Should shilling in ANN topics be banned?

[philipma1957]

This is more than shilling, this is a scam attempt. The op posted 2 months ago, suddenly, since 20 August, newbie accounts are being created to give false testimony. Each day, at least 1 newbie account is created to post fake posts on the thread, and once they are done, they go offline.

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These accounts need to be nuked.

The problem I have is did the op do it or is this an attack against the op.

Either way I gave every one a red trust except the op as I do not know if the op did this or if someone has figured out a way to attack the op.

Whichever is true the 'shillers' or 'attackers' deserve red trust and now have it.

If anyone can figure out if this was an attack or a shill I want to know which thing this was.

It is still wrong either way thus the red trust.

now someone can do what I did if there are multiple shill like posts. in this case there were a lot of them.

[cryptoaddictchie]

Now, I'm all for companies inviting their users to post their experience using their service, but this example is borderline spam:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5585950.20

There is no sensible reason to be using shills with brand new accounts and no posts to create what seems to be automated reviews.

My proposal is that such shilling posts be deleted.

If a user known to shill a certain project or services, provided his/her so obvious to shilling it then thats warrant a bannable offense, but maybe if a good or reputable user who posted ^{[sounds like a shill but broadcast positive experience toward certain services from a site or whatever]} I think that shouldnt be included on your propose idea. Why cause theres a difference with those feedbacks.

But if its a new created account with that sole purpose then you had my vote supported it 100%

[NotATether]

If a user known to shill a certain project or services, provided his/her so obvious to shilling it then thats warrant a bannable offense, but maybe if a good or reputable user who posted ^{[sounds like a shill but broadcast positive experience toward certain services from a site or whatever]} I think that shouldnt be included on your propose idea. Why cause theres a difference with those feedbacks.

But if its a new created account with that sole purpose then you had my vote supported it 100%

Correct, this is only for brand new accounts.

Perhaps there are other people who buy accounts with the sole purpose of promotion, but I haven't seen anyone do that yet.

[Shishir99]

Furthermore, they seem to have BTC to BTC swap/exchange. Doesn't that somewhat fall under the mixer's category (they admitted they have mixing capabilities)? So now it's a question of whether they should be allowed on the forum or not. Again, they need to remove that BTC to BTC swap option.

Good catch.
I didn't even check their website at first. But I have checked their website right after reading your post. Yes, they do have a BTC to BTC pair, which falls under the mixer category. They should not be allowed to have an announcement thread in this forum. I just reported their entire thread, and I hope the moderators will handle this.

As for the shills, the entire forum believes that a genuine service does not need shilling to promote their business anywhere. Services that use paid shillers are scamming the users with these fake reviews and feedback. I saw those brand new accounts got negative feedback already, but what about the exchange forum account? I think that account should be tagged as well. Someone from the DT network should step forward.

[DYING_S0UL]

Furthermore, they seem to have BTC to BTC swap/exchange. Doesn't that somewhat fall under the mixer's category (they admitted they have mixing capabilities)? So now it's a question of whether they should be allowed on the forum or not. Again, they need to remove that BTC to BTC swap option.

Good catch.
I didn't even check their website at first. But I have checked their website right after reading your post. Yes, they do have a BTC to BTC pair, which falls under the mixer category. They should not be allowed to have an announcement thread in this forum. I just reported their entire thread, and I hope the moderators will handle this.

As for the shills, the entire forum believes that a genuine service does not need shilling to promote their business anywhere. Services that use paid shillers are scamming the users with these fake reviews and feedback. I saw those brand new accounts got negative feedback already, but what about the exchange forum account? I think that account should be tagged as well. Someone from the DT network should step forward.

and if that wasn't enough, then check this out! Ring any bells? I wonder what might they mean by CLEAN and why even specifically write this term there! Does swapping means cleaning? (being sarcastic ).

Anyway lets see what happens next! And I bet, you weren't the only one who reported this thread!

Edit: Yup, they got nuked (both the OP and the shiller group).

[Rikafip]

Anyway lets see what happens next! And I bet, you weren't the only one who reported this thread!

From my experience in similar cases, the only way to get thread locked/deleted is if you can actually prove that project is paying shillers to write in their thread.
Problem is that its usually very hard to prove (I managed to few times, as they were stupid enough to mention on their social media that they are paying for each post in their btctalk thread).

[Welsh]

I nuked the shills. I also nuked the OP due too:

b. If a site is not primarily a mixer but has a mixer function, such as a mixer function on a gambling website, then the whole site is considered a mixer.

Which the owner themselves said:

We do not position ourselves as a mixer. However, we do have that capability.

Which, I would say that ticks off having the function.

They can submit an appeal if they think I'm wrong and then it can be reviewed by others.

From my experience in similar cases, the only way to get thread locked/deleted is if you can actually prove that project is paying shillers to write in their thread.
Problem is that its usually very hard to prove (I managed to few times, as they were stupid enough to mention on their social media that they are paying for each post in their btctalk thread).

They were all registered on the same day or in increments of 1, i.e registered the day after the previous. They all, were registered around roughly the same time. They all made their very first posts on that topic. I consider that spam and proof enough.

[Rikafip]

They were all registered on the same day or in increments of 1, i.e registered the day after the previous. They all, were registered around roughly the same time. They all made their very first posts on that topic. I consider that spam and proof enough.

I have no doubt about that, I was more referring about thread being deleted just because accounts shilling there. If you maybe remember (because you were clearing those threads), some years ago I was maintaining list of ANN threads that were using bumping service, and those threads rarely got nuked, even after consisting only of hundreds of shill posts that got deleted.

Anyway, good to hear that thread in question has been nuked.

[Sandra_hakeem]

If a user known to shill a certain project or services, provided his/her so obvious to shilling it then thats warrant a bannable offense, but maybe if a good or reputable user who posted ^{[sounds like a shill but broadcast positive experience toward certain services from a site or whatever]} I think that shouldnt be included on your propose idea. Why cause theres a difference with those feedbacks.

But if its a new created account with that sole purpose then you had my vote supported it 100%

Perhaps there are other people who buy accounts with the sole purpose of promotion, but I haven't seen anyone do that yet.

How can you tell, by the way? The newbie cases are obviously awkward and that gives it away. You may have seen a couple of them over the years but it is almost impossible to suspect, even for an average account.

Yeah, I see where you're coming from.

I nuked the shills. I also nuked the OP due too:

b. If a site is not primarily a mixer but has a mixer function, such as a mixer function on a gambling website, then the whole site is considered a mixer.

Which the owner themselves said:

We do not position ourselves as a mixer. However, we do have that capability.

Which, I would say that ticks off having the function.

That was my primary concern and I suggest it stays that way until they remove the option that offers CLEAN BTC.

[Stalker22]

No this doesn't look good at all what they're doing over there.

I can understand that some brands may not have money to organise a signature campaign even if it's a single week. Instead of shilling in this way which may attract tags why not create a contest with the least $ amount and invite forum members to get participation. Only by doing this you would be attracting more random real reviews about your platform without paying anyone to shill to get the ANN Thread bumped now and then with fresh newbies accounts not older than the ANN thread.

A random "real reviews" from running contests is NOT going to get you real, unbiased reviews, its just buying a cheaper bot army to write low-effort reviews in order to receive a reward.  No one in a "draw to win" will write a negative review that would make them lose their chance of getting the bribe, all it is gonna do is bring you other form of fake praises.  Also, if a project have to fake reviews, or pay for contests to stay on the front page of ANN then the project is in fact, garbage that is so garbage that its project would eventually rot and die.

That said, compared to paying bottom-tier shilling agencies to spam fresh accounts, a targeted signature campaign is at least honest advertising.  It puts your brand in front of active eyes every day without insulting everyones intelligence with fake reviews.

However, what matters most is not difference that these campaigns provide.  While traffic must have, only a strong product, actually usable service can keep your user from leaving.  If the offered service is crap, then no amount of rented forum signature space or "real reviews" will save it.