Introduction
Introducing ‘The Spaminators’! Our team has recently been formed to help mitigate the enormous amount of spam that has descended upon steemit.com. As they say - “It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it!”
We realize that no one wants there to be a need for such a team in our community but the numerous botnets that are attempting to leach rewards from bot commenting has gotten seriously out of control. 'Human' comment spammers have also joined the fray.
At last count there were over 5,500 accounts involved in various bot-driven reward-sucking activity. An AI bot, @sadkitten is being developed to detect these bot spammers. Currently the little kitten has been on overdrive attempting to flag these botnets that @spaminator and others feed her. Personally, I think she’s gotten a little fat!
One AI kitten can’t do it all alone, so Steemians have stepped forward to help Steemit return to a relatively normal state (whatever that is), without these vast botnets making Steemit their virtual home and denigrating Steem.
Even with all our volunteers we cannot do it all. We need support from the community. Part of what we will do is enlist the help of the community. We will be creating posts that both educate the community on the problem and how the community can help today to deter this behavior. We'll also give you advice on what not to do.
What to Tackle First
The Bots
Elaborate botnet comment/upvote farms that are clearly abusing this platform They will be handled using human & scripted bot actions. They are simply too vast at this point for to be dealt with by humans alone.
Human Spammers
So many new people have arrived and they simply don’t know what to do. Some don’t take the time to look around and get the lay of the land. They see someone doing something and they mimic it. New users may not realize that the 'real' @dollarvigilante is writing posts on Steemit and it isn't someone copying & pasting articles from dollarvigilante.com. They see spam comments and comment bots getting upvotes and think it’s accepted by the community. On an individual level one or two copy/paste posts, single html link posts, misusing tags, and spam comments don't create a lot of spam. When we have hundreds or thousands of accounts performing these actions it turns into a larger spam problem. There is no landing page that gives them community guidelines.
Reporting & Communication
Communication is key. If someone is doing something that you think is plagiarism or spam commenting, please tell them what they are doing wrong. If you don’t want to personally comment or fear retaliation you can leave a link to the abuse in #steemcleaners-linkdrop. @spaminator will be working with the members of @steemcleaners.
@spaminator will concentrate on working from the 'top down'. We intend to identify and take action against the most prolific spammers first. @steemcleaners will still be accepting reports of individuals the community identifies.
Members, Supporters, & Friends
We have many talented Steemians onboard and we each have different skills.
Many of you know @patrice from her work as part of @steemcleaners. She will be leading the team, dispensing advice and organizing data.
If you find something rather complex and suspicious, it’s best to reach out to our good friend @sherlockholmes because he’s a Steem detective and is good at unraveling mysteries.
We can't leave out @sadkitten among our list of friends and supporters. If we keep feeding her spam she may grow up to be as big as @cheetah one day!
Members, supporters, & friends of 'The Spaminators' may attempt to remain anonymous if they so choose.
The Spaminator's Logo Contest
We have decided to hold a Spaminator logo art contest!
CALLING ALL ARTISTS:
PRIZE: 25 SBD, 25 STEEM and 25% SBD of this payout.
Create a logo for THE SPAMINATORS
Since we are a diverse group of people, I think a team logo would be best. The more absurd, the better… remember, paint us like superheros fighting spam! Get creative. And don’t forget to include a kitty as our trusted kittybot, flagging abusers while we sleep. You're welcome to add cheetah as well. I have a feeling we'll be feeding these two kitty cats a lot of spam!
Those wishing to participate should create a post tagged with #spaminator-logo and place a link in the comments below. Submissions must be posted by Friday August 25th at Midnight UTC. The members of @spaminator will choose their favorite from those submitted. If we can’t decide we’ll post our picks for the community to vote on.
Thanks for the support!
Hi!! Super Steemians
Great job!
Hope someone with a powerful vote ups this as I can see you put a lot of work into it!
WOW thank u @quinneaker O_O I'm surprised <3
Life is a miracle~
Don't forget it~*~
:D Thank u my friend
Your welcome!
I created the SPAMINATORS logo again.
I will participate in the "Spaminators" logo contest.
https://steemit.com/spaminator-logo/@skyleap/join-the-spaminators-logo-contest-2-spaminators-2
Also, when posting an attack list of people to flag, I think we should also encourage everyone to give at least one full power comment upvote to everyone participating. So, if you participate, leave a comment, maybe a link to your steemd.com profle (https://steemd.com/@trevorlyman) so people can see your flags, and that way people can reward you for using your steempower to fight spam. You likey?
That makes a lot of sense... it's the "carrot approach;" put a carrot where you want people to take action.
I'm doing this here if you want to give it a shot: https://steemit.com/spam/@iamgrateful/fight-spam-earn-rewards-issue-001-8-18-17
I like. We'll call them flag parties and set some guidelines and encourage some up-voting for those who participate.
I'm doing this here if you want to give it a shot: https://steemit.com/spam/@iamgrateful/fight-spam-earn-rewards-issue-001-8-18-17
I will join to this contest, I will create the SPAM KICKASS Fighters!!
I'm doing this here if you want to give it a shot: https://steemit.com/spam/@iamgrateful/fight-spam-earn-rewards-issue-001-8-18-17
Irony of ironies.
I draw spaminator :) https://steemit.com/spaminator-logo/@leesol/the-spaminators-logo-i-draw-spam-fighters
https://steemit.com/spaminator-logo/@leesongyi/the-spaminators-logo-steemits-spam-fighters-7
nice! we've included in upcoming post!
my sketchy ideas, nothing special
https://steemit.com/steemit/@kingyus/faces-you-make-when-you-see-a-spammer-ouch-lol
as a matter of fact...I made a post recently
'Bots are bad for Steemit
in which I said
killerbotwhale
.
I'd consider delegating a SERIOUS amount of steempower to support this project.
.
ask and you shall receive.
Someone make an EASY, SIMPLE way to delegate SteemPower to BotKillers
I'm not a Geek, I get confused by BaffleGab and TechnoBabble easily
and I'm in.
thank you we would appreciate your help.
I'm thinking of delegating some of my SP to those who fight the spam. Can you use it? I see sadkitten already has a lot
We can definitely use it. I'm currently paying to lease the little SP that is here. I'm also considering delegating SP from my account @patrice if I don't receive delegations. I'm trying not to since I don't have much and I do like to contribute by curating as well.
How can you delegate SP to someone?
I recommend using the wallet Vessel by jesta. You can find information on it here: https://steemit.com/steem-project/@jesta/vessel-006-steem-power-delegation
The method I have used is well is provided via SteemConnect tool from Busy.org
https://steemit.com/delegation/@timcliff/tutorial-how-to-delegate-sp-to-another-user-using-the-steemconnect-tool-from-busy-org
You have some more now. Use it well!
Awesome! Our first delegation!
Thank you!
that would be amazingly cool. Thanks
It's done! To be honest I'm not that bothered about what I make from curation. At the moment Steemit needs good curation to clean it up and I don't have the time to keep doing it
Hi! @steevc
I have created the Spaminator logo. I used your portrait.^^
https://steemit.com/spaminator-logo/@skyleap/join-the-spaminators-logo-contest-2-spaminators-2
Cool. I'll have a look
Hi! @stellabelle
I have created the Spaminator logo. I used your portrait.^^
https://steemit.com/spaminator-logo/@skyleap/join-the-spaminators-logo-contest-2-spaminators-2
If it's a bot, do they care that we flag them? As in, will they EVER stop? Or, can we actually solve the problem?
If we remove the reward and keep doing it we remove the incentive to do it. :) Bots take hardware and time programming.
But why stop the bots that are already in place? I'm just saying, won't we have to keep doing this forever? If I had the bot and no morals, I would just leave it running.
I AM SPAMINATOR...
For now and so on, be careful you guys in "SPAM" because I will always monitor your performance. HA HA HA HA
For more details see Here!
is this official entry? It doesn't say Spaminators....
Join the "Spaminators" logo contest^^
https://steemit.com/spaminator-logo/@skyleap/join-the-spaminators-logo-contest-spaminators
It's not a logo with a kitty, but I have this image to contribute:
hahahahahahahahhahahahahaha
..could u be a bit more specific as to whom should be on the logo? I picked some names....but not all.
Khm khm :) Quite correct. I'm now on hold as well :)
you're welcome
A mix of 4 or 5 characters, male and female, sherlock holmes, & @sadkitten should do it. You can include @cheetah if you want.
Individual names or representations besides @sadkitten & sherlock are not important as the team members can stay anonymous or may change over time. I see @sadkitten as a constant and we are all playing the role of sherlock homes a bit.
ah so no specific people...will see if i come up with something :) ty o/
Thanks! Look forward to it.
https://steemit.com/spaminator-logo/@murda-ra/spaminator-logo-contest-concept-design-1
If you like enough to be a close winner, suggest changes ;) Ahahahhahah, in other words there is psd for editing afterwards :)
Cheers,
Lucifer
Im adding the team to the logo by tomorrow! Its 3:30AM in Thailand and i had instant idea about logo with rushing and coming late back to check entire post! hahhahahahahha
I'll post when to review edited post, please sorry for this!
Gnite :)
Thanks for participating!
But what if spamminators are spam... Well nvm, just memes, I'm a new here, gotta understand how all works, so don't be mad at me :3
Let's spaminate the yunk into these spammers.
Those are not your real faces :O
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Seriously, kind of annoying those things. :D
Uh oh... an new kind of spam? I just downvoted this guy full power, which is worth about $.15 right now, and nothing happened. His $.08 payout still shows. Is this guy immune or something? https://steemit.com/@strelatomsk/comments
It's past payout. :( We missed removing the rewards on that one in time.
Oh right 😶 I should have noticed that.
Thanks! And whoops! :)
That is weird. I just flagged a few of these comments too and nothing happened either. I should be taking about 90 cents at full power. Anybody know why this is happening?
Upvote this shit :D hate spammers.
Spambusters.
How about some feminist-propaganda busters? hahahaha
LOL love it!!!! :)
Thank you! Very helpful info. I've retained all the sources you have named and will be as vigilant as I can as a minnow.
I'm so glad to see this initiative... this can be SO much more effective than individuals flagging here and there! Bookmarking this for reference... resteemed.
Not a graphic designer, but good luck to everyone in the contest...
Don't know if this is relevant/appropriate to ask... but do you guys have any relationship, connection or cooperation with @smackdown.kitty? It's an anti-self upvoting bot created by @l0k1... seems like there's a shared objective there...
We are working with directly with @sadkitten. If we find self-upvoting of spam it is being reported to @smackdown.kitty.
Destroy ALL BOTS!
lol
That's amazing! We really need this... Hope it's enough to deter this crap.
I just found three spammers
You can report them in https://steemit.chat/channel/steemcleaners-linkdrop
Thanks I thought its okay to drop the link here
It's better not to. Please edit your comment with those links. Some people are vindictive, and might start flagging you because you reported them.
Done thanks for advice
Since joining steemit I have been contacted by people that I later found out were bots. I don't know enough about this platform yet to really get the gist of what is right and what is wrong.
I have always tried to follow my dad's sage advice. He grew up during the great depression years, served as a Tech Sgt in the Army Air Corps during World War II and worked as a salesman most of his life; dad knew what he was talking about.
You recently upvoted my D-Tube post concerning Smedley Butler and I wanted to return the favor. I hope the video is not considered plagiarism. I made sure to give the source information from YouTube in the description. I hope it is alright. Just wanted to share the video. I have always liked it.
Thank you again and as we say at the Legion Post to one another, Welcome Home!
https://steemit.com/spaminator-logo/@atopy/steemit-spam-fighters-3
My entry. Good luck everyone ....and to the organizators - hope u get what you are looking for!
Why flag spammer when you can spank em ? XD
Hey everyone. I really like this idea.
I started this alt account @animate for my animation work a few days ago and I was really surprised by the amount of spam comment bots leaving a comment on my #introduceyourself post. All very generic comments.
Luckily I have a main account @fortified which I've been posting to since February so I'm pretty familiar with bots. But to new users this could be potentially very off putting and confusing.
I'm fully on board with this project and would like to help out in some way. So I'd like to offer to turn the winning design into an animated .gif for your project if you like.
Thanks again for your contribution to the community.
Respect to you all.
@animate
Thanks! We'll get in touch after the contest is over.
LOL jajajaa... Gracias por compartir!! Very nice post! ! !
And the beginers how we can know about it? or how we could act more specifically ?
I recommend beginners take some time and look around. There is no posted etiquette guide. When someone using @spaminator finds what looks like a 'human' spamming we will comment a few times and try to engage the user in a conversation. The only time we flag first and ask questions later is when it looks like multiple accounts are working in collusion or look like bots.
@pulpworx that's something for your gifs!!!
nice work!!
My entry :D
https://steemit.com/spaminator-logo/@inhigh/logo-make-a-spaminator-logo
I participate, here my spaminator
https://steemit.com/spaminator-logo/@katari/spaminators-logo