Topic: Public report of secondstrade spammers (Read 3953 times)

Another one: https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/yenxz-556265


Reported to secondstrade here: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.13131800

im rather against the idea of a forum-ran campaign; it would give the idea that the admins of the forum openly supported or had ties with whatever site / service was being advertised. the closest we could get to that is having a staff member (ie one of the mods) running either the campaign itself or overseeing quality control of the posters. as for the issue of a campaign manager, it would be up to the site / service owners to step up and find suitable managers that will uphold strict standards in terms of post quality, for example, i see this tidbit still on hilariousandco's sig making for a perfect example:

hire people that hate spam as much as he does to manage most of the campaigns on the forum and spam should decrease drastically.

however, manual quality control takes a lot of time and effort, and still wouldnt solve the problem of the spammers in the bot-based campaigns (bit-x, bitmixer, yobit).

I imagine thats roughly what its like to run a good campaign, yes. Im not sure it must be an official forum run campaign. The currently well run campaigns probably serve the same purpose at least for those that see a chance to get a spot. If spammers would adept their posting to constructive Mission Fucking Accomplished[1]. Which leaves us with: how to avoid or handle campaign manager that do not care about their participants posts?


We obviously do not want that. The question is how to make sure there is as little bias as possible. It would also not fit into the way things a run currently. Staff stays out of peoples business as much as possible. This staff run campaign would be direct intervention. It might also be no incentive for some of the earliest members, those with the most knowledge and experience usually dont sell their signature. I doubt they would sell it to theymos.

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Granted, I didnt think about lifting it and as you say it will probably result in more work for staff.


I did not know that, interesting to read it confirms subSTRATA's concerns, but a suspension on reddit is the same as a ban here. You can still log in and read, you just cant post or send PMs.

[1] https://xkcd.com/810/

That suggestion was already posted in meta recently and the answer of hilariousandco was clear: they used to make a warning but spammers don't care and continue posting trash, also this need a lot of work + time.

Btw human = brain. Thoses people know they are spamming and making useless posts just to get few free money so in fact they know they are risking to be banned at anytime.

AFAIK a warning here in the forum is the ban, they may get the first warning of 14days ban period if they spam light and they might dont get any warning if they spam heavy so a perma ban on that

Just give them WARNING, 1st offense, 2nd offense and 3rd offense. I think that is fair enough to do their jobs in a right way. We can't let them punish earlier at least in warning they are aware to what they have done. Don't put them in early punishment they are also human who made mistake. As human also we can use warning and  1 2 3 offense to be fair.

"Positive reinforcement" sure is a creative way to give a good example however I don't think it's going to be happening. This would imply that the forum hires and endorses some kind of elite posters to give a good example. In a way, it would also mean that they endorse ideas that the forum should in fact keep a neutral stance on. Would this actually help free speech? Should those participants stay away from supporting controversial views? I don't think this complication would help the neutrality we've had so far here.

As of the "silent treatment". Reddit used to have this, it was called a shadowban and was exactly what shorena described. Although the system was functional it wasn't transparent and didn't work really well. In fact they changed the banning procedure to be more transparent and "correctional" just today. https://redd.it/3sbrro

i like this idea quite a bit; positive reinforcement for good behavior has its advantages in the long run over punishment (negative reinforcement) for bad behavior; psychology and stuff. The only problem i see with this is the demand to be included in this exclusive group. to maintain this exclusive campaign, appropriate amounts of manpower would be needed to constantly monitor the posts of those enrolled. not only that, with people that would constantly be requesting to be included in that group, manpower would need to be dedicated to screen those as well. to top it off, as we know, spammers are quick to adapt, and may do so just to have a chance of being enrolled in these exclusive campaigns. but then again, that would be fixing their spamming problems in a way.

on the other hand, i dont like this one quite as much; even if those posts are "hidden" for the rest of us, that data (for the posts) has to be stored somewhere, and it might cause problems when the user's "silent ban" is lifted, and then suddenly we see a flood of posts in meta along the lines of "my posts arent showing up on ___ account help" or "my account is bugged ive sent theymos / badbear 500 pms no reply help." maybe if all those posts were deleted at the end of the ban period? idk. seems like a headache to implement though.
besides, that idea is just an enforced ignore; if other users were annoyed by the spam already, they can just ignore the user and not see their posts.

My humble opinion has always been that a warning would have been appreciated from offenders. If you deemed that their spam deserved a temp ban as a punishment then that could also do. I hope that those who got temp bans (if any) will return with posts of better quality.

Let me try to keep it short.

punishment does work as it reduces spam for a while.

Yes, its a constant battle. I think offtopic spam is less important to punish though. Asides from those the smear shit on the wall, let them chatter, for all I care let someone pay for the chatter and let most of their posts be chatter. I think its more important to keep the sections where discussions happen clean.

Are there other commonly used methods that might be applicable here?

Positive reinforcement. Theymos (or someone good in his name) runs a campaign for the board in addition to usual ads. Exceptional rates (compared to other campaigns) but very strict anti spam policy. This would create a positive example for others to follow or to work towards. This is already given in a sense by other well run and high paying campaigns. It is also not unheard of that exceptional and highly active posters can negotiate special deals.

Broken window theory. Post quality is lower because posts are not removed. The existance of low quality posts attracts lower quality posts. As you state abvoe this is currently a technical limitation, this will hopefully improve in the new incarnation of bitcointalk.

Smalltalk. Spam in a sense is a cultural aceptable thing in social conversations, people talk about the weather or other things that have no real importance all the time, but not in the middle of a debate. Its is thus part of the human nature to spam and this needs an outlet, e.g. in the offtopic section. Smearing shit over the cubicle[1] is still not acceptable. Which puts us back to the problem that someone has to clean up the shit. Its not enough to boot the person if the toilet cant be used afterwards. It would however make more time to focus on forms of spam that are undisreable for discussions, e.g. in other sections.

The silent treatment. A silent ban or mute. The spammer can still post normally, but somehow everyone is ignoring them. The posts are not actually shown to anyone but the person with the silent ban. Probably a technical issue as I doubt it is already implemented. Its common for video games to keep players on the server or in the game without causing further issues due to chat/mic spam. Probably not worth it, considering that its easy to check with another account or with a simple logout.

No pocket money for a week. Let them post, but remove / hide the signature. No new suggestion, probably to difficult to implement for the little good it would do. At least for the current version of the forum software.

Gated community. Make the board invite only or otherwise drasticly limit new accounts. Get rid of the spammers. Will effectively lock out newbies, which is IMHO not worth the benefit.

In summary I guess punishment is all that is realistically possible. At least for now. I think the most important change with the new board would be that it will be easier to remove spammy posts en masse.

[1] I laughed out load at that analogy, I should have stayed with cookies

I would disagree about punishments not working if they're dished out consistently (though forcing/putting pressure on campaigns to not pay for these posts in the first place would help the most). Punishments do usually work and I think most will change their ways after a ban but you can't just issue one set of bans then nothing for months again (I think the last time BadBear started to crack down on spammers with mass bans was before I was even a mod and that was a while ago). When the last wave of mass bannings went out I did notice a decrease in spam, but over time it slowly increased back to normal and now it's the worse it has ever been. If people are made aware or fear that they're no longer going to be able to get away with shitposting then 9/10 they will either improve or stop it as it's just not worth it for them. We also didn't have campaigns like yobit and secondstrade back then and I don't think any campaigns were using bots to count/pay out either. I think cracking down with lots of bans for the worst types of users will hopefully send a message out but if nothing does improve then I will hold my hands up and admit it failed, but it's something we should at least try and we've got nothing to lose really. I still think pressure needs to be put on the problem campaigns and bans should be issued to them too. If they don't respond to them then some way to block their signatures entirely or manually remove them from users would put a stop to that. It's a shame that a couple of campaigns aren't doing their job because I've always said campaigns could actually improve the quality of posts here but only if signature managers do what they're supposed to and not allow poor posters on to their campaign in the first place and certainly don't pay them if they start crapping all over the place. If every campaign did this then spammers would have no where to go and unless they get up their post quality considerably their accounts would essentially be worthless.


To continue your cookie analogy, if you have some guards looking out for people stealing from the cookie jar and quickly dishing out appropriate punishments for those that get caught doing so most people wont be stupid enough to continue and will usually stop, though of course there will always be a few sneaky users who disregard the fear of punishment and try anything they can to get around the cookie-police and continue their thievery/behavior. Those who do repeatedly try steal though will get a greater punishment ie permaban so it's probably not worth losing your account over a few satoshis.


Spam is still spam in my eyes regardless of where it is. Just because off-topic might be seen as a toilet to you doesn't mean people should be allowed a free pass to piss all over the seat and floor and smear shit all over the cubicle walls. People also don't need to make sloppy, one word answers in there. I have made several posts - and used to post almost daily - in the what song are you listening to thread but I never just posted the artist/song name. I linked to a youtube video and wrote a sentence or two on why I liked it or what bands they sound similar to if someone else wanted to check it out. People just get lazy and it gets worse when they realise they can get away with it whilst getting paid and that's why they need a slap on the wrist.


Sometimes we do remove their posts (though it is time consuming to remove them one-by-one unless we nuke them) and I have removed a few of his but at the same time if I delete all his crappy ones and leave the good ones it could look like he's a good poster and nothing's wrong when we request a ban. He's banned anyway now so it's moot.

A guy posting like that deserve a ban but what I don't understand is why staff don't remove their first spammy posts?
I will take the example of my topic that I posted in meta about a game (guess the number) in games and rounds, this topic was clearly abused by spammers... Only 2 posts was removed from 23 and the other sig spmrs will enjoy their few cents.
I think removing such posts will refrain those spammers (do not want use bad words) from making such useless posts.
I am talking about massive useless posts deletion here. (dunno if it was tested before but I think it is one of the solution when staff still hesitate about the ban decision).

Btw good job mexxer-2, i suggest an all-in-one post referring to separate posts about each signature compaign spammers
For example :
Yobit.net sig spammers - hall of shame:
09 November - banned:
User1 (profile link)
User2.....etc
————————
10 November: new - (waiting to be checked by badbear)
User 101 (profile link)
User 102...

Edit: reading the next post posted by hilariousandco: oh clear, didn't think of that. Thanks for the answer.

I beg to disagree on that one, try to check the spreadsheet of secondstrade and tell me when was the last time the campaign manager put a number on that rejected posts column. That column is nothing but a display or an ornament.

I get why you made the threads and I applaud the energy you put into this. The last ban wave did nothing to remove spam from the forum though. See the BadBear quote, punishment is not working. Punishment never works, it will only lead to better hidden misbehaviour.

It might be time to get rid of the cookie jar entirely instead of smacking on the hands of the greedy.


Which is - IMHO - a very bad business decision, but is it not ok for them to pay for shit as long as shit happens in the proper places, the toilet threads of this board? Sorry for my selection of words. I know I enjoyed some of them myself.


I have no idea what to do. Maybe the current approach is as good as it gets. Maybe the metric suggested by DiamondCards[1] is a solution, maybe we should ban campaign managers of spammers or outright ban paid signatures, maybe a silent ban can be implemented, more detailed rules, etc. pp, there are countless suggestions to improve the situation. All have downsides and might create a board that is less fun to post in.

I agree that something must be done against spam where its annoying, but Im not sure if the examples I named several times fit the annoying aspect. Esp. if the posts and threads stay.


Wow, best formatting 2015. Still this is harmless spam its not destorying a discussion. Its shit in the toilet. I also agree that campaigns and their managers should not pay someone for this as its the easiest and most effective way to remove the cookie jar. How to get them into the boat though. I would think it is also in their interest to filter these users.

[1] https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/the-discourse-paradox-1239590

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Edit: talking about spam and public shaming -> https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/fnv74-628009

At the end of the day it's up to the users if they want to compile lists here and we're not going to stop them. I'm usually not a fan of witch-hunts either and Staff probably aren't going to post lists publicly but the spam situation has got way out of control and is at breaking point really and sometimes it takes naming and shaming for people to actually pay attention. And there's nothing wrong with making the occasional post in games and rounds or in the what did you drink today thread but when your entire post history is in there or are all like this (myeyes.jpg) it's a problem. I think the biggest issue here is the campaigns and if they didn't pay for posts in games and rounds and off topic or even just actually checked users posts to make sure they all weren't like that then people wouldn't bother making them.

Spam is spam regardless of the perception of a single user or a multiple users. Regardless of how many view the thread or what they expect, that does not change the fact that the posts there are being made solely because of the signature campaign. Essentially campaign X is paying Z amount of users to spam. However, I do value your input and I have not thought about it like that. Trust me, I was banned before (remember #scandal).

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If it was up to me, we would not be having those daily threads/predictions and whatnot (at least not for participants of signature campaigns).

Well this thread was made for three purposes:
1) Secondstrade notice this thread and kick out the spammers
2) For moderators to notice and either consider a ban or warn the members, for which I had made another thread but decided to stick with this one: (will post as soon as I find it; link)
3) A public shame list.

Gotta say BadBear reponse was quite surprising, I'd say its because of this:
The mass banning may serve as a reminder for others to not spam, be it any thread.

Just thinking out loud, feel free to ignore this.

Not that I like spam very much, but can we take a second and think about this witch hunt?

A post in games and rounds can hardly be constructive, same goes for many threads in off topic. Are those actually a problem though? Who visits the "what did you drink today?" thread and expects a discussion? Who visists a giveaway thread and is offened by people posting what is needed to claim the reward instead of long paragraphs of thought out ideas? We dont want spam where its annoying and distracting, where it hinders discussions, where it might even be dangerous (e.g. bullshit advice in tech support). Yes, it is sad if a thread that had potential dumbs down to mere examples, lists or opinions without substance, so shallow no one can reply. If the posts are not removed though, is the ban a solution?

I dont know the answers, but I hope you BadBear (and anyone else currently handing out bans) think about this as well. I have never seen you give out a ban towards a spammer that was undeserved or if it happened I dont remember it.

I think that it would be much better to just keep updating OP instead of making additional posts in order to avoid clutter. Just make sure that the update is noticeable for BadBear and others.

They state they don't pay for off-topic posts and it's probably true since it's rare that I see any secondtrade spam there (though their manager might not be deducting them properly). They all spam in Games and Rounds because that is one of the few subs they get paid for weirdly. Yobit pays anyone anywhere but the spammers obviously go to off topic because there's so many shit threads they can easily spam in.