Bitcoin Forum

"Junior member", "1 merit", "demoted", etc, will be hot keyword for searching today.
I was a newbie (junior member with 0 merits) not long ago, and feel that to achieve my first merit is not easy before.
Some members wonder why the system change so sudden in today. For more information, you can visit here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5030366.0
The idea of getting 1 merit for being a junior member has contributed a few months ago and now it is approved:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3775593.0

But the thing is, In today when visiting https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=recent I saw many cases which abuse the merit system.
Such as:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4776598.msg45810421#msg45810421
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4414245.msg39302532#msg39302532
(send from an untrusted account)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4323682.msg39372029#msg39372029
(same case above)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2552297.msg31019787#msg31019787
(archival thread, really?)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3365339.msg35500008#msg35500008
(very short post, something wrong?)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=23705.msg304619#msg304619
(Exact 5 points to rank-up to member, suspicious???)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2226669.msg23858289#msg23858289
(same case above)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=45750.msg545628#msg545628
(active recently)

I can find a hundred cases like this. Buying/selling merit seems to be off-forum activities that difficult to handle.

The aim of this campaign is to motivate new member to contribute their thoughts and quality topics/posts. But, I think this is not really effective. The question is "Is this solution enough to limit garbage-posting?"

The solution is simple:  ban all paid signature campaigns. 

This would remove all economic incentives to farm accounts by posting crap to the forum.

Maybe you're right, the signature campaign is messing with things.
bitcointalk and merit accounts are for sale as one item. I see more negative. It seems that the price of one merit has increased since the new rule was applied. Maybe at some time the merit price will be equal to the price of ETH or BTC, hahaha

Before there was paid signature campaigns there was economic incentive to farm accounts. I don't see how you can honestly believe this statement. The opportunity to scam with a Legendary account is economic incentive that will remain with or without paid signature campaigns.

Granted, it would certainly remove a large amount of the economic incentive, but no where near all of it.

The amount of accounts that have earned 1-2 merit is very insignificant when compared against the amount of accounts being registered. The 1-2 merits are already operating as a "check" to some degree. I think it would do equally as much damage to the economic incentive of spammers to remove the ability of Junior Members to have a signature.

The solution is simple:  ban all paid signature campaigns. 

This would remove almost all economic incentives to farm accounts by posting crap to the forum.

Yes, now we see this update by theymos has one more advantage we could easily tag some merit abuse and more and more people would attempt to do so and give merits to there alts or sell them and getting that on shitty posts is surely a sign of merit abuse. Just keep reporting OP this helps the forum to upgrade. Great job.

It's a tough situation.  On one hand, it is great that this community has decentralized sources providing revenue to it's users.  On the other hand, those decentralized sources are being highly manipulated by established members and their armies of alts to spam the forum and collect all available revenue.

I honestly don't see any remedy for the situation outside of centralizing signature campaigns and having the forum be responsible for their displays and payouts.  While I'm sure this would be profitable for the forum, I don't think it aligns with the theme here.  It would also put signature managers out of business, who are in my opinion the ones to blame for the spam problems here.  That would surely have an effect on forum views and perhaps even a longterm negative effect on profits.

A huge problem with the campaigns is that the campaign managers being chosen for many of these spamfest campaigns are unaccountable and have low-standards. There needs to be some kind of standard when it comes to campaign management, and that would fix a large portion of it. This is seldom found within the campaigns run by extremely reputable campaign managers, and once it has been sniffed out it is eradicated quickly. Some kind of accountability for campaign managers, standards for being a campaign participant or something along these lines would be very beneficial to the situation.

Centralizing signature campaigns entirely sounds pretty rough, but maybe some kind of regulation on either the participants, managers or campaigns themselves would do equally well.

I think you really made a point, bounty managers should play a big role in making sure that the quality post are maintained in the community, I remember when I join one bounty, the bounty manager was very strict with the quality of the post, most people left the bounty because of the strictness other improved on their post, I think if other managers follow the same pattern, this forum will be free from spam and shitpost. 

Yeah, today I also noticed so many users who got 1 Merit soon after new restrictions were imposed. It's not surprising.
It's just 1 Merit - it's almost impossible to prove Merit abuse in such cases. They will just get their Jr. Member rank back and nobody will notice it.
I'm happy about these new rank requirements, but it's also great news for Merit sellers.

If you remove signature campaigns then a lot of people would not post here and it opens the doors to people moving to alternative forums. The last thing you want is a dead half empty forum, but i think 1 merit is achievable so it is the right decision by the admins.

Yes, all the people who are here to just post crap will leave - and good riddance.  That is exactly the point.  This forum was fine before the spam nightmare and crap posts and it would be just fine without them.  The forum would become again what it once was - a great place to discuss and learn about Bitcoin.  Maybe all the shitcoins would leave and make their own forum also?  Wouldn't that be nice.

The spam problem can seem insurmountable but it is not. As you suggest, this would be a non-issue in a centralized system. This is something we should not hurry into. There is already glimmers of hope as over time, the forum is evolving its own defense mechanisms; its immune system, aided by a few vaccination doses from Theymos and admins. People like us who care and those who fight actively like the pharmacist, hilarious etc are like the White blood cells of this organism..:)

An example of this evolution is the easy to spot newbie/jr.member with "one-line" generic shitposts and the "nested reports". Like the common cold and flu, these are easy to spot symptoms. I have been trying to find people to merit. While doing that, I couldn't bring myself to merit post histories filled with these reports or these one-liners. Most people giving out merit may feel this way and such users will never get merit. The participants will in turn, avoid campaigns that need such nested reports. As people would be unwilling to join such campaigns, either the practice will stop or the pathogens will evolve. Like everything else in life, It is going to be a constant fight to keep the forum in good shape.

I think the thing that makes the forums even more evolved is that the members feel free to work on forums, the purpose of the signature campaign I think is simply a bonus for the members. and now people are abusing it as a way of making money.
Of course BTT is based on the first bitcoin forum and was created by Satoshi, as well as BTC and altcoin now. People will have to adapt to it.