Topic: Proactive fighting with spammers. Doing it the right way - page 6. (Read 7112 times)

I do not think punishing the managers is going to do much, but why not give it a shot. Obviously, the best solution is to ban campaigns and end the broken english spam...

Ever hear of the saying "A few bad apples ruin the bunch"? That is exactly what is happening here. If those users who are not shit posters actually post with decent quality, they should have absolutely no problem finding another signature campaign willing to both pay them more and accept them into the campaign.

It is entirely bitmixer.io's fault for paying the shit posters and not enforcing their own anti-spam rule. It is entirely their fault for enabling those shit posters/account farmers to continue to post and be paid for it. They are encouraging shit posting by continuing to pay for it; and that is entirely their fault.

While yes there are still spammers without sigs, most spammers that I have seen do wear sigs and they shit post because they have an incentive to shit post; they are still paid for those posts. Furthermore, it is known that many campaigns are lax about who they accept, so newer members without sigs still shit post so that they can get to the right activity requirement to join one of those campaigns. Again, they are all motivated by being paid for their shit posts.

If it is known that the forum staff will harshly crack down on signature campaigns who allow their participants to shit post and do not properly check new members, then a lot of spam will be cleaned. Campaigns that enabled shit posters will be shut down, thus the shit posters will either have no incentive to post anymore or they will have an incentive to post constructively in order to join a campaign with higher standards. Furthermore, newer members will then have an incentive to post constructively in order to join the sig campaigns. The bar will be set higher, and thus post quality will increase.

Many are, but many still continue to shit post after their bans or they come back with alts to complain about their bans. However there is enough evidence to suggest that many of those spammers spam because they are being paid by poorly managed campaigns. Thus instead of treating the symptoms of the problem (i.e. the spammers), we need to treat the source (i.e. the campaigns themselves and the people who run them).

About punishing the services as well as the campaign managers: this is because the campaign managers are hired by the service. Most services advertising here have a forum account. They hired a campaign manager to handle their sig campaign. If a campaign for a service is to be found to be spamming, both the service and the campaign manager should be notified. It is up to the service to fire their manager and hire someone else who can do the job better. If they do not, then they are not doing anything to help even when warned. Thus, the service should also be banned from using sig campaigns for advertising.

I don't think that shutting down the whole campaign makes sense since that would in effect be equal to cancelling signatures altogether in the most indiscriminate way. It is obvious as well that not all users enrolled in this campaign are evil spammers, but this doesn't in the least mean that there are no spammers without any signature, either. It might well be the case that this service attracts the greatest number of shit posters across the forum, but this alone doesn't make it anywhere near guilty for them posting outright spam. Since you can always find a number of die-hard spammers who wear no signature at all. On the other hand, nothing prevents all these Bitmixer.io spammers from starting posting sense (or at least refrain from posting garbage) if they really wanted to. As you can see, their failure to comply with the quality standards of the forum is not Bitmixer.io's fault...

Given that, these spammers should get banned just like any other spammers here

Bitmixer.io's signature campaign is the perfect case study of this. Their thread: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/up-to-0035-btc-weekly-for-your-signature-new-rules-425135 was started by the service themselves. It is wholly managed by them, and their bot.

They accept, check posts, and pay out, via a bot on their website. The BITMIXER.IO user has not been online since September, and he last posted in July. He has been PM'ed warnings multiple times by the mods but he has never responded. They are doing absolutely nothing to curb spam from their sig campaign participants. Even punishing the BITMIXER.IO account wouldn't do anything because that account is not really used and everything is done entirely through a bot.

The only thing that could really be done with bitmixer is to completely shut down their campaign by trashing the thread, blocking the bot, and forcibly removing their signature from all participants.

In this case you have only one entity left out of the three you started with, i.e. spammy and non-spammy users. And the spammy ones should be dealt with as with any spamming users out there, with or without a signature...

As you can see, it still boils down to either taking out the manager, and if this doesn't work out banning the spamming users

I don't think that *poorly* should be acceptable at all. They are taking the advertising on BTCT via signatures for granted, which should not be happening. They need to prove that they are competent and willing to strictly manager their participants IMO.

The list is hefty as it is, but still has to be completely handled.

So exactly what happens when the campaign manager is banned? Nothing. Bot keep counting for the existing members, they keep participating. The campaign manager goes off to create another account, or buys another one and contacts the service discretely to become their *new* manager. We'd be playing whack-a-mole with manager alts.

Signature campaigns are not started by bots. There is always some user who fires up a signature campaign thread. That user could be deemed as a campaign manager and should be dealt with appropriately...

As far as I know bots only count posts


Could you please reference a campaign which had a sign-up process outside of the forum? Anyway, in this case the service is out of reach while spamming users should be handled on a person-by-person basis

"What do you think about personal responsibility of signature campaign managers in regard to the quality of their members posts?"

They must carry some responsibility, but surely the mods/admin are more responsible for stopping organised spam posting. I thought spamming was an offence in the "rules", and sig spammers were going to be looked upon harshly-ish. No sign of any of that happening.

I like that Lauda is trying to think of the bigger picture, but i'm a bit worried by hilarious saying "punishments for people who run the campaigns very poorly." - is just poorly ok?

"It is beyond doubt that the quality of posts has massively gone down during the last few years primarily due to the influx of shit posters..."

And they are mainly "mass farmed" accounts. Without addressing this issue, spam cannot be tackled effectively.
Of the 400 accounts i have identified, probably 90% can be assigned to 1 farmer.

"banning individual spammers won't help much..."
Agreed. It doesn't matter if say, zalucia (265) is banned, Zaducis (132)*** is still here spamming, if he is banned, Zacudis (168) will carry on, or Zicadis (24), Zocadas (25), Zulucia (28), Zosuda  (22), Zadicar  (860), or Zudalar (22), or 391 other accounts. (my farmed list of 400 is not complete - there are hundreds more) All the same person.... But taking action against blocks of "mass farmed" accounts would make a difference.

I would like to see a clear statement on this subject from global mod/admin. But... if no one else thinks so?
Of course macwika (20) will disagree, as will madwica (612), mandica (295), mastica (39), molsewid  (22), Malsetid  (22), Mastsetad  (1344), michkima (28), miakama (24), misakama (23), mistanama (23),  mitkala (20) and miayama (125).
They outvote me 12 to 1. But they are just 1 person.

Do you even properly read other input before thinking about your own method again?


Mitigation 1: Campaigns run by bots. Mitigation 2: Sign up for campaigns outside of forum. While they keep figuring out ways to mitigate this, we've lost a lot of time and effectively accomplished only minor results.

This had to be expected. How can they be held responsible for some users posting shit? Did they enroll these users themselves? No, they didn't. It is a campaign manager who accepted such posters, and he is in most cases not affiliated with the service. He typically has free choice in selecting users for the signature campaign he is going to manage, though...

Apparently, you are hitting the wrong target here (and missing the right one)


Why so? If a few indolent managers get banned eventually, the wannabe ones will be more careful and particular in both picking up the job of a signature campaign manager and accepting new participants into the campaign

No, this does not hold true. There are some services, which have been contacted several times by staff members in regards to the problematic spam generated by their participants. Those services have completely ignored these messages. In addition to that, there are some that use bots to manage their campaigns which is horrible.

Disagree. It's going to cause a even more complex environment with likely the same amount of spam.

Even if all they care for is only exposure, this still doesn't mean that they are deliberately encouraging spammers. I think that any service would prefer good posters to spammy ones. There may be just not enough good posters currently looking for participation or the payment is too low that only compulsive spammers get attracted by such a campaign. But in any case, it is a campaign manager who first agrees to manage a signature campaign for the service and then indiscriminately accepts participants into it...

Therefore, the campaign managers are the ones who should be dealt with and where it will be most effective

Banning signature campaigns would have big consequences to the forum and also to the bitcoin adoption as well. Signature campaign have created a micro economy for new bitcoin users who don't money to buy bitcoins. Signature campaigns is their only means to acquire bitcoins.

I predict only nerds and geeks would remains and noobs would come occasionally if bitcoin talk disable signature campaigns. Bitcointalk would be replace as number one bitcoin forum in 1-2 years. Theymos would lose his monopoly. This would give a chance for bitcoin classic to win.

I suggest a mandatory tax to every signature campaigns. I suggest for every btc spent on signature campaigns 10% would be given to the mods.
 

 

There are plenty of moderators, however global moderators and administrators are the ones that can ban your standard signature spammer.

It doesn't. This does not mean that it has money to keep upping salaries.

Not true. There are likely some campaigns that are acceptable. Managers would get punished only if they ignored the warnings by the staff members. Similarly, you can apply this ruling to ACE as well (if you view it as a campaign).

I think the best thing to do is _ban_ all the signature campaign, it will resolve the problem (I'm sure).

Why not try for 1 month?

If there are enough mods why there still many spams?

I have no money. I would if I have. But many times theymos said the forum has no problem about money. Theymos can create another rank and like donator sell it for 1 btc hundreds would buy.

Everyone will be ruin except your group of advertisers.

False. There are enough moderators, and the report list is usually empty (at least under the global rank).

There is no salary, there are contributions that you receive depending on how much work you've done. Anyhow, who's going to finance this salary? You?

False. They won't be ruined. Find another campaign and stop complaining about trivial side-effects.

No, there's no conflict of interest. This was created so that we can get away from campaigns filled with spammers.

I think we need more mods and more good mods that deserve better salary. Banning by association is like North Korean Laws. Your banning the managers, but what about those members that follow the rules? They will be ruined too without doing any mistakes. This a conflict of interest on your part because you have own signature campaign firm.

I've already mentioned this at least once. Imagine a crime where 3 entities are involved, and only 1 always gets punished for it. That's what has been going on BTCT for a while (albeit even less effectively in 2016). What should be done is, punish everyone involved:
1) Ban the spammers themselves.
2) Ban the managers.
3) Ban the service.

If the service does not care about the spam, then it should not be allowed any kind of back-linking from BTCT period.

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That's the last and most drastic solution to this problem.

No. That project never took off (i.e. has failed) and even some of those managers are inadequate (e.g. yahoo62278).

If signature campaign is completely disallowed I think 90 percent of posts and users will gone. And 70 to 80 percent of forums earnings will be gone too. And less salary to mods. And users with multiple accounts with no earnings would spam some affiliate on their posts or scams. They would become desperate for sure.