Bitcoin Forum

I am a little late to join the party of people making posts about "merit". I recently saw a post asking forum members to treat the non-english speakers less harshly (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2965613.0).

There are other constant posts about how its impossible and it will harm the forum (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2978982.0), how the system is gamed against junior members etc. etc. A lot has been said and explained about this. There are a lot of newbies who are still trying to paint this as some form of injustice/ unfair system. When all else fails, they come up with the non-english speaker excuse.

So for those of you still confused, uncertain, angry (because you are a alt-spammer and this is troublesome to you), I will attempt explaining this disdain for the shitposters. I hope by the time I finish, you will be convinced that the disdain for the typical non-english spammer/ Bounty hunter is justified.

Lets begin with the profile of your typical bad-english spammer. This guy's profile has the following qualities:
1. Joins 10 bounty campaigns at the same time.
2. Has a fake 5000 friends facebook & 4000 follower twitter account for the above.
3. Has a FB/ twitter timeline with a deluge of ICO related posts.
4. Has a post history mainly made up of "Report submissions" or "Your idea is great sir and I think it will sure be more success buddy" kindda posts.
5. Posts in 100th page of a dead beat topic like 'Will bitcoin reach 30K?", "What did bitcoin give you?" "Is it possible to earn in ICO?"
6. Constantly uses unnecessary salutations "Dear Manager, Respected Manager, or my favorite  Lauda Sir  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2790558.0) ".
7. Profusely apologises after every sentence. "Sorry if I am wrong", "Sorry again if i hurt someone". All of this with accompanied by the constant disebowelment of English is enough to irritate the hell out of most normal people.

Now, What is their not to hate in such a person??

 Some of these people have reached "Hero member" and even "Legendary" with this shit. They are all going to get whats coming for them.

But hey, you are not going to be one of them right. If you are a "poor-english", new guy here then let me give you some advice on how to become a valuable person on the forum and make it worth your while.

Step 1: Ask yourself why you are here. If you were here only for earning easy money by making referrals on the fake facebook wall then that won't be possible any more. List out things you can do to contribute to the forum as well as to bitcoin.

Step 2 Realize that nothing in life comes free. That time is over. You may still do that by scamming innocent people but that tainted money will never serve you well. On the other hand, the knowledge gained from this quest will be a strength for all your life.

Step 3 Understand what bitcoin is. Why Satoshi and the core developers spent thousands of hours on this piece of code? One of its main purpose was to enable people to directly trade with each other without worrying about third parties. This can serve well for exchange of services across borders and for exchange of goods within borders.

Step 4: If you are an ICO lover, then realize that as one of the first participants in this new phenomena, you are providing legitimacy to the future economic activity and potential gains this will generate. If you support all ICOs blindly, just to earn some worthless tokens, it will not only be a waste of your time but it also destroys the legitimacy of the better projects and makes everyone suffer.

Step 5: If your English is not good, Start with doing something valuable in your local forum. There will surely be some good users in all local forums who will help out. If there are none, then take command in a professional way of your forum. Learn about bitcoin and engage with other members like a man of knowledge. Alternatively, in your local forum, you could:

---> Translate some of the better posts from here (after taking due permission from the original poster)
---> Engage in discussion about setting up the infrastructure for bitcoin within your community. Like local groups, meetups etc.
---> Persuade people to actually care about the goal of financial access and equality for all and the importance of adoption.
---> Inform yourself about the scaling debate and be warned about the false marketing from other people making wild claims.
---> Inform yourself about Lightning Network, SegWit and encourage its usage.

Step 6 (Most Important): Do all of the above with a sense of purpose and interest rather than just money as your sole motivator. For money, get a real job. We are still far from changing the banking and economic system.

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I will stop with some parting thoughts about some of the contentious issues regarding regionalism etc.

1. East vs. West
It is a common impression that most of the people spamming or shit-posting are from the low income countries in the eastern hemisphere. Indian, Indonesia, Thailand, Phillipines, Vietnam etc. To people from these countries, I'd say that its our own mistake that the west sees us as incompetent and lazy when we write incoherent sentences.
By showing our willingness to spend our time on making 1000 useless posts, we confirm that we are in fact useless. Its then natural to have disdain for such actions. Accusing the other person of racism then is no defence. If you really want to mount a defence, then do some real work and prove your worth.

This constant trend to use salutations  (Sir, Dear, Respected) is also a cultural difference. To you, it maybe normal to show respect to someone in a position of power over you, but as far as netiquette and western work culture is concerned, this is considered sycophancy/ ass-kissing. This is considered the hallmark of an incapable, scheming individual and not of respect. So avoid this like a plague. Instead, address people with a normal Mr./ Miss

English Sentences

I have noticed the typical sentence construction of people who are considered bad posters. They use long sentences without proper punctuation and paragraph separation. Some tips:

1. Use small sentences. 7-8 words should be enough.
2. Press "Enter" to create space between your paragraphs.
3. Decide on your content and basic point. Do not stretch it by saying the same thing over and over.

Well. That is all for now. I hope this helps someone. We are all here for learning and taking part in this new phenomena. We are still early. Imagine if you had a computer at your home back in 1995. It was a big deal for most eastern hemisphere homes I believe. But it was an opportunity to learn.

It is extremely hard for us to reach the same level of proficiency as the people who were here since the beginning. But we can try. Apart from the technical aspects, we can try to make the social and economic aspects of bitcoin be felt within our own communities for real. Not just in this virtual space and on meaningless facebook walls.

I request the old local board members in particular to take charge of their boards in a positive spirit. Lets all learn and work according to our abilities. Learning is the best form of income you can get from this forum. Your future generation and your societies will be much better served by your knowledge than by some extra money.

Well, this took long. Time for a Goodnight!

It's not just the East that are assumed to be incompetent spammers. Young people as well (like me when I started) are unable to work for a good amount of time unless they do it freelance. I joined this forum with a hope of earning Bitcoin actually and for the first 6 months I think I was spamming a bit. Once you get beyond member/full you start to withhold on posting as often as you would and actually try to start writing constructive ones like this OP. I have to say, the merit system might help with this a bit as you can't advance without writing well.

If you make a 1 sentence post that's of high quality, it is better and more likely to be merited than a long post that could be summarised by 1 sentence. Also, for me, I'd be more inclined to merit users I have seen frequently make good quality posts.

Exactly. We all should feel this responsibility to contribute to the ecosystem rather than just milking others' ignorance.

People should divide their time professionally on the forum. If you want to discover alt-coins then spend some time really analyzing them. Too many scams and pump and dumps are harming the whole space.

Earlier the forum used to be a place for discussion on how to improve and make bitcoin reachable for more and more people. We should try going back to that state. Merit system is a good start.
If the newbies start focusing on learning rather than just earning, we will have a much better situation.

1. For someone asking others to improve on their grammar, you too need to work on your Grammar and Spellings too.

2. It's a fact and I agree.

3. But if the disdain takes the form of blatant name-calling and racial overtones (not undertones), I believe it is an explicit form of RACISM; eg. 3rd world monkeys, pajeet, etc.

I'm not defending those who are criticizing the merit system simply because it is not allowing them to earn Bounties. They should realize that shit-posting won't pay anymore. I don't expect people to pay me for shit-posting too, but there are a lot of issues in the current system too and to have a high-level of arbitrariness seems awful. The irony of having a Centralized forum to host discussions primarily focused on a Decentralized system is amusing in itself.

I personally feel that any hierarchical system, should be done away with, be it the merits or the ranks. All Bounty Managers should individually access the participants and pay them on the basis of their posts (just like in an article campaign). I have seen Legendary posts worth shit and they are still paid twice simply because they joined it early.

My 2c.


P.S. Trusts should, however, stay and be more rationalized, you cannot simply neg someone for supporting a counter viewpoint and Trust should only be based on trading issues.

This is something that I've thought about, and I've started to give a merit to members who make a number of "useful" posts, but no single one that is outstanding. I feel that the steady support of reliable and honest members is as valuable, as that of the member who has the odd flash of brilliance.

The reality is, merits are not for longest post you can construct, rather its for ideas that are useful to readers especially to those who already know what cryptos is all about and just looking for additional information.

There are so many posts and topics in the alt coin section as a Newbie who wants to learn , I am getting all confused and messed up as in which all topics to start with in alt coin. I know about these scammers and pumpers, they are always sending me msg in telegram, have started to understand them, but they are getting better everyday. The other day one scammer sent me an email which masked email of a known crypto youtube reviewer, but i was able to see that he masked that email....Problem is every time someone starts a new topic it goes in the top and then starts to get buried. Need some one who knows which topic to read to make a list. That would be real awesome!

Alternatively, you could leave the alts alone and learn about Bitcoin.

Bitcoin has become such a sophisticated system, that it is worth serious investigation as the unique product that it has become.

I am one of those who are actually not a perfect english poster. Basically I have to admit it. Some newbies could really get stock to being a newbie because of that same reason that they are not helping at all. Tho you can't blame a newbie most of them are here to get an easy extra amount of money.
The crucial part would always be the later part of their being a newbie. Some would realize what they are doing is wrong and try to improve. While some don't who keeps on complaining.

We all have to admit that most of us who started here were doing the same mistake but some realizes and improves while some don't.  That is the main purpose of being a newbie from the world itself.

What do you suggest then for the bolded word? Do you think the forum comes without a price of paying a hosting job or maybe they even make their own server, fees for admin and moderator, energy and time to maintain it? Then amuse us how to make a forum? A decentralized one where people can make money from it without giving any cent to the forum.

Making the manager do all the work is kinda amuse me. How come you want to work to a place or person but you dont have any CV? in my personal newbie opinion, your rank, merit, and old posts are your CV here.

Thanks for the corrections. Learning is a constant endeavour.


The racial overtones you refer to have surfaced on the forum very recently. A lot of people spent their time and energy in making this forum what it is. Moderating, writing FAQ's, Beginner guides and what not just to ensure that forum quality is maintained.

While most people will agree with your views on the need to cut back the name calling, I think it is simplistic to take the moral high ground on this. Its not like the people indulging in this behaviour don't know what they are doing. They are running sophisticated spamming and alt-account farming campaigns. No problems gets resolved unless you identify and accept it. The name calling doesn't fix it but does the job of calling out these people.


We'd all like the situation to be perfect with complete decentralisation of the forum but it's not feasible. We may find it ironical or amusing but unfortunately, that's where the usefulness of this realisation ends.
Completely agree with you that a lot of Bounty Managers need to get their act together. In fact, if the bounty managers were made a bit more responsible for the actions of their participants, the situation would be greatly improved.


Again, it's easier said than done. Negging someone on the basis of constant spammy behaviour should be fine. I am yet to see many examples of people being negged due to a counter viewpoint.

Paying for the maintenance of the forum can be done by making it decentralized too. It's not the first suggestion of it's kind.

The second sentence is slightly difficult to comprehend, but I think you are ignoring the fact that the rank and old posts and activity count ain't sufficient for a good CV and so the merits were introduced. Also, any good manager should check the quality of the posts, so it's not too much that I'm asking.




Possibly a glance at Lauda vs QS would help. It's more often than not, a clash of senseless and counter-arguments.

Very well said.

Being in a different parallel universe I was able to comprehend your thread.
It might seem that I'm not the only one experiencing the Mandella Effect.

too bad merit is a false memory in this parallel I can't give you some  :-[
and upon checking it was really used (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3103583.msg32076021#msg32076021).

QS has been making shady deals on the forum for a long time now. He makes baseless accusations against people he want to bring down. Lauda on the other hand has done more than any other moderator in the past few months to try and restore some semblance of sanity in the forum.

Its hardly "senseless arguments" when long-standing, impartial members like @Vod have left feedback to QS for scammy-behaviour as far back as 2015. 

I saw your post history. Let us not continue the argument further if you don't wish to contribute something useful to the original post and its intent. Surely you could contribute a lot more if you had the motivation to.

It is good that you are suggesting members to improve their writing skills and grammar. I see it in a different way. Most of us had different upbringings, we got different type of schooling , guidance and friends. Most of this was not under our control and our learning of everything (including English) was affected by this. I am fine with people being able to convey their message even if there are minor mistakes in the content. I consider myself as no expert either and it took me a lot of effort to reach current level. Everyone who has a positive attitude can improve their writing skills to some extent but drastic change is impossible.

That reality is as per your perception. Different members have their own criteria while giving merits. Some might be giving merits to the posts they just agree to . Some may have asked an urgent query and if some member helped them with the response in very less time, they might consider the activeness while awarding merit.

Most of the members here already have all the basic information about bitcoins. Those who have no idea, join as a newbie after finding this forum through search engines. Even if thyer find your ideas useful, they have no merit to give to you.

Most people became interested in Bitcoin not because they believe that it has a chance to become much more widely used in the future, but because they think that they still can become millionaires thanks to it. If you were them, you wouldn't bother with understanding something that would take them a lot of time to study.

I have to admit that merit system motivated me to read more "serious" sections and try to help others. Even though, merit system was introduced week before I was supposed to rank up to Full Member, I was not complaining at all. In fact, now I'm thankful to whoever came up with this idea (can't remember if it was Theymos). We can't prevent some things from happening e.g. selling merit, but it should be less common in the next months.

Lost you completely and ofc if you want to judge me by looking at my post history, you are free to. I did make a few points regarding the post and also suggested the important role, bounty managers will have in this; but like most people, apparently you want to stick to your points and not accept any counter views.


P.S.: I suggest you open a self-moderated thread in some other board, so that you can conveniently delete the posts which are not aligned to your thinking.



Wise words and very true of most of the people regarding any tech innovation or investment. This is not something confined to cryptos alone, every investment/ monetized innovation has this, even Apple had a CEO who was ex-Pepsi and barely knew anything about computers.

OP, I'm glad you brought up the East vs. West thing here.  The constant "sir, sir, sir, sir" thing is just plain fucking annoying.  Even more annoying (to me at least) is when members address other members as "dear"--and I don't mean greetings like "Dear sir".  They just call each other "dear".  

I'm of the opinion that people who can't write proper English should stick to their local boards, like they would normally do if they weren't getting paid to post here.  I don't think of Easterners any less because they post here--they just shouldn't be posting here.  There's too much of a language barrier, never mind the culture clash.

My first three negs are also a good reference point for this.
From useless users who are unhappy that they either can't get a good acceptance in the forum, are having a bad day or can't seem to sell their domain they wanted $300 for (where it really wasn't worth that value).


For a native English speaker (like me) it's very easy to see what people write - especially since I spend time around young children and have to try to interpret what they write. Bad spelling and grammar comes more of an issue with other languages, if you get your word order wrong in English, for a lot of sentences, it can be inferred what you are saying. For people in another native language, it's probably more difficult to try to translate as English is a fairly forgiving language in itself.

I would personally have no issue in people who don't speak native English therefore to post in both langauges while they are still trying to perfect their English skills and it can then be translated from the original verson or someone could offer constructive critiscism on some of their spellings (and I doubt a moderator would delete such a post if someone has at least attempted to write the English version above - I've written in two languages before and it's not been deleted by a moderator).


I have no idea what you're suggesting "dear".
Someone to include the word "dear" is a bit different from someone writing random gobbledygook that makes sense to nobody.

I, personally, find "dear sir" much more aggrovating than "dear".

I find this to be a little ethnocentric. I see that you're just trying to help others be able to post constructively, but this is at a disadvantage for those who grew up with a different native language. Ethnocentrism is where there is a belief that one ethic group or culture is superior to another. This is usually implied and done impassingly, as like every other racial comment. This treatment toward Eastern posters is an example of ethnocentrism.

I'm really glad you pointed out the "East vs. West" issue. This is usually dismissed because the users in this forum have their freedom of speech or to their own opinion. I won't deny it, there are in fact many shitposters coming from the East and (shamingly) from my own country. For someone who's born with a different native language other than english, it's going to be hard for them to construct sentences in the correct grammar. If they were to excel and post constructively, it's true that they may do better within their local boards which may lack sMerit sources. You see, this gives them minimal opportunity to contribute and participate in the forum if they were confined to their local boards.

Obviously, the "sir, dear" remark is a cultural barrier. This is being said by the Eastern because of their value of respect, and they do this out of habit because they got so used to it. A habit to one is offensive to another. So who should adjust here?

Perhaps this forum lacks a little cultural relativism. All cultures are worthy in their own right and are of equal value. Are the opinions of others no longer of value just because it is not properly constructed in English?

Quoting views of some members on the language issue



Those views should be encouraging for any new member who wants to contribute to the forum. I am sure most users on the forum feel the same way too. There aren't many grammar nazis here. People who post useful content, even if their language isn't perfect, have always been appreciated.

It has only become a problem after the spam and repetitive threads running into 100+ pages. As a thumb-rule, those 100+ pages of repetitive bitcoin discussions is something every new member should avoid.

Very well said. Good command of the English language would really go a long way in this forum nowadays. I think the racial overtones (or undertones) in this forum by long time and/or hero/legendary members are one of the barriers facing those who are not good in English. Most new members are in this for the money, and there's nothing wrong with that as long as forum rules and etiquette are followed. Begging for merits is kinda low for me. How you gain merits and increase your forum rank is fair game for everyone and I still believe, that in the bigger picture, most of the members here really give merits to those who deserve it.

Oh, is that a cultural thing? 75% of my inbox at any one time is full of people calling me "sir", but I'd assumed that these people were just taught to be ultra-polite when they were learning English (maybe due to a delay between the real world and instruction vis-à-vis shifting politeness standards over the last ~century).

The first few times people used unnecessary politeness like this on me, I found it amusing. I was thinking, "who do you think I am, the president? LOL." But I've now grown to associate it with clueless people...

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As jackg mentioned, English is a fluid and forgiving language. Even on a pretty global forum like this, I only rarely see English so bad that I can't understand it at all. As long as you actually have some ideas to express, you should be fine. You should keep in mind that poor English is more difficult to read, though, so if you know that your English is imperfect, it'd be courteous to keep your text to-the-point, and to do some extra checking to minimize errors as much as possible. (I do the same when writing imperfectly in my second languages.)

A good recent example which comes to mind is zentdex's Where the merit pours (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3093768.0). He made several English errors, but he was entirely understandable, and the post was overall a very good contribution.

The real problem is people posting nonsense just to post, with no real contribution to make or ideas to express. That's bad enough as-is, and poor English makes it even worse.

I think the use of things like "sir" is the result of poor translation tools, and the writer using a specific word in their local language that does not translate well without proper context, which translation tools usually cannot do.

The association of people using the word "sir" with those who do not know what they are talking about is the result of a number of things:

1 - There is an extreme gap in the standard of living in places like Indonesia and affluent neighborhoods in the US. This means that not only is the $0.55 or so a low level member can earn from making one post is a lot of money (in terms of his standard of living), but also the time spent not posting in either learning about Bitcoin, the subject topic, or in making an english post in proper english is worth a lot in terms of what could have been paid for if this time was spent posting.

2 - We have rule 27 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=703657.0) that says:
This with the fact that there are a disportionate number of english speakers (as their primary language, and their 1st language), who have an in-depth understanding of Bitcoin, and actively contribute to Bitcoin (there appear to be a small number of people who speak Chinese who actively contribute to the bitcoin-dev mailing list, however the problem does not appear to be cause by those in/from China), means it is more difficult for non-english speakers to learn about Bitcoin. If this rule was removed, some users who spend a lot of time helping others might be willing to spend time in some of the local section, using translation tools, to help people learn about Bitcoin.

3 - The Indonesia local section is the 2nd largest local sub behind the Russia local sub, as measured by total posts, yet it does not have any kind of "beginners" nor "technical discussion" section (many other local subs do have these kinds of sections). This means that Indonesians who want to learn about Bitcoin do not have a forum to do so in their local language. It would probably be a good idea to add some kind of beginners section in Indonesia.

Haha..This actually is such a ingrained thing that if a person in, say India, was to address his boss by his last/first name (as is the norm in western work environments), he'd be met with disbelief and it'd be taken as an offense.

Blame it on imperialism. The post-independence elites in most of the eastern societies made sure that the exclusivity established by British-era (Also fondly remembered as 'The Raj era' by Anglophiles.. :P) was continued to ensure a level of supremacy and control. The British themselves were inspired by the fabled pomp and grandeur of the Eastern Courts/ Durbars i guess.

The atmosphere at several MNCs out here has started to become much more liberating as addressing someone as "Sir" isn't encouraged anymore. The problem is that when dealing with any kind of public service or Govt. Machinery, you have to massage fragile egos by calling people with authority as "Sir".

You'd probably be surprised to know but there is hardly an equivalent to "Sir" in most native languages. There are of course salutations but they are mostly brotherly. Widespread use of honorifics like "Sir", "Saahab" etc. are completely imperial vestiges. "Sir", particularly, is not a shortcoming of translation tools.


That is why there is a lot scope for the locals to take the lead here and establish a truly healthy community. Its hard to believe there's no beginner's section at one of the largest community boards. I'd say again for the local members:


But this should be done as an initiative by the speakers themselves. Doing it as a translation service would probably defeat the purpose.

This has always really annoyed me because it just comes across as insincere and it usually comes with some sort of begging or pleading when they've done something wrong. Please sir hilarious unban me ten accounts sir. I won't do it again sir. Please sir.

http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/27/278e78b1abddd5afed7fab7b51e33231c13de24a452c14af0a46bbf0f2db8a5e.jpg


Well put. You don't need to call people Mr or Miss either. Just call people by their username.


This is when it goes too far and people start to show their true colours. Shitposting is annoying but it's unnecessary to start getting derogatory in racial terms.

Whenever I see a stat like that, it makes me wonder why someone doesn't just hire a ton of these people. You'd think that even totally-unskilled people could be made productive enough to support paying them $3/hr or whatever. I'm sure there are real government-related and cultural barriers or someone would've done it already, but it still seems like a shame.

The vast majority of great things in the world, including things in the Bitcoin ecosystem, were created by a community consisting of maybe 15% of the world's population. It'd be truly fantastic if the remaining 85% of the world was made generally capable of similar achievements. If this somehow happened overnight, it'd be the greatest-ever step forward for humanity. So I am very happy to see people from poorer countries on this forum and in the Bitcoin ecosystem generally, acting with ambition. IMO Bitcoin was created in part to help break down the artificial barriers which are keeping these people from prosperity. Though no amount of this sort of thinking excuses those who choose to post garbage posts, for whatever reason. I hope that we can eventually reach a balance on the forum which will satisfy the forum's primary mission of enabling real discussion while also continuing to create opportunities for many people.

If auto-translation was allowed, people would be posting auto-translated ads all the time. Though if any of the local sections want to try out allowing it, I'd be OK with it.

I completely agree to this. We should not give all value to English and grammar used by a member. If someone is weak in this aspect but is still trying to compensate with some extra effort in researching for the content , we should appreciate it. No doubt, having excellent writing skills will always give an advantage to a member on a forum like this where most of the members are educated and using a latest technology like bitcoin.

I was addressed as "sir" more times whilst I was in America, than I am in England.

As I pointed out in another thread. "sir" doesn't derive from English imperialism, but comes from the diminution of the word "sire" which was the form of address for a Baronet or Knight.

A lot of English words come from the days of the Normans. For example, most of the words referring to edible meat come from the French ( beef from boeuf ), because the Normans were the only ones who could afford to eat it. The words for animal husbandry such as "cow" come from the Anglo-Saxon language ( which is Germanic in origin).

Personally, I don't have a problem with people using "sir" on the forum. I think it is redundant, but it doesn't slow down or mess up a post in my opinion.

I'm happy to see that you think this way. Often these topics that start a discussion about how to improve the quality of posts in the forum, receive a large number of people whose only aim is to strengthen their biased and racist position on others.

The latest modifications, merit system and the creation of exclusive sections for serious discussions where signatures are not allowed, can contribute a lot to increase the quality of the discussions.

But it is important to note that the niche sections where technical discussions take place are not populated with messages from people seeking posts for signature campaigns.

And excessive use of these more formal treatment occurs when an argument between a person who is in a power position, a campaign manager or a forum staff member, and another person who seeks for help or a service.

Errmm... anyway, Indonesia Board have many post because Tons of Newbie come everyday and ruin everything. Keep posting without discussion, copy-paste from others. SPAMMER!
Maybe reason why no Beginner Board because many of them Lazy to Read, They dont have much time to read tutorial or rules, just go directly Find Bounty. Moderator and some Member work hard to make Indonesia Board have good name in Global.

This is true. On top of that, some of those "newbies" were just alt created to create a new thread for their alts account to post for their sign camp.
Mods have done a good thing for that, many useless threads were locked or trashed. A lot of them. Some members were also trying as best as they could to report spam.


So far, this is what has been done by some Indonesian member in the local board.


About the beginner section, it has been mentioned recently by cissrawk and we will discuss it sooner or later.
Right now we've already discussed some point that hopefully makes those spammers, alt farmer, cheater stop.

I can contribute with better analysis than zentdex, bit I can not have data. Your raw dataset is not enough, and I don't have skills to get more detailed data from the forum base on your rw'aw data. If you can publish more detailed data, I can help make my analysis. I have asked zentdex but he didn't share data which he used for his topic.
Thanks, Theymos.

Afaik, the data gets pulled from every users' profile page for that analysis.

DarkStar_ did something similar with his and grabbed data on people (and released the spreadsheet script he used for the main entry (just needs to be edited for the corresponding information)) - don't forget to merit his efforts if it helps you, not many would be able to do something that advanced on a spreadsheet.

Quoted below:

Step 6 (Most Important): Do all of the above with a sense of purpose and interest rather than just money as your sole motivator. For money, get a real job. We are still far from changing the banking and economic system.


Personally, I really like this line but Most important is not the most important! Sense of purpose is not actually right but it could be sense of sincerity.

Sense of sincerity of what we are doing is the most important at all. We can easily perform our purpose to post and comments according to what the campaign required.

Sense of sincerity is from inside to outside without any form of requirements but rather it is all about I put my thinking and heart toward my writings just to say that is how the way I do it.

Sincerity can push everyone to learn English to make sure that whatever they contributes in discussion can be understandable by the readers.

Sincerely yours: @art27

Yes this is a great thing merit phobia. Everybody has the fear to get merit points anyhow. Some of them are getting good merit points. But the majority always complains about. It is the wreckage of their dreams of getting rich by signature campaign . Haha they always criticize the merit system. Because they never want to learn things. Just want rapid quick rich way. But they will know their is no shortcut to the success.

I would not use the spreadsheet script for Mass data scraping - theymos' data dump is much better to use, albit more complicated. My spreadsheet thing was intended as a quick "hack" to scrape data before the dump existed, and for purposes such as campaigns.

As a newbie, I don't feel disparaged.  The merit system is a great concept.  I have spent time so far educating myself on BTC and the crypto community.  If I feel I have something of value to offer, then I comment.  This forum, just like everywhere else in the world, expects you to EARN your rank.  I didn't read anywhere in the rules that this was going to be easy!

good point, most of the newcomers aiming for the required character in their participated bounties, they post lot of words but the main point of the post is summarized only in a short sentence, honestly it also happen to me. this merit system is an eye opener to us in this forum to be more informative with our post so that others can benefit with our shared knowledge in this forum.

Very good suggestion, I think every non-native English speakers should read this. For anyone who has an active local community, like Indonesia, Philippines, and Russia, it's easier for them to contribute to their local forum as usually there is still not much high-quality content in the local forum, any member who makes one will surely be noticed and thus easier to get merit.


True. There are a huge number of people who come here because they heard they can make money here in Bitcointalk, even before they knew Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. Members who only care about making money and have no interest in learning Bitcoin/cryptocurrency will add nothing to a discussion.


Thanks for your input. For the bolded part: we put any Bitcoin-related topics under the main local forum, they are free to ask anything related to Bitcoin there. We also already have a specific discussion thread for some topics (Wallet, Exchangers, etc) listed here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2979183.msg30615582#msg30615582).

I checked the local forum for India and there are very less merited posts there. I do not think we have merit sources in that section and this data is not public as well. If a member sees that the posts in his local section are not getting rewarded, he will be discouraged from getting merits. If the admin can just make an announcement like they have at least 1 merit source in each local section, it can be good relief.

I agree to this. But I think these members can be tolerated as long as they are not doing any spam. But practices like bumping own threads, posting reviews for Fake ICOs or posting flase news related to crypto are things that should be dealt strongly.

Okay, I am a Jr.member here and I am in the Crypto field for 3 months. I am new to the field.
I should reply your post because I cannot agree with some words/content of your post.

I am from none English speaking country and my English is not very good as well. Also, I am a bounty hunter and I do more than 10 bounty campaigns. I own 5000 friends Facebook and Twitter accounts. If you check my posts you will find lots of bounty submissions. As a newbie, I had no good idea about the forum and community so my posts were not very good but I didn't spam around. Now I post more meaningful and constructive posts and always trying to do something good in the forum.

Being a bounty hunter is not a bad thing and being a bounty hunter doesn't imply the person is a spammer or useless or a shit poster. I am a bounty hunter, Computer engineering undergraduate in the best university of my country, Ethereum developer and a Web developer. I do bounties and trading because I need money.

Spammers are not limited to some specific set of countries; They can be anywhere.

About merits:

I do post constructive, meaningful and helpful posts(Check my posts if someone wants). But I am not getting merits. I try and it is very hard. Merit is a good idea but not fair as it should be. Why? Because for getting merits we need not only good posts but also a bit of luck. Increasing the number of merit sources may help. Let's be hopeful.  :)

Finally as a Jr.member, suffering from merit phobia can be perfectly justified in my point of view.



 

theymos has assigned at least one member in each local as a merit source but still, it's possible that the source is not so active causing not enough merit circulating in that particular section. Feel free to apply (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2818350.0) as a merit source yourself or encourage more established member in your local community to apply as a merit source, theymos has stated that he wants each sub-community to have (active) merit sources.

Well, in my opinion, Indonesia Local Board is good, mods work hard (i have seen they clean thread and cheaters) but the problem is in the member's hands. They always bring friends here just to make money (i dont know which one, real friends or alt-accounts) and dive right in to make it without learning anything fundamental about this forum and bitcoin and cryptocurrency, that is the main problem for Indonesian. Recently i found Indonesian using their language outside the local board, i suggested them to learn in the local board but i dont know if the suggestion is effective or not.

Adding more merit sources is the key for merit to be succesful for now, because if we have a lot of them, then maybe it can provide merit to all great post out there. Anyway, Does Indonesian Local Board need more merit sources? I would love to be one if i am competent enough.

Has he not also mentioned that the member should be somewhat established to apply for this ?  Isn't it risky to give this role to a new member ?

He has not mentioned any specific requirement for being considered as merit source but I think he will accept only Sr Member or above which is the correct thing also. If just one dishonest person succeeds in becoming a merit source here, he will completely ruin the merit system.

He did mention that someone must be an established member to be merit sources. Everybody can apply though but only one who fulfill the requirement (an established members and pointed 10 meritorious posts) can be merit sources, and of course it is all comes back to theymos decision.

If you see the merit stats, you will find a lot of other new members getting merits. If the merit system was a failure, all the new members should not be able to get any merits at all. This is not the case and many became members after the merit system. This means you are doing something wrong. I agree that sometimes one may not get merits even after making quality poss. You need to analyze the reasons and change your approach. Taking smart decisions like posting when most members are active and posting in sections often visited by senior members can be helpful.

Well I've given merit to brand new members for their first posts, but I do agree that there is an element of luck. Maybe if I had visited that board a day later, the post/thread would have been on page 3, and I wouldn't have seen it.

The answer really is to cut down on the spammers, the necro-bumpers, and the long tailed spam-fests. I think were are working on the spammers, but we don't seem to be doing much about the necro-bumpers.

Mods don't always catch the necrobumpers either. I found one of my old threads get bumped a few years down the line, reported their posts and nothing happened (there was also a thread I posted on about a yobit scam in (2015?) that was being posted on a few months ago also and was only 3 pages long). In their defence, that post was reasonable as they also claimed to be scammed by yobit, but they would have got more people to respond if they made a new thread or a moderator moved the posts to a new thread - yes they can do that, I went off topic on a technical support thread (because someone asked the question and it started off relevant to the topic) and Achow placed it on a brand new thread of its own. It's not done often that way but it would be quite nice to see it done a bit more. Maybe with this part of the thread now that is going a little off topic from the original OP. Though the luck thing is definitley true along with the experimenting of the merit system (a newbie who made a good post on the first few days of the merit system was probably quite likely to get merited from someone else's sMerit than they will be now as we all know a bit more about the system and don't need to test its functionality).

Check my posts. That's all i say

Thanks for your response Isuru. There are a lot of people who came in for the Alts and the bounties. You have yourself admitted that you do multiple campaigns  and support them on your FB/ Twitter accounts. Can we agree that no non-celebrity, non-spam account has 5000 friends/followers?? Correct me if I am wrong. There is a bit of an image issue when someone does this. You chose this despite the fact that you are "a CS undergrad in the Best Univ. of your country". Don't you think that you are privileged enough to understand the useful from the selfish?

After the merit requirement was introduced, a lot of people were jolted from this bot-like reporting. This started the response about how the "merit system is not good enough". A lot of seemingly capable people like yourself also find themselves on this crossroad. It may take sometime to correct this image issue. I am sure it'll happen if you really intend to.

I agree. Please read again. I never said all spammers are from these countries.


Most of your better posts are in Alt-sections and sadly, as of now, the merit sources there are limited to those passing it among themselves or for ANN posts. If you see closely, Alts has been the source for most of spam in the forum over the last few terrible months. This is one reason that most people who care enough about the forum don't look for good posts in the alt-sections.

What you should really ask yourself is that how are you helping the forum, bitcoin or the cryptocurrency ecosystem in general with the knowledge, you have yourself admitted, you have (Web Dev, Ethereum Dev)?
Right now, your post history shows the corrective actions you are taking. For real intent to show through, I am afraid you'll have to be a little more consistent. Don't worry. Its only been 3 months. I am sure you have made some money already. You have a bright future ahead with your credentials. Try to think about this not through the lens of money but the underlying values and work ethic of openness and sharing. I'd highly recommend going through this website (http://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/).

How is this luck, I think it is actually good and requires all member to remain active. Anyone making a constructive post in the beginning of the thread must be given preference for merits in my opinion just because he is more active than others. This is also a good tip for members looking after merits, they have more chances of getting merits in threads which have got less responses but you have to post useful and related content.

Thanks  for the feedback. Actually it is really helpful and meaningful.

As I can see in your profile, you have already got 3 merit points which is good considering the number of posts you have made. Do not give up on this. Go to the merit stats page and have a look at the recently merited posts and threads. You can then post similar posts and thus increase your chances of getting merits.  I am also a Jr Member currently but I think I will easily become a member by the time I reach the activity required for next rank. Thereafter, I will have to act really smart in order to rank up as I will need 90 points for next rank.

Well, that seems now the old members of bct forums will have a great advantage and new users will try to earn reputation really hard
and I'd say 100 merits for full member is to harsh imho..

Your posts are fairly average (just skimming recent ones) and it's also mainly posts in the alts boards, giveaway/bounty threads and off topic so the 100 merit target is quite high for you. I think generally all positions are quite high (other than the member rank, 10 is about right for that one) and would worry about reaching them myself if I wasn't legendary by the time the system came into effect.

It's true that Eastern people use the words Sir/ Dear Sir, Respected Sir because they want to respect the addressee.  In our countries if young addresses his elders without using respect paying words, he/she is treated as an uncivilized, uneducated person.  In response elders are expected to treat younger with love and respect.  But in West is opposite.  They take it otherwise.  This is the forum created and developed by the westerns.  The language is also western, i.e. English.  But the promoters / founders / developers wanted to spread it breaking national boundaries.  That is why we have been allowed access to this platform though no one works without self interests.
So if someone gets hurt / angry by my cultural respect habitual behavior  ; I must try to be intelligent enough not to pay so much respect and avoiding usage of such words while talking them.
Though ass kissers are not exceptions.

I am from eastern culture but spend a lot of my time in western culture and this is something always annoys me. I feel embarrassed hearing people calls me sir, dear, respected etc instead I feel comfortable with mate, dude, mr; Problem is in eastern culture when we learn English, the teachers teach us salutations like sir, dear are only way to show respect.

Other day I went to the doctor and I asked how should I call you. He said call me "Sir" from my reaction when he realised that it annoyed me then he said you can call me Dr. X (his name)

Point is: To me you are a Doc, you might be a teacher/professor and for them you might be "Sir" but for me you are just a Dr.


PS: The whole post is a brilliant work. Good job on putting everything in one place.  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3167880.msg32757802#msg32757802)

Maybe westerners need to look at the whole "Sir" thing with more tolerance. Yes, to us it sounds a bit silly, but how can they know that? If we know its a sign of politeness, then maybe we should appreaciate it, no?

I understand the whole fuss about merit, ive seen countless Jr. Members with activity over 100 and no merit, even though their posts were well structured and made sense. It makes us Newbies think that the "elites" just share merit between each other and have no interest in letting new members to join their ranks. After all, why whould they really?