people (even the top users merit-wise) probably can't be trusted with such tools...

The thing is, if the trust system is anything to go by, then (by far) most users don't have the ability to be objective when it comes to rating each other. So, I expect any system that gives people the power to suppress other users will end up being used unfairly and for things way beyond their intended purpose.

That's why my current thinking revolves around pull mechanics rather than push mechanics. I'd like to give users the ability to basically nuke anything they don't like, but those decisions should only affect their own view of the forum, and the only mechanism for those decisions to spread and have a wider effect should be by allowing other users to voluntarily subscribe to some subset of another user's curation-related judgment calls.

[LoyceV]

The thing is, if the trust system is anything to go by, then (by far) most users don't have the ability to be objective when it comes to rating each other.

Isn't that the beauty of a glowing button? It doesn't force anything, all it does is give the user an indication of the user's post quality. And a reminder to click it when he agrees it's not worth reading.

[PowerGlove]

Isn't that the beauty of a glowing button? It doesn't force anything, all it does is give the user an indication of the user's post quality. And a reminder to click it when he agrees it's not worth reading.

I mean, yeah, and I get what you're saying. I guess, my objection would be that your description is how you'd like it to work: "all it does is give the user an indication of the user's post quality", but, in reality, that's not all it would do, frequently (I think) it would also mark users that people just don't like, or people that have views that many people can't tolerate, and whatnot, completely divorced from the idea of whether or not they're putting thought into their posts. I see this often with merit distribution: a lot of people seem to think they should merit posts that they agree with, and starve posts/posters of merit when they disagree. I expect the same thing would happen with any kind of "mark of shame" thing: people would get them just for posting controversial/annoying/upsetting ideas [1].

Of course, you could argue that the same thing will inevitably happen with the scheme I currently have in mind, but, the difference there is that there's no default component to it, so even if a user has made it onto a very-subscribed-to ignore list, from the point of view of someone that doesn't subscribe to that same ignore list, there'd be no outward sign that those user's posts should be taken less seriously than any other user's.

[1] I mean, that's basically what the trust system seems to often get used for. Honestly, if it were up to me, I'd completely dismantle DefaultTrust. I think it's actually caused more harm to the user base than good.

[Smartvirus]

While the another one, I use four AI detectors, 2 say using AI and another two say it's human text.

I'm not sure how these things work, but doesn't that seem like horrible detection capability to you?  It's a coin flip, and I'm hoping that isn't the best these tools can do in detecting AI-generated content....but again, I don't know much about this stuff yet.

These tools are indeed a coin toss as, it doesn’t accurately relate it to a source since there are none and just use the writing style or figure of speech amongst others to arrive at a conclusion. What makes it even more difficult to accept is the fact that, all available tools aren’t agreeable and that’s why you find reports on these not being handled as would have been expected.

Something that is worth looking at though is, just how some users especially in the first case of Fullbear2222 would make 450posts and 242 of those are topics. This person is literally not interested in anything else on the forum, not even in the threads they create. There have got to be a place for these kind of users!


I knew I had sometime ago said something about this user and once I saw the style of write up, it clicked. I had to go dig that up and the user was already been talked about in the reputation board with some alt related suspicion.

What I can say about the assertions in OP with regards to the suspicious users is, the complete lack of the use of commas. It really seems to bring these two to a place where they are bad at punctuations which makes it likely from the same person or this were just some low value content created just for the purpose of posting and don’t mind what reaction it might command.

This peculiarity seems to be common with the style of write up by the under listed users in quote.

Bumping this as I stumbled upon this thing:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5494142.0

Coincidence that Waldorf77, Squaremile777, Fullbear2222, Shortmaster , Parklane777, Mrbuck are bumping this?
Clearly his alts and he's collecting red tags on some of them, I wonder if maybe it's time to actually tag him, not even mentioning that he is ban evading.

Which makes it a likable truth that by some means, these users are either of the same origin or just some really bad writers. It’s had to see that for a coincidence.

[JollyGood]

Over the year you find many relatively accounts ranging from newbie/relatively new accounts to higher ranked that have done the same thing. The most prominent trait they have in common is that they (in most part) do not return to the thread after they created it and that is probably down to them not receiving any merits. They probably concluded they will not receive any merits for subsequent posts if they did not receive any for the OP.

What happens next is that signature spammers end up taking over those threads. I have reported many of those types of threads and thankfully nearly all of them were locked.

Simply have a look at this user: Fullbear2222. 11 merits and 450 posts from which 242 are topics. Can you imagine? 242 topics.
What's his point? Nothing. He simply created new topics and feeds spammers.
Another one here: UTON Blockchain. 10 posts (8 topics).

What about to make the list of spam feeders in this thread? Everyone should put these people on ignore list. These people create topics, then bunch of spammers post in their thread and spam grows on this forum and that's bad.

[Hispo]

I could be wrong, and there could be some ulterior motive behind those who you call "spam feeders". To me, we are talking about people who unfortunately suffer from some psychological and mental problems, which have not been addressed by professionals yet. So they come to this forum in order to vent what they feel, that being the case of Fullbear2222.
It is also quite noticeable how many of the topics of these people are quite nihilistic in nature and always talk about future, politics and society in a very dark and hopeless way.

Going beyond the fact they could be affecting the quality of the content within the forum, I can only hope they get the help they need eventually and turn their life around, for the best.
It is quite interesting and disturbing, what do people with serious mental illnesses can do/say on the internet when they are not under supervision whatsoever.

[Maslate]

I could be wrong, and there could be some ulterior motive behind those who you call "spam feeders". To me, we are talking about people who unfortunately suffer from some psychological and mental problems, which have not been addressed by professionals yet. So they come to this forum in order to vent what they feel, that being the case of Fullbear2222.
It is also quite noticeable how many of the topics of these people are quite nihilistic in nature and always talk about future, politics and society in a very dark and hopeless way.

It’s quite an imaginative thought, but it’s worth considering. To simplify, let’s base our judgments on the forum rules rather than personal opinions. What OP raised is a valid concern: if users keep creating excessive threads beyond normal, it exacerbates spam issues. This can become overwhelming for mods, who are outnumbered compared to the millions of forum users. Even a small percentage of active members can lead to significant problems if not managed well.

Going beyond the fact they could be affecting the quality of the content within the forum, I can only hope they get the help they need eventually and turn their life around, for the best.
It is quite interesting and disturbing, what do people with serious mental illnesses can do/say on the internet when they are not under supervision whatsoever.

If that’s really the issue with the OP, it shouldn’t be part of the discussion here because forum rules apply to everyone, regardless of personal circumstances. After all, we are anonymous here, so we don’t know what each person is going through. Even if someone is facing challenges, it doesn’t excuse not following the rules and standards.