What is spam & how it drains the reward pool little by little [ENG]-Also in Italian

in #spaminator7 years ago (edited)

Maybe a definition is needed at this point. Spam does not only mean in comments but also in posts. I would like to mention a certain case on Steemit which I consider spam - and plagiarism for that matter.

@creutzy together with @meanmommy33 collaborated on an article about an (ab)user of Steemit who managed to get 68 reputation and 1748 followers in one year, posting bad poetry that doesn’t make any sense, in 14-20 posts A DAY, commenting rarely or never but mostly the same comments/phrases, replying very rarely to other people’s comments (especially when confronted for spam or plagiarism) and resteeming posts from the same account(s), as it seems linked and also spam.

On top of that, this person (who we don’t know if it’s a she -as demonstrated- or a he) is also a serial plagiarist as she/he uses pictures from all over the web as her/his own, without mentioning any sources or giving any credit to anyone.

This is not a personal attack. This is a result of a thorough research conducted with the help of fellow Steemians not wanting this to go on. You can easily check yourselves this account (@adelja) - most recent example is that she changed her profile picture and it is not the same person anymore!!! Probably and unfortunately, there are many other examples out there letting this go on, but that doesn’t mean that they belong to this platform.

Every spam account draining the reward pool can add up to big numbers. @dart for instance walked away with over 20,000 STEEM before getting stopped!
Draining Steemit with a medium of 17 posts a day is considered SPAM. As well as commenting the same things to different users.

Not giving credit to anyone for material you use for your posts is plagiarism.

I believe accounts like @adelja’s are harming steemit and don’t belong here!
If you agree, please comment and let me know your thoughts on how we should handle this as a group. Thank you for helping us put an end to infinite spammers!

Signed
An anonymous member of @spaminator

Che cosa è lo spam e come scola il raccoglitore di ricompense poco a poco [ITA]

Forse è necessaria una definizione a questo punto. Spam non significa solo commenti ma anche post. Vorrei parlare di un certo caso su Steemit che considero spam - ed anche plagio.

@creutzy insieme a @meanmommy33 hanno collaborato ad un articolo spiegando come un utente di steemit è riuscito ad ottenere 68 reputazione e 1748 followers in un anno, postando cattive poesie che non hanno alcun senso, 14-20 post A GIORNO, commentando raramente o mai, ma quando si gli stessi commenti / frasi, rispondendo molto raramente agli commenti di altre persone (soppratutto quando si parla di spam o plagio) e facendo resteem dagli stessi conti, che sembrano collegati ed anche spam.

Oltre a ciò, questa persona (che non sappiamo neanche se è una donna-come detto- o un uomo) è anche un plagiarista seriale siccome usa immagini da tutto il web come sue, senza menzionare qualsiasi fonte o dare credito a chiunque.

Questo non è un attacco personale. Questo è il risultato di una ricerca approfondita condotta con l'aiuto di Steemians che non vogliono vedere continuare questa storia su Steemit. Potreste facilmente controllare questo conto (@adelja) - l'esempio più recente è che ha cambiato la sua immagine di profilo e non è più la stessa persona !!! Probabilmente e sfortunatamente ci sono molti altri esempi che consentono di continuare, ma quello non significa che appartengano a questa piattaforma. Ogni account di spam che scola il pool di ricompense può aggiungere fino a grandi numeri. @dart per esempio era andato via con oltre 20.000 STEEM prima di essere fermato!

Il drenaggio di Steemit con una media di 17 posti al giorno è considerato SPAM. Ed anche commentando le stesse cose a diversi utenti.

Non dare credito a nessuno per il materiale utilizzato per i tuoi post è considerato plagio.

Credo che i conti come quello di @adelja stanno danneggiando Steemit e non appartengano qui!

Chi è d'accordo, si prega di commentare e far sapere i suoi pensieri su come dovremmo gestire questi fatti uniti come un gruppo. Grazie per averci aiutato a porre fine agli spammer infiniti!

Membro anonimo di @spaminator


I want to take a moment and thank our anonymous member for this post. From time to time members of @spaminator may post here on spam topics and specific cases they feel the community should be aware of that need to be discussed or acted on.

@patrice

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Yeah, this needs to be stopped somehow. The community isn't using the flag feature enough... I hate plagiarism. That's why I took the time to do the post on @adelja since it bothered me the way he/she/it rapes the rewards pool whilst climbing to the top of the reputation system. This kind of practices tarnish the image of Steemit, discourage the real content creators out there and discredits the reputation system of this platform.

I think the flag use messes with the voting power after some point, maybe that's why, but yes, this can't go on.

Bi the way, If you need further assistance in translating this to Spanish just tell me! The flag party is really helpful! Let's go on

I help when I can on all different types of spam/abuse/plagiarism. I have spent numerous hours researching and downvoting, trying to fight to rid steemit of these reward-sucking types. I even leased 15000 SP for 1 month so I could take out some of the bigger reward pool thieves. Unfortunately, I could not continue that past one month, as it was not cost effective. I would be willing to donate time helping downvote these types, but I would need some delegated SP, enough to flag bigger game (higher rep/more SP).

That may not happen, so I will continue doing what I can. Thanks to everyone who tries to put their fingers in the spam dike.

When the first time you open steemit you can read:
Steemit is a social media platform
In a social media platform you can post as much as you want. Why shall that be spam?
I can see a witness posting at the end of each post to vote for him as a witness. Isn't that a spam?

In a social media platform you can post as much as you want.
You also don't get paid for posting on normal social media platforms. Steemit is also a community. Unlike other social media platforms that have someone 'in charge' of making decisions on what is allowed to be posted on their site the community here decides what is and isn't acceptable. If we allowed spam and especially bot spam to go unchecked the community would soon be full of it. What do you think that would do to the value of STEEM/SBD. Who would want to invest in it?

I can see a witness posting at the end of each post to vote for him as a witness. Isn't that a spam?
Is their post original content, informative, and engaging? Then I don't consider it spam unless they are reposting over and over again.

He does have a point though. Sure, Steemit has no definite king, but this is mob rule, just as unwanted.

In my opinion, spam is just free speech, ignore it. It's shit speech, sure, but not illegal or in any way actually harmful. There are block buttons and all :)

I agree with flagging plagiarists, as that's stolen content, but spam?

Thanks for this. I hope spammers would be kicked out from Steemit or somehow leave the site. They're frustrating and killing the true essence of writing and sharing knowledge to others.

Every spam account draining the reward pool can add up to big numbers. @dart for instance walked away with over 20,000 STEEM before getting stopped....

Damn, and in the meanwhile people working their buts of.

On the gallows of both of them!

I agree, I think there has to be a better way of dealing with accounts that show such intent. I know it's counter to the ideology of steemit but I don't think that after the last hardfork this kind of scenario was envisaged.

It's a good point. But does it lead us down a road of censorship and is that a value that Steem wants to advocate?

I'm playing devils advocate of course. The intention of the platform is to reward good content and thus surface good content more efficiently. And for the majority of the time, that will work. However there will always be the few who find a way to make a dishonest buck and cause frustrations in the process.

So, there are bots. But much like banks and their systems, they don't always get it right. Well, neither do humans...Anyway. Maybe when a post is flagged, it could be reviewed by an elected team or perhaps it's offered to the Steem community to judge (to avoid the team being overloaded or slow), if the post deemed dishonourable in it's content or just straight up spam, then the payout value and the post is removed.

Perhaps even the judges could receive an equal portion of the payout value...!
Or it could go into a minnowbot.
Or a pot for new people to give them a larger starting incentive?!

And your comment is one of the reasons we are writing posts like this one. We really want to get the communities views on what is and isn't acceptable. When does the community the we are straying too far into content moderation?

Maybe when a post is flagged, it could be reviewed by an elected team or perhaps it's offered to the Steem community to judge (to avoid the team being overloaded or slow), if the post deemed dishonourable in it's content or just straight up spam, then the payout value and the post is removed.

That's actually why I came up with the idea of 'flag/downvote parties' after @stellabelle made a similar post to remove some bot net payouts. It gets the community involved in looking at the content and deciding for themselves whether or not it is spam.

So perhaps the solution is an extension of flagging/downvoting?

Happy to help where I can, although I’m pretty new so perhaps feedback from someone with a more experienced opinion would hold better weight.

I totally agree! I ran accross one spammer @gaibandha365 and went full on war commenting on every post he/she made money on warning users to remove their votes.
People like this ruin steemit for the rest of us.

@markboss is posting 100+ times a day and it is completely spam he needs to be stopped.

I wonder why steem inc isn't doing much about the spam problem. The people fighting spam are mainly users who invested on steem.

We need to fight the abuse of this amazing platform. It's not viable for most of us to tackle it individually, but we can support those who can deal with it. Delegating SP is one way.

Recently I catch many spamers in "new". I tried to flag every of them but I have not so much SP for this job and very soon I drained my pover to critical level.
You can continue the party - check my blog, here is a long list of them https://steemit.com/steemit/@erikaflynn/new-abuse-on-steemit-tons-of-meaningless-posts-from-new-users

I think you should also take a look at tard account and his voting/transfer scheme. I wrote about it to Sherlock almost month ago, but it seems he is too busy
to sherlock.JPG
And these guys continue to devastate our reward pool.

I love the Image of Spam Squad!

This post received a 2.62% upvote from @randowhale thanks to @logic! To learn more, check out @randowhale 101 - Everything You Need to Know!

Dear anonymous of @spaminator, what's the relationship of @spaminator and @steemcleaners? What will @spaminator do to stop spamming.

Recently, I wrote a post to reveal a spammer whose reputation is 69 and got retaliated by him. The spammer's id is firepower. He was a member of @steemcleaners. He and @s4s downvoted me repeatedly. Also he cursed me, harassed me, and threatened me publicly on the blockchain.

I reported these to @steemcleaners, but @patrice who knows the spammer does not admit it's spamming.

Also firepower, the spammer, blocked my steemit.chat account. If you want more information please contact me.

This is my post that listed the evidence of the spamming of firepower:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@nationalpark/observation-and-analysis-firepower-of-spamming