The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam - page 4.

LoyceV

legendary

Activity: 3290

Merit: 16489

Thick-Skinned Gang Leader and Golden Feather 2021

OP updated, and calculation slightly changed:

Quote from: LoyceV on September 18, 2018, 02:21:07 PM

In the first week after the announcement, 286408 posts were made (-19.05%).
In the second week after the announcement, 280503 posts were made (-20.72%).
In the third week after the announcement, 259694 posts were made (-26.60%).
In the forth week after the announcement, 263685 posts were made (-25.47%).

Quote from: LFC_Bitcoin on October 13, 2018, 08:07:56 AM

Loyce, what would you have done here? Found myself in two minds a while ago. This poster made a good, constructive post. I checked his post history though & it was litteted with crap posted in the Bounty/Altcoin subsection.

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I'm with hilarious on this one:

Quote from: hilariousetc on October 13, 2018, 07:45:03 AM

But isn't this attitude counter-productive? We're meant to be rewarding users who make decent posts and if a user makes one then that post probably should be merited. I get your logic though ~

But on the other hand I'm with DdmrDdmr too:

Quote from: DdmrDdmr on October 13, 2018, 08:37:55 AM

~A decent post does not make up for a lame prior posting history. ~

To conclude my mixed feelings: I've merited all posts on the subject in that thread, including the "bounty spammer". It's all worth reading. Since he (she?) is a Copper Member anyway, and received 1 Merit by the time I read the post, one more Merit isn't going to change anything. I'd like to encourage users to stop spamming, even if it's just one post.
The worst case would be if it's one of many alt accounts that receives 1 Merit for 1 good post, after which the spammer continues spamming with his army of alt accounts. If that's the case, he'll never continue making good posts.
On the other hand, if it's a real user, he might put in a bit more effort in at least some of his posts in the future. If my Merit can help accomplish that, it's well worth it.
There's another thing: as much as I hate spammers, I don't really mind them as long as they stay on their own bounty spam board. Theymos created that board for that reason, and as long as theymos allows it, who am I to judge them?

LFC_Bitcoin

legendary

Activity: 3528

Merit: 9525

#1 VIP Crypto Casino

Loyce, what would you have done here? Found myself in two minds a while ago. This poster made a good, constructive post. I checked his post history though & it was litteted with crap posted in the Bounty/Altcoin subsection.

I was going to send him the 1 Merit he needed for the original post but decided against it because I’d be the one responsible for him ranking up.

Quote from: LFC_Bitcoin on October 13, 2018, 07:29:23 AM

Quote from: sheynlee18 on October 13, 2018, 03:58:36 AM

Merits can be earned by posting high quality topics and a topics that can produce a good discussion ! Yes it's a reality that only high rank members get a lot of merits and us newbies or low ranks gets nothing because of these reasons:

1. High rank people has more knowledge and experience in this forum thus they can produce a good topic and discussion
2. Mostly high ranking people gets the chance to create & manage bounties (legit and high quality bounties gets a merit from participants or reviewers)
3. High rank people are not afraid to post a comment or topic because they know all the rules to avoid a ban

Those are some of the major reasons I think... if there is some other reason just qoute it !

Here is a reason why newbies or low ranks don't get any merits or less merits:

1. Low Rank people or newbies has less/no knowledge and experience thus they cannot produce a good topic or a good comment in this forum
2. Low Rank people or newbies (those accounts who are not owned by ICO's) didn't get the chance to create & manage bounties for the reasons that ICO's base only on trust, ranks & importantly experiences
3. Low Rank people or newbies is afraid to post a comment or topic because they really don't know fully the rules to avoid a ban

And also in addition many says that merits are just created just to ruined the lives of newbies and low ranks they are created to make the people on top more rich. Maybe that's true but its up to you newbies & low ranks if you want to make your rank up ! You need to make more effort and have more learnings about this business for you to be able to make a good topics and discussions to produce merits ! Everything cannot be owned without efforts ! Face it ! Don't compare yourself to those high ranks make your own name and be on top and you can make a change by helping those newbies go up also !

I was going to send you 1 Merit for this post but I checked out your post history & it’s littered with Bounty Hunting spam so I’m not going to now, sorry.

You’ll never rank up if the majority of your posts are in that shit hole of the forum. More posts like this though & you’ll rank up.

bitart

hero member

Activity: 1442

Merit: 629

Vires in Numeris

Quote from: stompix on October 12, 2018, 02:56:16 AM

...
So in the end, those 20%-30% are where it really matters,and if a few (hundred) mega threads would be trashed it would probably still be some hope to save the bitcoin discussion section.
...

I always suggest to just delete those megathreads and 99% of the off topic section, that would decrease the activity count of the farmed accounts....
I know that there is a lot of useful post in the spam megathreads too, but anyway... "Wo gehobelt wird, fallen Späne." (similar in engish: "You can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs")

DdmrDdmr

legendary

Activity: 2310

Merit: 10758

There are lies, damned lies and statistics. MTwain

Quote from: LoyceV on October 12, 2018, 09:49:43 AM

<…>

Yes, it rather interesting and dam well worrying to see these sorts of patterns, creating large set of accounts waiting to be set in motion at some point (or going through evil IP issues and spinning IPs somehow until they get accounts created that are free of this concept). Maybe the subscription process could/should be tightened a bit at some point somehow. It seems just too easy to program a burst of automated account creations right now…

LoyceV

legendary

Activity: 3290

Merit: 16489

Thick-Skinned Gang Leader and Golden Feather 2021

@DdmrDdmr So some spammer registered about 6000 accounts in the time that normally 1000 accounts would have been registered. That means 6 out of 7 accounts in that block are owned by a spammer, and somewhere in the future they'll be running spam bots.
I checked a few usernames, and see very similar patterns. And this comes on top of the normal spam accounts that are created already!

Some usernames:
Af7er68957h3da
usedA3ri31a
d3l0r4As1e3p3241
Alys5mi5sion
l4r63karoly
Eachzaria5005

And they probably use different patterns too.

DdmrDdmr

legendary

Activity: 2310

Merit: 10758

There are lies, damned lies and statistics. MTwain

Quote from: TheBeardedBaby on October 12, 2018, 06:38:05 AM

<…>

It’s highly likely a batch of accounts prepared for bots as you say. Looking at the interval we focused on, using @Loyce’s system I managed to narrow down a huge peak of new accounts created on September the 29th 2018, with over 7K accounts created in the span of 24 hours, way above average:

Code:

UserId Date Registered Hours and minutes to next block of 1k accounts
2409000 September 27, 2018, 11:59:27 PM 23:59
2410000 September 28, 2018, 07:49:28 PM 19:50
2411000 September 28, 2018, 11:06:53 PM 3:17
2412000 September 29, 2018, 03:12:44 AM 4:05
2413000 September 29, 2018, 06:56:44 AM 3:44
2414000 September 29, 2018, 11:11:30 AM 4:14
2415000 September 29, 2018, 02:15:30 PM 3:04
2416000 September 29, 2018, 05:36:53 PM 3:21
2417000 September 29, 2018, 08:36:16 PM 2:59
2418000 September 30, 2018, 02:58:29 PM 18:22
2419000 October 01, 2018, 09:25:49 AM 18:27
2420000 October 01, 2018, 07:43:00 PM 10:17
2421000 October 02, 2018, 02:13:11 PM 18:30
2422000 October 03, 2018, 09:07:42 AM 18:54
2423000 October 04, 2018, 02:20:10 AM 17:12
2424000 October 04, 2018, 09:51:51 PM 19:31
2425000 October 05, 2018, 07:50:27 PM 21:58

Fits my peak and @stompix's narrowed down version.

TheBeardedBaby

legendary

Activity: 2184

Merit: 3134

₿uy / $ell

Quote from: stompix on October 12, 2018, 06:33:46 AM

Now this made me curious Grin

, before that the interval between 10k accounts was also 699.208 seconds.
So somewhere between Sep 28 and October 01 ~~we witnessed a new spike in users interested in bitcoin~~ some ICO bumpers got new clients.

It's more likely a new wave of bots coming towards us coz many got banned last month, and it takes a bit of a time for the puppeteer to figure all out.

stompix

legendary

Activity: 2828

Merit: 6108

Blackjack.fun

Quote from: LoyceV on October 12, 2018, 05:39:27 AM

Quote from: DdmrDdmr on October 12, 2018, 04:43:59 AM

Quote from: stompix on October 12, 2018, 02:56:16 AM

I wonder how new registrations stats looks like...

I’ve taken a quick look, using the forum official stats and WayBackMachine to get different snapshots (*).

You can easily get very accurate registration data by just looking at the registration dates in the profiles Wink

https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/astas-2400000 for instance was registered September 20, 2018, 02:28:47 PM, and on September 28, 2018, 07:49:28 PM there were 10000 more accounts.

Nice one... Grin

So the interval between 10 000 accounts registration has been indeed fluctuating quite a lot..

September 20, 2018, 12:28:47 PM
September 28, 2018, 05:49:28 PM
October 01, 2018, 05:43:00 PM
October 10, 2018, 05:37:46 AM

and we've got, 710.501 , 258.812 and 777.286 seconds.

Now this made me curious Grin

, before that the interval between 10k accounts was also 699.208 seconds.
So somewhere between Sep 28 and October 01 ~~we witnessed a new spike in users interested in bitcoin~~ some ICO bumpers got new clients.

LoyceV

legendary

Activity: 3290

Merit: 16489

Thick-Skinned Gang Leader and Golden Feather 2021

Quote from: DdmrDdmr on October 12, 2018, 04:43:59 AM

Quote from: stompix on October 12, 2018, 02:56:16 AM

I wonder how new registrations stats looks like...

I’ve taken a quick look, using the forum official stats and WayBackMachine to get different snapshots (*).

You can easily get very accurate registration data by just looking at the registration dates in the profiles Wink

https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/astas-2400000 for instance was registered September 20, 2018, 02:28:47 PM, and on September 28, 2018, 07:49:28 PM there were 10000 more accounts.

DdmrDdmr

legendary

Activity: 2310

Merit: 10758

There are lies, damned lies and statistics. MTwain

Quote from: stompix on October 12, 2018, 02:56:16 AM

<...>
I wonder how new registrations stats looks like...

I’ve taken a quick look, using the forum official stats and WayBackMachine to get different snapshots (*). This is what it looks like recently:

Code:

Date nRegistered nDays nRegPerDay
12/10/2018 2.417.202 7 1.293
05/10/2018 2.408.148 10 1.797
25/09/2018 2.390.175 9 1.171
16/09/2018 2.379.633 14 1.423
02/09/2018 2.359.700 7 1.500
26/08/2018 2.349.200 6 1.589
20/08/2018 2.339.665 11 1.705

It seems we’re getting between 1.2K and 1.8K new registered users per day (not the 439.36 that we see on the stats which must be taking into account all history). The date range between the 16/09/2018 and the 25/09/2018 seemed to decrease the registration process a bit (change of Jr.Member rule) , but it spiked up again during the ten days after that, to decrease again over the last 7 days. It’s a bit of a roller coaster really.

(*) Snapshots are not taken at the same time, so some dates have more hours accounted for than others have, but still it’s the best we can do from the outside.

slocker

full member

Activity: 490

Merit: 134

Quote from: stompix on October 12, 2018, 02:56:16 AM

Checking the patrol seems like the link posting is not affected at all and paid bumping continues, the bounties section is almost 12% of the entire forum in one year, so most of the posts probably go there.
So in the end, those 20%-30% are where it really matters,and if a few mega (hundred) mega threads would be trashed it would probably still be hope save the bitcoin discussion section.

Oh, and there are a few dozen higher rank member that get banned for plagiarism each week, cutting down useless posting Grin

I wonder how new registrations stats looks like...

This is totally true and I personally agree with you. I cannot follow tokens and bounties anymore. Look one thing after few second this is already on page five. This should be reduced by bounty manager. They should create some spreadsheet with google easily and this could reduce everything by at least 30%. Almost every topic have post in this form you twit and facebook post. This can be reduced with google form. It should be like bitcoin signature campaign post until its full then campaign manager post bounties are send or payment is send. Nothing more.

stompix

legendary

Activity: 2828

Merit: 6108

Blackjack.fun

Checking the patrol seems like the link posting is not affected at all and paid bumping continues, the bounties section is almost 12% of the entire forum in one year, so most of the posts probably go there.
So in the end, those 20%-30% are where it really matters,and if a few (hundred) mega threads would be trashed it would probably still be some hope to save the bitcoin discussion section.

Oh, and there are a few dozen higher rank member that get banned for plagiarism each week, cutting down useless posting Grin

I wonder how new registrations stats looks like...

LoyceV

legendary

Activity: 3290

Merit: 16489

Thick-Skinned Gang Leader and Golden Feather 2021

Quote from: LoyceV on September 18, 2018, 02:21:07 PM

In 24 hours, that's 23.3% less posts.
In 48 hours, that's 18.6% less posts.
In 1 week, that's 15.9% less posts.
In 2 weeks, that's 18.6% less posts.
In 3 weeks, that's 22.2% less posts.

OP updated.
The reduction in total posts went up again!

Quote from: LoyceV on October 01, 2018, 04:35:46 AM

If I ignore the one week before and after theymos' changes, and only look at the number of posts made a week earlier and later (so posts made from September 3 to September 10, and from September 24 to October 1), it went down from 355933 to 280633 posts. That's a 21.2% reduction.

If I ignore the two weeks before and after theymos' changes, and only look at the number of posts made two weeks earlier and later (so posts made from August 27 to September 3, and from October 1 to October 8), it went down from 367037 to 260330 posts. That's a 29.1% reduction.

o_e_l_e_o

legendary

Activity: 2268

Merit: 18509

Quote from: LoyceV on October 01, 2018, 04:35:46 AM

-snip-

That's certainly an encouraging start. My worry is as hilarious pointed out - gaining 1 merit is easy. Even if they can't trade between alts, they can easily beg, buy, or plagiarize for a single merit. A 20% reduction is great, but only if it continues. As the system stands, that 20% will slowly fall as more and more of the spambies start to level up again. Not only would a 10 merit requirement reduce that rate of fall significantly, it would likely result in a further reduction of spam as many of the newbies still spamming in the hope of gaining 1 random merit would just give up entirely if they knew they had to reach 10, as well as knocking out many multiple account users who would not have enough merit to level up all their alts.

hilariousetc

legendary

Activity: 2786

Merit: 3029

Join the world-leading crypto sportsbook NOW!

Quote from: DdmrDdmr on September 25, 2018, 01:53:42 PM

Quote from: stompix on September 25, 2018, 01:23:37 PM

<...>

Which goes to prove that the 1 merit rule is up to some extent easy to bypass by farmers, but even so, many will not be able to even achieve it (not enough merits to cover all the Alts from the father account). A step-up in the criteria could, at a later stage, be obviously requiring more merit but from x distinct people (i.e. 5 merits from 5 different people). Not impassable, but certainly tougher to overcome. Anyway, we’ve just changed the rule, so that is going to stay for a while. At best, people can work on the diverse lists for suspicious clear cases, and farmers know that they are being watched …

It's sadly too easy to bypass especially for those who are abusing it the most. The biggest abusers of the forum aren't just going to give up because of this requirement, but we're already seeing how they're dishing merit between alts their dozens of alts: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.46135292

That's why I think it should be more than one. One is fine for moving from Newbie to Junior but it shouldn't get you a signature. Remove signatures from Juniors and then you have to get ten Merit and become a Member to get one. Getting ten merit is ten times more difficult and costly and also much easier to spot abuse. Anyone can get one merit just for bothering to make one decent post that they could have copied from anywhere. Ten merit is much harder to get and that would at least be some sort of competency test for whether you should be allowed to earn via signatures here (and not everyone should be).

DooMAD

legendary

Activity: 3724

Merit: 3063

Leave no FUD unchallenged

Quote from: stompix on September 25, 2018, 01:23:37 PM

That list is so demoralizing

(...)

stompix sad Cry

Really? The fact that people such as yourself care enough to take time out of their day to check this stuff is highly uplifting for me. Yes, this new requirement is causing some to attempt to cheat, but at the same time, many of them are going to get caught because there are some incredibly diligent people around here who are doing their best to make this forum a better place. The ones abusing the system will effectively weed themselves out. I'd say all is working as intended, so don't let it get you down.

LoyceV

legendary

Activity: 3290

Merit: 16489

Thick-Skinned Gang Leader and Golden Feather 2021

Quote from: LoyceV on September 18, 2018, 02:21:07 PM

In 24 hours, that's 23.3% less posts.
In 48 hours, that's 18.6% less posts.
In 1 week, that's 15.9% less posts.
In 2 weeks, that's 18.6% less posts.

OP updated.
I'm happily surprised to see the reduction go up again.

If I ignore the one week before and after theymos' changes, and only look at the number of posts made a week earlier and later (so posts made from September 3 to September 10, and from September 24 to October 1), it went down from 355933 to 280633 posts. That's a 21.2% reduction.

MagicSmoker

full member

Activity: 420

Merit: 182

Quote from: YOSHIE on September 25, 2018, 10:26:37 AM

Quote from: MagicSmoker on September 25, 2018, 06:24:09 AM

What the hell is this gibberish*? The only members that have been hired here are the staff and some (all?) moderators; the rest of us are here voluntarily.

It is clear that those who work are staff, monderator ...
(all?) is (local?).
What do I mean to say? about new Members, if this is uncontrolled in (one) day if it continues to grow by around 100 people throughout the country, newbie members, do not expect spam to disappear?
"So every newbie member who registers must go through a selection of staff, Monderator, and local forums. If necessary, create a profile photo for newbie members, then all spam issues are resolved .... Not nonsense ... after all the requirements are complete, all decisions are received or not in hand @Theymos
...

Don't edit or strikeout what people have written when you quote their post; if you don't like what was written or it is irrelevant to the discussion then just don't include it in the quote. I use the ellipsis (...) to indicate words were omitted, but "~snip" is also popular here.

That said, your reply is also nonsensical because you clearly don't understand English that well, but it seems you are saying that every new user should submit an application - including a picture - for review by staff/moderators/theymos before being allowed to join the forum. If this is a correct interpretation of what you wrote then I can assure you, despite not having any inside information whatsoever, that this will never fly here.

mazdafunsun

full member

Activity: 490

Merit: 123

The thing that i have spotted in last few days is that i see more new topics in sections which usually are populated exsluisvely only by mega threads, it seems that they are not burried instantly as before. This is a good sign and it means that we are on the right path atleast.

Rtalk

jr. member

Activity: 420

Merit: 1

Sorry, but for every action there is a reaction.Who is spamming here earlier and is going to continue to do so-will always find a way to get merit.It is important that innovations had a positive impact on those participants who are here for the sake of knowledge.

Topic: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam - page 4. (Read 3838 times)