Bitcoin Forum

I've made this suggestion in a couple of threads recently but I think it deserves its own thread for discussion. What I would suggest is that there are hidden (or inaccessible) sub boards like the Donator one that only become available to view (or post in) once you have received x amount of merit or made x amount of reports (which should be set pretty high). I think these would be nice nice perks for those that contribute a lot here and have either received a very large amount of merit or made a huge volume of reports. They could come along as rewards with the report/merit badges that theymos has thought about implementing recently. The board for merit would act as like a filter for quality discussion only and those who's contributions are clearly valued here. The board for reports could be used for discussion about the forum or collaborative efforts on potential abuses that need to be investigated but you may not want to post them publicly yet as to alert the people you're instigating (which would be far more efficient that just PM-ing users en masse).  It could also be used like a semi-staff board for those that help out a lot and would be good for recruiting potential staff. Both boards could be signature free and also possibly not contribute to post count to assure non-monetised discussion.

I know we already have the Serious Discussion board but there's still a lot of crap that gets posted in there by lower ranked members. Some people just see the title and think it's some sort of Politics and Society board or literally just a place for discussion on 'serious' topics,  and I think many are not even aware that posts or signature don't show up in there because people don't read stickies and a high merit requirement for access would act as a great filter. Thoughts?

For reporters, such a section would definitely not be superfluous. Set the "entry threshold" for example in 1500 good report.

It would be much more effective than creating similar topics (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4720640.0) that anyone can read.

great idea bud. really clean out the shite!

I don't like the voting options. Too much involved in your idea for a Yes/No, and the No doesn't necessarily imply merit ruins lives.  :)

Reporting-based board: If the information is useful to the ones that are being fought against, what stops them from ranking themselves up by reporting their own alts/posts to make it into these boards?

Merit-based board: I could agree with a board like this, although I feel like something under Serious/IT would be better to adjust as opposed to creating another board?

I sadly feel like people are sort of giving up on the main sections of this forum to opt for special sub-boards. It sounds like everyone is acknowledging the problem but doesn't want to address it on the main sections. Doesn't this essentially take the experts/quality posters and put them into a special sub board that the main stream of legitimate traffic to the forum may not ever see?  Seems great for members that have been here for a while, but bad for legitimate new people trying to get on board with Bitcoin, the forum, and seeking information.

If there is a way to make it inaccessible for the users but accessible for the search engine bots and crawlers, it would be a good. I'm unsure if this is possible.

The fact that it is inaccessible or hidden for the particular users means we can't read it and defeats the purpose of the forum which I believe for discussions and sharing. It all depend to Theymos though. Moderators board are always for moderators and staff, Nothing much in there but it need to be accessible only for them. I have been a moderator of a forum too.

Not really sure about the reporting-based boards, but merit-based boards sounds like a very good idea to me.
The boards should be visible to everyone, but only people with required merit count should be able to post new threads or participate in discussions. In that way, the genuine new members would have the chance to read and learn the things in there, or maybe get some motivation from the discussions of that board, and then try to earn their place in that board by becoming more and more constructive for the community.

I wouldn't consider this to be a "perk", as I personally don't gain from it.

This, on the other hand, would be a great asset! Bump bots for instance quickly evolve after being discussed and reported through a Meta thread. These discussions should be hidden from most users.

I think a board for Merit sources could be useful too.

It would be interesting to see what happens if these requirements are rolled out on existing boards. Say the forum requires x Merit earned before being allowed to post on the altcoin boards.

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As an alternative, I would really like to be able to set more restrictions as a topic starter (on all boards).

Well I think it simply boils down to: Do you agree with hidden boards as a reward for high merited users and those that make a lot of reports?


It would just be like an extension of Meta, but only accessible to those who meet the reported post requirements. This board isn't as important as the 'merit' one but I still think it would be helpful. It certainly wouldn't be impossible for nefarious users to gain access to it but it's not like things in there will be super top secret, but I think the likelihood of people doing so will be low. Doubt lower ranked members or the ones that are being investigated are going to go gung-ho reporting posts just to have a look in there in the off chance their accounts may be being discussed in there. Also, would be helpful for things like the following which ideally would require a bit of confidentiality so bots can't change their ways once spotted to evade detection:



By board I mean sub, but the sub can go in Serious Discussion, just as long as there's a high merit requirement. You only need to be a Junior Member to post in Serious Discussion which many bots are achieving these days as there's no merit requirement for Junior currently.


The board could be visible to everyone then, you're just not allowed to post in it until you've received the merit. If you want to post there then earn the merit over time which quality posters will have no issue in getting the at all. We really don't have to worry about other boards not being contributed to as long as there a signature campaigns here. There are still quality users who give great advice with signatures so I'm sure they'll still be happy to oblige in conversation.


Can you see the Staff or Donator forums here indexed on google?


The purpose of this forum has already been defeated. It was originally to discus about bitcoin but now it's populated with users who want to know whether bounty is better than airdrop or want relationship advice (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4564216.msg43407595#msg43407595) for their high school crushes and are only here in the first place to earn and cover their '"daily needs" (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3363270.msg35226256#msg35226256). The vast majority of people who sign up these days probably don't even have any knowledge or interest in bitcoin (nor can many of them even speak English) but they have just been told they can earn here, and my suggestion is about restoring that back to the original purpose and at least giving users who wish to have a decent discussion here without it being plagued with barely literate one liner spammers looking to rank up and earn in the process.


I've suggested this for the new forum software before ie you can limit participation in threads to ranks etc when you self-mod so only Juniors or Members or whatever you set it to can post there. Would be good for polls as well if you don't want legions of lower ranked members swaying the votes and want to limit it to Heroes and above or something.

I'd agree with a public sub board restricted to posting only from users with a certain level of merit. I'd agree with a hidden sub-board of meta for active reporters, although, I do still feel like there are reasons large account farmers would want to make it in that meta sub board and would just use bots to do it. Given how much spam they seem capable of generating, it doesn't seem like much effort to create a 2nd fleet of bots that report the same posts and they could rank up with reports pretty quickly, while creating additional overhead to mods.

In general, I like the ideas. So I'll vote Yes. And, I'll devote my last available sMerit (for now!).  ;D

Maybe just make the Donators board the, "Donators & Meritorious Users" board?  It's not like anyone posts in the Donators board so maybe this way it will get some use?

This is a great idea, just wonder how long it will take to be implemented if accepted /which we will never know as theymos keep silence on such things/.
It is better to have it hidden from the public with exclusive access only to people with combination of some minimum reports and merit.
It can have the same rules as the Ivory Tower, so no additional posts are and activity are generated, and same no signature spamming just in case.
There will be a perfect place for my club project as we post information on what we are working on and we and which keywords we are currently analyzing. So basically this type of information is quite sensitive for the bumping bots owners.

At the moment most of the information is exchanged by PMs but since this is a collaborative work it will be much easier for us to work together on a designated board.

I think a chatroom would be more effective than this. Plus, some donators might argue that they spent their money on something that could sort of be achieved  through other non monetary means. I think people would like getting read only access to the staff board than the Donator board, for I have heard that the donator board is way too silent.

Another proposal, instead of allowing only high merited users and reporters, why not make a new rank after Legendary, which requires high number of merit, a certain number of reports, a fixed activity (2000 for example). Trust could also be a requirement, but I don't want that to be a requirement.

This rank would have perks like getting access to hidden boards(read only or read/write both), ability to have custom Titles, bigger Personal Text,avatar, signature space and obviously different shiny coins, and a chatroom/ message groups(like a mini telegram/whatsapp but not requiring any phone numbers).

I have a few more ideas, I'll be pitching in that too.

When people say the board is dead, they mean it's dead.  There have been (if my math is correct) 5 posts in 2018 so far in the Donators board.  One post was a happy new year with one reply saying thank you.  Another post was yet another thank you.  That means there was 2 post's in 2018 worth reading, one of the threads/post, was a cross post from another section and I believe the last post was also a cross post (not 100% sure on the last one).  In reality, anyone without access to the Donator board has missed exactly 0 post from that board in 2018.

Don't think anyone is getting pissed about other high quality users accessing the board, because no one is there to get pissed LOL!  I mean if they want a boys club no one uses meh OK fine!

Voted yes, Merit Sources should be ensured entry too.

When I first became a merit source, I felt that I needed some guidance from senior members. I know I can be a bit dogmatic at times. I created a chat room using free blab software, and I am grateful to those members who helped me in that room. The room is still active, but there are only 3 or 4 of us who chat regularly there - all legendaries btw. I would welcome any other merit sources or DTs to join the chat.

I've got as closed mod board on fit to talk, but that is only for that site. What may be more interesting are the closed boards for members to sanitise posts before submitting them to Bitcoin Talk. We are aware that some governments monitor forum sites looking for political dissenters, and we would like to help members to avoid this unwanted attention.

The beginners board is now completely useless, and I am considering creating an index of decent threads to scan for meritable posts. I no longer have the time to hunt through 4 or 5 pages of off-topic threads looking for the odd gem.

I am installing Teamspeak on a VPS, and I hope that this can be used to discuss posts with foreign language students as they make the posts. Comments about this would be welcome.

1500 seems a bit low to me.  If you're looking for posts to report in sections like Bitcoin Discussion, for example, you could easily report 50 posts a day or more and get your overall reporting number up very fast. 

On the other hand, I don't think any shitposters would have anywhere near 1500 reports.  I would definitely support a private board for both high reporters and members with a lot of merits.  I don't know how popular those boards would be, but it's worth experimenting with.

I think threads like this (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4720640.0) would best be done in private so that spam busters have an element of surprise, not that spammers do a lot of reading anyway. 

Hilarious, I think you mentioned that the donators board is like a ghost town.  Somehow I suspect your proposed boards would become much the same thing--but I do think it's worth trying.

This is a good idea and I will support it.

However we should also consider the limitations and ways to combat it:

1) Suppose there is requirement to get 50 merits in 6 month period. This can be achieved with merit abuse. No added incentive may increase chances of abuse.

2) Keeping such a section active can be a issue. No one can question quality though as the cream of the forum will be there.

We need to look at the report stats. How many active users does 1500 good report have? How many have 3000 good report? How many have 5000 good report?

Calculate their number and based on it to determine the "entry threshold". Nothing too much but not too little private group members.

There have been 5 posts on the Donators board so far in 2018.  I made 3 of them...

I totally agree. Ones of the most interested members on the forum`s health are already creating some awesome projects to help others to understand how to become a good asset in here.  The Fit To Talk project is seeking to increment their users in order to make good quality posts in here, as well as the chat room, in where I participate and every day we discuss the forum and how to improve some people behave in here.
A hidden board only will be an allicient for those really concerned about the forum, something hard to see in these days, the Ivory Tower is a great example of how few are participating and I also have come to believe that even the discussions in there are not as succulent as they should.

So maybe this is a futile effort.
From my perspective, hidden boards can be interesting only if they have some kind of amazing content or a worthy discussion. If they are dead, as the donators one, well, the people is not going to feel attracted by them...

I kinda disagree. Imagine a thread like SpamBuster in a chat session. The things would get messy quite quickly. What I can agree on is your second idea, Along with a separate board for high merit users, introduce a chatbox for that specific section. This way it will become an effective tool to fight spam.


THIS!!! A new rank isn't required tho.

Then perhaps there should be an additional merit requirement for the reporter board. Something low like 20 merits so as to not inconvenience legitimate users but it would be a significant hurdle for bot farmers.

Another option (if SMF allows) would be to make it invite-only and manually approve participants.

Fair enough, but still think that the Donator board be how it is, because after reading ibminer's post, I think the board should be rather public than hidden,if its going to be used for normal discussions between the high merited posters.

Not many people would get access to the boards, so chatroom getting messy shouldn't be a problem. But I think group chat(like the ones used in telegram/whatsapp) are much better.

A new rank makes it much harder to achieve because of activity.

It would only be a link, so SMF shouldn't be a problem, but the board should be public(read only access to everyone other than the top merited posters) if there's gonna be one.

I voted yes, agree if we need private board for high merited user and i little bit nteresting with chatroom. It kinda looks like a features for high merited user.

But well, lets see how this vote going.

My vote is "No" (I do not believe Merit ruin lives but here are my reasons).

Forum already have so much spam and if we remove these good poster also and divert them to a hidden board,  then what will be left for us ?
These good post made us think and I believe they should be available to everybody.

I suggest to create a open board (same like Ivory Tower or Serious Discussion ) but only those user will be able to create and quote there who has earned more than 50 merits and at least got merited by 10+ user. (10+ user is also important as some  ANN topics got 50 merits by a single and I do not think  that ANN topic author should be eligible.)

This board will serve us with some good reading and spare everyone to weed out spam.

So, you're ok with the idea if the board is visible to everyone but only the eligible members can post?

I'm pretty sure the good posters won't stop posting outside the exclusive board just like they didn't even after the Serious Discussions Board. It's just that there are a few things that need to be discussed without all the generic shitposts that are created as an attempt to get a merit.

Would be nice and love the Idea ,  at the moment all users can read the threads about at what for we looking at for report and bots and spam shit!  So they can hide at other posts and spam there!

Sounds like maybe a sneaky reporting, yeah!

It probably won't. We probably won't ever know whether theymos thinks it a good idea or not either, but it's worth discussing and to see what the community thinks and hopeful one day he will start taking note of the suggestions we make to improve the forum in various ways.


Probably best just creating a new sub for it to be honest, but I guess it could be used.


There isn't going to be a mass exodus of users from here to there. It's just an additional board to post in, one where the highest merited users can post about things they wish to have a decent discussion about like what used to happen here. As I said, the board doesn't have to be hidden and maybe it will be best being publicly shown, you just can't post in it until you've hit the high merit quota. Maybe that would be best. The reporter board should probably remain hidden though for obvious reasons. You could just change the requirements of Ivory Tower I guess.


I don't, but anyone can create a chatroom. Chatrooms have their place but they're not that useful for decent discussion. The donator board is separate. They never donated to have exclusive access to the only hidden board. And nobody is getting access to the staff board other than staff, so if you want to view that board then get reporting.


There should be another rank. Legendary doesn't mean that much these days and is becoming much more common with every month that passes. I think the next rank should require a very large amount of merit in addition to activity so only quality contributors will achieve it. I've suggested in the past that Legendary is fixed to 960 activity and the newer rank is 1920 activity (or Legendary could remain the highest rank and there's a new rank to replace it).


It's a ghost town because there isn't many donators to start with and of those that are even fewer are still active. I imagine this place will be much more active and constructive.

There is a lot of talk about improving the forum, but withoutr the active participation of senior members nothing will happen. I've started a number of initiatives, and it is really hard work to get any traction or support. The things I have started at my expense of time and money are -

A private chat room for merit sources and DTs
A blog about my activities
A merit history of my posts ( thanks to Loyce for this )
An English tutorial forum
A learning accademy
I'm just setting up a voice chat facility to help members with their posting in real time

There are probably some others as well that I've forgotten. I'm getting close to the end with these ideas, as I feel that I'm just banging my head against a brick wall. Maybe I misunderstand the purpose of the forum, and I should just sell my signature and take the money like so many others.

Great idea. As you say there should be sign free and exclude post count too, I am strongly agree with it. If this idea is implement that there will be fair discussion without spam. Because board will be visible only by potential member's, not by spammer.

Merit-based boards is definitely a good idea. I think just restricting one sub board to a particular non-main board where general users don't go through would be good for merited users to have all the spam-free discussions regarding Bitcoin, technicality, altcoins, economics, off-topic; read only. For perks/rewarding, it's good, but still would lack the visibility main boards get.

But for overall forum, as the main sections are overflowing with misinformation/low quality posts, maybe also having merit-based sub boards for each main board (Bitcoin discussion, beginners, technical, altcoin discussion, politics/society, economics) would be good to engage quality contributors to post their opinion without it getting drowned in spam and keeping the information accurate for legit users.

A single merit-based board would have all the discussions (Bitcoin discussion, beginners, technical, altcoin discussion, politics/society, economics) at one place, bots crawl, but user visibility matters and having meritorious sub boards in main sections, I doubt it's going to encourage spammers to earn merit and be a part of it, but would still keep the discussions going, not in quantity, but quality for the one's who need it (until the main boards get a bit more free of spam).

Posting everything related to "report to moderator" on meta, definitely reporter-based board is the solution. Having all the reporters at one place without disclosing what the spammers want to know, but for not getting easy entry, the number of reports should be high where the pattern of spam reporting could be detected.

We already have merit based boards - they are called ANN boards.

I don't think it would become a mess if the entry threshold was kept quite high.
Reporters only board seems to be a good idea along with the merit receivers board. In addition, to the above boards how about having a chat platform integrated along with these additional boards as pugman has suggested? These chat platforms and boards can be used and seen only if the user reaches a certain threshold of minimum merit and minimum reports something around like 300-350 for merits and 1000+ for reports. The boards can be placed somewhere in the Others section and the access of chat platform can be kept nearer to the search button. There is only a minimum possibility of a user who has received 300-350 merits or one who has reported 1000+ reports spamming the chats. There can be atleast one dedicated mod for chats to take place fairly. I don't think it's necessary to place a separate mod for merits and report board as I assume that there would be only good discussions regarding the improvement of the quality in posts and the defending of the newbies and bump bots.

An accessible chat platform can be something like this...

https://i.imgur.com/H6tXPpF.jpg

Actually I used inspect element feature to check that how one could look in real time scenario. Moreover, Donate section is no longer useful, as none would donate 70000$ for the forum with the current btc prices. Hence removing the Donate button and page completely and replacing them with chats would be a good idea.

Inside the chat section may look something like this...

https://i.imgur.com/YS6JV8d.jpg

And in order to differentiate the ranks, we can use certain colors for each rank like
Admin - Red , Legendary - Blue and so on... These types of chat sections can bring unity among the like minded members of the forum and may be helpful in patrolling, reporting and quality posting.

Guess the staff board would be under the curtain forever then. Great!

 But yeah, chatroom in its general definition isn't the best thing for bitcointalk and its users.

A certain amount of reports can be an additional barrier too, real question is to get theymos to implement it. You can begin with annoying him everyday.  :P

Maybe all this will be implemented in the NEW FORUM SOFTWARE!

Ok, I'm going, no need to yell at me. Happy Friday!

Instead of cryptoanarchy, we received all the signs of a concentration camp. Overseers, informers, carrot and stick. Gulag. This is pizdec tovarischi...

Except you can walk out at any time and choose to spam elsewhere.

Stupid analogy is stupid.

You can't cure stupidity  !      :P

It's silly to give stupid advice, especially when they were not asked from you.

http://up.picr.de/33533718zn.jpg


LOL

It's not an advice. Consult a lawyer/doctor/palm reader if you need to. I don't care what you do as long as it's within forum rules. It's an explanation why your analogy is stupid. Not to mention that spoiled brats like yourself comparing their internet tantrums to gulag suffering is an insult to millions of people who actually endured those camps. This is a thread about discussion boards. Nobody is forcing you into doing anything you don't want to and you're not being sent to Siberia.


Not sure what your point is here so I'm inclined to agree with Lafu's interpretation above. Also stop multiposting. I have a feeling there are moderators watching this thread.

Vod, Dmdmdr, LoyceV. We can simply rely on those dudes to get these stats. And probably it will come sooner as we wanted.
I'll just support the REPORT BASED SECTION and I think I'll pass on that MERIT BASED SECTION  :P . Really don't know what I'm lacking,currently I'm stuck at 34  :P oh well, don't mind me :) I'm not that active as you guys here.


Don't expect something that isn't stupid(well, suchmoon's statement doesn't looks like a stupid to me, In fact, he do have a point from what he's saying.) In the first place your thinking is already outgone from nowhere and now you're here asking for sympathy to someone, to anybody that might help you understand what's going on. Give us a break will yah!

This would certainly make it a lot harder for bot-like increases to get into something like this, as they hopefully will not be getting any merit. Although, why not just go by rank, needs to be a Jr. Member + X number of reports (I don't really want to guess on a number because I'd prefer to see everyones current counts first :P).


This may be something temporary at this point in time, similar to donator, which I'm *assuming* may have had more activity in the past when it was created?  or no?  ???  
Regardless, it doesn't mean this type of reporters board wouldn't be more active now, and wouldn't cost someone 10BTC to get into :D. It seems like it would be a positive step towards cleaning the forum up, assuming it creates enough additional people reporting to close the gap on the bot/spam activity.

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Keep in mind, I'll probably never make it into any reporters board. I'm not what one would consider an "active reporter"... at least I don't think I am?... I report posts, but not as often as I probably should. I need to balance my time/life, and unfortunately reporting posts is not at the top of my priority list when reading through various threads. For me, (because I probably overanalyze everything) the thought process that goes along with reporting posts eats up too much of my time (and distracts me from the reason I'm reading the thread in the first place).

IMO, it is the mods/staff job... they are the paid experts. But, when you hear that others are essentially incentivizing bots to post crap, it doesn't seem like a fair fight. Probably not a fair fight even without the bots... but, if there are those with time willing to dig their heels in to help the mods/staff do their job, more power to them.

Nobody makes you read me. On the left there is an ignore button.

Thanks for that info - I used it.

Just another thing come in mind, that board are you suggested absolutely is a great idea. But in my opinion board should be visible & readable  for all member's. Just rule will be for poster. Because if you hide it than others member will not learn, there might be HQ discussion. There will be many thing for learn. So there will be restriction only for poster. No one will able to post without specific category that you mentioned thread. But visible for all. If implement this board other people also will motivate for make quality post & report bad post.

Nothing personal, it's just business... serious business...

https://youtu.be/niaMCTPDNeo  :)

Yeah, I actually think they should be public now, just not able to be posted in until they've achieved the merit requirement. I'll change the title from 'hidden' to something else.


He probably already finds me annoying and barely responds to anything I suggest or request anyway, and this would likely be a low priority for him. Simple things that will help the forum greatly just don't even get addressed, never mind implemented.


Nobody asked for your advice either, but this is a silly statement, especially on a discussion forum (you know, where people discuss things). Also comparing the suggestion of sub boards only accessibly to those who have earned merit to prison camps is beyond ignorant. You're the type of fool who calls mods nazis just because they removed their rule-breaking ref link or something similar. The forum has become unfit for purpose due to all those who come here just to farm accounts by the hundreds just to claim bounties. A place free of those types of people would be a good thing for those that want to actually have an intelligent discussion.

I feel sorry for this guy for being such a dumbass idiot. Just look on what he's doing,... trolling on this thread. I guess ignoring him isn't just the solution for this. Anyway, all of the words that you've said won't definitely reach him for the reason his too stupid to understand it.

Maybe change it into "Restricted Board" , I think it is a bit okay.

If the insults have gone into the course, then the characterization of the forum is correct. Gulag is, with all its attributes.