Topic: Bunch of idiots/bots spamming the hell out of press board (Read 3058 times)

Another account with primarily posts in the press board.
While he is not the usual signature spammer, he is promoting a particular site and posts links to the site in his posts.

Just another guy who has been OT posting and press spamming in over 30 of his recent posts: https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/tunctioncloud-86542

If I had to guess, its most likely an account bought for pot farming

Edit: Bump , I guess

That would be me. Thx for unlocking.

What happened was mexxer-2 pmed me with a friendly warning to stop 'spamming' the press board. I know he had good intention, but it annoyed me as the only problem was the frequency of posts, not quality or relevancy (I followed all the rules).


Could you clarify on that? Would you ban/issue a warning to a poster who follows the rules, posts constructive posts, just because of too high frequency? If so, what's the tolerated frequency (and why)? If that's the case, does it only apply to press board, or entire forum?
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My opinion on the issue:

You can question whether 'Press' is still needed or not. I reckon when it was created 'press hits' relating to Bitcoin were rather rare, now we see those on daily basis. But, since it's still here it could be useful to get some clear rules (possibly new mod, as jgarzik is no longer active). I'd suggest:
- Strict adherence to suggested format (date-source-title)
- Duplicating links strictly disallowed (obviously)
- Only major non-bitcoin related sources allowed, so no CoinDesk, Cointelegraph etc, also no obscure sites/blogs (those could be created for sole purpose of abusing press board), maybe set minimum Alexa global rank as a rough indicator.
- Translations from foreign-language major news allowed.
- No links to articles older than 1 week.

The above would likely solve the issue of spamming. Keep in mind that (if rules are followed) the number of new topics that could be created in 'Press' is limited by the number of new notable press-hits (could be zero on the quiet day), so with the clear rules it could be the cleanest board on this forum.

I know it looks weird when you see multiple new threads started by the same poster in a short period of time, but that's just the specific of that board. Whoever first do the news search can start all the topics, and there's nothing wrong with that, since that's what that board is for.

On the side note, it's funny to see how signature-wearers get blamed for all the spamming, while they're actually the only ones who can get financially penalised for that (by not getting paid or get kicked out from campaign). You do realise that there's shitload of account farmers (non-sig wearing) making much more damage? And have you noticed that most of intentional shitposting is done by non-sig wearing members (same goes for one-word or meme replies)?

warning/ban, depending on how much they were spamming and whether they're in a sig campaign.

Thanks, locking the thread again. BTW is it established that posting in high frequency in that board leads to a warning? I've got someone questioning it, who would like to discuss about it.

P.S: Well locked thread shouldn't stop you from replying, I've seen that mods can post in a locked thread

handled.

That's really interesting. My partner's domain points to our new Bitcoin forum and the same thing happened. Someone obviously trying to make a quick buck.

Seems to post coinfox exclusively too. Same thing going on reddit too. I wonder if he's employed by coinfox to promote the site or something.

The press section is probably the easiest way for people to get paid for their posts as they only have to copy and paste some stuff.

As long as there are no double threads I can not see anything being wrong with it while I know the real purpose of these threads.

Another guy(possibly using translated news for boosting his paid posts) , all of his posts are in Press board, with half of them in the local press board:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/saracon-763403

Thanks for the help, that was pretty much it. A few warnings to the existing/new press spammers should be enough, I'll unlock the thread should any new persistent spammer comes up

him yet? Seems like a persistent spammer.
[/quote]
handled.

A warning from Glob moderator should be enough. Have you looked intohim yet? Seems like a persistent spammer.

They're not so bad. It seems like it was a one-off thing. I sent them all a warning though.

I find it a useful resource. There are quite often gems in there that aren't picked up on elsewhere. It also serves as a useful bin that can be ignored by people who don't dig it.

Apparently they do or are too lazy to make a simple exclusion of the board, no response(even though they have been online since morning):

Ok thought Bit-x wasn't paying people for spamming Press, but apparently it is ,and one guy has spammed all of his 400 last posts(threads, copy pasted) in that board: https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/jdebunt-28364

I have reported some similar posts by a high rank member, and all his threads/posts which only a copy and paste post were deleted.
I keep monitoring him, but seems that he did not make it again after the deletion.

Some users that should be kept in mind, have started spamming several threads in a (very)small amount of time:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/mavrick951-100430
https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/trinaldao-103397
https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/blackraven1425-183724

I think there needs to be a CAPTCHA put in place to prevent this kind of spamming Recaptcha V2 (clicking the pictures) is a challenging bot check feature. although if the programmer is skilled enough, he could at the very least partially automate the spamming of this forum. IP bans are useless due to proxies/Tor.