Bitcoin Forum

I have noticed an usual trends lately in the discussions board most especially Bitcoin discussion, gambling discussion etc, members rush to make a short comment just to reserve the first spot on the page, and after a while coming to edit it with the full text, this make no sense to me, and no signature campaign demands that you must be first to comment at least none that I know.

The effects of this is that, it limits readers from seeing your original thoughts on the topic because at first glance you see something like straight forward answer like (really), and when edited to contain the full text the reader may not come back to that thread again.

This happens mostly with those in signature campaign and I think there is need for readjustment, no need reserving comments space to appear on the first page.
 

If there is any thread on this issue already please let me know to lock this one.

To me, it's not really all about the readers coming back to the thread to see if it was edited or not; it makes it look like the person is fast enough to edit the post without the edited warning showing.
 
The person who might have commented after it might add some relevant information like links that are necessary for the topic, and if the second person also has the same link and content, it might now appear as if the person who commented second copied or repeated the answer of the first member who dropped the comment when it was the other way around, confusing the reader of who honestly dropped a solid explanation to something.


For the record, editing a post and rushing to be in the first comment are not only with those in the signature campaign; they are characters of those who believe the first comment always attracts merit; they might not even be in the signature yet or have enough rank to be in one.

you should provide some examples of the posts you have seen.

anyway, If I remember correctly there was a forum member who got called out for this kind of behavior, from what I remember the user would post very short sentences on a newly created thread to "reserve" the first comment slot and then would edit them later to add the rest of the post.

edit: I found the thread where the user got called out "@Cantsay - possible abuse of merits + alt accounts (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5471896.0)", I Know the title of the thread is about a possible merit abuse but if you read the whole thread you'll see what I am talking about.

This thread could also be used as an example:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5497451.msg64112839#msg64112839

The first guy who dropped a comment later came back to edit and add a link which @BitMaxz have already provided on the second comment, which could have made his own comment look like duplicate but @BitMaxz added a side note to tell notify and clarify exactly what happened.

This has happened to me several times.
Someone makes the first reply with a short answer and then I make the second reply to give a more detailed answer to OP. Once I submit my post, I see the first reply has been edited and now it's like that I have repeated the same thing. Sometimes, I decide to delete my post, because it doesn't really add anything to the thread.

I knew this was going to happen when I say the title of the thread. At first I thought it was okay to do (because I saw others doing it too) but after those replies and the advice I got from @_acts_ and some other members I realized that it was a stupid practice. Since then I have stopped doing it and if I’m not done with whatever I want to post I won’t click on “post” no matter what.

I noticed it too, and i think its not about reserving to appear on first page but to catch up the time of the day for the user to manage the time gap of their posting activity since posting with several minutes gap can be considered as spamming/bursting.
Usually you can see it on those signature campaign with no maximum post requirements.

Well said I wanted to generalized the statement to includes all forum members, but from my part I only noticed that from signature wearers and none from a newbies, although this doesn't exclude them from this also newbies and other none signature wearers can do so too.

This have limited alot of other forum members from contributing their sincere thoughts to such discussions, because it's a pain in the ass to see your comment being a repetition of another members who posted ahead of you.

This has nothing to do with signature campaign, rather it is a habit practiced by many people and it is not really that cool. There was a time I quoted someone's post, later the person came back and edited the post only for my comment to turn off point.  Assuming that when a post is quoted, when it is edited, it should reflect on the part that have been quoted, that would have been fine.

As long as there is an edit button, I don't think there is anything the admin can do about this, it is a habit that we will only advice people to avoid.

It is called stealing other people's ideas it makes your post redundant because the guy edited the post and stole your idea, admin if they want to do so can add a feature where you need to wait a specific time before you can edit your post I think a 15 minutes waiting time is good to avoid this practice.
Or they can add a feature where people can see a notification that the post has been edited.

I don't want to lay finger on anyone but I have come across about 3 members who usually exhibit this kind of writing attitude. They make the second comment looks like it was copied from theirs while they were the ones that did not really give a complete information on their first (short) comment which they will later edit.

This is very annoying and such attitude clearly shows that those users are only phishing for merit. Some users also have the habit of putting "Reserve" In a topic they are not the OP and the reason for such reserve is so they can be on the first role comment. It's a bad attitude and should be stopped.

I don't agree with this. It should be possible to edit the post from the first second after the post is made. I have edited many of my posts in a short time after submitting them for good reasons. Some times, I need to edit my posts to fix typos.


The last edit time is displayed, unless the post has been edited in the first 10 minutes.

Not only that, it also lays an impression that the person is not confident of himself to deliver what can be reckoned as quality and sensible. And instead of allowing those that can start up the comments with something proper while they go on thinking on what to contribute they just chose to reserve with a word or two.

People that are with such habit are only creating a mode of self inferiority to themselves cause there's nothing special being in the first page of thread.

Newbies are also watching and they might follow suit thinking they have learnt something smart and good not knowing it's a bad thread responding pattern.

If possible, OP please report those who are doing such a thing. We will be able to see from archive sites like loyce.club or Ninjastic.space (at least they can beat these sites) if the people who hastily edited the posts did it in good faith or just for their signature spam.

Some forums are already doing this and some forums are asking about the reasons why you edit your post this practice is already rampant on other forums so members will use the preview feature to see what their post will look like before they hit the post button anyway it's just a suggestion, but this cheating practice will continue until the one who keeps doing this gets a warning.

Your comment is the first comment, and see how many merits you have earned from it?
 The first reply to the topic is usually the reply that all readers get to see first that is why there is a higher chance of it earning some merits. This has motivated some people to set notifications to get notified as soon as a new topic is started in a board they are interested in so they can be the first or among the first to make a comment. I do not think it is bad, but it is the method of posting half and incomplete replies just to reserve space that is bad, and has to stop.

Usually, I try to immediately send reports to the moderator about the low value of the post if I see such “reserved” posts. It would be good if the moderators also deleted the posts of such cunning people, seeing that some time has passed and the post has been edited. This will be a good lesson. In the same way, there are “craftsmen” who quote the posts of other users, leaving the appearance of an incorrect quote, and soon return to writing their posts. Previously, some accounts were tagged. I would also like to pay attention to this behavior and delete posts that also have a time difference in posting.

While early posts don't always attract merit, It is true though that earlier posts (given that they are of decent quality) have higher chances of getting merit so that tactic makes sense, from a merit farmer point of view of course.



For whatever reason I can only see edit time when browing on my mobile phone and not while on PC.

Me too. I always see the edited part visible when browsing on mobile, but for PC, there is always a little dot... close to the time that the post was posted, and if you move your cursor and place it on the dot, you will see the time that it was last edited. That's for posts that were edited not earlier than 10 minutes after they were posted.

Ah yes, I totally forgot that you can see edited time like that that lol. Thanks!

I noticed this on beginners & help board before but it has stopped. I am active on gambling board but I do not notice it. I do not think you are correct about the gambling board. You can bring evidence.

I have seen this before and I created a thread about it. The user PM to lease lock the thread but I later decided to lock it. That was the last time I saw the person did it. If you notice anything like this, you can easily use ninjastic.space to get the original post of the person which is enough as an evidence and post it on reputation board.

If you write a lot of garbage on the first line, it won't earn you any merit unless it's worth it, therefore I don't think it gives you a merit edge. However, it does give you more visibility, especially if you're wearing a signature. Nevertheless, securing a space on the first line with a two-liner garbage in order to gain the top spot and then editing it after reading other comments is a terrible attitude.

You think it will stop because you opened a topic in Meta, without mentioning those who do it? 90% of those who do such things probably never visit this board, and until you open a topic in Reputation and post their names, they will continue with their dirty games.

I can only say to all those who see such posts not to reward them with merits.

Ops I use to think that the forum is not against that, since there is no where the rule mentioned such actions as unacceptable,  but seeing this thread and reading others replies I am now clear about what that act stands for and from here on I will start reporting such posts to be deleted.

You have a point but if it continues like this, perhaps theymos would reconsider the decision to have an edit button on boards with such activities ^{[e.g. Auctions board doesn't have it (IIRC, there's no delete button as well)]}.

I believe a character limit of +20 to +50 would be more than enough for editing such things and at the same time, it prevents those users from adding complete answers to their posts.

Well I thought it has not gotten to that level where I mentioned names of those that are involved in such thing's, reason is that, we are still experiencing this trends in a minimal level and if you check the few set of members that engage in such posting habits are just less cycle so we can easily warn them in private and then open a public thread to warn others who may admir such posting patterns.

One or two of those users already commented and said they have changed and that is ok to some extent, but if the trend continues then we may not have other chioce than to mention name or posting evidences.

It's not an unusual trend as that has been happening for a long time before now... I mean, why would you wanna fight to reserve a spot on a newly posted thread? No matter if it takes you 30 minutes to finish a single post, you'll however have a spot on the first page.

I don't think that'll be a good idea since one could decide to merge a reply from another post, without allowing too much time. There could also be a time you wanna add an extra content on the previous post without showing as though it's been edited already.

I only edit my post on purpose; maybe if I have a little typo or I'd need to search for some function or link whatsoever!.

When I joined this forum first i began to notice it but it was with members of higher ranks like Snr.members, Full members to Hero members who did this the most but since it wasn't a member of my caliber I was disturbed till it got to day when I was almost being the first to comment on a thread then I do this "Re" or "Reserve" then after I posted mine this user came back to edit and also took ideas from my post.

I wasn't angry over it in the main time till one merit source merit the post and skipped the original post which was mine and I got pissed although it was because someone go accolades for my idea but I moved on.
It didn't stop there, the user and few others kept doing it till a time, I didn't see them again till date. Maybe they got queried for it in the reputation board.

But it's absolutely not nice in general to indulge in such act living the others look like they are just copy or paraphrasing the first post meanwhile it's the other way round.

It's not for signature campaign requirement but for merit IMO. There are few members who always likes to engage in discussion before anyone else so that their contents are visible to the most visitors and they can increase their chances to receive merit. You can always read their post later when you revisit the topic. I do not see anything wrong about it.

The OPs and the first comments in a thread tend to get more merit than those in the following pages but in this case I doubt what you say because the OP (of this thread) says he has noticed this mostly in BD and GD sections, where not much merit is usually given out (in the case of GD almost never).

I haven't seen it yet but I dont see the essence like they are reserving a post in a newly created thread, or they just want to consider those as count to their signatures?

Actually, it is just okay if there are some typos, or you just make a realization to add some information with the use case of the edit but if the post is just one-liner I don't see the point of it. [_{if this kind of post op talking about}].

The best solution is create a new thread in Reputation section and report the user, if you say you don't want to get involved into drama, it will not change. You only have two options: do it or eat it.

Advice won't change people, they need to receive warning or punishment.

And after this restriction implemented, a genuine user who want to update his thread by adding more information will not able to do it.

You are right, some people think that they tend to have higher chances of getting merits if they manage to make the first post in a thread because whatever they might write would be new and no one else would have used their points already. However, I wonder how this would work if they are not writing their points at first and others might write what they wanted to write before they come back and make the edit.

There is one more thing coming to my mind, maybe they don't write anything, keep watching the thread and the replies to gather ideas, and then compile a response that they write in their post by editing it. This will make it look like they have written those points before the others which wouldn't make them look like they are copying others but others would seem like they have copied from that poster since his post is the very first in the thread.  ::)

I usually visit almost all boards of the forum and I noticed it's same for any board. It comes from the highly active users but like I said it's not a crime. In fact, a good thing imo that they are keeping the forum busy all the time. It creates a competition and let others to stay in the race with them. It's a net positive for the forum.

Even if some users engage in this practice just for their replies to be visible and possibly gain merit, isn't it when the reply is of good quality and give a relevant information or answer to the OP and must it be every quality posts or replies that must attract merits. IMO it's just a childish act because each boards have moderators and they settle down to read each replies of every users and can come across a good post that deserves merit and awards it even at the last page. It is very bad that most users don't even read other people's replies before they include their own if not someone with generous heart even if they are not merit sources can come across quality posts and awards merit to it if they have SMerits.

For sure there's nothing wrong in making a post and editing it later to give a complete context but it is not a good practice IMO except if it is the OP that reserves it for later or future update

I'm no longer that active on the Bitcoin Discussion board, but last time I checked, most thread starters rarely update their threads on the board in question... Regardless of that, they can still utilize link-shortening services to point users to their other posts:

• BTA.lk - Official unofficial Bitcointalk short links (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5384663.0) ^{[created by Cyrus]}

I could say I haven't noticed this, at least not in this regard but, after going through your comment and the few comments up there, especially with you saying you saw others doing it and copied the posting habit, it only adds some credit to the OP whom has been very concerned about this observation to warrant a thread on it.

What k think I've found in some cases is users having to make a post with no significant work load seconds to the daily set deadline for an individual campaign and most campaigns do follow UTC time hence, its not uncommon to find this happening around 11:59pm by forum time, only for them to come back and edit to add more content. It's bad but these things happens.

These two behaviors are related and should be avoided.

I think this is just standard old-school forum culture. It's kind of like evading taxes because there's laws in place that let you if you do it the right way. It's just part of the game we all play here sometimes, no?

Exactly and it is not all about reserving spot for later comment but to meet up the time as you said. There some managers does not count posts from the 5 page of a thread so they would like to appear at the first and the second page of the thread and not to make competition with anyone to appear on the first page. That is my observation of those guys.
Op since you have seen such posts, it would have been better for you to drop the link or quote the user.

This isn't new, I had seen a couple of times when those users were removed from the campaign for being involved in such activity. And if they do is to avoid the post-bursting rule in their campaign so they reserve some posts here and there and come back and edit all those posts in a day or two so they will get paid for that week.

If this becomes their post habit then they should change it cause it doesn't do anything good for the campaign nor the thread. Still, sometimes I do too while I am on my mobile wanted to reply but due to my fat finger can't write everything in detail so I came back and edit as soon as possible when I am on my PC if I didn't make things clear in my previous comment. Still, it happens on very rare occasions though.

Mostly it is because of merits.
Some users like doing first to reply just for merits, while some just to be the first person to give the first response in the thread so as to take credit of whatever merit any merit sources wishes to give.

Sometimes, it is because of the campaign just as you said, many users who are promoting a good paying campaign that requested them to be posting in the first page or that said they don’t want posts after five pages will be eager to reply.

Once the favoritism in merit sources was exposed, Theymos really should have decentralized that.  Issue merits automatically based on overall demand and your activity.   A first year university student could code this, if they hadn't lost their way on greed avenue.   :P


Full Greed Avenue lyrics (https://genius.com/Eddy-grant-electric-avenue-lyrics)

I have seen things like this happen before, & I'm not exactly sure why someone would really want to do this other than just being able to quickly go back into their recent posts in their profile page to then go back and edit their comment quickly to add whatever other additional information that they would need.

The edited time will only show after a certain time have passed otherwise there will be no sign or indicator that it is edited. Let's use this post (my post) where I posted it and then edited within the time limit then you won't be able to see it but after the time limit then you will be able to see the last time that the post is edited and there's ninjastic.space to know the original post before it is edited. It is clearly a way for to earn merits since it is their post that will be shown right away and when you read it then it's like they really have vast knowledge about it.

Thanks man, but going back to such posts may be a pain in the ass because with the first replies you already got discouraged from reading their opinions on the subject matter, I think it may have some bad impact on the reader and also anyone who comment below them, since if the answer to what you already answered when the edit they comments, it render your own comment useless since it will sound and look like a repeatations of what they said, but when you made  the comment they only reserved a space and you don't know they intentions at that point.


Campaign manager like yourself can help clean up such comments, by always taking a second look at edited posts and checking the first comment before they edited and not pay such posts, that way they will be discouraged from such practice.

To say that I've also come across some trend of posts related to their Short inputs just like you've said, It feels awful that lot of forum members are adaptive to Shortcut their threads in a half of incomplete with a logic of saving stresses and also stocking posts where they can just come back again to continue with it just because they want to meet up with post counts. Most especially ones in campaign.
I've also understand that other Forum members too who're not interested of reading through lengthy texts are cause of it because While I've been in the forum for awhile now, I observed that lengthy topic threads are hardly to have forum members complying to read and reply them even though it has qualities and making such posts feels discouraging because your efforts spent to create the thread that users ain't finding useful feels bad.
JJG has been a lot of good inspiration towards keeping quality posts without undermining the threads size.