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 But, since it's still here it could be useful to get some clear rules (possibly new mod, as jgarzik is no longer active).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.

handled.

Some more guys who are starting to think of it as easy money:
1) https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/mavrick951-100430 (A warning might be enough)
2) https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/secone-387580 (possibly banned already)
3) https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/crimbit-525057 (possibly banned as well)
4) https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/bezbezbez-219879 (nearly all posts are press post, possibly farming his pot activity)

Ah, thought signature gets deleted if a person gets banned. I guess that happens when you get temp. banned for sig farming. Thanks for the help

handled as in, banned. I was in the process of banning a few more. I will trashcan the topics made by the offending users soon.

Erm, you meant 'handling' right? Still see some posts by the users in the Press board. Nonetheless, is it established now that doing copy-paste from BTC news website, highly frequently will not be accepted?

P.S: There are lots of other users in the Press board, who now seem to have picked this for easy money

handled.

The threads currently being spammed to the Press section still are mostly off-topic. I've complained about this before, but nobody listened.

Yeah I've noticed at least one of them spamming the press section.  I'm not so irritated that I report any of these topics, and in fact I think I'm going to put the press section on ignore all together.  I never read what's posted there, so why have the feed of new topics? 

The fact that they get paid for this sucks.  I have signatures turned off so I don't have a clue which ones they're running.

I honestly don't think we need a "press" section, or maybe in that section put a widget much like blockchain.info's, that shows all the new bitcoin news, and then make them link to a thread about that article plus the actual article.

I just cant have you report 100s of posts

No seriously I thinks fine for the section, but maybe Im wrong, lets see.


Sounds like the posts were mostly offtopic though. I understood the other thread as well, but I could assess the posts the thread was about.

Either your logic is superior to mine or I just get swayed too easily, I'm quite leaned towards the latter.
In short it was a bunch of spammers spamming the "Press" section of chinese board by copy-pasting content from news-sites. Another similar 'case' here: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/moderator-who-works-for-china-banned-me-5-10-days-in-this-forum-1268714 and the individual didn't even have a signature.

Nonetheless, I'm keeping this thread open to discussion

Its a link collection sub board, what exactly do you expect? While a personal view on the article would be nice I dont think its needed.


I doubt their sig management wants them advertising in a section that is hardly seen, contacting them might get the section excluded.


Its properly quoted with a source though. They dont claim to have written even a single word of the post. IMHO thats a big difference.


Well, yes. I can hardly say anything against that. I also agree that they probably do it for the sig payment, but on the plus side they create a neatly sorted archive of press articles. Exactly what the section was intended for, even though the "news sites" they quote might not be up to everyones standard. I think contacting the campaign manager(s) is the better idea. They will stop if they do it for the satoshi and it removes the need for staff to get involed when its not needed.


I cant read that so I cant say what is what.

FTFY. As for violating , well
1) They are making low quality posts
2) They have a paid signature
3) They are posting copied content(can't find that quote from hilarious, from the thread where you report people who copy others' post)
4) They are doing so massively, a few might be tolerable

And lastly, similar case which was reported by(now my alt) TheLegendaryOne and they were banned.

I skimmed a few posts and from the looks of it, they what they should do in this section. I see no doubles or other things that violate the rules:

Title pretty much describes it. Just see the frequency of posts and the portion of total posts they consist of the spammer.

"Suspected spammers"/bots are :
1) hendra147 , with post frequency going up to 1 topic every minute.
2) klm bitcoin , with post frequency going upto 1 topic every 30 seconds.
3) shane a guy who probably finds it hilarious to spam the shit out of the press board. Just a page, for example:

4) a7mos a person who is quite a bit on the spammy side

And surprise surprise, two of them can't speak english well, certainly not understandable to me. And all of the press topics are just copy paste of the first(few) paragraph(s) of the article linked.

IMHO this describes it the best: