Suggestion for better spam control (result of heavy brainstorming)

[bryanon]

Hey all,

I'm posting this thread as a result of my recent lounge rant on forum spam that triggered quite some response and some very decent suggestions.

Issue

See the original thread at http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/blackhat-lounge/570189-what-people-forum.html

TL;DR: There's a growing issue of people making nonsense posts that do nothing other than repeat word to word what has already been said in the thread above, merely to increase their post count to get certain privileges (PM privileges / Jr VIP).

Solution

Whilst most of the obvious solutions (such as moderators starting to enforce the no-fluff rule more actively) don't work for one way of another - mainly because it's often difficult to tell which post is fluff/repetition and which isn't and this would trigger a lot of false positives - steelballs came up with a very decent suggestion that also received quite a bit of positive feedback in the thread.

His suggestion was:

Is it worth suggesting that all newbies have to post a minimum of 30 words in say the first 100 posts they make...

Maybe that sort of control can be set in the user profile, then after 100 posts the 30 word post restriction is removed and they can post like everyone else...

At least that would slow down the spam posts with newbies...

Because they would have to engage the brain to write 30 words...

.. and my response:

Now that's a fine suggestion!

And tbh - while it would probably not stop the majority of those people from posting, if they are actually forced to write longer posts (and therefore use their brain, rather than the CTRL, C and V buttons on their keyboards) there's the chance that many of those meaningless posts will actually turn into valuable posts.

This is also something that would be relatively quick and easy to implement as the functionality is already there (there's a minimum character limit of I believe 10 in place) - it's just the question of making the decision and then figuring out how to impose a different minimum char limit based on the poster's usergroup.

IMO there's no downsides to this (posts that are less than 30 words long are very, very rarely of any value) but the potential upside is massive so there's no reason not to implement something like this.

Cheers,
Bryan

 

[Untouchable]

You sir have my vote! Its a great idea. Too much digital point and Warrior Forum Spam coming in.
Note:BHW is not a democracy, I just felt like saying it.

 

[steelballs]

OP I will watch with interest, to see how this plays out...

Thanks...

 

[jjjrmy]

on BitcoinTalk when there was the huge influx of users they set up a special area for noobs and they had to have certain requirements before they could post out of that area.

 

[beaglejuice]

I think the problem with your suggestion is this will alienate the non proficient English speaking members.

 

[Deleted member 364366]

on BitcoinTalk when there was the huge influx of users they set up a special area for noobs and they had to have certain requirements before they could post out of that area.

Good idea, but in order to stop them doing it to acheive Jr VIP they would have to be separated for 100 posts. That's a lot if they're only allowed in the newbie only area.

I think the problem with your suggestion is this will alienate the non proficient English speaking members.

If a person cannot write more than 20 or 30 then they shouldn't be a member of a forum. They don't need perfect grammar. If really necessary they can type their first language into a translator and paste that, but a word count would definitely cut the spam down easily.

Therefore, +1 to Steelballs' idea!

 

[Rokebono]

I think the problem with your suggestion is this will alienate the non proficient English speaking members.

I dont think so, you dont really have to be proficient English speaking member to use the forum. Im not one and I still use it. As steelballs said, they will have to engage their brain to write 30 words hence they will improve their english learning new words besides the usual "thanks for this share".

 

[bryanon]

on BitcoinTalk when there was the huge influx of users they set up a special area for noobs and they had to have certain requirements before they could post out of that area.

Not at all meaning to be rude or anything, but I reckon let's keep this thread for discussion around this particular suggestion, rather than brainstorming various ideas on how to remedy the issue - just to keep it clean.

There was already quite a bit of brainstorming in the original lounge thread, many ideas were generated and discussed (including what you've suggested above) and the reason why I made this thread around steelballs' idea is that this one got by far the most positive feedback.

I think the problem with your suggestion is this will alienate the non proficient English speaking members.

I honestly don't think this will be the case. Proficient in English or not, a post of less than 30 words rarely provides value and this applies especially to those who are not proficient in the language and hence have to work harder to make their posts understandable to others.

Btw. 30 words is the length of two average English sentences. The short paragraph above is a whopping 50 words.

Also the limit doesn't necessarily have to be 30 words. It could perhaps even be 25 or 20, or maybe a character count limit instead (as that would be easier to implement).

 

[beaglejuice]

I'm not being a devil's advocate here but if a new member wants to say "You can find the theme here http://xxxxtheme.com". How in the hell do you expound that to 30 words as an answer to an inquiry?

I suggest an ignore button as an option for all senior members so they can be immune to newbies posting less than 30 words.

I dont think so, you dont really have to be proficient English speaking member to use the forum. Im not one and I still use it. As steelballs said, they will have to engage their brain to write 30 words hence they will improve their english learning new words besides the usual "thanks for this share".

 

[bk071]

I understand where you're coming from but I think 30 words is a bit too much. A LOT of the questions people ask in new threads can be answered in as little as 5 words.

Take that thread you linked for example... OP asked what is the best place to sell a site. Here's what I would have replied:
"Flippa is your best bet. Brokers won't touch something this small".

Thats 10 words and IMO it answers OPs question pretty well. Having to write 20 more words would actually increase the amount of "fluff" and BS we get.

 

[bryanon]

You know what I'd really like to do/see (with a little help from an admin/mod who has access to the BHW's SQL database) ..

I'd like to see the results of a database query that takes all posts from one day (any day) that are a) less than 30 (or perhaps 20) words long; b) posted by members in the "newbie" usergroup.

This is an extremely simple query and it would probably result in a few hundred posts (just a wild guess). I'd then like to take a quick look at those posts, and see what percentage of them were value-adding (such as the "you can find this theme at hxxp://gargyl.com?search=cooltheme" example) and what percentage were pointless fluff, such as "thanks for the share" and "i agree".

If the results of this are what I believe they are and over 95% of these posts are fluff then I believe the motion will have been justified then and there.

 

[proxygo]

bryanon
totally agree - 30 worded post isnt hard to do
will cut down on new members posting crap like
[ nice post ] [ thanks [ great ] ect ect you get me

1/2 worded posts done in volume are merely a fast
track way to 15 posts for potential spammers .

30 words for new members will make them think or
make them post rubbish .

+1

 

[bryanon]

I understand where you're coming from but I think 30 words is a bit too much. A LOT of the questions people ask in new threads can be answered in as little as 5 words.

Take that thread you linked for example... OP asked what is the best place to sell a site. Here's what I would have replied:
"Flippa is your best bet. Brokers won't touch something this small".

Thats 10 words and IMO it answers OPs question pretty well. Having to write 20 more words would actually increase the amount of "fluff" and BS we get.

I actually agree. 30 was probably just a random number and the actual number needs to be a little lower - something along the lines of 20 would probably do the trick and at the same time wouldn't have too big of a negative impact on user experience.

 

[steelballs]

I actually agree. 30 was probably just a random number and the actual number needs to be a little lower - something along the lines of 20 would probably do the trick and at the same time wouldn't have too big of a negative impact on user experience.

Now that you are getting down to detail 15 to 20 words seems an option worth more consideration

 

[beaglejuice]

I agree to take a look at the "newbie" user group. But why limit it to that group? Let's do everyone else including all senior members.

You know what I'd really like to do/see (with a little help from an admin/mod who has access to the BHW's SQL database) ..

I'd like to see the results of a database query that takes all posts from one day (any day) that are a) less than 30 (or perhaps 20) words long; b) posted by members in the "newbie" usergroup.

This is an extremely simple query and it would probably result in a few hundred posts (just a wild guess). I'd then like to take a quick look at those posts, and see what percentage of them were value-adding (such as the "you can find this theme at hxxp://gargyl.com?search=cooltheme" example) and what percentage were pointless fluff, such as "thanks for the share" and "i agree".

If the results of this are what I believe they are and over 95% of these posts are fluff then I believe the motion will have been justified then and there.

 

[Duffers5000]

I like the idea but spammers or people intent on getting their count up will prevail.

If I wanted to get around the 30 word limit I would open notepad and go into the search area pick out 10 reasonably generic answers that are over 30 words and save them into my notepad file. Over the next two days I would copy paste my bland replies in and get my count up.

Steelballs idea is problem saver but will cause new problems.

A lot of the problems I see are raised because of open ended threads. Somebody asks "hey whats the name of the software that blah blah blah " within three answers op has his answer that the software he was trying to think of was "megademonrobot". If at this point the op was able to choose to close the thread..."thanks guys...got my answer". This might solve seeing the same thread popping up 9 months later with a further 15 replies.

 

[bryanon]

I agree to take a look at the "newbie" user group. But why limit it to that group? Let's do everyone else including all senior members.

I don't think that would be the best thing to do because implementing something like this WILL have negative impact on user experience - it's just that the small negative impact this limit would have won't overweight the large negative impact that post-count spam / fluff has and could therefore be a sensible idea.

With that said, the negative impact is still there and as such, the limit should only be applied where absolutely needed. The main reasons why the suggestion has been to only apply it to new members are:

a) new members are far more likely to spam due to wanting to increase their postcount (to 15, then to 100) and due to not knowing the rules;

b) for obvious reasons, new members' opinions carry less worth than those of more senior members - which is why a quick reply of "I've used Service A and liked it" may be a perfectly valid post by someone who has been around for a while and who people know/trust, whilst the very same post doesn't carry too much weight (without any additional details anyway) when posted by a brand new user.

 

[Deleted member 364366]

I think "Good Luck on your journey. I've subscribed." should be banned. Recently, I've seen a lot of people posting about 100 posts in different journey in just a few days and most of the journeys aren't even running anymore!

Though, to be honest, spam will always be there. You can't get rid of it. If they want to inflate their post count, they'll find a way.

 

[bryanon]

I like the idea but spammers or people intent on getting their count up will prevail.

If I wanted to get around the 30 word limit I would open notepad and go into the search area pick out 10 reasonably generic answers that are over 30 words and save them into my notepad file. Over the next two days I would copy paste my bland replies in and get my count up.

Mind you, though - we're not dealing with the blatant spammers that would do something like you've mentioned. These guys are being taken care of by the mods already. We're dealing with the ones who, for some reason, believe that it's actually OK to increase their post count by posting the "good luck with your journey" and "I think so too" type of stuff.

Perhaps it's me being overly optimistic but I honestly believe that imposing the limit would actually trigger at least some of these people to make quality posts, rather than think about how to get around the rule. At the end of the day, the two take almost the same effort.

I think "Good Luck on your journey. I've subscribed." should be banned. Recently, I've seen a lot of people posting about 100 posts in different journey in just a few days and most of the journeys aren't even running anymore!

Though, to be honest, spam will always be there. You can't get rid of it. If they want to inflate their post count, they'll find a way.

Sure it will. But regardless, we can't give up! All of us saying "f it, spam will always be there and there's nothing we can do so we might as well just live with it" would be like Google deciding that email spam isn't going anywhere so it's not worth to improve Gmail's spam detection algorithms any further.

 

[TheGreyMatter]

That's a great idea but there come some more problems as well with the suggestion.
People might come up with sentences like

[TOO SHORT]

[STILL TOO SHORT]

[TRYING TO COMPLETE XX CHARACTERS]

and so...

Also, a lot of people in the newbie category make purchases in the BST section and the sellers ask them to post the last digits of the order ID for quicker reports or bonus. So, how would that work? Writing 30 words just for posting the order ID might not sound like the best idea to them.