Topic: The new (maybe not so new) spammy trend. (Read 546 times)

By reading before posting, newbies should always read before posting, that's the most proper thing to do, and if you're new to a forum, the first step should be to understand the nuances that guide such forum, and the only way to do that is by reading.

But the annoying part is that most of this newbies are here for the wrong reasons, they were told they could make few dollars from the forum, hence they come here with that mindset and make a mess of themselves.

I don't think that's rocket science. They're new to the forum and not to the internet.

No forum allows posting of redundant topics which already has answers. If you google any topic with bitcointalk keyword beside it, you'd get relevant results. There are thousands of new accounts created everyday, imagine all of them starting the same topic which has been discussed here multiple times years ago?

How do you separate genuine newbies? In most of the cases, members here do point them to the right threads.

You don't expect people to spoon feed you. Most of the sections have stickies for the common questions asked. The fact is, people just don't to invest their time to figure out things but rely on external help.

We don't have to. Report the posts and get them deleted.

How about we start thinking from newbies perspectives. The forum is so big. You say search the forum. If it's first time or new to bitcoin/cryptocurrency and somehow found the forum, how do they know to navigate through all the sub-sections and jargons?

When people are first learning about crypto, they are excited, nervous, they want information, they have questions. Most are not expert information diggers. It's difficult to understand the forum layout, relevant sub forums. You can't just google anything and everything and read some websites. I would rather post on some forum, get more replies and explanation from members there.

So, if you think a newbie is asking a question which has already been asked a hundreds of times, then as an experienced member you could point to that thread, ask the mod to lock the thread. Most of were newbies and most of us posted and asked seeming stupid things, asked some common sense questions. So, we should understand that most are genuine newbies posting questions that they genuinely want answers for.

Even to me many sections seems like alien places to me, I still only go to sections relevant to me. Most of the sections I have no interest whatsoever. Therefore, I think newbies are confused when trying to navigate through the forum. So, we should be understanding of their viewpoint.

Yes, there are also some newbie accounts with shit posts. Because of the posts and merit requirements for member ranking upgrades, there's no way to avoid some new members trying to increase their activity level with low quality post. Unfortunately, this is just a side effect we have to live with.

Then just forget it, we have enough manpower in the CLUB it won't take much time if we focus on those topics to clear them, the only question is how people to distinguish the good from the bad ones, we have to set up our own rules to report those threads.
 

That would require scraping half a million topics, and 50 million posts. I don't think it's worth doing this.

I made a similar topic. but this one made by iasenko is more informative and detailed.

link of my topic: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/newbie-topic-starter-5161174

Sometimes newbies post in old threads, because some dorks think they know everything and start shit-talking to newbies when they create a thread about certain something. Sometimes, the newbies create useless topics, sometimes they don't. So basically, a lot of people's go-to reaction when a newbie creates a new thread is basically like: There's a thread already about this, you're a major dickhead for not searching about the topic on the forum, you suck, you don't have merit bahahahahaah!

This eventually leads to newbies and people who aren't very active to post in old topics to avoid the shit-talk, only to later realize they get shit-talked regardless because they necro-bumped a thread. Now this entire scenario is uncommon, at best, and usually its just shitposters posting in old threads if they run out of things to say, and to lure in their shitloads of accounts to well...shitpost. Honestly speaking, this entire thing sucks in general and bitcointalk is majorly screwed up for becoming a shitpost land than having actual realistic discussions.

What would be nice is some users to get something like the report button that marks topics like this.
I have submitted a few with the report button but I feel this is more for alerting to serious concerns like virus or phishing attempts it would be an idea to have people who are merit sources possibly have additional button to flag potential spam, low worth posts, and scams.

I don't know if there has been a system like this proposed but I think if there were some members who had some kind of secondary way to flag these accounts it might make banning them simpler.

Or a system of De-merit.

User N00B joins and posts a simple easy to find question on the forum or with google like

How do I check a my wallet on the blockchain.           

Merit-souce ( can flag the message,    1. spam,    2. non-constructive

every time you get a STRIKE from a merit source you should either lose merit or if you have a fresh account a warning for low-constructive posts

I also think it might be an idea to have new users view a forum rules post and accept the rules this way anyone falling foul of them cannot claim they did not know ect ect as they would have accepted them once joined.
There seems to be many bot's on the forum posting questions they are always of very low value or very low quality I would say after 3 strikes you get banned.

This action in turn will ban the "question bots"  and low quality content from spamming up the forum and good technical and valid questions won't be lost to them either.

Just my 2 sat's

I know LoyceV is the man to talk to, but I don't really want to bother him, he has enough to do, but maybe he can put this on his to do list.
If we list all the threads in which the OP never posted again or posted only once, that will be a very useful list to start manually go trough and reporting mega threads.
It's just an idea.

Seeing this every day or questions that could be found by a simple google search seem very out of place being posted in a few line then most of the time if your reply to them they do not answer or other accounts pipe into the topic and take it off to another level even after the initial question has been concluded.

I have to think that these accounts are being created with one aim to be spam or sock-puppet accounts for future ANN topics on the forum.

While we don't want to push new users away the influx of what I will call "SpamAccs" is really taking away from some of the boards here.

You have done a good thing raising this in a topic but right now I can't think of any way to stop this on the forum I know some like LoyceV ect have been working on some system to help spot these users.

Here you have a few examples of difference type of PMT (Potential Mega threads:) I should have sorted them out maybe, but it took me around 10 min to look into Bitcoin discussion, Economics and Speculations board, those are some of the first 3 pages. I haven't check each one of the threads of each section, those are the random ones I found by reading only the subject... Enjoy
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/bitcoin-investment-has-changed-my-life-5159874
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/why-does-warren-buffett-hate-bitcoin-5163029
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/lets-fix-this-to-make-bitcoin-better-5162733
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/is-it-safe-to-buy-using-bitcoin-5162350
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/is-blockchain-a-perfect-solution-5139144
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/what-triggered-the-sudden-rise-in-bitcoin-price-5162910
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/is-bitcoin-volatility-here-to-stay-5159696
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/how-to-prevent-fraud-5112645
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/bitcoin-goes-down-no-new-rich-people-anymore-5138288
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/bitcoin-hold-5159084

Please excuse the way I posted the links, It's really pain in the a** making proper links on a mobile.

I would be happy, to see these examples, to know exactly, what you mean. I assume I know, but want to be sure.

Of course, I have seen this, but mostly in altcoins announcements threads, were bots and alt accounts, post multiple time the same questions, with more as 75 signs.

This is good enough, to be not deleted by moderators as obvious spam, but TBH such mega threads, only with the short OP asking a simple question is something I haven't seen a lot.

I agree, but the issue is the necrobumping post rarely is relevant.

In some boards, such as Technical Support, necrobumps are usually fine, because it is from someone having the same issue as has previously been discussed. It saves having to open a new thread and rehash all the answers which had already been given, and gives a base to build on with new suggestions, help, or information.

However, in boards like bitcoin discussion, necrobumps are almost always spam. They are bumping megathreads with one or two line answers which have already been said somewhere in the previous 10+ pages. No one is actually reading these replies, but once the thread has been bumped back to the front page, other spammers descend on it to also boost their post count.

If this suggestion will be embrace, and unanimously agree then the issue of mega spam threads will be a thing of the past for the entire forum. Moderators should step up a little bit and combat this disgusting shit among lower and higher rank members. Had come across some threads in the past which where resurrected by higher rank and the most of this are done by newbies account assumed to be an alt  of the OP.

I think a lot of these posters just try to get their Activity up and just wait and see how much Merit they can get afterwards.

As for necrobumping, I have no problem with that, as long as the bumping post is relevant and on-topic. I prefer necroposting to opening another thread for a subject that has been discussed in the past already. Keeps everything neatly arranged and makes it a lot easier for people searching for info, if they don't have to read into 17 different threads about the same subject.

Those necrobumpers quite often are confused newbies, who were told to search the forum before open a new topic, then they see a subject that fits their needs without paying attetion to the date of the thread.
That's how some of them became a necrobumbers. Others do it intentionally so.. again it's difficult to decide what is good and what is bad at a newbie level.

I suspect many of them have vague, spammy replies already written, and search for threads based on a keyword or two, and fire their reply in regardless of whether it makes sense in the context of the thread.

I've also run across a few in bitcoin discussion who bumped 10+ necrothreads in a few minutes, and all of these threads had their last post (excluding the necrobump) within an hour or two of each other. In these cases, it seems the spammer picks a random page number from the board, and just works through the thread titles looking for easy one liners.

I always report those idiots for necrobumping, but I'm not sure what the mods do with the reports.  Sometimes there's a decent reason for bumping an old thread, but usually when newbies do it, it's baffling to me how they found such an old thread and why they felt the need to post in it again.

And OP, what you observed is something I've commented on a number of times, and you're exactly right.  I'd say most of the threads started in sections like Bitcoin/Altcoin Discussion are done solely for the purpose of having something for the OP's alts to reply to.  We all know damn well that most threads in those sections are complete garbage, and it's why I have them on ignore most of the time.  I'm not sure there's anything we can do about it except report shitposts.

And by the way, it's definitely not a new trend.  It's been going on for at least a few years now.

Some form of reward or recognition to encourage reporting (reporter badges?)
More moderators and dedicated sub-board mods
Auto locking threads after x months to prevent pointless necrobumping
All threads over x pages being automatically reviewed by a moderator and locked if OP's question has been answered
Harsher punishments and escalating bans for spammers and the signature campaigns which pay them

I don't think it's new trend. I remember seeing such threads maybe 2-3 years ago or even earlier. Newbie OP asks simple or sometimes stupid question and never come back. It's very likely that these accounts is alt of some sig spammers, but it's just assumption and there is no way how we can prove it. And such threads is heaven for sig spammers indeed. But I think it's not much what we can do. Reporting probably wouldn't help because these threads aren't breaking forum rules. There is just one thing - question of such threads usually has been discussed hundreds or even thousands times before, but I'm not sure that's a reason to report it.