In my previous post (Can Steemit Get Rid of Spam and Abuse?) I discussed the importance of dealing with spam on a fundamental level (e.g. blockchain) instead of the user interface level (web interface) which does nothing but mask the underlying garbage. I've been met with criticism that I would like to address in detail. Before I do that, I'd like to share some statistics on the current state of spam.
Spam Stats
Spam on Steemit comes mainly in two flavors: comments and memos. I'll be tackling the memos because they're easier to study. I did a few statistics focused on the spam in the memos from 2017-01 to 2018-05. I looked at three values:
- The total count and size
- The count and size of memos >= 200 characters (bytes)
- The count and size of memos containing the word
resteem
About resteem services, here's a few recent ones I got in my memos. They are all above 200 characters in length:
Greetings! Want to promote your post? Get more upvotes and followers with our resteem and upvote service! Get your post resteemed to 9000+ followers, a minimum of 40+ upvotes, and a @anonwhale upvote (1200 STEEM POWER)! Send 1.000 SBD or 0.800 STEEM to @anonwhale with your post URL as the memo!
Reveal spoiler
!! This account is the advertising account for the @Byresteem account. !!! Hello, This month +600 people have used ByResteem.I can promote your post. 27.000 Followers + Upvote @byresteem 7000+ SP Upvote with min +200 Different accounts + New followers + Loyality bonus FREE . Send 2 SBD or 2 STEEM To ByResteem URL as Memo Service ACTIVE.
PROMOTE YOUR POST Your post will be resteemed to 10000+ followers on multiple Steemit accounts Just send ONLY 0.3 SBD or 0.3 STEEM to @cryptomoneymade with post URL in the memo Service Active 24/7
Based on those examples, and the assumption that a common memo is only a few words and/or a URL (memo to bid bots), which rarely goes above 150 characters (bytes), let's consider that anything higher than 200 is a strong indication of spam. There are exceptions of course, like encrypted memos, but those are very negligible in the overall picture (I looked them up).
The Results
Monthly Memo Count
| Month | Total | >=200 | Resteem |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-01 | 26188 | 5532 | 45 |
| 2017-02 | 21407 | 4254 | 13 |
| 2017-03 | 32473 | 4066 | 24 |
| 2017-04 | 27890 | 3314 | 33 |
| 2017-05 | 60713 | 11822 | 90 |
| 2017-06 | 150796 | 15279 | 278 |
| 2017-07 | 278183 | 44010 | 2313 |
| 2017-08 | 595543 | 127601 | 54784 |
| 2017-09 | 462380 | 117123 | 20681 |
| 2017-10 | 447681 | 107181 | 8005 |
| 2017-11 | 433096 | 115419 | 19039 |
| 2017-12 | 664779 | 139484 | 9805 |
| 2018-01 | 1361190 | 345875 | 27629 |
| 2018-02 | 1940340 | 709957 | 40264 |
| 2018-03 | 2148478 | 821438 | 143316 |
| 2018-04 | 2121434 | 737484 | 307399 |
| 2018-05 | 2307300 | 916292 | 431905 |
| Total | 13079871 | 4226131 | 1065623 |
Monthly Memo Size (bytes)
| Month | Total | >=200 | Resteem |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-01 | 2537918 | 1411550 | 4684 |
| 2017-02 | 1885462 | 1082526 | 1756 |
| 2017-03 | 2394982 | 1110444 | 2212 |
| 2017-04 | 2917862 | 1650032 | 3768 |
| 2017-05 | 5353836 | 3324722 | 13182 |
| 2017-06 | 14772056 | 5674366 | 44966 |
| 2017-07 | 34775292 | 14703050 | 582056 |
| 2017-08 | 129742178 | 81317174 | 55174380 |
| 2017-09 | 81081340 | 45195078 | 9063728 |
| 2017-10 | 76464296 | 41416694 | 3997320 |
| 2017-11 | 75714554 | 42275132 | 8328084 |
| 2017-12 | 96628432 | 45691720 | 3699114 |
| 2018-01 | 217610828 | 112216334 | 6663676 |
| 2018-02 | 374562438 | 236764808 | 9090078 |
| 2018-03 | 454936186 | 315553208 | 73810742 |
| 2018-04 | 475030746 | 334207646 | 172938556 |
| 2018-05 | 584496862 | 443932922 | 248580856 |
| Total | 2630905268 | 1727527406 | 591999158 |
As we can see, there's been some significant increase in memos and spam with an explosion that started in 2018-01. Coincidentally, that was the period when SBD was trading at $10-$15. I guess high SBD prices were a magnet for spammers. Even though the SBD price started to go down, the memo spam kept growing. Let's keep in mind that the user base has been steadily growing too, so it's another factor in spam growth.
What's interesting is the rate at which the spam grew. By the total count, the rise wasn't too sharp, only 32% and 8% respectively for >=200 and resteem memos. However, the size is a different alarming story. The total memo size is 2.45GB, where >=200 is eating 1.61GB (66%) and the resteem is 0.55GB (23%). That's what concerns me most. Currently the blockchain file is around 115GB, so 1.61GB is 1.4% (resteems are roughly included in the >=200 category). This may not seem much to some, but imagine the numbers in a few months.
Criticism
There was some interesting criticism about my idea proposed in: Can Steemit Get Rid of Spam and Abuse?, in the comments and other channel discussions. I appreciate the feedback and here is my response to each.
Implementing a personalize blacklist for each user, in the blockchain side, would add more complexity to the code.
The blockchain code is already complex. For example, each user is allowed to vote for 30 witnesses, did that add more complexity? The same principle applies here, to have a limited personal blacklist (e.g. 30-50) and I don't think that would add any more complexity. Besides, Steemit Inc. is working on SMTs, communities, oracles, AppBase, etc.. which are far more complex than what we currently have. But for argument's sake, even if a personal block list would add complexity, isn't it worth doing to improve the platform for a cleaner future?
It's better to keep spam filtering on the UI side
Here are the current anti-spam measures that we have:
- @steemcleaners, @cheetah, @spaminator and others (operated by real users who spend their time and energy hunting for spammers, flagging them and maintaining blacklists).
- Muting in the web UI (hides the unwanted account comments to the user, but it's visible to the rest of the world).
I don't think that's sufficient because those measures do not address the issue on a more fundamental level. We need better measures, just like email spam filters, that prevent the spam from ever reaching the system and being stored on it. Why? because spam equals bloat, it eats resources and doesn't have any benefits. Would you let garbage accumulate in your house? At some point, the whole house will stink.
Having a (personal) block list is censorship which goes against the principle of a blockchain
Again, I invoke the example of the stinky house. It's not censorship if I want to keep my own house clean. If some people consider putting out the garbage censorship, they have the wrong definition of what censorship is. Is it censorship to block bad actors? Remember that JSON spammer a while ago who was spamming the crap out of the blockchain and who caused serious problems to the network? After all, the spammer was expressing him(her)self for BiGGaDiCK appreciation, right? Did we let it go unchecked in the name of non-censorship? Of course not, in fact, Steemit Inc promptly developed a patch to minimize such attacks in the future. That's right, spam is a form of attack and spammers do not deserve any privileges, because if we give it to them, they will take advantage if left unchecked. So censorship is not the issue here.
We could additionally block spammers in the UI by preventing them from posting via steemit.com
Interesting thought , when combined with blacklists it would work for manual spammers, but spammers mostly run bots, and bots do not use steemit.com to broadcast their crap. They are automated processes that interact directly with the blockchain, not web interfaces.
If we block spammers in a personal blacklist, they can always make more accounts to spam with
To me that's not a valid argument. The more accounts argument can be applied to pretty much any circumstance on Steem and it's been an open door to all sorts of abuses. Even some whales abuse the platform (without spamming) via their bots and multiple accounts. We can only hope that Steemit's on-boarding filters keep improving to prevent spammers/abusers from creating additional free accounts (because that's what most of them do). Other than that, anyone can create accounts once they have a foothold in the platform.
Rising Problem and How to Deal With It
The problem with a social media powered by a blockchain is the inability to modify transactions. Incidentally, we can't delete of all spam that has happened so far. In my view we need to truly block and prevent spam from happening and accumulating in the first place. One way to do that is on a fundamental blockchain level, not the UI. I have proposed that each user be allowed to have their own blacklist, a reasonable figure around 50. So when a spammer tries to send a memo (or even a comment) to the user, the blockchain would reject their transaction. Simple and effective. Spam blocking and filtering works already in the real world (e.g. emails), so why not implement it for the Steem blockchain? I'm not saying that this solution will get rid of spam at 100% (it's impossible), but at least it would minimize the impact of spam without having to waste voting power on flagging and hiding the content, for example. If anyone has other ideas, I'd be glad to hear them.
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Can you provide any stats about spam from various bots run by our own witnesses? How much spam they’ve created and which ones have given us the most?
And do you think bandwidth restrictions ought to be much tighter for new users?
I see no reason why a new account or a non-invested user should have access to more than a very minimal amount of our bandwidth supply, which is a limited resource, and especially not enough to be able to spam hundreds of memos, JSON transactions, or posts over the span of a day or less. It seems to me that the current allocation is far too generous.
What do you think about STINC’s new bandwidth “credit” proposal?
Certainly I can provide stats about the bid bots. Good idea to suggest that. They are another huge source of spam. Those are specific cases that take more time to query and compile (it took me two days to write this post!). I'll round them up and probably make a separate post.
The bandwidth is a different matter. I think tighter restrictions could help by making the memo cost higher, instead of the current minimal 0.001 SBD/STEEM. There was an idea about increasing that to 0.01 SBD, which I happily support. I would even prefer 0.1 SBD per memo. Might sound harsh for new comers, but it would reduce the impact of those who abuse this privilege. Besides, new comers should focus on improving their presence on the platform by posting, not sending memos. Right now there's a free lunch for everyone, which is not a healthy thing (people get fat).
I'm not aware of Steemit Inc’s new bandwidth credit proposal.
Bandwidth needs to be available to new users. But it would be interesting if bandwidth could be seperated for different use-cases: e.g. transfers, posting, commenting, voting, custom_json etc.
Limiting bandwidth any further is only going to discourage legit new users all the more.
The system is already set up to be pretty demoralizing to minnows. Want to make this even more an insiders club? It's never a good idea to treat every newcomer as the bad actor they could potentially be, in my opinion.
Sorry. But when SP decides bandwidth allocation, which is not an unlimited resorce, and new users have the ability to spam and grind the network to a halt, it presents a major problem for those who have invested far more than the new arrivals looking for a quick payday.
There are many “freemium” apps that limit the use/gameplay of new or non-purchasing users. They do this, not just as a way to earn revenues, but to limit the consumption of resources by those who could and would otherwise play all day for free. It’s not sustainable.
If new users truly love the concept or the platform and feel like it’s beneficial to them to use more of its resources, then perhaps they ought to make some minimal investments (and that isn’t limited to money) in order to earn more of those benefits. If they just want to be a net drain on resources, then why should I care - as an invested user of this platform - if they feel “demoralized?”
I started on this platform with nothing. I didn’t need to spam to get ahead. I never felt like I needed to “hustle” or do anything out of the ordinary in order to “make money.” I did what bloggers typically do and I had no problems earning far more than I needed to interact practically as much as I’ll ever want.
Bandwidth allocation has nothing to do with being an “insider.” And even if it did, there wouldn’t be anything wrong with it. You can always choose to not use this blockchain or its interfaces. But if you do choose to use it because you think you can benefit from it, and you understand the dynamics of bandwidth and its use, then I don’t understand why allocation restrictions are a problem or why there would be opposition to earning/paying minimal amounts of money in order to increase your allotment of network resources.
Exactly, I too started on Steemit like everyone else, with the basic delegation and worked my way up. I agree that serious users should invest in building their account (by blogging, dedicating time and/or funding it) to increase their SP without having to resort to spamming.
That's just absurd to expect honest people to pay the price for bad actors. Bandwidth wasn't a huge issue for me like the person who got me to join, he was on mostly during the day and had bandwidth problems all the time, I am usually on late at night into early morning hours so I hardly had problems. People would just throw their arms up into the air and proclaim the site as a joke. You also would totally being doing away with the concept of being rewarded for participation on a website that draws people in to telling people you may have to invest to participate.
Nobody is paying the price for bad actors. It's about resource allocation. These "bad actors" (spammers) are merely a consequence of the currently poor allocation.
Anyone can "participate" - for free. We're talking about the amount of participation...because of limited resources.
I couldn't even phantom people willing to spend so much time trying to access a site and be denied even more so, then to realize it's not even worth the time you put into writing, you'd have to write for years just to get anywhere on here, that's why most people just give up. To be quite frank the way the system is most people don't want anything to do with following minnows, they are all busy ass kissing people with money, it's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. If you decide to give a objective opinion on something someone wrote you have their faithful followers jumping down your throat. If someone with money said the sky is yellow, the sun is purple and the oceans are white they'd all agree, it's disgusting to tell you the truth. The most places where you see a objective based discussion where a bunch of butt wipes don't show up is when a bunch of whales get together to have a serious discussion. I am just being honest about a lot of how this platform operates.
Like terrorist attacks in Europe are merely a consequence of poor refugee status allocation? Well.. maybe. So Europe should make it less attractive to go there? Well.. maybe.
If you don't want any new members, that's fair. You can say that. It would also be fair for the incrowd to be able to buy more bandwih with the Steem Dollars that are orders of magnitude easier to accumulate for them. There are other solutions thinkable that are friendlier. But you have to be honest about what you want. Is Steemit full? Or does the community actually want new members?
Technically we (minnows) could fork the repository and start our own blockchain community with rules that actually make sense, rules that incentivize quality over quantity in stead of the other way around like it is here. Set a mimimum price for memos, unless the recipient is following you. Allow people to make a maximum of 2 free blogposts per week unless they pay a doubling amount. Maybe it would get more popular because it actually works. And then we close our bandwidth to refugees from Steemit.
Besides, a lot of the mass poor quality self-promoted and somehow royally rewarded posts are authored and bid-botted by vested members from the incrowd. The memo-spam is done by vested members who have made a bidbot business on the chain. New users don't even have a cent to send with memospam.
Yes, new members are the problem to everything that's wrong with Steemit.
</sarcasm>That last sentence gets you a up vote.
Maybe try reading what I’ve actually written.
And if you want to compare bandwidth allocation to terrorism and refugees, I doubt you’re going to get anyone to listen to your arguments.
You have problems with all of the bullshit that happens around here? Good. So do I. But limiting bandwidth allocation for non-invested users is pretty much unrelated to bid bots, circle-jerks, collusion, the initial distribution, the shitty interfaces, the shit content on trending, the shit “whales” and witnesses that prioritize easy cash outs over long-term growth and viability, the incompetence of STINC, and the complete shit culture we have here.
If your idea of fixing any of that is to make spamming and actual attacks on the network much easier for malicious and non-invested actors to accomplish, then I’m afraid we have little more to discuss.
You are not owed anything for showing up. This is a DPoS blockchain. The ‘S’ is for “stake.” Those with more skin in the game are the ones who have more influence and have de facto network “priority.” If you think you deserve more resources than the ones you’re given for free, then by all means, go get yourself more of that stake in the blockchain. That’s how it works. You noobs would do well to understand that.
Surely if we tackle it on the UI side, we disincentivise posting to the chain.
I'd like to see a 'minimum transaction required to leave memo' slider bar in our wallets.
I'd crank mine up to 0.5 SBD/0.5 STEEM, as would almost everyone else. The spammers would stop sending even miniscule amounts, as it all adds up, particularly if only a tiny fraction of new users have yet to exercise their slider bar.
I'm not totally across the tech, but barring specific transactions from landing on chain sounds really problematic.
I think that would be really effective.
Want to spam me? Pay me.
That’s exactly what I was thinking
Pay me?
Very good idea. However, memo spammers can resort to spamming in comments instead which costs them nothing. Back to square one.
Spammers prefer memospam because it's private. Once they spam in comments, the community and accounts like @steemcleaners and @spaminator will burn their reputation below zero.
It's easy to downvote them into invisibility that way.
Which is why they don't do it now.
True, plus it hurts their reputation 😀
@Drako i think this is a way more reasonable to all including new and small fish like me.
People can mark them as spammers and they can lose their reputaion
It is one great way I've seen games take care of spammers. Make it so they cant afford to spam 10,000 times a day. Eve online was always funny when you could set your own fee. The scammers never wanted to contact me lol.
Only issue is unless you add in a whitelist if you set the fee to high legit uses now can't afforded to carry out the action required. I'm sure some whales would just love to set it to a $500 for there time.
It would be nice if the issue just solved itself by people being education enough to not send the spammers money so they can keep operating. Make it not worth there time in cost due to losses or just not much income where they could be putting resources necessary to run it other places.
I'm sure they will just move to comment spam but at least then they can be swept up and nuked like the bugs they are in a microwave.
I'd like them to be able to set it at $500 too. I doubt there'd be many willing to pay that. Keep in mind it wouldn't stop the transactions from showing.
You could still send a whale 5 SBD (for a steem monsters card for example), it's just the memo field would be greyed out.
You could perhaps make an exception for people you're following.
"If I follow the sender, no minimum. If I don't, set the minimum at .1 SBD"
I'd love them to get a nice little red message "transactions rejected by receiver their minimum threshold of 500$ not met ;p
Sounds good to me.
Although, accounts sending to Bid-bots might not agree. Perhaps these services could cover the cost ;)
this is a very good idea. I am a newbie so couldnt talk in the other comments fearing i might anger a senior member and get punished with a negative vote. lol
If i got a slide bar i would make it a steem per advert in my dm. lol
Don't worry about flags, mate. Remember, we're in beta; the whole point of beta is that we test this stuff out and give feedback. You might accidentally say something silly (Lord knows I have), but as long as you're trying to be constructive and bring your manners, nobody of any weight is going to flag you.
sounds perfect , its a bingo from me !!
All this of the social networks is no longer a novelty for almost anyone. Moreover, I would say that there are very few people who really do not know what they are and what they do +/- serve ... And if we refer specifically to spam, we find a little more of the same, who to this day has not heard any that again on this issue of "SPAM".
Spam, usually involves contacting other people through content, messages or unexpected or unwanted requests. This word also includes the massive sending of messages, the publication of links or images in the biography (profiles or pages) of other users or the large number of requests for friendship requests to people you do not know.
The lack of professionalism of some brands or companies, damage to e-mail marketing and today is doing the same with social media. Because many years ago in most companies, when talking about online marketing almost automatically and exclusively referred to e-mail marketing (although the term evokes and means much more than just this). It is currently that in many businesses they continue more or less with the same lack of knowledge on the subject. But today, instead of those emails, you think almost exclusively in social media and websites, maybe it is more in the first ... and the mistakes that are made in social networks are also almost the same.
The e-mail marketing is not dead, although many have tried to literally kill using this technique as a simple Spammer. Today, perhaps those same professionals are professionals, or simply students who excel at those who apply the same bad techniques in social media.
🔱 @drakos
It is also important to note that sometimes we fall into that deep SPAM without realizing it.
The most basic, fundamental way to stop spam is to stop it from being profitable. Spammers don't spam for fun (in the vast majority of cases at least), they do it for profit, and when it increases that means it's becoming more profitable.
If effective spam blocking features were implemented at the UI level, then users wouldn't see the spam and then wouldn't do whatever the spam is asking them to do, which would make it not profitable to spam and it would mostly go away.
There should be a way to flag memos.
The price should not be increased, because even honest services use memos.
Spam is one problem, the other is scam. Most of the resteem services are totally overpriced or/and didn't do what they promise.
To avoid being flagged, they only communicate by memo.
@resteem.bot
The newest spammer we've noticed is this:
https://steemit.com/@haji
The account is already older, but it is probably new in the spam business.
He hasn't learned yet better not to leave any comments.
Also he scams because he promises upvotes to 20 SBD/STEEM.
This is a typical example.
@resteem.bot
https://steemit.com/@good-ali/transfers
18 days ago Transfer 5.229 SBD to haji
They always invest money to spam, most time from exchanges.
We think this a noob spammer.
@resteem.bot
"It's better to keep spam filtering on the UI side" This is so far the best easy solution that can help without too much problems to solve.
Doesn't solve the underlying bloat.
@drakos No need to solve the underlying bloating. Gmail ... Facebook uses the same system. We just need to kill the bait. and we have to make the difference between good advertising and bad advertising . All advertising should not be considered as a spam. an UI system will be just fine for people, the platform will be more user friendly, because spam will be spam, spamming will never end, and the best way to deal with it is to make it less noticeable for people. a 50 spots is really not a big deal and will not help in the long run.
Ps* My view of UI is based on the design of the website itself. a compartmentalization that separate spam from legit memos. like you send everyone you muted to this section. we just need to play with how the information will be displayed for the users. because the main goal of a spam is to get a reaction from the user.
Comments are somehow controlled to some extend by auto flagging their comments, but how to tackle the memo thing, that's the thing.
The best way to eliminate waste is to increase a price. Each transaction should have fee growing with increasing number of transactions. If you had to pay 0.1 SBD instead 0.001 SBD for each transaction, it would too costly for spammers to abuse the system.
Spam in comments should be solved by shareable individual blacklists in UI. Most people would end up using same spam filter derived from witnesses or thrusted people. And since most spam would be filtered, the spammers would stop posting because they would have no interactions. If that didn't work, comments could cost a fee.
Both fees should end in reward pool.
You have recieved a free upvote from minnowpond, Send 0.1 -> 2 SBD with your post url as the memo to recieve an upvote from up to 100 accounts!
And this guy, he gives his 1% upvote, that is worth nothing, just that he can leave his marketing comment.
He spams all our postings for days now and don't stop.
Crazy that under this anti spam posting is a comment from him.
@resteem.bot
I have mixed feelings, but you make a few good points, I will be following the conversation to try to improve my position. My starting place is if we can't handle bloat that is a bad thing for a chain trying to be a "Social Media" site. I'm open to changing my mind.
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Yes like @tts is spamin all the time.grrrr
Actually, I don't mind @tts. The project doesn't beg for anything, and I guess @tts is useful for busy people or the visually impaired.
The project is perfect and the idea behind it in amazing. But the marketing and promotion is 😭😭😭 no hello, no upvote, no comment no nothing. No rispekt for creators. I have rold then to stop posting on my profile... and what they do..... agaien 😭
They just post on your best work and have free promotions. @tts stop spaming and make a good marketing plan!!!
We should all be very careful
I think the problem of spam is based on many people want to take money from Steem quickly and easily without investing a lot of time or effort, seeing this look for the easiest way to grow and so, with spam everywhere without knowing the damage they do To the community and the bad example they teach other users, is a difficult issue to control and probably manage
Correct. Making money the easy way without effort. That's why this method doesn't work but only pollutes the environment.
Sounds like a good idea to me. Let Users have a Block mechanism towards the Memos section and Spam there.
It seems like it is really getting worse and worse from when I first started here in December with the Memo Spam.
The Resteem services are pretty much garbage. People building up HUGE Following thru Robots or excessive "you Follow me I Follow you" campaigns.
Its a waste of SBD, imho.
Thanks for this Post @drakos
For most problems with Steem we have to generally self police with the vague and blind faith that somebody in power will one day fix it. But until that auspicious day, manual methods need to be maximised, like my own chrome/firefox plugin that displays everybody we at steemSTEM have blacklisted with an angry red banner.
Memos shouldn't need much effort really. Even something like, accounts with a reputation below 25 get a limited number of memo posts - then leave the crowd/steemcleaners etc to manually flag spam bots.
I dunno. Even FB and twitter have super sophisticated, turing-testing bots by the millions.
There's a limit to what self-governance can do, we need more/better tools to combat spam. Good suggestion.
I'm in favor of increasing memo cost to 0.5 SBD
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Do you see Steem becoming a true social platform? If we want steem to take over facebook we have to know spam is a part of it. If you want steem to remain a niche platform then censorship as you have mentioned is possible. You are one of many voices but ultimately the people in charge will decide where steemit goes. I think it will end as a social media platform so I came to terms with spam.
Congratulations @drakos!
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@drakos I see that it has increased and it is a problem that concerns us all and we have to work for it! can we help with that? then we have to do it !.
I think bots have a lot of guilt in many things and not just spam! are the main source of them, if the cost of the notes was more expensive would be a way to reduce spam, I would place 0.1 or 0.5 SBD so the people who make the bots will see that it is not profitable to be sending notes.
the things are in the users that are entering, in a world that they do not know very well, then they do what they do best in other social networks "spam"! There should be some kind of project that teaches them a little about the platform, I think that this way you will avoid a lot in the not too distant future!
another thing where I do not really agree is that a person who makes spam earns more money than someone who works hard to make their publications, in my case I spend up to 10 hours doing each drawing, spending materials that are extremely expensive in my country , at least at this time would be a maximum of 5 SBD and I do not think that person who only makes spam earns much more, doing less. it's my point of view!
Can the system tell if a post or comment (not sure about memos) was created by manual input or not, simply by noting the time it was started, and then posted?
Once I start a post, I can come back to it later even if I close the window, so somehow a draft is saved somewhere. Maybe a time stamp too? Some people are really slow typists, and even the fastest can't hope to match a bot. And the faster you type, the more errors, which means back-spacing and re-typing. Maybe the back-space keystroke could be another indicator, if keystrokes are noted. (And if someone's copy/pasting from another document, it still takes time, and all the fields aren't filled in almost instantly.)
Anyway, bots input much faster, that's the point of a bot, to multiply the effort of a single human. Maybe if we could detect and block them by their reason to exist, people wouldn't bother with them anymore. We'd still have manual spam of course, but I guess that would be less of a problem?
No, the system can't tell if it's a manual or automated submission. The draft is saved in your browser's cookies. Bots don't use browsers, they send programmed transactions directly to the blockchain via python or javascript.
Why stop at 50? Why stop at all? If I want to block 1000 people in that scenario, do not limit me. I think that is the only way to deal with multiple accounts. There are users who have more than 20 accounts so by blocking 40 accounts I have actually blocked only two users. Everything else that you said is fine by me and I would be really really happy to learn that you are a prophet and that it will all come true.
One small thing, how do we get rid of those follow-unfollow junkies? Is there a way to make a condition (similar to that for not commenting before 20 seconds have passed) that would not allow clicking on the follow, unfollow buttons more than a reasonable amount of times?
If they can implement an algorithm that would allow 1000 in a block list without a negative impact on performance, then I'm all for it.
About the follow-unfollow junkies, I report them to steemcleaners and flag their comment on my posts (or the MUTE option, which I never use because I find it useless).
I am not really sure what that mute button is supposed to do because I have muted them a long time ago and still get notified. Not by Gina, had to disable the follower notification because of them but since I always have steemworld.org opened, I get them. I did not think about reporting them to steemcleaners, thanks for the tip, I will try it out. 💚
Muting hides comments from the unwanted user when you're browsing on steemit.com. However, the comments are still accessible from other apps, like busy.org.
Hmmm... I will consider this a lesson of the day :)
Thank you 💚
I've been receiving SOOO many memo from bots and other usens who want to be re-steemed! It's incredible.
I don't have a patience to make a list tho!?!?
Instead it would be good to have a structured and coordinated response to this issue: talk 1 voice, as a lot of newbies, small minnows and even people who are around since almost 1 year, feel still like a dinosaur in this platform.
Steemit family?
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time to clean up the mess for good
Given that they will be able to make new accounts even if blacklist them, the only would be to completely stop them from posting on steemit. However even then how can we completely stop someone to post on steemit even if their reputation is on a minus.
I'd like to see that if steemit can completely delete accounts even if it's when users want to personally delete all their account.
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If we focus on rewarding good content instead of worrying about stopping spam I think the problem may solve itself.
I've been arguing for transaction-fees here and there, and I am quite surprised to see stinc moving forward with similar thoughts now... but let's see what comes from that... because the new "credits" are really just a different bandwidth formula.
I know it's controversial... but while the SBD-STEEM debt ratio grows, maybe burning SBD in transaction costs isn't such a bad idea... or get that two way peg implemented ffs...
ah man... now this spam topic has me in rant-mood again...
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Hi I'm an artist and I've been around for exactly a year and I still feel like plankton. I'm even one of the relatively successful Steemians (no bought votes/no bidbots). However, my vote/voice has grown less in the last 6 months, than the first 3 months since joining. The SBD price is low again, but SP is still tiny on payouts. There is more profit incentive for spam /bid bots than creating new content.
Spam comments are an issue, but spam posts are worse. Fighting spam could possibly make good content easier to find and reward :) As a lot of posts get lost because of spam.
I used to ignore Steemit issues because I can't change anything, but I'm getting worried.
Thank you for giving a damn about this issue, even though it probably doesn't affect your payout. :)
Cheers and good luck!
This is the most ridiculous comment I have seen under this post.
The discussion here is about how we could reduce the spam, how we can get rid off this plague and you are asking for help to spam here ? Really ?