When a user report fraudulent and bot channels he will receive badges and token rewards.

The milestones can be based on the number of correct reports:

• First reported channel: 1 Tokens (Bronze)
• Fraud discovery badge: 10 Channels reported = 5 Tokens (Silver)
• Fraud fighter: 25 channels reported = 10 Tokens (Silver)
• Minds Hero: 50 Channels reported = 20 Tokens (Gold)

Then we can offer additional Gold medals each time the user successfully reprot new 50 channels.

The same can happen for bot Channels

added to epic &62

@ramialbatal,
I can foresee that this idea could result in causing many users a level of concern due to the possibility of creating a "nark" / "snitch" (using British colloquialisms) styled community. Furthermore, this idea could possibly foster an environment of distrust, possible forms of entrapment and even could produce a form of harassment being directed towards the badge holders (which none of us would want to encourage or condone).

If it is deemed that any users are committing fraud then this fraudulent behaviour can be considered as being possibly illegal under US legislation and therefore would be a violation of the current Terms of Service (ToS) contractual agreement (re: second paragraph of the current ToS agreement, as well as sections 2 and 3 of said agreement). Therefore any violations should be dealt in solely an appropriate manner (as stated within the ToS agreement and the Content Policy documentation).

Also, I believe that currently there is no actual legal definition regarding the term "bot" within either US federal or Connecticut state legislation. Therefore I am requesting that you (or another staff member) provide a full definition for the term "bot" (within the context of the services that are being provided by Minds Inc).

Considering the points that I made within the above first paragraph, I strongly recommend that this idea is reconsidered and removed from the associated roadmap epics (epic#62 and epic#102).

@ottman, @jotto141, @markeharding & @Johnthetester,
I would appreciate hearing your opinions regarding this issue and if necessary, having a further discussion about the points that I have made above.

Reference:
Roadmap Epics

• &62
• &102

Deeper definition of a bot is a fair request.

You wouldn't receive a badge for reporting, but for reporting something that is proven to be a bot. It is more of a moderator badge, but I understand your concern.

@medworthy Many thanks for the careful remark, I understand your concerns and you have absolutely very good points here.

We are currently working on defining the workflow of fraud/bot/spam/token farming channel, and we will incorporate that with a clear definition of each type.

The workflow will involve automatic (Machine Learning), and manual (by the moderators/admins) steps and the badging system/mechanisms might change slightly based on the outcome and the strength of the automatic approaches.

I agree with Bill that the badging/rewards will be only granted if the reported channels are verified.

@ramialbatal & @ottman,
Thank you both for replying to my last comment. I understand and appreciate your reasoning for implanting this particular badge (ie. to combat the amount of dubious automated systems / aka. "bots", as well as combating further spamming attempts).

Whilst re-reviewing the current edition of the ToS, I read through section 3.6, which states: "(You shall not use or access any of the Services:) To create accounts or access data (including User information) through unauthorized means, by using an automated device, caching, script, bot, spider, crawler or scraper or any such weaponized capability intended as a malware threat to Minds".

I do have concerns that the usage of "spiders" and "crawlers" are stated as "such weaponized capability intended as a malware threat" due to my experience in relation to implementing Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) techniques within various client and personal driving projects (for the purpose of legitimate third party search engine indexing, which if further disallowed could possibly impact on the wider searching of content from various facilities).

As expressed within my previous comment, I also have concerns about the usage of the term "fraudulent" within the context of this Gitlab ticket entry. As we are all aware, this term is already covered within the ToS agreement (see the above comment0 and suspected individual content entries could (if necessary) be further investigated within the confines of US federal and / or Connecticut state legislation.

However, I will remain objective and open-minded when further considering this issue, and am looking forward to reviewing further information in relation to this subject, as well as looking forward to any blog articles that the senior staff may consider publishing within the near future (either at the time of implementing this badge or prior to the actual implementation process).