Global Blacklist API Proposal

in #sps5 years ago (edited)

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The Global Blacklist API

The Global Blacklist API is a project I started three days after I got access to the Steem Cleaners blacklist. It has been running for almost two years and supports eight (8) community blacklists and all Steem Engine Tribes.

The Global Blacklist API is used by over 50% of Steem dApps in one way or another

The Global Blacklist API has been a free service I offer to provide a standard and easy to use interface to access multiple blacklists on the Steem blockchain. dApps and services can choose to subscribe to one or more of the available blacklists and use to minimize abuse.

Currently, the Global Blacklist API supports the following blacklists:

  • BuildAWhale
  • SteemCleaners
  • Redeemer
  • MinnowBooster
  • Actifit
  • Yoodoo
  • Smartsteem
  • D-Tube
  • All Steem Engine Tribes

One of the benefits of the Global Blacklist API is choice. dApps and services can choose which blacklists they want to use and only need to support a single standardized interface. As more blacklists are added to the API they can choose for themselves if they want to utilize the list.

I have never charged to use the Global Blacklist API or to include and support custom blacklists. While blacklisting isn't a foolproof solution and there will always be abuse, it does help identify accounts that have conducted abusive behavior.

While each blacklist has its own definition of abuse, my own blacklist focuses on Spam, Fraud, Plagiarism, and Scams. I am the sole contributor to my blacklist which has 44,561 entries. My blacklist is available publically on Github and is one of the eight (8) supported blacklists.

While I spend an enormous amount of time identifying and fighting abuse, this proposal is solely to support the development, maintenance, and collaboration efforts of the Global Blacklist API only.

When I say collaboration, I am referring to the support I offer to help projects and services create their own blacklist and include it in the Global Blacklist API.

The most recent change to the Global Blacklist API added support for checking Steem Engine Tribe's blacklists. This allows projects and Tribe owners to easily look at mute lists from all the Tribes.

You can view the Status Page for the Global Blacklist API at any time to see its uptime.

Blacklist Notifier Chrome Extension

An extension of the Global Blacklist API (very punny) is the Blacklist Notifier Chrome Extension. This is a free Google Chrome & Brave compatible extension targetted to abuse fighters and curators to allow them to know instantly if a user is on a known blacklist.

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Not only does the extension work on Steemit.com, but it also works on these front ends:

  • Steemit.com
  • SteemPeak
  • Steeve.app
  • Pariko
  • Busy.org
  • Actifit
  • PALNet
  • SteemLEO
  • StemGeeks
  • Creative Coin
  • WeedCash
  • SplinterTalk

I consider this Chrome extension as part of the Global Blacklist API project and is included in this proposal.

Proposal

My proposal is looking for support to cover the costs associated with maintaining the Global Blacklist API and coordinating with projects and services who want to add a blacklist and have it supported by the Global Blacklist API and the associated Chrome extension Blacklist Notifier.

The proposal is for one-year to cover the direct and labor costs of maintaining the Global Blacklist API service.

This proposal requests daily pay of 20 SBD for 365 days.

Approve Proposal

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Great!

We’ll have to touch base with you about making this compatible with and including Natural Medicine’s front-end too.....

Love your work and dedication.

I have been using blacklist API for my project for almost a year and I appreciate its availability.

I've been meaning to incorporate some form of blacklist into my project for a while. Great initiative, and I'll be supporting this.

FYI, since your witness votes are proxied, only @mstafford account's click of approval would count, I believe.

Ah, thanks for the heads up. I'm actually @mstafford. I'll vote from that account shortly as well.

Approved can I sponsor a day or two of SBI?

Posted using Partiko iOS

"Blacklist Notifier Chrome Extension" --- whee! now that's handy, no more eye-soring reading JSON via http://blacklist.usesteem.com/user/crystalliu and so on, thank you sooo much, how did I not find that extension earlier gosh!

Dear @themarkymark

I quite like an idea of Global blacklist.

One question related to topic: can regular used (like myself) verify if his username is on any of those blacklists?

Yours, Piotr

Yes, you can use the chrome extension or just go to

blacklist.usesteem.com/user/[USERNAME]

This post has been included in the latest edition of The Steem News - a compilation of the key news stories on the Steem blockchain.

This post has been just added as new item to timeline of Global Blacklist API on Steem Projects.

If you want to be notified about new updates from this project, register on Steem Projects and add Global Blacklist API to your favorite projects.

I don't think that is a good idea to institutionalize your blacklist with SPS fund via Global Blacklist API. Your list is controversial and does not include many spam accounts. Plus, you're a witness, and over time you've sucked up a ton of money by selfvoting on manual and automated reports, which could also be qualified as spam.

Does not include many spam accounts? Every one of the 44,561 accounts has been added personally and verified by me. Users are only added for spam, fraud, scams, and abuse.

For example this recent update of 447 accounts with free Steemit Inc delegation all owned by naim62.

https://github.com/themarkymark-steem/buildawhaleblacklist/commit/0e478e38119b6e010a1e0390040fe47e43f772c7

I don't add people because I don't like them or they are annoying. I have guidelines on what determines they are added to the blacklist.

You don't have the same criteria for all. You are a hypocrite!

By many, I mean many spam accounts from you and your friends.

Your selfvoting practice on reports that nobody reads is not much different than posting a pictures. You need some effort to take a picture. After creation, your reports are generated automatically.

You selfvoting is hidden behind multiple accounts. It's clear what you are doing: @ipromote, @memesplease

Screenshot from 2019-09-29 08-58-49.png

You can't grab enough from rewards pool:

You practice selfvoting by multiple accounts; you are a witness, you are bot owner, you even manage to monetize your downvotes. Besides, you feel sorry that you didn't sell enough STEEM. How much STEEM did you buy?

Now you are heading for SPS fund. Great!

What do you think what message you are sending to investors?

I have no idea who you think my friends are and none of my accounts spam.

What accounts do you feel are spamming and should be on the blacklist?

Ipromote had almost no SP and were just auto-pilot because I did want to keep logging in to them separately. It now delegates to my account which follows my voting pattern. Previously it was 99% delegated out.


12.7 ( 7.87 % self, 320 upvotes, 103 accounts, last 7d )

Every vote there is $1.50-$2.00.

A ridiculous amount of time goes into what is behind those reports. I put in 10-40+ hours a week into finding and fighting spam. The reports are just an on-chain audit log. Similar to what SteemCleaners does, except I have zero funding for my efforts.

I am also the #8th flagged account on Steem as a result of my abuse fighting.

Until you offer a way for blacklisted accounts to exit your blacklist I won't vote on this proposal.

What you do is right and essential for this platform but in my opinion you get carried away and add everyone to the same bucket. I understand that fighting abuse you start seeing rotten in everyone but you should put more effort in explaining what behavior is not accepted and warn before condemning. If you're too busy (and I'm sure you are) you should delegate someone else as I'm sure other people are willing to do so.

For example, almost 2 years ago one of my bots was auto-replying to an abuser. Because of a bug it replied also in a thread in which you were involved and you decided to blacklist my bot forever. It was not spamming as it was only auto-commenting on my own posts or target accounts that agreed to it. I asked multiple times how to solve the problem and get out of the blacklist, you never bothered replying. You simply sit there and mock/laugh at people asking for resolution.

Until you offer a way for blacklisted accounts to exit your blacklist I won't vote on this proposal.

There has been a #blacklist channel on my discord for like 2 years where people can appeal. People have been removed from the list.

What you do is right and essential for this platform but in my opinion you get carried away and add everyone to the same bucket.

Every account on the list has done something that more than qualifies them to be on the list. I don't put people I don't like on it and am very particular about what it takes to get on the list.

For example, almost 2 years ago one of my bots was auto-replying to an abuser. Because of a bug it replied also in a thread in which you were involved and you decided to blacklisted my bot forever.

What bot? And where did I mock and laugh at you?

You simply sit there and mock/laugh at people asking for resolution

Eg.

  • A channel called "Blacklist - bring popcorn"

  • When you reply to appeals with memes

Just a couple of examples..

...I may be wrong but I perceive this as mocking / bullying / abuse of power.

People may have put a lot of effort into their accounts and like nothing they become useless thanks to @badcontent bot that (used to) start spamming every user on your blacklist and condemning them in its auto-comments in the same bucket as scammers. And at the same time the auto-comments were promoting your bidbot. Not very ethical IMO.

@iamstan put a good word for me and you finally turned it off but @gasaeightyfive still remains blacklisted.

I know that you generally don't like free resteemers. But IMO they:

  • Allow minnows to have a chance to get seen (I used them a lot myself when I started and was getting 0 payout)
  • Prevents new accounts from starting their own paid resteem service for absurd prices (new users may fall for them). Mine keeps the price free (and next to nothing for subscriptions).

And again, it never spammed accounts. It only auto-commented on its own posts, on post of users that subscribed and were ok with it, on other free resteemers posts.

How can we resolve this then? Thx

FYI:

Still me..
I am also recovering almost in real time accounts that accidentally leak their private keys. I already protected 2x big accounts putting their funds into their savings:
https://steemit.com/steem/@gaottantacinque/the-keys-defender-bot-is-live-in-beta-mode

No luck, hu?

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For example this recent update of 447 accounts with free Steemit Inc delegation all owned by naim62.

Why not just lobby @steem to cancel ALL automatic delegations (or have them expire after 30 days or something)?

Doesn't it make more sense to try and solve "the problem" with a systemic fix?

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I became a bit wiser but do find it hard matery to understand. Happy Monday 💕

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this centralize power?

How would this be any different from Facebook and Youtube?

A blacklist doesn't change the fact the community decides the value of posts.

Yeah he's an idiot! lol It does centralize power. He is faceplant! eggplant face! markymark ruined steem for meand now wants to ruine it for everybody! I don't really think he knows what's going on! He has some kind of learning disability and impediment holding him back fosho! Sure he's rich, but that means diddly squat when it come to brains! lol @themarkymark!
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Yeah, just feels like you're trading one dictator for another. Also, he downvoted you, which hides your comment. Yet another reason why I feel Steemit will continue to have issues adopting new users and keeping them. Your basically being punished for having an opinion he disagrees with.

I think someone needs a blacklist to put @themarkymark on! I really think he is going to get banned! markymark is banned!

I’m just trying to blog and use steem like everybody else??? They all use bots and python, he is buildawhale too!

Can you provide a link to the counter-proposal?

Huh?

I noticed the "reduce power-down to 4 weeks" proposal also had a link to the counter-proposal (keep the 13 week power-down).

Does your "blacklist" proposal have a counter-proposal?

Here is the link:

https://www.facebook.com/

It's pretty nice when you can fabricate a proposal that only accept upvotes (no downvotes allowed).

I wish we all had that option.

By all means make one.
Maybe you can build a SJW fund.

I though you were the SJW fund.

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Excelente iniciativa, muy prometedora, Dios quiera pueda yo formar parte

Nice

Posted using Dapplr

Question:

  • What is the resolution process to get yourself off this list?
  • How can we audit this list?
    • For example, not only see who's on the list but why they are on the list.
    • How many warnings did they get?
  • What individual(s) approves an account to be added to the blacklist?
    • Is it a single person or a committee?
    • Who votes in these individuals?
    • How can they be removed from the committee?
  • Who are the actual individual(s) that need to be convinced to have an account removed from blacklist?

@themarkymark, I would appreciate a response to these questions and please stop downvoting anyone who replies to me. Just makes you look like a dictator.

Each blacklist has their own resolution/appeals process.

Each blacklist has their own process for adding people to the blacklist.

Again, it's up to the individual blacklist. The API only supports the blacklists that are created and maintained by the community.

So, all your building in a API that can connect to any generic blacklist?

In other words, you can have 30 different lists out there, each one with their own criteria for adding/removing to the list?

Kind of yes, it is an API that takes 10 different blacklists throughout the community and provides a standardized interface for projects and dapps to query if a user is on any of the blacklists.

I provide one of the largest and most active blacklist and supply access to 9 others as well as all the tribes.

For your blacklist, being the most active one, do you have documentation on my questions above?

My blacklist is solely managed by me, it is public but no one else contributes. There is an appeals channel on my Discord.

Not trying to attack you, but don't you see this as a type of dictatorship? You're literally a centralized source of authority. And I know that others can do the same thing, but do they really have the same power and clout as you?

I was blacklisted by steemstem community and I have no idea who they are. I've been off steemit for about a year....there is no information on how to resolve a blacklist by separate entities.

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I'd like to start my own blacklist, is there a post or some other link that you know of that could help me get started?

Any text editor would do.

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Wow the first person with some real important questions!! This whole black list is so stupid, just let the people decide who to block / mute! ??Supposed to be a public blockchain so let the public decide!

OMG don't tell me they are going to give him money to do this! I'm getting out of steem ASAP if this goes through! steemit future looks sucky with marky mark in charge!

I feel like these should be some very obvious questions and I'm sure he's got this documented somewhere. I just don't know where to look for that info, which also makes this very confusing.

Also, I don't think he likes you. You're the second person to reply to me where you get downvoted and hidden. I really wish it was harder for rich people to downvote and suppress your comments. I mean, I'm ok with posts being "hidden", but it should happen due to a large number of actual people all agreeing to hide your posts. Not just one person. It's an extreme imbalance of power.


If you are wondering why he is flagged.

He also posts 8-12+ automated posts of a single image sunset photo a day and upvotes it. He also goes around and flags all the comments for people who post on people's posts and harasses people.

He's a spammer and toxic troll. He had plenty of chances to turn himself around, but he is unable to control himself.

wow, well ok then. Hard to argue against that.

fuck you dick, i take back your uovote and downvote you for mocking me! fuck this guy shoukd die! fuck off

That screenshot says 10 days ago but maybe the screenshot was taken more than 10 days ago...

LOL.

Totally that is the crux of my entire issue, why I have outbursts and such!