Topic: Spam: What is it, what to do. (Read 390 times)

I will take exception to this in that not everyone here in this forum has English language as their first language and I wouldn't want to believe they should be enough restrictions to them from been able to contribute effectively and with quality, they may at some point have quality contributions and are been restrained because they cannot properly use English, if the message can be passed and understood, Grammar and tenses shouldn't be a challenge or reason enough to see it as a Spam, my taughts actually, I stand to be corrected.

(OP ) You're welcome to discuss the topic in the forum, but you've overstated it a bit which doesn't make sense. It's not uncommon for some forum posts to appear spammy to you, as spammers do this, so it's not fair to present everyone in the same place. If any ad or post seems to be spam you can report it to the forum's audit department. So that later they can easily identify these posts.
I think you should be very careful when you post something in the forum because spammers can spam your id if they get a chance. Spammers will spam because their motivation can be said to be to make a profit.

 I think those of us working on the forum may not be able to spot spammers that way, so I request the moderators to look into this matter seriously.

There is also the kind of spam that is common among several users wearing Stake signatures, which is posts that are unnecessarily long-winded. They will write a seven paragraph long post without really understanding the topic they are commenting on. These users also tend to make over 50 posts each week, which is well above the average for a typical user.

It rarely happens because a non spam post is a non spam post, I believe it will be always like this. Exceptions are people who are extremes far or left and disagree with the crowd. The majority will definitely agree that it is a non spam post.

Another thing is quality post, that is far above non spam post, and assessment of a quality post can lead to more inconsistency in the crowd. Different people have different criteria on post quality and context makes sense too. If you make a same post, in different threads, one can be quality and others are non quality or even off topic or spam.

If a post is helpful, it's quality one.

What Mr A view as quality post, may be a spam to the other person, and regardless whether the wall of text is large or not, as long as it carries a message that I can relate with and to, it may look as not spam post for me even when others but with just one person reading and understanding it, the posts will be seen as a neutral quality, because at that point of  views that can read and understood by the other party, just as upgrade mentioned above.


The issue of spam post or low quality post's is somewhat an individual things as last Ng as the post already meet the forum standard, the quality rating after then will be individual subjective case

You have done well OP, just that you don't make it perfect by inserting some references to buttress your points, because all these have been discussed on several occasions in the past, for anyone who is being careful and observant will know that being a member of this forum will first require that one know the rules and regulations, how to post and what to post, not like others who would have failed from doing the needful before realizing.

I agree if you have a spell checker on on your OS you will see some spelling that are incorrectly posted but I cannot consider it spam, I made a lot of error or mistakes in my spelling but I make it a point that my posts are not redundant and on topic. and I also see that spelling errors in many of our member posts, but I will not report that as spam. Spam lacks substance and is not on topic; it was just created for the sake of posting; the poster did not even bother to read the topic and just rely on the title of the discussion.

It's a well defined post but you are contradicting on many of your points which I surely would not love to go deep, but you have made some points which doesn't even consider the post as a spam. Considering Poor Grammar and Spelling as a spam is very newbie mistake and it will make you a grammar nezi. Low quality posts is basically spam, so that point was pretty obvious.

i'm so happy i came across this thread cause it helped to sharpen my knowledge about what we can tag as spam in the forum although i still think some of the things highlighted might not necessarily be viewed as spam but sometimes such scenarios can be objective.i also believe that some people will actually spam on purpose for reasons best known to them so there should be a way to fish them out when it has been proven without any doubt and appropriate penalties should be meted to them to reduce such incidents.
i also would love to know if there is a way to fish out those who use AI to have conversations on the platform.

i think its only the person who gave you the trust that can reverse it

What's trust? Someone reported my account for a post I made which he was actually right but my account was then flagged with a trust of 1. Can someone please explain to me what I can do for a reverse.

The incentive is not only signature campaigns. Some users hope to benefit from spamming by gaining activity on their accounts.

In terms of repeated posts, sometimes it is not like the user posts a particular text on different threads, but on a particular thread, a user may decide to rephrase another statement that has been made by another user earlier before them in the form of repetition. You can notice this in some mega threads in the gambling section where one thing is said in many different ways.

I totally agree that some people deliberately spam online ruining good conversations. It is disturbing to see them try to confuse and annoy others on purpose. These repeat spammers harm community by spreading false information and causing frustration.
That list which shared in OP helps new users learn what not to do. Teaching people how to post responsibly is essential. Forum must also take action to stop spammers and create a positive and respectful space for everyone.

Actually, sometimes some users do know that they are spamming, and they know it must not be allowed, but they still do it. I don't know whether they enjoy doing it or they simply lack basic knowledge and don't know anything about what is being discussed or what others are talking about, but they just say whatever comes to their minds.

You can also often find trolls and serial spammers who will go into different threads and sections and post against OPs of different topics only to troll them and you will find them making no sense at all. This is also a sort of deliberate spamming that you can witness in the forum very often.

Other than that, you did a good job by compiling this list, and if newbies read it and pay attention, they might learn a thing or two about what they shouldn't do for them not to become spammers.

To a certain degree, everything's subjective. There are a handful of factors that matter. Even rank and reputation could turn a post which could otherwise easily be judged as a spam if it were made by a newbie into something else.

Anyway, your list is somewhat redundant. A scam post, for example, basically includes one with the intention to spread unnecessary links or one with phishing attempts. A low quality post includes ones with poor grammar or spelling, those that aren't reviewed before posting, gibberish, generic and very short ones, and so on.

If I may add, posts that are apparently created to earn merit are also a spam. Tutorials, compilations, fake experiences, lists (like this one), and so forth could also be spam.

I appreciate your effort but don't quite agree with you, OP, to declare most of it as spam. That doesn't really help in my opinion. As BlackBoss_ highlights, a lot of your categories are covered by one or another forum rule and if you spot blatant violations against forum rules, feel free to report it to moderators.

Spammers spam because they have some sort of incentive, whatever it is. It's a fight against windmills...

If particular users annoy you, simply put them on your ignore list. Silence is bliss. Mostly...

Some do it because they are paid for it while some because they want others life to be as uncomfortable as theirs
While there are the category who ain't aware that they are spamming.
With the number of spammers moderators can't do it alone
That's why to make the forum a lil better and spam free moderation has to start with us.
There's a reason we been told when making a report to moderators that we shouldn't care about the accuracy.
Because one accurate report matters alot

On your 6th list, I wouldn't agree fully with that
As long as it could be understood and shows effort then it's not really a spam except it's unreadable.
I have seen Good heads that ain't the best in English make good thread in the development and technical board.
Not all languages have a board here so a person not fully versed in English shouldn't be considered a spammer as long there's visible effort to improve.

These kind of posts are encouraged by the fact that these users are able to earn something out of spam. Many on altcoin campaigns are running signature without much given noticed their participants and making them post countless to keepnup with the signature. Its gonna be a hard time balancing these with forum since sometimes its inevitable even with btv paid campaigns.

I will support your thread with rules taken from Unofficial list of (official) Bitcointalk.org rules, guidelines, FAQ.

It's there

Here is an example of a user or users spamming. These particular users have made plenty posts within the last few hours. They are new accounts and totally unrelated to the forum other than promoting scams or very probably a phishing link or something very harmful.
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If we have 100 users posting like that repeatedly, then that is an issue that needs to be handled. One user doing it once in a while is not such a disturbance.

And there's a difference between unreadable, and one struggling to read it. If I can make sense of the post or the idea the user is trying to pass across, it's fine with me.

Posts that are not readable are very much useless to the forum that is why I categorised them as spam. It would be a great idea if such a program is introduced. But where affected members are not willing to learn or this program is not introduced, the forum might be a mess if such meaningless posts are ignored.

I don't think it counts as spam if the post is not easily readable due to bad grammar. Not everyone has a local language or local board here to communicate in their native language and attempting to write in English language shows they are making an effort and should improve if they keep at it and take corrections from other users or grammar correcting apps.

Rather than tag such as spam, I think we should have community focused programs to help those willing to improve their use of the English language.

Nice job mate as you took the time to explain in details all the aspects of Spam activities here in the forum, there is no gain saying that, majority of the posts in the gambling section and other boards of the forum where signature promoters posts are counted towards weekly quarter there is a high tendency of possible spam in such a board, but then also not all signature posters posts to meet their weekly quarters, and you can see that from those promoting projects that pay them per posts, if you check the spreadsheet of such pay per Posts signature you fine out that many participants most times don't meet the max and almost 30% don't make up to half of the max posts and this point to one thing, which is not all are chasing to make post's to meet signature campaign payment.


Lastly all the other mentioned cases of Spam such as plagiarism and AI usage, and low quality post's are all punishable by forum Admin some time any account involved in one or two of the above may likely get a ban for that.

Introduction :
Ever since I got involved in the activities of the forum, I understood that there is one thing that senior members of this forum frown against, and that is spamming. I have also known that every member of the forum is free to report anything that they see as spam, to the moderators. By this way the forum is kept clean.  But, I also noticed that, the more people are reporting spam, the more we have spammers in the forum.  I had to make a little research on why people keep spamming, even when they are aware that spamming is not allowed in the forum. Even when their spam posts are deleted, they keep spamming. I asked myself two questions;

• Is it that those people enjoy spamming and they don't want to change.
• They don't know what is actually a spam.

I had to align more with my number 2 because the word spamming can mean different things in different places. I therefore decided to make this post, describing what spam could be and mean in this forum. I have tried using the search function to see if similar topic exists, but I had difficulty using the search button. But the google search I used did not direct me to any post of this nature, that is the reason I am developing this one.
Below are what could be classified as spam posts in bitcointalk. New members and every other persons should take note and avoid these type of posts. When you see such posts, you can do a favour to the forum by reporting it.

1. Off topic posts :
It feels like a pain in the ass reading a good thread with flowing conversations. But in the middle, you will see a user that posted something off context and totally unrelated to the thread. You begin to imagine the purpose of making such a post in an ongoing conversation.

2. Over promotional posts:
I once went to the gambling  board to see if I can understand what is happening there. I saw a particular thread where someone was promoting a casino, even without using the casino. When I saw it, it was case of pure over promotion of the casino. When I started reading the thread, I understood that the person wanted to earn referral bonuses from it. I think this kind of behaviour should be called a spam.

3. Posts with unnecessary links :
Sometimes you will see a post that will explain little or nothing, but the Creator of the topic or post will dump so many links to it. I don't know how other people feel comfortable clicking links that is linking to unknown sites. Such type of posts should be avoided or limited and it should also be categorised as a spam if the links are very much unnecessary and many.

4. Repeated posting :
This was  one of the shockers I saw the first week I joined the forum. I read where a user posted a particular text and in few time later, he will post that same text in another thread and keep posting thesame text. This should be the apex of spamming and this type of posts should be reported.

5. Phishing attempts :
I think I read this in the rules of bitcointalk where posting malwares is highly prohibited and can get the person banned. So posts that are attempted to steal people's funds should be reported. In this kind of situation, one might not really know if they are Phishing attempts or not, but it is better to report it and the moderators mark you bad than not reporting. I not sure if I am correct here or not.

6. Poor grammar and spelling :
There are some posts that are written in English language but everyone will struggle to read the post. I think that kind of post should be a spam. Not everyone is good in English language (including myself), but at least the text should be readable irrespective of some minor mistakes and  usage of tenses.  If the text is not comprehensive at all, it should be called a spam.

7.  Low quality posts :
There are some posts that do not contain anything reasonable, and you would understand that the owner of the post did not put any effort in constructing the post. Such posts should be regarded as spam.

8. Scam attempt posts :
There are some posts that I've seen, I would have liked to leak some of these posts, but decided not to. The post is promising up to 50% ROI in a day. I mean this is an obvious scam attempt and should be reported to moderators for deletion anywhere it is seen.

9. AI generated posts :
In the middle of a conversation involving humans, using randomly generated texts by an Artificial Intelligence should be considered as a spam.

Conclusion :
This post is not developed to flaw anyone, including myself. I am just doing this because I read in the forum that everyone should be able to contribute positively in the forum. Since I am not much experienced in teaching people about Bitcoin, this is my own little way of contributing to the forum. Newbies and other people that have been spamming, after reading this could understand what is called spam and refrain from it. Then, we could have a sane  forum for every one of us to enjoy.
Thank you for reading.