Over the past few months, the frequency and magnitude of spam posts has increased dramatically on CodeForces, and today it has gotten to the point where it is a serious inconvenience to the community. When the entire recent actions list is full of spam blogs save for one post on the contest from that day: Picture Reference Link, something must be done.
Firstly, some direct observations:
Almost all spam blog posts are created by users that are extremely new
Spam blog users post their blogs almost immediately after account creation
Spam blog users have NO submitted problems or registered contests
Secondly, I'd like to note (and to refresh your memory) that CodeForces does have a Captcha system in place for registration. This means that all the spam users are more likely than not created by real human beings and not bots (I would commend anyone who is able to make a sufficiently accurate OCR program).
From these observations I would like to propose some changes to the system that can potentially be of use. A word of caution first however: Because each spam blog is create by a real individual, no matter how hard we make the process of posting a blog, a spam user can always find a way. Thus, we are not trying to prevent spam users from posting, but we are rather trying to deter them from doing so. That is, we make the amount of work required to create a spam blog disproportionate to the amount the spammer gains from posting such material. Ideally, a solution would make life as hard as possible for the spammer, while at the same time, minimizing the amount of burden for regular users to post.
One such solution that I believe is adequate is to require users to submit an AC program before they are allowed to write a blog post. This is certainly a great deal of work for the spammer (as I assume most spammers are unfamiliar with competitive programming judges), while at the same time, easy enough that a beginner programmer could complete the task. The statistics for problems solved is already implemented into the CF system, so I would assume (naively), that it wouldn't be too difficult to link that to the post system.
Something needs to be done about the spam posts on CF, as they are really interfering with the community. I encourage everyone to post their opinions and potential solutions, as this issue would affect all new CodeForces registrees.
TL;DR Too many spam posts on CF. Require AC submission before posting blog to solve.
P.S. I remember there was a similar blog post a while back, but I couldn't find it.
COMPILED LIST OF POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS (Links to comments below)
Require AC before blog post
Contest participation related criteria (e.g. one AC in contest)
TIME TO TAKE ACTION
I believe that we've come up with a pretty comprehensive list of possible solutions. The next step is to let the CF mods that we are serious about getting something done. Right now, the only method that I found is to message MikeMirzayanov using the CodeForces system. If anyone has another reliable method of contact, please do share. I would suggest against including a specific method and link to this discussion instead, as it provides a wider variety of options, as well as a better organized listing of potential solutions. I would also include in the message why getting rid of spam is important to you, as a personal message conveys a stronger message than just a complaint. If you don't have the time or can't think of anything to write, I've prepared a template message that you can send: http://pastebin.com/LHSzG17j
What spam, I don't know what you're talking about, I only see very cool offers. Who doesn't want (after a challenging CF round) to buy some cheap Air Jordan shoes, or a NFL jersey, or some cool Rayban sunglasses, or even some Viagra if I remember correctly. How in the world a spam-bot could "spam" a whole programming-wise community so repeatedly???. Something has to be done ASAP.
I disagree. The cost is bigger than the profit. Spam blogs annoys me, these blogs could not provide me any knowledge.
Almost completely agree; an excellent and elegant solution! I do think, however, that it would suffice to reduce the requirement to simply submitting a program that will pass given example test (e.g. pretest 1). If someone were really going to submit such a program just to create a spam blog, they could just as easily copy and paste an AC solution. In other words, for a spamblogger, it takes (almost) just as much time and effort to submit "cout << 2" as it does to submit something else they copy and pasted, so this doesn't really make it easier for them. This way at least absolute beginners can post legitimate questions like "why is my first code here not getting AC", since anybody smart enough to register should be able to print out the answer to the example case at the very least.
Well, you should know that there are automated systems which fetch captcha images in thousands and deliver them to hired freelancers to manually type for a small fee. If you visit sites like http://freelancer.com you'll be able to find many of such businesses under topics like "Manually type old books" etc.
Today I was astonished to see all news feed covered with spam posts — 20 or 30 of them, perhaps more.
I do not believe in captcha so I vote for (already suggested long ago) idea of premoderating posts of unrated users.
I.e. if you have no rating, your post is not published immediately, but should be checked for being spam either by admins, or by (for example) two of five randomly picked rated users.
The first is easier to implement, the second is easier to maintain. Though CF team looks unwilling to change anything :)
Firstly I am very glad you brought this topic to concern.
"require users to submit an AC program before they are allowed to write a blog post".
Now because they are spammers, I believe they are unethical. Which means that they can directly copy paste a solution. All the solutions in codeforces are public and it is very easy to submit an AC solution.
As an alternate solution, I would suggest that those users who have successfully submitted a solution in a contest are only eligible to create a post. Reasons :
The probability that the user is a spammer AND CAN solve a problem in a contest is very less.
The probability that the user is NOT a spammer AND CANNOT solve a problem in a contest AND WANTS to write a blog is very less. This will also remove blogs like "Hey! This is my first contest and blah blah". Additionally it will give new user an added incentive to solve a problem in a contest. It is like a prize for them.
i agree with ur first point, but not the second. i think it is too hard on an ordinary user (non-spammer, ofcourse) who has not yet solved any problems in contest.
it could always be possible that a beginner user wants to practice a few problems (atleast easy ones) before attempting a live contest, just to familiarize himself with how CF works. (FYI, this happened to me!)
so he wouldn't be able to post clarifications regarding "why this solution is wrong?" or similar.
Aren't you overestimating the level of easiest CF problems? You can familiarize yourself with the testing system on problems that are just about implementing what you're told. And if one can't solve problems of that level, then a better way than making blog posts would probably be taking a course in the basics of programming. CF isn't really a site focused on teaching people the absolute basics.
It's about the same level of difficulty as Codecha, IMO.
He's not talking about the user not being able to solve a problem in a contest, but a legitimate user which is not willing to dive in a contest as soon as he registers.
Imagine a new user finds CF cool, and wants to start participating. He then proceeds to try to find practice problems, but can't find out how the system works to submit his first problem, or after some amount of practicing, wants help on solving the tenth problem he tried. He wouldn't be able to post and be forced to wait until a contest comes and take part in it, which is the problem with this solution.
I'm not talking about a user not being able to solve a problem in a contest either. I understood that.
Can't find out how the system works? Are there not blog posts by the CF staff about each and every new/changed feature? Even if a user can't navigate through the CF site, it can still be found just by googling. Seriously, that's even easier than solving a problem at all.
And my comment before wasn't answering this (you brought it up), but
so he wouldn't be able to post clarifications regarding "why this solution is wrong?"
Ofcourse it is " possbile that a beginner user wants to practice a few problems". I never deny that fact. If you read my solution properly I have written that the "probability that the user is NOT a spammer AND CANNOT solve a problem in a contest AND WANTS to write a blog is very less".
Because things are manual here, we cannot completely eradicate this problem. What we can do is minimize it. And that is what my solution tends to do.
A beginner can always familiarize himself by solving easy problems (a few model problems and solutions can be added to FAQ section for that regard too). If at all he is stuck at some difficult problem for which he needs to make a blog post, he has to solve a problem in a contest and will be rewarded with authorization to make posts.
This will completely (almost) remove spam post at the cost of very few users who might face difficulty in solving some problem.
i completely agree, but the only problem is the "at the cost of".
IMO the solution that we propose (and the admins implement) to solve this issue should not cause any adverse side-effects to the site.
i respect ur opinion, but since ur suggestion may result in unnecessary trouble for non-spammer beginner user to post, i don't think it is a feasible solution.
Another solution would be to give a large group of users some moderating rights. If spam blogs are removed instantly, they are not a problem anymore.
How would we go about choosing this group (application process, rating, etc.)? Also, we already have a similar system in place. If a spam blog is downvoted by many members of the community, it is automatically removed from the front page. The problem is that this sort of system has not been working.
We might take an example from StackOverflow and allow people with a certain amount of contribution (50? Or really any arbitrary number) limited moderator rights. By "limited" I mean things like soft deleting comments (e.g. deleting them in such a manner that the general public cannot see them, but they are not deleted from the database and can be restored), editing out abusive language, and so on (for example they should not be able to post blogs to the main page or alter other significant things). I still like the idea in the opening post better though, because this might make contribution heavily abused.
I believe these spam blogs are created only to exploit search engines indexing and nothing else. So, forbidding indexing for Recent Actions panel and for newly created (several days) posts will make such a blog post pointless for spammers at least. Hopefully, this will force them to stop putting efforts in overcoming other anti-spam obstacles (if CF has any).
Actually this is a spam post ... every week or two weeks somebody writes a post about spam blogs and gives his advices ... just to get votes and increase his contribution I think this is one of the spam posts that he is talking about !!
ur totally right — it is a spam post.
PS: i mean ur comment above, not this blog post! :D
IMHO, I think somebody is trying to send a message that could be for example: "Create a better authentication system to stop div-1 people that bother rounds for div-2-only"
Is there anyhow we can contact codeforces admin. Because the spam blogs are really irritating to see. Due to these spammers useful posts go unnoticed e.g. yesterday night I posted a blog: Effective Usage of STL for quick and concise code writing in competitive programming link But now it has gone under a great heap of spam blogs. I don't understand, If there is anyone at least reading this post or our comments. At least they should say anything like they are doing something for this seriously annoying problem. Site moderators, MikeMirzayanov Please do something about this.
today i saw another instance of this! almost the whole of the → Recent actions tab was covered with spam blogs!!
as of now i can see only four non-spam blog posts and around twenty spam ones! something must be done to stop these spammers!!
I am pleased you took attitude against this annoying spam.