Topic: Policy on users like this guy? (Read 1100 times)

The problem is almost 90% of ICOs here are mere startups, they aren't companies or Organizations at all except for a few. Bitcointalk has more to offer them than they have to offer bitcointalk. To put things into perspective, there are forums which ask upwards of $1K for HYIPs to get their post pinned for a week, something which is a scam altogether. Imagine what bitcointalk is offering to these ICOs for free. They can create free threads run advertisements and all sort of good stuff without paying a penny to bitcointalk and since it's free for all, We see services like paid bumping get traction, You can't officially get your post pinned so the only way to get your post on the 1st page is by paying for bumping services.

I do agree with what you said in your DOs and DON'Ts but the problem is there is no one who will enforce these, nor do they have the budgets to hire experienced campaign managers. IMO, the first step should be to not allow these ICOs to run Signature campaigns for just their worthless tokens. This should reduce spam dramatically. As to reduce paid bumping many things have been proposed, from more rigorous moderating to new replies not bringing the threads to the 1st page. Each of them has its pros and cons which have been discussed countless times before. I still believe we need more moderating than what we currently have...

In my personal opinion, it's good to bring such cases to the spotlight because it's not that much of a clear cut case always.
Copy-pasting content isn't allowed and for sure when all of a user's posts are plagiarized its ban worthy.

But I think that organizations and companies that seek to promote their activities or even build backings CAN have a place in bitcointalk while also contributing positively. Other than ousting them away and being hostile from the beginning, I would recommend that we also try to propose ways for those companies to improve their marketing efforts in this forum.

I'll put my money where my mouth is and try my best to provide some guidelines:

For anyone looking to market a project/publication/website etc. in bitcointalk; DOs and DON'Ts:

NEVER:

• Create more than one topic about the same thing (article/website/campaign etc.)
• Create posts (be it topics or replies) that are 100% non-original. Whatever you post, even if your intent is to post a link to content you own, it should include some original content that will fit in the context of bitcointalk. Half-assed attempts to create filler context are also not welcome.
• Be out of context. Respond to topics of others with out of context replies for promotion is a double sin. 
• Post in the wrong board. 
• Create more than one topic for your organization. 
• Bump your thread more than once every 24h.
• Provide incentives for others to bump your threads.
• Promote a referral campaign via bitcointalk posts.

Not strictly forbidden but considered a dick move:

• Never interacting with the community. If your organization has a marketer on the payroll and he simply re-posts content on bitcointalk without having a grasp of the community, in the worst case it can damage your reputation or in the best case your campaigns will get minimum clicks.*
• Linking to non-bitcointalk content constantly without giving anything back to the forum
• Fighting with respected community members over disputed trust ratings (oh boy).
• Promoting articles inappropriately. The press board should be used for news, and if you're a news publication it should be the only place where you create topics for your articles. Other than that, there are very few topics where the context would permit for an article being promoted as a response, so unless the subject fits 100% and you have exclusive updates, don't do it.
• Not sticking to your own thread. If you have an Announcement thread for your project/service etc., you should post your press releases and promotions only under it. Unless we're talking about a campaign that'll be running specifically on bitcointalk like signature campaign.

DOs:

• Running bitcointalk-specific campaigns like Signature/avatar campaigns, raffles, giveaways, contents, bounty campaigns etc. These are guaranteed to capture the interest of bitcointalkers, which are by default experienced with cryptocurrency and a highly specialized crown worth to target with specializedmarketing.
• Use escrow. Is there money on the table for your campaign? Hire a trusted bitcointalk member to hold it.
• Familiarize yourself with the trust system and bitcointalk ranks. These are important features to get an understanding of how the forum works.
• Read the (unofficial) rules and make sure you fall within the guidelines.
• Hire experienced bitcointalk members to represent you. Using escrow, community managers, coordinators or even advisors that have an established profile in bitcointalk can help you better communicate with the community, without having to spend too much time getting familiar with the details.

* This is especially tricky. If you try to produce makeshift interaction with the community, it has a high likelihood to look forced. But get this, if you came through with some genuinely interesting information exclusive to bitcointalk, it'll also open up the way to your marketing efforts fitting better among your posts. It's ideal to keep a balance between promotion and community interaction, because having your account rifled with only marketing decreases the effectiveness of the campaign in the forum. So, make sure that if you run any campaign in the forum, you'd also be ready to respond to inquiries, address issues forum members can face, etc. What's worthy of huge props would be if high ranking members within an organization are shown to be capable of organic participation in the community. Similar to how Mark Karpelès, manager of the biggest BTC exchange at the time, was capable to browse bitcoin communities daily, interact and crack jokes with simple users whenever he saw an interesting. Before the crash he was an old school cool 'bitcoin CEO'.

this is a very special one.
because the user is moving in the range of what is allowed and a source is given, there is no handling. so a system is simply used that offers these possibilities.



The only thing to accuse here would be if the BM would do something.
That should be noticed and have consequences. in the end it is only zero value posts or a link collection that fills up the threads. as I said, I don't know any rule that is violated here and that's why it works for such a long time

mich joined Bitcasino signature campaign on January 01, 2019 [Ref.], although he had received a negative feedback before that time on 20 February, 2018.
After joining the campaign he received the second feedback and the third one on February 19, 2019 and 05 November 2019 respectively, but he is still a part of the campaign.

This user is copy-pasting from news websites and add their links to his posts (So not accused of plagiarism) and increases the post count in this way and earns 0.018 BTC per week (0.00072 BTC for each post) without earning a single merit in the last 120 days.
Yesterday (January 22, GMT) he made 10 posts only in 70 minutes. All posts are from other websites (with links to the source off course). Archived (1), Archived (2)
In Bitcasino signature campaign topic, there isn't any rule regarding negative trusts and as this user hasn't been removed from the campaign, seems that the posts this user makes are helpful to Bitcasino.

The site Cheezcarls was promoting doesn't want to give up this forum so easily, they appear to have several alt accounts to continue their promotion. The profile I showed yesterday he also has his twin brother and now they are playing a fake conversation in this thread. If one looks at post history of fridacrypto there is no doubt that it is the same person, or more than one who works together.

I suppose as long as they stay in Alternate cryptocurrencies it won't bother anyone too much.


He does something similar but does not post links from the same source, and the links are not for the purpose of the campaign. However, it amazes me that with this type of posting and negative DT feedbacks, he is still in the signature campaign or maybe not when I check who is campaign manager. It's amazing that someone pays for this kind of shitposting

How about this guy? He's doing the same thing https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/mich-9645

I'm not against this actually, as long as the OP is actually involved with the conversation and not just do some cheesy lines after posting the source link I think that is allowable an can't be counted as illegal advertising. It's just like how a normal member will be posting an article they found and actually got curious with some questions and need to find out more about it. However this cheezcarls guy isn't interested into having any conversation, he just wants to post the source link and ask maybe a question or your opinion in that matter but after that you won't see him replying to his thread. This is something commonly done in the Press section buy news promoters and they aren't really contributing anything to BCT, in fact they are just taking advantage of the forum for illegally promoting their website.

Oh my. Reached his 420th post from most recent and the page is still only filled up with links and quotes.
mich has been doing this for a LONG time now. No merit earned in the last 120 days.

If anyone believes what mich has been doing in the past months is fine for the forum and breaks no rule, please let me know and I will stop posting any link to the profile of an user who only posts links & quotes from articles and is on a streak of it of so many days, is benefiting from a signature campaign and is a Legendary rank too. His 0 earned merit in the past 120 days + his negative trust makes his account worthless though.


Thanks for taking action!


Great article, thanks for sharing. Shows how much of an asset these users are to our community. /s

His username fits his posts to be honest Seriously though, this guy's profile is a joke. He literally has a bunch of posts COPY-PASTED from one thread to another. Here are a few examples (I will only post links instead of quotes because I don't want this post to become a wall on this thread):

• This post has been copied here and here.
• This post has been carried as a copy-paste onto this thread.
• This post has been copied to this, this, this and this thread.

I'll stop with the research for this user here. Being copy-pasted posts, counting how many places he's copied them to gives me a big headache. By the way, the bullets above are taken out of his most recent 20 posts.

This is certainly good news, and at least for the time being, the user has stopped their activities. I am not of those who believe in coincidences, so I believe that after someone is warned not to do something, someone else shows up and starts doing the same. We definitely need to pay attention to the user repetecrypto

I'll give Cheezcarls a warning about it. If he continues I'll give him a ban.

I just notice this Legendary account doing the same thing: https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/mich-9645

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.53670104

Report the posts, they are of low-quality. The user is definitely spamming. If they wanted to share it for a discussion it would have been acceptable but the posts are basically one-liners except for the text copied from the articles... 


Try here: [CLUB] The SpamBusters! Busting rule-breakers for more than a year.

Just found another account posting threads the same way cheezcarl does. Newbie with 6 posts. 4 threads already, same structure. As I said before, I just hope this doesn't become a forum trend.

By the way, just so I can avoid spamming this thread with these kind of findings, is there any thread where I could post them?

EDIT: I'm not necessarily accusing this new account of spamming & publishing posts to generate free traffic for these websites, although it looks suspicious to have 4 new threads already with the same structure in different boards of the forum as a new account. Just wanted to put this out here on the radar. Will check it periodically to see how the account's posts are developing.

Thank you. I will possibly leave a neutral trust then, I'm not sure yet.

I'm thinking right now about creating some kind of a list (thread-based, SMAS-like but the purpose of it being to encourage higher quality posts and less signature campaign-focused ones) in order to help combat low quality users. I believe I'm going off topic right now though, so my post ends here.

Hopefully something is going to be done against this guy.

Trust isn't moderated, so you are "allowed" to leave any rating for any reason you so choose. Most users would agree, however, that leaving negative trust for being a spammer is an inappropriate use of the system, which is why he hasn't already been tagged. Being a spammer doesn't necessarily mean he is high risk to trade with. If you were to leave any rating, I would suggest leaving a neutral rating simply stating that he is a paid shill.

Agreed. And since he is ignoring the warning, he should receive a longer ban. I think three warning bans of 7/14/28 days is fair, followed by a permaban.

I don't think merit plays any role in his behavior. With zero or a thousand earned merit, as long as he is being paid and we don't intervene, the behavior will continue.

It just confirms everything that has already been written about him, can anyone have any doubts about what this is when it comes to the user in question? Just look at the link he is posting in every thread, it is pay campaign with its initials at the end (Jeff Caceres).



So far, they have taken nothing in terms of some punishment, except for the temporary ban which has nothing to do with the activity we are discussing. As I wrote before, it's not just him, it's at least 4-5 more people doing the same thing, but hiding in some less-visited parts of the forum. If they perma-ban one user, they need to ban them all.


I don't think he's warned, and even if this is the case I think he can just change his bad habits, he will go to the end no matter what's going to happen to that end.

I am not the person who thinks I should interfere with the merit assignment policy, but I think part of the responsibility for this kind of behavior lies in the encouragement that comes through the merits.

Merit summary for cheezcarls

I stand corrected...

Only newbies can get nuked. This user will likely be banned. But won't be nuked.
The user hasn't even thought about the reason of ban. He/She should have considered the ban as a warning. But nothing changed and he/she is advertising that website everywhere in the forum again.

Thank you. This is my first investigation and it seems fun to do, so if it serves for the good of this community, I'll continue to do these.

Paid posts and threads should be forbidden here. Haven't checked the Rules page yet to see if what he's doing is directly against the rules, but I believe it is an unhealthy kind of activity for the forum. I'm sure this isn't the first member who posts threads & replies for money, and he won't be the last either. But this has to be prevented before they multiply and this forum becomes a mixture of sh*tposting and paid marketing.


The domain idea is good, there could be a list of suspicious accounts with the status of each next to them so we could keep a record. It has to be manually updated though, and that's work to do.

Members will always try their luck before even thinking whether they actually have a chance to join the campaign or not.

EDIT: This guy is ruthless. He just posted another thread about an hour ago. I have a question: am I allowed to give these spammy members a negative trust rating on their profile, or am I only allowed to do so if a trade goes wrong?

It's only a matter of time before the guy gets nuked I believe... On a lighter note, I guess we need a loyceV domain for checking this guys status I suggest IsCheezCarlsNukedYet.tk?

Update: This guy has the audacity to apply in Chipmixer campaign OMEGALUL!

Archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20200121095519/https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1935179.msg53662515

Great investigative work. It serves to remove any doubt as to this user's motivations - he is a paid shill. As we've seen many times before, if and when beincrypto stop paying him, he will simply hire his services out to someone else. He has no interest in stimulating or taking part in a discussion, and simply does the bare minimum to mean his posts aren't instantly trashed so he can get paid. He breaks rule 1 about low value posts, and he breaks rule 24 about insubstantial advertising.

We wouldn't tolerate this kind of behavior from someone being paid to shill an altcoin, an exchange, etc. Why do we tolerate it for a news site?

Well, well, well. Cheezcarls.

Just had a bit of free time and done a very quick research about this guy.

After taking a look onto his profile (archived), his Skype username is "bogartkick". Coincidentally (/s), there was an user a few years ago on another forum (cannot archive for some reason, if someone else can do it please archive the page) with the following signature:

"I'm doing manual outreach and guest posting to blogs with real search engine traffic. Click HERE if you need more info regarding my service. POSITIVE reviews included."

On the same profile, the location is set as "Your link for $15 a year". Moreover, his Twitter is "Jeff_Caceres". A quick search on Google results in this (archived) profile of someone named Jeff Caceres. He's related to cryptocurrencies, specifically a PR Marketing man for MetaMorph's ICO.

Here's an article (archived) written on yet another website by Jeff Caceres, where he talks about the way you can use forums as a free traffic for your links.

Now let's do even more research. Bogartkick, right? Here we have a link from 2016 on Bitcointalk, where another member talks about this guy, accusing him of scamming. Here is a post from 1st of December 2019 on one of the links I shared above, where he was posting traffic offers to other members. A quote from his offer: "Since I don't have my own music or entertainment blogs, I have the ability to outreach them, negotiate and would let them publish your own content with links.".


A quick look at his latest posts reveals what he's here for. He has published 13 THREADS within 3 days on this forum, ALL having the same structure. This is clearly spam, and he's doing it to earn money. It's the equal of sh*tposting/burstposting to benefit from a signature campaign, or maybe even worse.

Are the admins going to do anything about it? I mean.. I don't think we want monetized links to become the next BitcoinTalk trend after all the counter-measures the staff has done so far with the merit system and all, do we?

@Lucius Exactly!, @hilariousandco agrees with us... I dunno if the guy has been warned yet or not cuz He hasn't changed his posting behaviour... Not even once he has bothered to engage in his threads, the guy is just gaming the system as you said...

Try to report his posts and see what will happen. I can tell you that all my reports for this user stay unhandled (for reports in Bitcoin Discussion), so his post is not considered spam, or violation of forum rules by advertising in the post area.

In addition to being irritating, the articles he posts are mostly on the trail of some false sensationalism (read clickbait), with the addition of his personal comment, which is if we're going to be honest, just a way to avoid ban or threads deletion.

He is now the highlight here so most probably he will be banned if he continues his posting style. I think if there is any special news then we can post few posts like he did, but if his only purpose is to create many new threads and forget about it, its looks like an opening for a spam.

Looks like his ban period has expired, The dude is back and is on his spamming spree... Will he be getting warned for this or banned? Cuz all he does is, post in bounty threads and create these threads...

Unfortunately, he very often makes use of rather vague forum rules that state that posting is not allowed in posting area, "unless the post is in a thread you started and is really substantial and useful." (Forum rule 24). Personally, I have expressed my opinion about him and others like him, and I believe that this is a classic advertising that should be sanctioned.


If you look Hydrogen post history and compare it with cheezcarls posting history difference between the two users is clearly visible, not just in the fact that Hydrogen is posting news from different sources, but to participate in the discussion.


If it's true he's banned for some bounty, I have no doubt that after the temporary ban expires he will just continue to promoting his employer, yet he is paid to do just that, same as others which have been mentioned several times in this board.

This pretty much sums up my feelings on users like this. Firstly, the posts are low value, and could be deleted from that point of view. Secondly, they are insubstantial advertising, and could be deleted for that too. Thirdly, it is spamming. I frequently report posts like this, saying something similar to what I've just said in the comment box, and they are usually trashed. My only gripe is that these users just continue this behavior indefinitely and we never seem to ban them. After a user has had 20+ threads like this deleted, and still hasn't fixed their behavior and is continuing to spam, then we should be handing out escalating temporary bans.

---

His threads don't belong in the Press section either. It is supposed to be for "notable press hits". A site which is exclusively for crypto news is not a "notable" source, and most of his threads are barely even newsworthy at all. His threads belong in the trash.

It seems he was banned for participating in the Tael bounty. Users who spam like this should be warned first to knock it off then banned if they continue.

Another Global Moderator agrees with you because I see on the cheezcarls' profile that he's banned, but nothing in the modlog, so it's just a temporary ban.
I hope he gets the message.

I have in the past shared articles from different sources but I have engaged in my threads with users... So does @Hydrogen. You will always find @Hydrogen to engage in his threads afterwards but with cheezcarls that is not the case as I mentioned above. This dude just sees a random clickbait article > Copy paste > Write a few sentences and forgets about the thread's existence. I haven't found him engaging in his threads after they have been created... His behaviour is in question here... I have nothing against sharing external links in general.

same feelings here. linking bitcoin-related press and providing commentary to jump start a discussion is not bad behavior. i don't mind the practice itself, particularly if the OP has something interesting to add.

the fact that all his articles are from beincrypto.com though, is transparent enough to be annoying. especially since a lot of them are just clickbait trash. i've got mixed feelings about this.

I have seen some other users in the forum that copies a paragraph from an article and say " read the full article at...". Most of these posts deserve to be deleted. Because even if they don't break rule number 24, they break rule number 1 which says " No zero or low value, pointless or uninteresting posts or threads."
These users have at least one of following purposes.
1. increasing the post count without being accused of plagiarism.
2. advertising a website and getting paid from them.

A few days ago I reported some of posts made by diorthotis after Coolcryptovator posted about him. The user was advertising an exchange in every post. All of the reported posts were deleted. (Visit the link below.)
Re: Advertising exchange link on the post area.

There is a big difference between that user and the user mentioned in the OP. The difference is in quality of posts. cheezcarls adds his own comment about the news or article. Posts made by this user aren't really that annoying. But I think they are still against the rules.

Rule number 24 says:
24. Advertisements (including signatures within the post area) in posts aren't allowed unless the post is in a thread you started and is really substantial and useful.

According to this rule, if a post is quality enough, there is no problem.
In my opinion, that's true only when a post is checked individually. When all posts made by a user contain a certain link, that's against the rules.

theymos:

To being ambassador or promoting website in this forum is okay. I think it's allowed for him to promote it, but don't do it at all times for the post. The forum related cryptocurrency is so many, not only bitcointalk. Also social media can be alternative choices. This users is violating the forum rules. He do many times to link spam of his post. I think he should get temporary banned.

Imagine if someone did the same thing like this? We would not have any creativity and inovation for making post to help each other. Just put the link for our post --> waiting --> easy money.

The forum intention is to discuss share information for everyone, besides i think there is no problem in his/her post, if what he is posting is related to the forums being discuss, i see him/her sharing a lot of information, and its all related i don't see any problem with the , besides he's contributing and sharing what him/her have find out, is it not great?

Personally, I feel like if the user has real intent of discussing a topic which they are sharing, those should be allowed, I don't have any sort of problem with it... but if it's merely being done for padding signature posts and indirect advertisement, I feel like those should be nuked... As for @Hydrogen... @Hydrogen doesn't share his links from a single source, Plus he engages in his threads unlike cheezcarls in question... Would like to hear what mods think as well...

That could be the case, though I never found cheezcarls's threads to be spam.  Hydrogen does much the same thing in the Economics section--he'll post some text from an article and then comment on it.  Since I don't visit crypto news sites, I find this sort of thing to be useful.  Just my opinion, though.  

I did have a problem when cheezcarls was posting those huge images, but thankfully he's since stopped doing that.  Don't know if there's a specific rule that covers what he's doing, but I don't think there is as long as he's not including reference links or obvious advertising spam.  Maybe a moderator could weigh in.  

Heh heh, well that one got blown all out of proportion in general and not just in the thread that cheezcarls created, to be fair.

Lol! You can't be serious! How is one guy's tweet about his sex life relevant to bitcoin's discussion...

So his MO is to post an excerpt, followed by the link and then some comment.

If the mods aren't doing anything, I guess he managed to skirt the rules.

Personally, I think he is not really wrong or violates the forum rules. If it makes us uncomfortable, we can ignore this user. If he gets paid to advertise something, he's doing a good job for them, or at least his article has relevant content there. So I think we just need to ignore this user, there shouldn't be any accusations, because it's not worrying, even the mod doesn't delete his post.

You are not the first one to call out this user. Here are some topics/comments where he has been mentioned:

• https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/the-inclusion-of-large-unnecessary-images-in-threads-opinions-5202806
• https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.53533905

I believe some members here reported his posts but mods probably sees them as usable and don't lock/delete or move to press section.

This is most likely the case. Beincrypto has an ambassador program where they pay users up to €200 in fiat per month according to this archived post

User cheezcarls: https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/cheezcarls-254229

All this guy does is shitpost articles from beincrypto. Comes up with a few sentences and boom He is done for the day... This behaviour of his started from November 06, 2019. This guy has hardly engaged in any other threads ever since...

This guy's posting history: https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/cheezcarls-254229;sa=showPosts

Shouldn't these threads be getting nuked? What about a Temp ban? From what I believe this guy is getting paid to create backlinks for beincrypto. I can understand if the guy was sharing articles from multiple sources to pad his sig posts but he hasn't used another source from the past few months... Also, most of his threads belong in the Press section instead of bitcoin discussion and he has got away with them so far... Thoughts?