[BitList Analytics] Signature banned users and their data (before and after ban)

[TryNinja]

With the recent increase in signature bans, I decided to play around with this idea I had of creating organized dashboards using data from the BitList archive to show a picture, similar to what Dune does with their blockchain data.

If people like it, I might create more dashboards for other data.

This one's story is: "What is the picture of those who got signature banned? And what do they do after they get the ban?"

https://bitlist.co/analytics/sigbanned

You'll find:
- Ban date
- Merits received (120d before)
- Posts (120d before)
- Daily avg (120d before) and daily avg (after ban)
- Change in daily avg (after ban vs 120d before)
- Top boards (120d before)
- Activity chart (120d before vs after ban)

For example, here are the first 5 bans issued in the recent wave, 7 days after their ban (data is updated in near real time):




Also some cool charts:









If you have any ideas to improve this dashboard, let me know.


The data is brought to you by BitList.co, the no-KYC directory.

[joker_josue]

Excellent idea/project.

As it happened, I was starting to think about how one could keep track of this entire process.

I haven't looked at all the details yet, but you could create a list only of users who posted after the ban. Or apply filters to the current list.

[examplens]

Also some cool charts:

If there was ever any doubt that the gambling section was a hotbed of spam, this is probably just one more piece of clear evidence.

We've all looked at the Stake campaign as the worst breeding ground for spam, but Rainbet seems to be even worse. Quite dominant on the list, at least judging by the avatars.

[ABCbits]

If you have any ideas to improve this dashboard, let me know.

How about average position of top board, where the average is based on top board of each user? For example.

Account A
1. Gambling discussion (90%)
2. Bitcoin Discussion (8%)
3. Meta (2%)

Account B
1. Gambling discussion (95%)
2. Speculation (4%)
3. Meta (1%)

Account C
1. Speculation (60%)
2. Gambling discussion (30%)
3. Bitcoin Discussion (10%)

The average of each board would be
Gambling discussion: (1 + 1 + 2) / 3 = 1.33
Bitcoin Discussion: (2 + 3) / 2 = 2.5
Speculation: (2 + 1) / 2 = 1.5
Meta: (3 + 3) / 2 = 3

I'm curious whether this approach would show different board compared with "Where they posted".

We've all looked at the Stake campaign as the worst breeding ground for spam, but Rainbet seems to be even worse. Quite dominant on the list, at least judging by the avatars.

As reminder, some of the sigbanned account doesn't join Rainbet campaign despite wearing Rainbet avatar/signature. See I'm seeing some sketchy stuff going on.

[stompix]

Nice one, this way it's going to be pretty easy to see some really distinctive patterns with some posters.

But, as there is always a but...the ban might be unrelated to the drop:
19 - 1319 posts
20 - 1371 posts
21 - 1201 posts
22 - 1140 posts
23 - 1018 posts

The number of posts started dropping two days before the first ban, also, one more thing, Winna's campaign , one of the largest got paused on the 22th, that's 30 posters, so 105 post on average per day, which probably hurt more than the bans.

[wiss19]

If there was ever any doubt that the gambling section was a hotbed of spam, this is probably just one more piece of clear evidence.

This is because of 90% campaigns are from casinos.

I guess, this is time for campaign managers to remove the mandatory rule for gambling posts.

[nutildah]

Simply stunning work. I'm floored.

One thing you should know is my first sigbans were issued on the morning of July 20th. So you have to give me credit for that full drop, lol.

I can't take credit for actually improving anything yet, because even though the post count in that section dropped, its hardly budged forum-wide. Which means a lot of posters are simply posting elsewhere, and/or more often. This might not be a good thing. We'll all find out together!

I guess, this is time for campaign managers to remove the mandatory rule for gambling posts.

There's nothing wrong with somebody making 10 or more posts in the gambling section a week, so long as they aren't habitually using the same words to describe the same ideas in the same topics.

The minimum is usually 10, right? That should be no problem for anybody.

[shahzadafzal]

Wow... this is exactly what this community does best.

Instead of just complaining about spam, members are building tools and making the bitcointalk better. That's the spirit that has kept Bitcointalk relevant for all these years.

Well done... @TryNinja, @nutildah trust me I feel you're not just helping Bitcointalk, you're serving the Bitcoin community as a whole.

Hopefully this also encourages more meaningful discussions. Bitcoin has a huge list of BIPs that need to be discussed https://github.com/bitcoin/bips

I'd love to read a discussion about BIP-110 than scroll through pages of AI-generated jargon.

I can't take credit for actually improving anything yet

I disagree!!

We need less noise, and you're doing a great job of achieving that, @nutildah. 👏👏👏

[criptoevangelista]

Awesome as always @TryNinja, I liked the part that shows the activity after the suspension. That really gives a clear idea that the banned people were only participating in the forum purely for financial interest, when the forum itself should be the main motivation and the money and campaign participation just a bonus for the good users here.

[alegotardo]

This is great! An excellent service that complements what the @nutildah has been doing, because it allows everyone to see the posting patterns of users who have had their signatures banned. That helps remove doubts about the decisions being made, whether people agree with them or not.

Better yet, the possibility to see what someone's posting behavior changed after the signature ban also helps @nutildah and community evaluate whether that person deserves a second chance or an reduced penalty. For example, if someone continued posting but adopted better posting habits, that is a good sign and may justify an earlier review.

Congratulations, @TryNinja!

[logfiles]

We've all looked at the Stake campaign as the worst breeding ground for spam, but Rainbet seems to be even worse. Quite dominant on the list, at least judging by the avatars.

Someone had a farm of probably stolen/hacked accounts so one day they decided to log into them and start wearing Rainbet avatars and signatures minus enrolling or applying for the signature campaign. Technically they are not participating in the campaign which is why there seem to be many accounts that are banned and are wearing the rainbet avatar.

[Satofan44]

Excellent work!

If you have any ideas to improve this dashboard, let me know.

Sorting where possible, and furthermore we need to see a queue of users that are going to have their bans expired with the earliest being the first. That is how we can focus on observing their behavior as soon as the ban is over, and it would be good to keep them on that list even when they are unbanned as they will probably get banned again shortly after.

Simply stunning work. I'm floored.

You haven't made a sufficient number of your policies public yet or you have not yet defined them. I disagree with the 2 year ban on account farmers as being way too lenient but the other stuff is good. What would you do in this case -- when it is clear based on behaviors that the users have only been shitposting for profit, and they resume as soon as the ban is over? Do nothing at first until they prove to be shitposters yet again shortly after enrolling in a campaign? Would that at least justify a doubling of their previous ban?

There's nothing wrong with somebody making 10 or more posts in the gambling section a week, so long as they aren't habitually using the same words to describe the same ideas in the same topics.

The minimum is usually 10, right? That should be no problem for anybody.

Most of them do not read a single thing in any thread and just deliver the most generic reply possible, sometimes to the first post sometimes to the last posts depending on how big the thread is. I have demonstrated to you an example in private, but we can demonstrate countless examples. I mean there is nothing wrong with not wanting to read all the shitposts in a thread since they are mostly shitposts, but then your contribution to the thread must be a high quality one to justify this. If it is a generic one, the user is a provable shitposter.

Instead of just complaining about spam, members are building tools and making the bitcointalk better. That's the spirit that has kept Bitcointalk relevant for all these years.

It only works when theymos gives someone power to actually do something and they do something unlike the useless other admin and global moderators, they could have done this a long time ago. Without power, these tools are mostly useless and a very ineffective use of time.

[Rikafip]

We've all looked at the Stake campaign as the worst breeding ground for spam, but Rainbet seems to be even worse. Quite dominant on the list, at least judging by the avatars.

There is a big group of accounts that were sig banned while wearing Rainbet sig and avatar, but they weren't actually part of Rainbet signature campaign (at least not bitcointalk one led by Hhampuz), that makes it look much worse for Rainbet.

[Lucius]

~snip~
We've all looked at the Stake campaign as the worst breeding ground for spam, but Rainbet seems to be even worse. Quite dominant on the list, at least judging by the avatars.

Everyone talks only about how many members got sig bans, and no one mentions the managers who employed them in their campaigns and if it wasn't for this initiative, they would still be paying them to spam today. Whether anyone likes it or not, their responsibility is the greatest in this story. Managers must raise the criteria when it comes to sig campaigns and then there will be no need to repeat such things every few years.

By the way, have you looked at the members applying for the campaign vacancies? It seems to me that there are a lot of alt accounts that will just continue where they left off.

[Satofan44]

~snip~
We've all looked at the Stake campaign as the worst breeding ground for spam, but Rainbet seems to be even worse. Quite dominant on the list, at least judging by the avatars.

Everyone talks only about how many members got sig bans, and no one mentions the managers who employed them in their campaigns and if it wasn't for this initiative, they would still be paying them to spam today. Whether anyone likes it or not, their responsibility is the greatest in this story. Managers must raise the criteria when it comes to sig campaigns and then there will be no need to repeat such things every few years.

By the way, have you looked at the members applying for the campaign vacancies? It seems to me that there are a lot of alt accounts that will just continue where they left off.

One of the easiest way to identify newly farmed accounts is by following full member applications in any signature campaign. Many of the accounts have earned all the merits that they need in the last 120 days. Often when I see random users earn a lot of merit in the last 120 days I am quite suspicious knowing how hard it is to earn merit the right way, without farming, without any kind of connections. Upon closer inspection you can always see the same pattern of behavior:

• Most merit received through merit-farming techniques, whether challenges, post submissions, threads where you can get 1 merit per post.
• Most merit received comes from a local board (colleague boosting) even when better posters in this same local board do not receive many merit..
• Most merit received comes from user who never give merit to users that are not farming/colluding with them, such as the best forum posters like d5000

I take it that nutildah's queue right now is very long, but once he processes most of them then I hope he will be interested in submissions -- but anyway afterwards we can nudge him towards all kinds of patterns that we have noticed and then we can look into those. Focusing the consequences on the oldest and already enrolled accounts is the correct way for now. Another thing to consider would be whether people who receive signature bans should have all of their sMerit drained to zero, that would automatically prevent an additional abuse vector. This is why we need tools like the ones that OP provided to keep track on the banned accounts, especially those that are about to be unbanned shortly -- more eyes with a focused tools makes this an effective way of re-banning users. If we don't rapidly ban again repeat offenders, the this whole exercise will be pointless.

[Rikafip]

Managers must raise the criteria when it comes to sig campaigns and then there will be no need to repeat such things every few years.

Not only managers, but mods as well.

If you take any of those gambling board shitposters who got sig banned and report their posts, they will usually get marked as bad or end up unhandled. I gave up reporting shitposts and duplicate threads on the gambling board because in the vast majority of cases, nothing gets done.

[examplens]

Managers must raise the criteria when it comes to sig campaigns and then there will be no need to repeat such things every few years.

Not only managers, but mods as well.

If you take any of those gambling board shitposters who got sig banned and report their posts, they will usually get marked as bad or end up unhandled. I gave up reporting shitposts and duplicate threads on the gambling board because in the vast majority of cases, nothing gets done.

I would also say that the managers had the greatest influence here. The criteria for participating in the campaigns have been lowered considerably, everything is accompanied by a low payment rate. Nothing else can be expected except farm accounts and massive spam.
Looking at the statistics, moderators would have to delete hundreds of posts a day and it seems quite tedious to read so much spam and make a clear line between which posts are to be deleted and which are acceptable.

[Lucius]

~snip~

There's already been a discussion about this in some other threads, but as soon as you mention pay rates you look like someone who's only here for the money. Realistically, pay rates have remained the same as before the pandemic, and for $100 today you can't buy even 50% of what you could 5-6 years ago.

The solution is very simple - raise the criteria for each sig campaign participant, focus on quality and not quantity. Redirect the money received by spammers to good members, increase the number of paid posts and pay rates, and continue with sig banning. In a few months, the forum would look different in a positive way.

[Rikafip]

Looking at the statistics, moderators would have to delete hundreds of posts a day and it seems quite tedious to read so much spam and make a clear line between which posts are to be deleted and which are acceptable.

Mods job would be much easier if they were actively participating in the discussions going on there, which is not usually the case here. For example, if you are a gambling board mod that follows football and is active in let's say Champions League thread, it would be very easy to detect and delete shitposts. And once people see that shitposts are deleted, they will likely adjust and start making more thoughtful posts. Or at least I hope they would. For this to work, forum would need more mods though.

In the current situation, a moderator may receive a report in a thread they not only don't follow, but may not even know anything about the sport in question. So of course it's difficult for them to determine which posts deserve to be deleted and which don't.

Redirect the money received by spammers to good members, increase the number of paid posts and pay rates, and continue with sig banning.

+1.

[Mitchell]

If you take any of those gambling board shitposters who got sig banned and report their posts, they will usually get marked as bad or end up unhandled. I gave up reporting shitposts and duplicate threads on the gambling board because in the vast majority of cases, nothing gets done.

I understand the sentiment, but I would like to ask you to keep reporting, even if it feels pointless. It does help us.

[...]
In the current situation, a moderator may receive a report in a thread they not only don't follow, but may not even know anything about the sport in question. So of course it's difficult for them to determine which posts deserve to be deleted and which don't.

Yeah that is fair enough.