Steemit can "hide" spam and abuse from being viewed. It cannot stop it from occurring or polluting the blockchain.
No more than Microsoft Hotmail or Outlook 365 can stop spam or abuse. It can only try to hide it from appearing in people's inboxes.
Spam and abuse will be prevalent on the blockchain because there is no way to code human ingenuity and greed from abusing things.
each user can select who they want to block and create their own blacklist. It's that simple
Unfortunately, not that simple. Let's say you have 100,000 users. Each user has 1,000 people on their blacklist. (which is quite small considering the number of spammy new accounts that can exist)
Now that becomes 1 million blacklisted user accounts for 100,000 users. At some point, the lag and resources needed to handle all the blacklists start to become a bottleneck for the 3 second blockchain timing to show new posts.
It's not scalable to create blacklists for each user, miles long.
Major free email providers will allow all incoming junk mail and sort them in the spam folder for you. However, there are many approaches to keep emails free from spam, such as IP block lists, grey listing, firewall rules, that prevent spam from reaching the users, therefore tackling the issue at the source. It's a riskier approach because there's a slim chance for false positives if the sending email server is misconfigured (e.g. lack of SPF, DKIM or DMARC records).
P.S. Indeed, concerning the scalability, that's easily circumvented by setting a limit on the blacklist size (say, max 50), just like voting for 30 witnesses. You can select the most spammy accounts you want to block.
Spammers are hacking legitimate accounts behind SPF, DKIM, and DMARC just so their spam can get through from a legitimate email account with those semi-verified features infront of the domain name.
I'm quite skilled at mail servers and the way they operate, much like yourself, to fully understand SPF, DKIM, and DMARC
In your own words:
many approaches
They are all approaches. None of them are 100% spam-proof. If they were, then the inventor of an 100% anti-spam internet would win a nobel prize.
However, that is not the case. Spam on the internet is more than a disease, it's a worldwide plague that eats bandwidth and traffic everyday and it is neverending.
Who pays for spam, the bandwidth it uses, and the resources it requires to try different "approaches" to block it?
The paying users do. Not the ones abusing the system.
This is a big problem, and having blacklists may mitigate the issue a bit.. but it is no where near solving it.
P.S. Indeed, concerning the scalability, that's easily circumvented by setting a limit on the blacklist size (say, max 50)
50 could be filled in a day, by each user on the system. No where near enough. :(
I'm skilled with mail servers too, I've been running my own for years 🤓
Luckily the majority of spammers are amateurs and never bother to configure and run their own servers; when they do, it's poorly configured. Often they use sendgrid or other big services. Indeed, we can't solve the spam problem at 100%, but if we can minimize it then it's a step forward.
A majority of the let's say 100.000 users will rather agree on who the spammers are. Not all those users will have different spammers on their blacklists.
They might agree roughly on the number of real spammers, and that's what the blockchain has to handle.
In the end it is quite a democratic process.
Eliminate abusive preminers (for those not counting premining itself as abuse) and their perpetuated effects
Get rid of the stranglehold of incompetent (at best) management and replace the dysfunctional steemit interface and infrastructure.
?
Start a different blockchain where only witnesses that have full nodes are rewarded, replace the FB based software with something that is scrollable, and integrate a functional javascript-free blockchain explorer in the interface.
New joiners are granted an equal amount of the currency to start to play with, similar, but not necessarily identical to how it was done here.
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Fighting spam is everyone's job, that annoys me too, and it is incredible that there are people who agree with spam, do not know the damage that cause the platform I think it is best to do educational campaigns to combat spam and report those abuses
I think the 7 day limit on being relevant and rewarded actually encourages a quick and rushed quantity of mediocre articles as opposed to fewer high quality articles. If new votes, even after a year, would also bring new rewards, then in the end, actual good posts, and concequently good authors, would float to the surface.
I modified the text and added this: In other words, each user can select who they want to block and create their own blacklist. So it's a personalized process that can be implemented in steem's blockchain code.
This is one of the reasons why I'm not telling my underage sister to join even though her art and crafts are really incredible. Much better work than my stuff was when I was 18. However her confidence is still a bit fragile and Steemit is very rough for new Steemians. So it's simply not worth the risk. I wonder how many shy artists chose to not join or left, because of abuse or ignorance on Steemit.
For a moment i have been thinking about that also, if this issue isn't traeted appropriately it will scare aware investors and thereby turn the community into a joke. Resteeming right away!
It's personal blocking of spam, not generalized blocking. What's wrong with wanting to keep my own account clean from spam? Are you censoring spammers when you block them in your emails? Should spammers/abusers be allowed to abuse in the name of freedom of speech and zero censorship? I think we should rethink how this social media platform would fit in the context of a blockchain. If every crappy thing is allowed to thrive then I'm afraid it might jeopardize Steem's progress.
Ah, I see what you were suggesting was implementation at user level not at the blockchain instead. Then this is making sense very much. Sorry for the wrong interpretation.
Definitely a lovely feature to have but I'm afraid the team has so much more shits to get done before this one. So far muting is the only I can do to save me some time from spam messages and use the Steemplus plugin to clean my wallet.
We should have a reputation system based on how many users have muted that other user. This will require oracles and 1 person = 1 vote, but would in my opinion counter a lot of the spam on the chain.
TBH (to be honest)...
Steemit can "hide" spam and abuse from being viewed. It cannot stop it from occurring or polluting the blockchain.
No more than Microsoft Hotmail or Outlook 365 can stop spam or abuse. It can only try to hide it from appearing in people's inboxes.
Spam and abuse will be prevalent on the blockchain because there is no way to code human ingenuity and greed from abusing things.
Unfortunately, not that simple. Let's say you have 100,000 users. Each user has 1,000 people on their blacklist. (which is quite small considering the number of spammy new accounts that can exist)
Now that becomes 1 million blacklisted user accounts for 100,000 users. At some point, the lag and resources needed to handle all the blacklists start to become a bottleneck for the 3 second blockchain timing to show new posts.
It's not scalable to create blacklists for each user, miles long.
You have the right idea. It's just not feasible.
Major free email providers will allow all incoming junk mail and sort them in the spam folder for you. However, there are many approaches to keep emails free from spam, such as IP block lists, grey listing, firewall rules, that prevent spam from reaching the users, therefore tackling the issue at the source. It's a riskier approach because there's a slim chance for false positives if the sending email server is misconfigured (e.g. lack of SPF, DKIM or DMARC records).
P.S. Indeed, concerning the scalability, that's easily circumvented by setting a limit on the blacklist size (say, max 50), just like voting for 30 witnesses. You can select the most spammy accounts you want to block.
Close, but not quite.
Spammers are hacking legitimate accounts behind SPF, DKIM, and DMARC just so their spam can get through from a legitimate email account with those semi-verified features infront of the domain name.
I'm quite skilled at mail servers and the way they operate, much like yourself, to fully understand SPF, DKIM, and DMARC
In your own words:
They are all approaches. None of them are 100% spam-proof. If they were, then the inventor of an 100% anti-spam internet would win a nobel prize.
However, that is not the case. Spam on the internet is more than a disease, it's a worldwide plague that eats bandwidth and traffic everyday and it is neverending.
Who pays for spam, the bandwidth it uses, and the resources it requires to try different "approaches" to block it?
The paying users do. Not the ones abusing the system.
This is a big problem, and having blacklists may mitigate the issue a bit.. but it is no where near solving it.
50 could be filled in a day, by each user on the system. No where near enough. :(
I'm skilled with mail servers too, I've been running my own for years 🤓
Luckily the majority of spammers are amateurs and never bother to configure and run their own servers; when they do, it's poorly configured. Often they use sendgrid or other big services. Indeed, we can't solve the spam problem at 100%, but if we can minimize it then it's a step forward.
Nice to meet a fellow postmaster. :)
A majority of the let's say 100.000 users will rather agree on who the spammers are. Not all those users will have different spammers on their blacklists.
They might agree roughly on the number of real spammers, and that's what the blockchain has to handle.
In the end it is quite a democratic process.
How to:
?
Start a different blockchain where only witnesses that have full nodes are rewarded, replace the FB based software with something that is scrollable, and integrate a functional javascript-free blockchain explorer in the interface.
New joiners are granted an equal amount of the currency to start to play with, similar, but not necessarily identical to how it was done here.
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Fighting spam is everyone's job, that annoys me too, and it is incredible that there are people who agree with spam, do not know the damage that cause the platform I think it is best to do educational campaigns to combat spam and report those abuses
I think the 7 day limit on being relevant and rewarded actually encourages a quick and rushed quantity of mediocre articles as opposed to fewer high quality articles. If new votes, even after a year, would also bring new rewards, then in the end, actual good posts, and concequently good authors, would float to the surface.
TLRD
What does it mean? No clue.
I modified the text and added this: In other words, each user can select who they want to block and create their own blacklist. So it's a personalized process that can be implemented in steem's blockchain code.
So you would be able to stop users from calling you out on your bullshit by commenting on your posts?
Why do you have to be mean all the time? We're discussing an problem and a potential solution. Where's the bullshit in that?
If it's trolls with abusive responses then no, I don't want their comments, and I don't want my audience to experience their crap.
In my example replace "YOU" by any accounts and once you're at implementing troll detector on the blockchain let me know how that scales.
Read the other comments, we discussed scaling.
This is one of the reasons why I'm not telling my underage sister to join even though her art and crafts are really incredible. Much better work than my stuff was when I was 18. However her confidence is still a bit fragile and Steemit is very rough for new Steemians. So it's simply not worth the risk. I wonder how many shy artists chose to not join or left, because of abuse or ignorance on Steemit.
For a moment i have been thinking about that also, if this issue isn't traeted appropriately it will scare aware investors and thereby turn the community into a joke. Resteeming right away!
Thank you for sharing of this information!
I would be happy if you could take a look at your my latest drawing:)
I'm afraid this would totally go against the "zero cenceorship" slogan from Steemit.
It's personal blocking of spam, not generalized blocking. What's wrong with wanting to keep my own account clean from spam? Are you censoring spammers when you block them in your emails? Should spammers/abusers be allowed to abuse in the name of freedom of speech and zero censorship? I think we should rethink how this social media platform would fit in the context of a blockchain. If every crappy thing is allowed to thrive then I'm afraid it might jeopardize Steem's progress.
Ah, I see what you were suggesting was implementation at user level not at the blockchain instead. Then this is making sense very much. Sorry for the wrong interpretation.
Definitely a lovely feature to have but I'm afraid the team has so much more shits to get done before this one. So far muting is the only I can do to save me some time from spam messages and use the Steemplus plugin to clean my wallet.
We should have a reputation system based on how many users have muted that other user. This will require oracles and 1 person = 1 vote, but would in my opinion counter a lot of the spam on the chain.
Good idea.