Bitcoin Forum

The off-topic section has been filled with tons of shitposts, no offense shitposters, and I'll think it twice to reply on such thread by the minding that I'll be notified with bullshit replies.

For example, if I want to start a discussion, or continue an already existent one like “Share Good Movies Please? (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5224912.0)”, 8 of 10 times I'll get a reply from a signature campaign participant who spits non-sense and gets paid for it or from account farmers (who want to spit non-sense and get paid).

Aren't admins observing the abuse?

If the posts are breaking the guidelines, then report them. It's probably the best solution to any problems that exist there. I doubt that signatures will be removed from the off topic section, since that effects those that use signatures for other reasons other than to advertise via signature campaigns.

A forum of this size is hard to moderate when there's not many reports being made. Especially, in the off topic section which is probably considered secondary by most, as I imagine most users are here to discuss things about Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies. So, the off topic section might not get as many eyes on it, including from staff.

It is very RARE that a signature campaign is paying hunters posting in the offtopic section, Not mine I can assure you of that. Those guys usually post in offtopic just to increase the post count.


Yup, that is why the Off section is created in the first place to Discuss anything. So let it be the same.

I remembered I reported some posts on off-topic which I was not expecting it to be deleted but got deleted, this changed my mind that off topic posts can be reported.

Almost all the campaign don't allow posting in off topic. Otherwise, the board would be flooded with thousand times more posts daily as off topic has no bound.

Bitvest & 777coin signature campaign allow posting in off topic board as well and on a thread, I can only see few guys responding with both these signatures.
 Check out the latest replies here- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5347871.0

Edit- I have gone through few other posts and all I can see is bitvest and 777coin signature wearing users are dominating the off topic board.

I think a misconception might be that off topic literally means anything goes, which isn't the case. Replies in threads which aren't on topic to that thread, are as off topic as anywhere else on the forum. Also, off topic seems to be a place which is considered to be quite low quality, and as a result many think that they can either get away with lower quality posts or are fine posting lower quality there. This has been particularly the case for farming accounts, as Hilariousandco addresses on the sticky: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5290314.0

There's no dedicated moderator there so only patrollers, and global moderators will be able to act on the reports, but if they break the guidelines they will certainly be removed in due time. I can only handle newbie accounts in that section, and while I haven't specifically been on the lookout for it, a report in the off topic section in terms of newbie accounts being reported is very rare.

Off topic creates a section where members can discuss general topics which may not be as complicated as some other boards on the forum, reason why it attracts account farmers and spammers as well. Anything does not go, but it's easier to post there without the need for careful thought.

The issue with hiding signatures or any other form of restrictions is how it affects mods and other members. Users can carefully avoid the off topic section if they are not interested in the topics, but if restrictions are placed, this spammers would move into other sections and this would have an adverse effect on the quality of discussions as those boards are more niche; It will also increase the workload on the staffs.

Indeed.  More likely would be posting here about the subject of off-topic spam using a long drawn out explanation of nonsense in order to up their character count and get paid for yet another spam post. 

I used to find myself mostly posting in the off-topic section as there was little discussion happening with any sort of relevance to building on Bitcoin.  It wasn't until I joined a spam campaign that I actually searched and found some relevant places for me to have real discussion and remain engaged here about other topics of interest.  For me, this was discussing sports I enjoy watching in the gambling section. 

That being said, I don't think anyone really cares if signatures got removed from the off topic section since they aren't being paid anyway as irfan_pak10 already was kind enough to inform us of.  The flip side being you can hide them if you want anyway...  In short, who cares either way?

Except for those that don't have signature ads in their signature. I know its getting rarer these days, but some users might care if they their signature is being blocked. There's a few users around that have personal projects inside their signature space, and while I don't know if they participate in the off topic section, there are definitely users here that use it for something other than advertising via a signature campaign.

What you suggested is called erasing the problem instead of solving it.
* If someone is writing low quality non-sense they should be reported and the campaign they are participating in should not be paying them for those posts. That has always been enough to discourage spam.
* In case the campaign is paying for shitposts then campaign manager must be punished and we can go as far as banning the campaign itself. This has also happened in the past with Yobit spam-fest where they were paying for shitposts and didn't care so the signature got banned.

Keep in mind that even if the off-topic section were closed entirely the spam won't end, it just migrates somewhere else.

Its clear that those that's making a shitpost in off- topic section, majority of them are not in any signature campaign right now,but been not in campaign should not grant us the right to make unnecessary post, because our conversation here speaks who we are and also help to build up our reputation, and anyone or user that continuously posting a shitpost that means their manager is not observing very well, and the only way they can been eradicated towards such method of posting is by reporting them as sir welsh said, because by the time a moderator will delete he or post several times and he received notification that his post has been deleted by moderator, i think it will take correction by force and avoid shitpost.

The signature isn't a forum necessity; you can still discuss whether you have a signature or not. Take for example the Serious Discussion board. There are no signatures and discussions are made very properly. No shitposts from signature campaign abusers.

The problem is those who do allow their participants. Posting in the off-topic section is the easiest thing to do. They're expressing their nonsensical content with tons of posts, as a result to make the section unsuitable for critical discussions.

The spam would end from one place. You can't cover the whole spam of bitcointalk, but try spamming in the Bitcoin Discussion and tell me what's easier thing to do. People read the off-topic posts really rarely in contrast with Bitcoin's. These folks have found their way to get paid by making the section completely meaningless.

Pretty much the same thing can be said about almost every other section, it's filled with signature spam. In every topic you get couple of genuine replies and rest is just filling up the signature quota and reiterating what's been said already.



If you want more serious conversations in off topic, maybe try to start self-moderated thread and sort the spam that way? Regarding the movie topic, afaik those that are active there regularly report to mods posts that are not following the rules set in the first post, and those get deleted.

That is why I say the fight against the spam has to be delegated to campaign managers, after all someone is paying them for their spam and there are only a dozen campaigns with a handful of managers while there are thousands of participants.

In almost every other section, there are users who participate in signature campaigns and they indeed write high-quality content. Objectively, the majority of the 777coin and Bitvest.io participants are shitposters. You can't really have a constructive discussion, they just post to fulfill their weekly requirements. In a subforum where they have dominated due to their campaign's allowance, I'll prefer not to discuss.

I proposed a solution. Another solution could be to forbid the managers from rewarding for off-topic posts.

That's probably something that needs to be taken up with the campaign manager. If they aren't specifically breaking any rules, then the campaign manager has to be made aware. Although, they should be aware of that fact anyway. The moderators can only moderate what first of they see, i.e reports, and even then we can only remove what we believe breaks the rules. So, if they aren't breaking the rules then its unlikely to change.

As a community, we have to set our own standards for campaign managers, and sort of hold them responsible. I don't mean get the pitch forks out, but we should be encouraging campaign managers to keep strict standards. I don't think this is an issue with displaying signatures in that section at all, I think its a campaign manager that needs to rein in a few of the participants or disallow posts in the off topic section on their campaign.

Admins and mod don't need to hear our voice everytime, if you don't feel comfortable communicating on the off-topic board why not ignore the board and save yourself the stress and headache? It's called off-topic for a reason, it's a play ground for shit posters and Activity builders, I wonder what a caliber of a user like you found interesting on the off-topic board. When you play around with kids you become one. The signature is not going away just find alternative.
https://i.imgur.com/v9TsYv9.png

Most Signature campaigns don't pay for the posts made in the off-topic section. I still think that there is some sensible discussion in off-topic particularly in    Politics & Society section. If you visit Bitcoin Discussion and Altcoin Discussion sections, you will find much more spam as compare to the off-topic section.

Generally, the campaign manager has to be aware of those who hire (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5344504.msg57258704#msg57258704).

That's not the point... I want to discuss in the off-topic section and these meaningless posts prevent me from having a constructive discussion. I obviously know how to use the ignore button.

That's the problem.

I personally doubt.

Can you name some signature campaigns that are allowing writing in off-topic section (maybe it is Bitvest and 777Coin)?
As far as I know many of them are not allowing that, some are also not allowing Local boards, Games and Rounds, Altcoin boards, and others have special requirements of writing in Gambling threads.
Signatures could be disabled in off-topic but that would not solve anything and it would just spill out spam everywhere else, like we don't have enough of that already.

How is this the problem? If more signature campaigns paid for off topic posts you would be complaining again because there would be more people posting in there. Off topic is probably the easiest place to go unnoticed for spammers and if they are getting paid to post in there then they are more likely to post in there increasing the amounts of spam.

I do not think removing signatures in that board is the solution but I think putting it into the forums rules that signature campaigns cannot pay for certain boards could be a possibility.

Checking the signature campaign topic shows that only 777coin and Bitvest allow for posts to be paid in the off topic board. I think there will probably be bounties and many of them which pay for posting in off topic though.

And have all that spam spill over to the normal parts of the forum? No thanks! As far as I know, most bitcoin campaigns don't pay for posts in Off-Topic. Those that do, probably don't care about the quality of the posts anyways. The nonsense should be battled by creating self-moderated threads, local rules, and reporting anyone breaking the rules.

@dkbit98
You are forgetting about altcoin signature campaigns. I am sure there are those who allow it. I really don't want to go and check though :)

I mention Altcoins board in my previous post, and some campaigns allow it, some don't allow it like Chipmixer for example.

The altcoin signature campaigns and bounties will literally pay for anything the majority over there pay for posts in off topic. If there is a problem its probably from the ones over there instead of the Bitcoin paying ones. I think there probably needs to be something done about the signature campaigns over in the altcoin board and start punishing those behind the campaigns including the managers.

What should have solved this is to report the low quality posts, but most good posters do not post in off-topic which makes the reporting option not effective enough, most quality post are in Bitcoin boards. If you check the altcoins boards, try to read long threads, you will also still see many low quality posts while some are reported for deletion.

Signature was allowed on off-topic board by the admin, I do not also know why but admin or moderators can give us answer to this which can be a good reason. Some campaign managers can see the board useful, especially those with participants that require high number of weekly posts and some bounty campaigns. After posting in almost all boards, they can consider participants to also still post in off-topic board (but not low quality posts).

This can be a repetition as I have once commented, there is no barrier to report posts in off-topic, report the posts. You can even also report some poor posters to the campaign managers. But if to hide the signature space on off-topic board, this may not be considered. Also do not see off-topic as as a board with quality contents like Bitcoin boards.

Imagine a spammer who no longer gets paid to spam in a certain board, they won't just stop spamming. Instead they simply migrate to another place and spam there since they are still "paid to spam".

I just went back and read your earlier post to see if I misunderstood it, but I don't think I did. I was trying to say that altcoin and bounty signature campaigns probably count posts in the off-topic board. Your reply is about how signature campaigns don't count posts in the altcoin boards, but you weren't talking about altcoin and bounty signature campaigns. It was only about bitcoin paid campaigns from the way it looks. 

No I wouldn't. It's not the total of the participants who use that subforum to earn money; it's the quality of those participants' posts.

Should we, then, create a subforum called “Spamming” where they could constantly spam their shitty content? Don't you see that this is a makeshift? We aren't tackling the problem from its root which is the way managers hire their participants and have then no responsibility.

Imho, if the signature is hidden in off-topic, and the campaign managers amend their rules that posts in off-topic will not be counted anymore. Do you think the same posters will not move to other boards? They would. Why not just leave them as off-topic posters. If good posters move on to post on off-topic board, there will be changes because many of the poor posts will be reported and many will certainly be deleted. It can also go other way around that good posters should visit off-topic board often.

It was said theymos had to deploy a way to reduce shit poster posts on this forum, and merit system was introduced. The approach was not about removing the signature from all/many boards on the forum. No post is also immune to report.

There are no rules when it comes to how a campaign is supposed to be handled and which participants it can or can not accept. There are only the rules that the manager of the campaign follows and if he wants he can decide to accept only negatively tagged users. You can also not prohibit someone from becoming a campaign manager or being a bad one. It comes down to the users themselves. They are the only ones that can make the choice to be in a spam/scam campaign or not. We saw it with Yobit, we see it now with 1xbit.

Even if the community would start to negatively tag campaign managers who pay for spamming, I don't think that would prevent spammers from joining campaigns managed by that person.   

If you create two subforums called "Spamming and quality posts only" you would be surprised to see a lot of shit posters in the quality post only subforum, the fact is that even shit posters are not comfortable where their fellow shit posters are, they want to be where quality posters are. The bad news is that there is no perfect forum anywhere we can not change the philosophy of people and how they post our only Responsibility is to REPORT!

The managers are not the root of the problem, before the first sig campaign was launched in 2011 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=15886.0) there were shit posters everywhere, the forum was rebranded to reduce shit posts in 2018  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2818350.0) when the merit system was introduced. Managers only hire good posters and who they turn out to be after being accepted is not the manager's responsibility, in this situation, most of them get kicked out after 1 week without payment  There is no root to shit posting. imho

Sure, that's why they frequent on the Off-Topic board. Because, there are lots of quality posters there...

What would you say that is the cause behind most of the forum spamming? I'd guess signature campaigns & bounties. There's even a marketplace of people who farmed accounts by spamming and who they, then, sell them to other people who'll also spam to earn from signature campaigns & bounties. If the managers stopped accepting shitposters, that procedure would be useless.

Where there's money, there's immorality.

Hmm, I have been to the off-topic section several times and I can't point at least any quality post for conversation. Are topics like " how to wear clothes, how to find a woman, how you met your ex-girlfriend, what colour of your shoe is good for an outing" are these the quality topics you are referring to? That part of the forum is like Facebook where you seek everyone opinion on something less important just for the sake of conversation.

I would say human psychology, not bounties, not signature campaign, not manager.

Anambra State

Most signature campaigns I've known of (and joined) do not count posts from the Off-Topic section.

But still, that place is pretty much a spamfest so those bots/ posters could still shill their stuffs there with less surveillance than the rest of the board.

Don't mind if that gets disabled.

For one thing, bitcointalk is the absolute wrong forum to be asking about good movies, and exactly for the reason you've pointed out--and second, shitposters have been infesting crap threads like that since before I registered here over six years ago.  It's not likely to change.

I thought most campaigns/bounties didn't pay for posts in Off-Topic or P&S anyway.  But even if that were true for all of them (which it probably isn't), I'd say that a lot of members who just drop one-word posts in threads that have a question like "what's your favorite X?" in the title are trying to gain activity rather than get paid from whatever campaign they're participating in.  That would be especially true for those members of Newbie rank, who gain activity daily regardless of how long their posts are.  They probably figure it's easiest to do in the Off-Topic section where shitposts are the norm rather than the exception.

That's what I thought, though I'm not sure about altcoin/token-paying bounties.  It's been a long time since I've looked at the requirements to get paid for posting on the forum in a bounty.  They might not have standards as high as a bitcoin-paying sig campaign.

I am trying to get the truth about the bounty campaign rule that have a signature campaign program. Of the 10 bounties I checked on the first page of the bounty board, all manager seem to have a rule not to count off-topic post. These are the rule written in the OP that I could find when I checked. Reputable managers like Hhampuz, Royse777, yahoo62278, Murat and a few others seem to adhere to this rule but I'm not sure about other managers even though there are rule written in the OP of every bounty.

OP, by far the best solution is to report off-topic post to a moderator as some users have mentioned. I agree with that and I've been practicing some off-topic post prevention on some thread I've created by enabling the self-moderation feature. But I know, maybe it won't be done by all topic starter for never the same reason.

Personally, I'm not against your proposal, but I doubt that it would significantly improve quality of off-topic section.
I went through list of campaigns and found that only Bitvest, 777coin and 1xbit pay for posts in this board. But as I see, main problem comes from Bitvest & 777coin participants who spam there. Though, maybe there is some altcoin bounties paying for posts there, but I haven't checked it.
But if signatures would be removed there, would it make any difference? What's the difference between Bitvest & 777coin spamming in off-topic and participant who spam in remaining board? Because if signature will be removed from off-topic, they simply will continue spamming in all remaining board.

Easier to moderate with one less board IMHO. Even if the spams get rerouted to other subforums, more members are active to report them, just like plagiarism.