Topic: The new (maybe not so new) spammy trend. (Read 583 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.

The Wall Observer thread is a small community chat thread, and I think it is good the have threads like these. This is why I started the Jet Cash coffee lounge thread. To a certain extent these are self moderating, and the omission of signatures helps to maintain this. It is true that this is a forum focused on Bitcoin, but most of the members have many additional interests, and it is useful to have threads to support these, and to help build the community. Very often reading posts in such threads can help to build images of members, and thus they become a useful way to  evaluate the trustworthiness of members.

Oh, honestly I haven't imagine that one but it can be really a sneaky technique. I might say that this kind of spammer doing such stuff is way persistent than the rest of us here. I mean, imagine, he can put out all of the ideas in his head to create a simple converstaion. It's like having an introspection and posting it all here — you ask yourself then you also gave the answer. Wise move but still a bad one because spamming is a  spamming (beside for being brain damaging). So ridiculous!

Anyway, I guess the best thing we can do for the meantime while there's no long term solution for this is to report the original post if we find it nonsense and also for those questions that so simple which can be solve by google alone knowing the fact that it came from a brand new/newbie account.

Sometimes I report those threads when they are obvious nonsense, but not every time the reports are handled the way I think they should be.
Sometimes I get a Good report, but the threads is still there, sometimes they get locked, sometimes totally removed, and sometimes i get bad reports as well. So everything is based on the Mods judgment.
I think reporting should be enough but we need some guidelines. Not all the threads started by newbies are bad but 85% is just sig spam generators.
Sometimes the OP doesn't have the intention to generate spam but it turns out that the herd of spammers takes over and the thread is killed.

I like the option when the OP doesn't reply for a certain amount of time lets say 24 hours or the first two pages of the thread then the members have an option to report it to a moderator to lock the thread, I think this will be a sinple yet an effective way of avoiding to creat pne more megethread in the forum. Only downside I see to this is members who are interested in the discussion won't get the chance to participate in the board due to the OP's lack of interest.

I think that those gravediggers who find and comment on threads that are a couple of years old simply didn't check the date when the thread was created or the date of the last made post. I assume they find them using the forums search option in connection with a question or problem they might have and just make their post in the first thread that resembles their issue.
There are many examples of that in the Bitcoin boards, people are simply not looking at the creation dates when asking for help.

Please do this. Education in steps is always appreciated.
"How to buy/sell/make/earn, spend, " threads would be well attended and we could learn much faster and become better members.

I think a lot a spam is unintentional. I know mine was, just out of inexperience. And I got soundly reprimanded for it!  And as for locking a thread? I didn't know about that either. I thought the higher ups locked the threads. It's kind of overwhelming here.
Also, I hope I didn't intrude here either. I don't see any other newbie, or new members here, so excuse me if I am not supposed to post here.  I know I did that once too .

But, for what it's worth, I think giving the " General Topic" idea is an excellent idea,  and I hope you do that.

Nobody get paid by posting in WO, but I observe the thread sometimes, and saw people get merits for funny posts there. Maybe it is one of reasons why they keep posting non-sense, and funny posts in that thread.

Not only that, but there are a decent number of people who likes gravedigging, posting on topics that has been inactive for more than a year(there are exceptions though, but most new replies to old posts are irrelevant). Probably a "suggest lock" option would do the trick.

I thought it would be obvious that "General Topics" means General Topics which are crypto related, not topics about Cars or Basketball.

The "concepts of bitcoin" are different for everyone, it does not make sense to expect that everyone should understand what blockchain is or how does it work, the majority of people don't understand how most things around them work, and they don't care, i could care less how my car works as long as it starts and stops when I want it to, if I find an article talking about "how an auto-transmission functions," I would probably ignore it, but if it's about "how to take care of your car" i would probably read it.

same thing applies to BTC and crypto in general, people are more interested in how to buy/make/earn/spend BTC than how it works, the forum is full of technical and educational topics, but they get little to no attention, so why not give the crowd what they want ?    

Not many persons know that sigs.are disabled for "Wall Observer" or they really can't help but post whatever comes to mind.
The suggestion that focus should be more "General Topics" will damp the learning of important concepts of bitcoins. A lot of the tech stuff I learnt about bitcoin were picked from this forum. 

The "Wall Observer" is a great example , I do post there once  a while, it's nearly impossible to find 3 consecutive quality posts there, and every time you hit F5 you see new post/s coming in,also notice that signature is disabled there, so nobody does get paid for posting there - it makes me think that people don't shitpost just to get paid, they either do it for fun or simply do it because it's all they know !

I also think that many people find it hard to blend in topics that require some sort of knowledge, so the only place for them to post would be those mega thread where they can literally post anything they want and nobody will bother telling them hey "stop spamming".

we discussed a similar issue on our local board and one of the members suggested that we should focus a bit more on "General Topics" to encourage the average members to participate , and he does make a lot of sense, because come to think about it, most people don't care/know about the Technical behind BTC, wallets , mining etc.. all they want to talk about is BTC price, how to make money , what ICO is going to the moon, and despite their shitty posts, I do think they deserve a place here, so why not help them blend in by actually creating "simple" content which would allow them to actually participate in something they know?

I did notice that newbie accounts are popping out of nowhere just like the scam projects also popping out of nowhere. After replying to a thread many times where the op is a newbie with 12 post count are highest activity and post  count I've seen but mostly newbie have 1 or 2 post count. I tried changing the topic and I end up hanging in the air as they only start talking back to posting

I try not to post on threads where to u know your post will be lost. If there's about 4 pages and the op hasn't posted past the first page then they've given up on those threads or didn't want them anyway...

I'd suggest we change forum rules slightly or get an agreement between mods that they'll start to lock threads that have 20 responses that have turned spammy...

Selectively enforce strict rules. One of such might be, target the boards that have scope for such threads. Gambling section would be a nice place to start with. Maybe a script that checks the last active date of the topic creator and if it's more than 3 months, the topic is automatically locked. Mainboards like Mining or Technical Discussion can be free from such restrictions since newbies don't really spam there. This is just an example but a more conditional auto-locking algo will do the job.

Probably everyone have seen such threads but people don't talk about it. Mostly they are created by new fresh accounts with only 2-3 posts, sometimes with 9-10 posts.This apply for all the sections, except the technical boards.

The thread's subject is mostly some general question or observation which leaves room for random discussions... and of course at the end they become, guess what... Megathreads with 100s to 1000s of comments

And guess what... The OP never comes back to lock it... Why? There is a simple answer.

The OP is an alt account of one of the first 10 poster in the thread. The only idea is to create as many comments as possible to reach their sig. campaign required posts and this is the perfect technique, making HQ spam.

So, what can we do?

P.S. I'll come with examples when I get back to my PC.