Bitcoin Forum

So here is my theory.

Newbie comes onto the forum and starts snooping around because he heard about bounties.  He wants to make some cash and he wants some cash right now.  He starts trying to sign up and realizes he needs to be a jr member to participate.  Here comes your first influx of SPAM.  

We are now a jr member.  Things are looking good.  You sign up for your first signature campaign.  Earning time is right around the corner.  A few weeks in you realize the Hero members are getting massive stakes and by the end of the campaign they will get all the rewards.  You think to hell with this I'm gonna rank up.  Now the SPAM really starts flying.  

About a day or two into this the new user starts to realize something isn't correct.  Why am I not ranking up.  This is where he learns about the merit system.  The new user has a bad day as he realizes he has been locked out of this game.  The game has been centralized by the upper members.
 
The new user quits.  He says fuck this noise I'm out.  

A day later he realizes why he came here in the first place.  He needs damn money.  So the light bulb goes off.  Well if a hero member gets 8 stake and a jr member gets 1 there is only one thing left to do if I'm to make it as a bounty hunter.  Multiple accounts!

We probably have hundreds of people spamming the hell out of this board with multiple accounts and the merit system does nothing to stop the spam and it may actually cause more of it.  

Unintended consequences?

What do you guys think?

If don't have merit system, you should be a Full member now,but now you are just a Jr.member, which is a good proof that the Merit system is valid.
Check out your posting history. Many of the posts you posted in the early days are spams, and I believe there are millions of accounts like you in the Bounty section.
Very good, the Merit system has successfully blocked most members like you.

I personally strongly agree with the merit system
because it fosters posting posts that are better quality than useless spam :-\

This is nothing new and have been discussed several times.
This fact will not make merits go away, it would most likely make other changes to be made.
Several high ranking members have already discussed some ideas in META, whihc in my mind would be a HUGE plus for forum:

• Disable signatures for all Jr.Members who have no merit at all.
• Or disable them for good.

Not sure if it causes more spam but seems like a pretty poor idea, made it pretty much impossible to level up, certainly past member would be very hard as you need so much merit and I don't see much being given.

Remove the upper members and their authoritative bs and you will find this user becomes a lot better forum-citizen than the truth you have exposed.

First, your topic doesn't belong to this section, please move it to Meta Board (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=24.0) or it can be deleted by Mods.
Second:
- BTT is not a platform to rise funds (it shouldn't be), neither an easy way to earn some frics. It's forum where you can learn and improve your knowledge in the cryptocurrencies ecosystem.
- Newbies should understand that options for them are limited so in the way to understand their positions, they should carefully read the rules of the forum (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=703657.0) and the merit/rank systems (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2766177.0) as there is a full board dedicated for them (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=39.0) to well understand how does things function in this forum.
- Even having multiple accounts, will not generate a lot of profit compared to the hard work needed to control over them all, as it won't also help to generate merits in order to self-help ranking up.

Only stupids will loose time doing this..

---

The merit system is not fully integrated as it still needs a lot of adjustments. Follow the discussion here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2818350.0

I also checked his posts and it seems he is posting really well and there is a sense in his posts. I also think there is still a fault in this merit system but for me there is also a good side in it.

Are you sure you read all of his posting history?
Look at this page, all the proof of joining airdrops and bounties：https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1041404;sa=showPosts;start=120
Of course, I also admit that the quality of his post has gradually improved, so I think that as long as he insists on doing so, he can still improve the rank.

I agree with the merit system. Not only reduces spammers. But also making the quality of a new token means the price. For the spammers leave it alone, because they will be confused with their work system. Not that having a lot of accounts will get a lot of money. But this confuses itself. Having only one account but an account and continuing to work will make it more meaningful. Because the results will not betray the process. I have an account with a post of more than 800 and more than 200 activities but I still have Jr.Member. The beginning I was sad. But this is a new challenge to make useful posts for the crypto lover community

In theory, the merit system should encourage people to write better comments and create useful posts. It seems to me that the idea was not quite successful, but nevertheless it was able to make people think that they write.

1 - When you need to make 50x more posts with multiple junior account to earn the same money as you would with 1 Hero account - that should motivate any reasonable person to focus on quality, earn merits, rank up and make it easier for yourself. Unless you're intellectually incapable of quality posting.

2 - If someone's here only to maximise his profits, he would spam more if there was no Merit system, knowing that all his multiple accounts will rank-up eventually, disregard of post quality.

3 - Assuming there's a limited number of spots in signature campaigns for junior members, market soon will get saturated and most junior accounts would end up idle.

ps. I've noticed increased number of "smart post" - low rank members spamming with copy/paste of smart sounding content (usually from press articles/blogs) in attempt to get some merit points (unsuccessfully). You could say Merit system is responsible for this particular kind of spam, but it also suggests the system works.

ps2 - Move to "Meta"

It is possible and correct that the merit system was introduced, but there is one big problem. Due to the fact that many do not want their work to achieve merit, they just buy it. Therefore, the higher the members of this forum are not willing to share them, because why would they give away merit for free, if it can be sold.

Somebody started with spam, think of more spam for ranking up. Will continue spam even after ranking up.
  


After becoming Hero Member, he realized , how much money he will get if he has multiple hero member , so he started farming more accounts.


In turn it made sure that  spammer do not rank up and for some it become motivation to stop spamming and try to rank up.

Merit system have seriously decreased the account trading as now the account farmers cannot create the new accounts and just post one or two message in between the activity period and like this they are creating potential accounts to sell in good price. Now this is stopped as each account have to get a minimum merit to reach that account rank and this merit are given by the high rank users who have been in this community from long and they give merit to only good post and not the spammers.

You have a point but even if you are a hero member you can still think of making an alt account because greed will always prevail to humans, sad to say but this is true in my opinion.

I think the Merit system is good, but the amount of merit needed to rank up needs to be adjusted. Going from a junior to a member is manageable and certainly the right number, but anything after that is virtually impossible.

I can't say how effective the merit system works, but the whole idea is good. I believe that those who really want to achieve a high rank will be able to do it. In the end, there are topics where they give out merit how a certain task or something. So there are enough ways to get merit.

The merit systems did a wonderful job in sanitizing the forum of anyhow post.  We all know it's difficult to have a perfect system, I believe an improvement can be made to reduce multiple creation of accounts and to monitor the upgrade of exiting accounts


I did check out his post too  It's quite good

I generally don't give out merits to anyone who has a lot of bounty and airdrop reports in their history, but the OP seems to be making an effort to improve his post quality and people have been especially generous to me the last few days as I reached and crossed 100 merits so I'm spreading the love around.

However, if the OP goes back to his shameful, bounty-loving ways then you can bet I won't make the same mistake twice.

I think the merit system is up to the task. Those people who cant write anything useful do yourself a few accounts Junior members and participate in the bounty. Some try to collect merit and to upgrade your rank. It's everyone's business which way to choose.

What's wrong with a man having a lot of bounty reports in history? If he writes some useful post that you like, you still won't let him merit because there are a lot of bounty reports in his message history?

I feel this your opinion speaks selfishness. That you have the merits to attain the member position doesn't mean you have more quality threads or replies than other people who are still in the junior member rank. Allow everyone to benefit from what you are benefiting... don't block the road for others just because u have something they don't have.

This is certainly a plausible scenario, and I'm sure some people are doing exactly what OP described--but I'm more inclined to think that these spammers are more likely to find a high-ranked account for sale than to do all that extra work.  That's my feeling; I have no hard data to support it.  I would certainly recognize that the spam problem hasn't exactly abated since the merit system's inception, but I'm not sure it's really gotten worse.  Bitcointalk has been pretty bad quality-wise since I've been a member here, which has been about 3.5 years now.

But because the alt account spamming IS happening, that's why there needs to be a merit requirement for the Newbie-->Jr. Member transition.  That will introduce its own set of abuses, of course (like merit selling), but at least it would be a small barrier to prevent these idiots from getting into bounties so quickly.  This is not a new idea, and hilariousandco has been throwing it out there for at least a couple of months.  Ultimately Theymos has to make the call on whether to do it, and I don't think he's leaning towards it.

Personally, I think the merit system is good and shouldn't be scrapped out. Spamming can cause a whole lot to a good system and bounty managers should know how to engage the rules in signature campaign so as not to get users to spam.

I'm free to use my merits in any damn way I feel like... yougottaproblemwiththat?

most of them (spammers), if not all, will get nuked or banned before they get to Member rank
Jr Member maybe easily attainable because the lack of merit requirement,
but any manager wouldn't accept him in the signature campaign with near low quality posts (even if he manages not to get banned)

make sense... but bounty position is usually available in limited number
he would have to compete with other candidates to get selected

I think merit does help reduce spams and account farmers to certain degrees
and it's no doubt there are users with multiple accounts,
but they who ranked up their accounts surely have good quality posts

Now if this theory was accompanied by actual data to back it up then it could have some credibility.

This is what you are competing against: Bitcointalk – Posts per Day - evolution during past six months (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4730614.0)

The comments from moderators indicates that it is reducing the spam.

It has caused a lot of posts from users that don't have merit complaining about the merit system with all sorts of reasons why it should be abandoned.

New features take a long time to be introduced on the forum. Unless the merit system causes the wheels to fall off - you can be assured that it is here to stay.

I've personally seen a reduction in spam posts on the patrol page. Not just due to the merit system but due to the good efforts of some of the spambusters and moderators on here.

Merit is not an instant fix. It is a long-term solution that along with nuking new spam accounts, banning repeat spammers, banning ranked accounts that spam and identifying account farming operations will eventually make it not worthwhile to spam.

Incentives to improve post quality also ensures that there is worthwhile reading material on here to keep attracting the good members to return to the forum so there isn't a brain drain that leaves the forum to the bounty zombies.

https://i.imgur.com/h2pw3Km.jpg

I think there are just not enough people giving merit away. The merit system has matured and users are a lot more "stingy" than before. I think it's important to reward the small number of good users on the forum, so as to dilute the spammers and hopefully combat them. Meanwhile, a lot of the high ranking members now would not rank up so easily if they were in a position to start over. Keep in mind, I'm not talking about the quality of their posts, I'm talking about the amount given out. I do realise keeping track of all the posts and quality users is hard work and I thank the active merit contributors.

A nice analysis was given here by user DdmrDdmr: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5029372.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5029372.0)

Below is a graph from his thread showing merit awarded:

https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FPNLrJtZ.png&t=593&c=kOP-EHivCrYc7Q

Having said that, I do believe ranks shouldn't be easily obtained and that the merit system is a great idea, just that the implementation is not fully there yet. In the long run, I'll think we'll regard it as a positive addition to the board.

Eight months after the start day of merit system and new rank requirements, I have not seen reasonable reasons to keep complaining about these twos, which obviously impressively affected most of forum users.
Personally, the forum has changed positively due to huge impacts of merit system and new rank requirements.

New comers will keep joining the forum, which in turn equals to new spammers. Not all of them will be spammers, but I believe that new spammers will join the forum for sure.

The fact is spammers will be kept at lower ranks due to merit system and new rank requirements.
Let's take it easy, let's spammers do their works (non-sense ones).
Constructive users, and someone who would like to change to be a better member of the forum will change the way they posting and contributing to forum discussions.

I don't agree with you.I have seen more spam and quality less post in forum before introduction of Merit system.It definitely reduced spam posting.If you think from positive perspective then merit system encourage people to make quality post.And lastly people who spammed before are also spamming now with multiple accounts.Merit system is only here for reduction of these.

As one man once said - Ask and you shall receive

Enhanced newbie restrictions & requirements (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5030366.0)

Theymos: "Due to excessive garbage-posting, you now need 1 merit to be a Jr Member. All existing Jr Members who didn't meet the requirement were demoted. Also, newbies can no longer set any signature or personal text."

Also, there are 36 new merit sources.

People who give merit away look for what users are posting.


https://archive.fo/jxrFt

Sorry but someone who sells fake twitter followers ain't gonna put them on my merry merit list.

Merit system producing spam?  I think not.  There is spam everywhere and there will ever be.  People are so creative enough to produce spams without being caught just in order for them to fulfill their bounty requirements.

On another note, I have a theory that the merit system is not reducing the spam users significantly (meaning much less that what we expect).  I just believe that the spam are being transferred from one board to another.  How? just now look at the Meta Board and you will see that people from the other boards before are going here because this board has a higher chance to get merit than any other board.  Hence, this board attract more users, meaning attract more spam posts.

You're confusing purpose of merits with trust system. The former is related only to the post quality and member's ability of constructive posting and/or positive contribution to the forum - not as a judgement of his ethics.

If you think what he's doing is wrong - leave him a red trust rating.

No. I was just wondering why you had such a position on this. I agree that everyone uses merit as he wants.

Since you asked nicely this go-around, the people here with a lot of bounty reports in their post history tend to see the forum as a job - a place where they do their assigned tasks and get rewarded with currency - whereas those of us without bounty reports see the forum as a place to converse with like-minded weirdos individuals and, basically, have some fun. If the bounty report types have to write a certain number of posts per week then they will likely see those posts as work; conversely, I write as many posts as I feel like and do it for entertainment or education value.

It really is as simple as that.

Before the Merit system spam in the forum was already spinning out of control, and since the spammers were ranking up with all their alts at some point they would have totally fucked up the whole forum. It may be true that some new sort of spam may have been caused by the Merit system, but other sorts of spam has surely been limited. With the merit system, spammers - at least the new spammers - will be confined at the lowest ranks. Moreover, with the latest change - 1 merit requirement for being a Junior Memner - all those new spammers will never rise above the level of Newbie, which could demotivate them from continuing to spam since as a Newbie you cannot earn money with Bounty campaigns.

This scenario is the reality I don't have any proofs but I know it is happening with or without the merit system or the new rule. For couple of months I always visit Meta to read but I can't stop myself posting this because it is being flooded AGAIN with this "I am a jr.member and got demoted to newbie thing"(1st when merit system was implemented).

Because of this new formula/pesticide, farmers (theymos and other mods) can easily remove or way of removing the pests(shitposters and account farmers) so that the tree/plant(forum) will grow and all people will benefit from it and I think it will work sooner or later.

There's some sense in your theory but don't forget the administrators of the forum are working tirelessly to implement new rules and regulations to help better the forum by eliminating spam for good and so doing will return Bitcointalk to it's pass glory.
The merit system was introduced to reduce spam and from the stats so far it has. More additional rules will follow sooner.

Ok. You misuse the word farmer, you refer theymos and other mods as farmers.
I got your point but using the word farmer here is just for people who farmed accounts. Be careful. ;D

---

This will be good for long term situation here and it should start with all the campaign managers in their respective bounties. They should be actually cooperating like we've seen some managers that didn't accept lower than member rank and the result was good besides spammers can affect the image of their icos. Let's not put everything to Theymos.

i think with the new merit system, we can reduce spamer.

In the old systerm, many Jr. member joined in sig campain, and they start to spam something to get enough post to complete mission in a week, or some people try to creat so more account and they start spaming when the account go to Jr. member, but now it has reduced.

Now the people need to improve knowledge and thinking about crypto before they can publish a quality post and they can get merit. This is a forum where people discuss about bitcoin and Crypto, not spaming place.

Noted. But what I meant for that is that they're the ones who's in charge for the growth and improvement of community and forum. A gardener probably?  :)

At some point with this new rule also affected low ranks (jr.members) which are honest but on the other hand it will be easy for them to get a merit or rank up as long they have helpful and quality posts.

I suppose that's why Theymos took it a step further by removing Newbie signatures entirely and demoting Jr. Members who haven't received merit. Now all those farms of Newbies and Jr. Members have no incentive to post garbage. They have no signatures.

It at least forces the costs of spamming higher. Spammers either need to buy merit -- which is in lower supply now that the initial airdrop is long over, so it should be harder to get for shitposters -- or they need to buy a Copper membership for 0.002+ BTC.

Are the costs high enough yet? Maybe not, but I think we should wait and see. In my own observation, the forum's been getting more readable now that the merit system is established. I think that trend will continue under this policy.

You are right about the merit system causing more spam in the forum and that's exactly the reason why mods implemented the 1 merit requirement to participate in the bounty, So even if you have multi-account, you still need merit to upgrade to the Jr member, I think the mod did a great job on the implementation, and i am thinking if more members upgrade to jr member and the spam continues, I see mod increasing the merit requirement further up.

There are certain threads that still are a spam fest, but there's less of them in general than before. Many potential spammers and farmers got wrecked by trying to merit their own alts or buy merit and that definitely levelled the playfield even more than the merit system itself. There was (and still is) a lot of sold accounts that were eligible for signatures and they didn't have to worry about getting merit.
The situation would be much better if somebody were to deal with all those hacked accounts that are being traded.

I think need a ban for creating a new merit posts if we want to stop new spam posts. Can write on the exaple only in one merit thread.

I don't agree with you on the fact that the merit system is causing more spam.  All you need to know is that, this forum is like a society and every society is governed by a set principles and rules. The merit system is like rule to reduce some kind of unpleasant behaviors of members and also present some kind of restriction to the forum. The forum needed this new restriction. I  will advise that we accept this new system and avoid spamming.