Is there a solution to combat endless account creation?

[(BTC)]

Reputation is currently being flooded with spam by someone using a combination of agents and VPN's/endless IP addresses (assuming they aren't getting evil thing when registering each new account). Is there a way to stop this?

[Vod]

Reputation is currently being flooded with spam by someone using a combination of agents and VPN's/endless IP addresses (assuming they aren't getting evil thing when registering each new account). Is there a way to stop this?

Use AI to fight it??   It's only going to get worse, with every major AI company introducing "agents" that can act on your behalf endlessly after one properly worded prompt.  I'm surprised it took the scammers this long to figure it out!

[BlackBoss_]

Reputation is currently being flooded with spam by someone using a combination of agents and VPN's/endless IP addresses (assuming they aren't getting evil thing when registering each new account). Is there a way to stop this?

It's issue not only in Reputation board, we see it in many boards such as Meta, Beginners & Help, Bitcoin discussion, Gambling discussion, Economics, Politics & society, even Serious discussion board.

Example
THREE REASONS WHY PEOPLE DISRESPECT YOU.
Honestly, I spent some seconds to visit that board, and got this topic which has no reasons to be in Serious discussion board but surely you can find more similar topics there.

If the issue need to be solved, it's not because the spam reaches to reputation board but for forum-wide benefits.

[SamReomo]

There's no need to do anything against endless account creation because everyone is allowed to create accounts here and members are even allowed to create multiple accounts. However, if someone misuses that feature and starts spamming the forum then most or all of those accounts will get banned or get negative feedback. I don't think that anything else can be done against such accounts at this time.

[lovesmayfamilis]

Reputation is currently being flooded with spam by someone using a combination of agents and VPN's/endless IP addresses (assuming they aren't getting evil thing when registering each new account). Is there a way to stop this?

It's issue not only in Reputation board, we see it in many boards such as Meta, Beginners & Help, Bitcoin discussion, Gambling discussion, Economics, Politics & society, even Serious discussion board.

Example
THREE REASONS WHY PEOPLE DISRESPECT YOU.
Honestly, I spent some seconds to visit that board, and got this topic which has no reasons to be in Serious discussion board but surely you can find more similar topics there.

If the issue need to be solved, it's not because the spam reaches to reputation board but for forum-wide benefits.

It's no secret that these so-called "serious" sections publish topics that are ideal for the off-topic section. But one day, alternative accounts miraculously saw the difference in the fact that posting in the first steps of account development in the off-topic section, for the future of their existence and their historical posts, would be a red flag to identify the account as someone's alternative, and everyone moved together to the serious and political discussions section. Since they don't have much knowledge about cryptocurrencies at the first steps, writing posts far from cryptocurrencies still accelerates the growth of their activity and, in some cases, even their ranks. Therefore, when we see newcomers who are discussing the value of water or topics such as the Chamby token or push-ups, we can understand that this is another 10 or 50 alternative accounts.

There's no need to do anything against endless account creation because everyone is allowed to create accounts here and members are even allowed to create multiple accounts. However, if someone misuses that feature and starts spamming the forum then most or all of those accounts will get banned or get negative feedback. I don't think that anything else can be done against such accounts at this time.

I am always surprised by your answers, how obvious they are, but at the same time completely calm and maybe even fair. You always have everything without fuss. Tell me, how much magnesium do you drink every day?

[SamReomo]

I am always surprised by your answers, how obvious they are, but at the same time completely calm and maybe even fair. You always have everything without fuss. Tell me, how much magnesium do you drink every day?

Thanks, I really appreciate your words. Whenever, I see you quoting my reply, it makes me happy because there's always something to learn from you. The OP should understand that it's not possible to stop those new accounts or the ones who're controlling those accounts to post spam comments.

There's only one possibility to stop such type of spam and that's to create a separate board for newbie accounts with no merits and allow newbie accounts to post in that board only, but again that will limit those newbie members who can actually contribute something helpful in future, and even by doing that spammers won't stop their spamming habits.

[ABCbits]

Reputation is currently being flooded with spam by someone using a combination of agents and VPN's/endless IP addresses (assuming they aren't getting evil thing when registering each new account).

Register and login page have captcha. Does AI/agent/chatbot these days can solve it automatically?

Is there a way to stop this?

Not really, unless you consider extreme approach such as newbie jail, doesn't allow register from all known VPN/proxy IP or configure cloudflare to be more strict on login/register page. But if some member bother report them and moderator delete their post/thread, there's chance they will be annoyed or even give up.

However, if someone misuses that feature and starts spamming the forum then most or all of those accounts will get banned or get negative feedback.

Looking at OP example, i think people or group behind those account totally don't care if the account receive negative feedback.

[LoyceV]

Is there a way to stop this?

Short answer: No
I started leaving (neutral) feedback to AI spammers and shitposters, but they should just get banned. Manually reporting automated spam is a tedious task, and (in my opinion) Mods are too soft on them. I don't want to keep reporting the same shitposters, so I just  Ignore them.

You yourself were hit by the evil fee proxyban, so it's already stopping the wrong people. To quote theymos:

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.

[logfiles]

One of the best solutions is to probably ignore the low value posts they make. The person behind the accounts may eventually give up. If they are endlessly spamming, a report or two would come in handy

I think some of this people are motivated into creating such posts because a few of their accounts got merited doing the same. So they think it's some sort of merit glitch to be used to farm their accounts. Just ignore them and they will give up.

[Karl_3000]

Short answer: No
I started leaving (neutral) feedback to AI spammers and shitposters, but they should just get banned. Manually reporting automated spam is a tedious task, and (in my opinion) Mods are too soft on them. I don't want to keep reporting the same shitposters, so I just  Ignore them.

But why are the moderators doing like this? Theymos should give them the instructions to ban the AI posters except they include on their post that they used AI.

The Unofficial list of (official) Bitcointalk.org rules, guidelines, FAQ has been updated and rule 36 is about the AI rules which can let people know that AI shit posters should be banned.

There are some old members with high ranks that was using it before which were reported, I hope they will not use it again, but for newbies, I see their post more annoying.

[Bitcoin_Arena]

Reputation is currently being flooded with spam by someone using a combination of agents

Looks like there is a solution after all. Some good news is that all those spamming accounts have been nuked as per the logs. I think your report about AI did some justice in the end.

1. civilred Nuked
2. civilwar Nuked
3. redtrusts Nuked
4. wartrust Nuked

It will now be much easier to ban the rest of the sockpuppet accounts by that person in case they come up

[EarnOnVictor]

Short answer: No
I started leaving (neutral) feedback to AI spammers and shitposters, but they should just get banned. Manually reporting automated spam is a tedious task, and (in my opinion) Mods are too soft on them. I don't want to keep reporting the same shitposters, so I just  Ignore them.

But why are the moderators doing like this? Theymos should give them the instructions to ban the AI posters except they include on their post that they used AI.

The Unofficial list of (official) Bitcointalk.org rules, guidelines, FAQ has been updated and rule 36 is about the AI rules which can let people know that AI shit posters should be banned.

It's easier said than be fairly implemented, otherwise, mods would make a lot of unfair mistakes, and I think LoyceV was even wise to give some neutral tags rather than red tags. As annoying as these people could be, the lack of proper English knowledge is the problem of some of them, not the AI per se, but the popularity of AI has made people generally tagged it as such. The AIs I know don't post shits, which is why we need to differentiate between AI spammers and Shit posters.

The lack of the official rules and official punishments the breaches would attract is a major challenge to mods on their own. This is why there should be a tabled plan to effect their punishments after some fair warning, maybe 3 warnings. If they couldn't stop/improve, then anything meted out to them is fair to me.

[Karl_3000]

It's easier said than be fairly implemented, otherwise, mods would make a lot of unfair mistakes, and I think LoyceV was even wise to give some neutral tags rather than red tags. As annoying as these people could be, the lack of proper English knowledge is the problem of some of them, not the AI per se, but the popularity of AI has made people generally tagged it as such. The AIs I know don't post shits, which is why we need to differentiate between AI spammers and Shit posters.

LoyceV only give positive and negative trusts to things related to money. You can see the positive trust he gave Foxpup, icopress, ThomasV and suchmoon that they are about something money is involved which he was pleased with while his negative trust are also about people and services that are scammers. He is one of the users on the forum that make use of the trust system appropriately. He is not giving neutral trust to shit posters before until the moderators are not deleting the shit posts from the AI users.

The lack of the official rules and official punishments the breaches would attract is a major challenge to mods on their own. This is why there should be a tabled plan to effect their punishments after some fair warning, maybe 3 warnings. If they couldn't stop/improve, then anything meted out to them is fair to me.

Some people can be warned, but some people do not deserve any warning than to ban their accounts. Anyone that copy/paste AI contents without referencing them are not different from plagiarism. Such person should just be banned.

Have you not read the rule 36? The rules post have been updated and it now include rule 36.

36. Posting AI generated text is prohibited unless it's clearly labeled as AI generated, appropriate and only done so occasionally or if it's used to directly translate text from one language to another.[14]

[hd49728]

One of the best solutions is to probably ignore the low value posts they make. The person behind the accounts may eventually give up. If they are endlessly spamming, a report or two would come in handy

I think some of this people are motivated into creating such posts because a few of their accounts got merited doing the same. So they think it's some sort of merit glitch to be used to farm their accounts. Just ignore them and they will give up.

You can ignore their posts because you don't care about them initially but with your ignorance, and for example more people do similarly like your do, such shitposters will rank up, and use their smerit for ranking up more accounts. That will lead the forum to more spammers which are no longer newbies but at higher ranks, even Hero and Legendary ranks.

My example can be verified if you look at spammers in a famous campaign, and honestly I don't think I have to mention that campaign name here.

(in my opinion) Mods are too soft on them. I don't want to keep reporting the same shitposters, so I just  Ignore them

Years ago when moderators were stricter with permanent bans on plagiarism, it did not stop spammers. They continued and waited for chances like when there were second chances and the merit system becomes more easily for ranking up, and AI appearance to support their spam. While it is exactly like you said, mods are too soft with AI-generated spam posts.

[logfiles]

You can ignore their posts because you don't care about them initially but with your ignorance, and for example more people do similarly like your do, such shitposters will rank up, and use their smerit for ranking up more accounts. That will lead the forum to more spammers which are no longer newbies but at higher ranks, even Hero and Legendary ranks.

How would they rank up if members are ignoring their posts by not replying or meriting them?
Rule number 1: when you see such shit posters/trolls create topics, don't even bother replying to their threads and with time they will eventually give up. User "redtrusts" got a few merits and thought he would continue with the shit posting spree using his other alt accounts as well. If not just trolling, It is highly likely the other motive was merits.

[TypoTonic]

Reputation is currently being flooded with spam by someone using a combination of agents and VPN's/endless IP addresses (assuming they aren't getting evil thing when registering each new account).

Register and login page have captcha. Does AI/agent/chatbot these days can solve it automatically?

I think what OP meant is that, the guy was using an AI agent/chatbot to generate the topics, but he is manually creating new accounts, using dedicated IPs from VPN providers.

Is there a way to stop this?

We can't really prevent them from doing that, the best we can do is to report the spam posts.
Also, there are cases when you might want to create a new account. I saw Loyce quote this recently:

If you're hesitant to say something controversial because you don't want it to be associated with your name, please create an alt account and say it.

[EarnOnVictor]

The lack of the official rules and official punishments the breaches would attract is a major challenge to mods on their own. This is why there should be a tabled plan to effect their punishments after some fair warning, maybe 3 warnings. If they couldn't stop/improve, then anything meted out to them is fair to me.

Have you not read the rule 36? The rules post have been updated and it now include rule 36.

36. Posting AI generated text is prohibited unless it's clearly labeled as AI generated, appropriate and only done so occasionally or if it's used to directly translate text from one language to another.[14]

I am aware of the added number 36. For me, it's still unofficial, and no official penalty as well, which makes the work of mods to be flexible. By virtue, they can't be blamed for acting on their own discretion.

Notwithstanding, shitposters can be harsh towards. But what's the modalities for catching the AI spammers? The AI detectors??? I strong doubt their accuracy, unless the AI spammers clearly violated additional rules, caught plagiarising, or are not just coherent.

[MarryWithBTC]

Reputation is currently being flooded with spam by someone using a combination of agents and VPN's/endless IP addresses (assuming they aren't getting evil thing when registering each new account). Is there a way to stop this?

The evil fee of a thing was introduced because of this; simply say that the evil fee function has failed.

How would they rank up if members are ignoring their posts by not replying or meriting them?

How would some members meeting up their weekly posting quota when they ignore threads that enables them make a low effort reply and get paid?

You see that it's like a food chain, we are all connected in the ecosystem.

[NotATether]

That's what the evil fee is for.

Set a cookie in the browser, anyone who creates a new account while the cookie is set has to pay an evil fee. With progressively increasing fines the more accounts are created.

[LoyceV]

The evil fee of a thing was introduced because of this; simply say that the evil fee function has failed.

I once found tens of thousands of accounts with the same backlink in their profile. Many spammers have found their way around the proxyban, and some innocent users get banned too, but you don't know how much worse the spam would have been without the evil fee. It could very well have reduced the spam by 95% without us knowing it.

Set a cookie in the browser, anyone who creates a new account while the cookie is set has to pay an evil fee. With progressively increasing fines the more accounts are created.

(image source)