Bitcoin Forum

I was thinking about this possibility. What if in future  sig campaign use "1 merited post per week" instead of"25 post per week" ?

Nobody read those shitposters in megathreads

I was taking a look at a thread today about ripple. The OP was asking 'why don't ripple moon"
There were tons of pages saying ripple is shit and it never mooned... Only misinformation, a bunch of useless posts. Ripple just came from 0.006 to .70 and everyone there saying"bag hodlers". And people are getting paid to say that.

I think that if it were MY company, I would prefer to see my ad (signature) in one merited post per week instead of 25 shitposts per week.

I would like to hear campaign Managers and more veterans members here. Probably it's not possible for now, but maybe something similar in future?

It would be nice, although I think something like this would only be possible when there are more merit sources than there currently is. However, convincing the people behind the advertising that quality posts are better than quantity is going to be difficult. It's why there's so many signatures with low entry requirements right now. They don't really care about quality just getting their name out there. Unfortunately, more posts means more exposure. More exposure = More money for both customers, and the developers.

In a perfect world this would be great, but we don't live in a perfect world.

Google reads them.

As a Newbie it would be a great possibility too, because you don't have to wait if you are ranked up. Every Newbie will be encouraged to try it, even if you get only a single Merit.

Maybe we can give this suggestion a try. Especially all the shitposters, who ranked up before the Merit System will have huge problems ^^

People wouldn't get paid because they're not earning merits, which would then drive them to buy merits.  People would earn a merit on their first post of the week and then not have to post again, which is a waste of money for the campaign. 

This isn't a horrible idea, but the only thing I see are the drawbacks.  I like what Yahoo62278 is doing better, which is to require a minimum amount of merits before even being accepted.  That weeds out a lot of shitposters.

A few ideas cropped up in my mind.

1. A rule like - those who dont receive at least 5 merits during their posting period of the entire campaign will not eligible for payment - for those which are paying in bulk once campaign end.

2. Some campaign are having a minimum number of merits in order to enter them. It would be great if these people are also evaluated in future about their post quality by looking at the number of merits gained while participating in that campaign.

I agree with this idea, it is probably in bounty/signature campaign since the manager there was not totally strict to their participants as long as they completed the weekly task. It's enough time for them having mostly 8 weeks to have 5 merits during the whole campaign posting.

Well, one thing that also in my mind the company don't mind on that as long as participants will keep spreading their company name under the signature of the participants.

Good idea mate, but idk if company dev of bounty campaign will agree on this. They want exposure to their company name.

1- Very bad idea, the merit abusing is already from 20-40% weekly in this way you will increase even more(March)

2- Again you can't envaluate the merit gain while people are abusing without penalities, I'm not talking about 50+ merit (still unpunished) abuses but people even abuse/tradeback for 5-10 merits.

Campaigns for this and expect that people write a large number of messages, thereby more showing their project in the signature. I think this idea is not being realized, but everything is possible in this world.

Although, this maybe true it actually has it's upsides as well. For instance, it will be easily identifiable if someone is abusing merit in this way, and can be tagged for it. Plus, this will eventually die down because, of members running out of merit. In fact I believe we are already seeing the effects of users running out of merit.  

This is exactly why theymos implemented the merit received as half. They will eventually run out, and can no longer abuse the system. This might not be the best option right now, however in the future it could be something that actually works.

Exactly. This is one of the points that I initially didn't think of. The only way around this would be to have both a post count requirement as it is now, and the proposed merit system.

The only problem with this system is it takes into account the past of the poster, and not the time that they are hired, and that's what really counts right?. That means they could of once been a great poster, but have since spammed to get money. It's better than just post count alone though. Again, you could combine initial merit requirement along with this ongoing requirement.

Correct, nobody reads those shitposts in megathreads, people scroll right past them, which allows the viewer (scroller) to see the advertisement in the signature that separates each post.

If you remove the incentive for people to make posts the company get's their advertisement shown on fewer and fewer threads.

Signature campaigns will flop.

The number of signature campaigner will dramatically drop means not many shitposters will be joining in the forum.

Already exist shitposters will only post on the bounty threads to report their twitter and facebook bounty.

There will be only knowledge seekers in the forum.

May be the forum will lose large amount of traffic but it will be a better place.

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I personally like the idea too, I have seen Lauda is doing the same.

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I wonder if the sig campaign managers get worried about not having many participants for their campaigns.

Haha, no. You could probably offer some people a pack of freddos (25p!) and they would join all jelly legged. As long as there's money to be earned for both parties signature campaigns shall remain. Even, with heavier restrictions I still think they would exist, and not be such a burden to the general forum user.

If this is to be put into effect, remember that it isn't all quality posts that gets merited nd also low quality posts gets merited as well. In such scenario where merit is the determining factor, don't you think it will even be more abused as people in a given campaign will do all that's within their power to get merit for each week.

I have an issue regarding this.

1. I earn merits in bursts (no idea why) but some weeks I get nothing, and others I can get 10-20 merits in them. I think most of the merits in the places I post probably end up going to members who actually need them rather than members who no longer need to rank up (legendaries).

I know DarkStar_ came up with an idea a while ago to try to get users to get 10 merits in the first month on the chip mixer campaign (which most of the users did achieve - but it was considered the rule was too harsh and the idea was dropped).

2. What stops a signature campaign manager meriting their campaigners first post to make it look like the problem is solved (if they have enough alts, it's possible).

The problem with megathreads, off-topic section, bounty section, etc that really nobody reads those topics but only writes them :)
So it's OK if someone runs thru a spam megathread he will see a lot of advertisement but as nobody reads them, there will be nobody to see the advertisements, only the bots, but bots are not the targeted audience...
If they spam in the Beginners board or in Bitcoin Discussion, your idea is correct.

So kill the root of the problem, instead of adding some other rule. I don't count any megathread posts, guitarplinker didn't when Rollin.io's campaign was running, and I'm guessing some other managers do as well. If all managers do this, then things would be fine, without needing to heavily change up how campaigns work, and open up new avenues of abuse.

This would be the ideal solution, to somehow force bounty managers to 1) set some rules for quality 2) force enrolled members to post according to the rules.
But nobody can tell how we could force those bounty managers...
This is a free forum, it seems that everyone is allowed to manage his own campaign, if he wants to, or become a bounty manager and manage several bounty campagins... Signature campaigns are way better compared to bounty campaigns these days, so somehow we should regulate the bounties. I know that bounties (and ICOs) are good for the forum and generate traffic, which generates ad revenue, also it ranks the forum in the first place in a google search (the high volume of the current traffic), but somehow we need to find a balance between traffic and quality...

Only thing : Bounty managers don't give a rat's ass about it. And half or probably even more of the bounty managers are new to the forum and don't even care to check out the post quality. Not necessarily. Yahoo's campaign participants  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3024695.msg31119403#msg31119403)were caught sending merits to one another just so that they could enter the campaign. Hilariousandco found a few of them but that's not the end.

I like the merited post idea, and it would definitely encourage participants to up their game, just not sure it would have the reach that bounty managers need. Maybe a combination, so a minimum post count, plus a bonus of some sort depending on merited posts. I took part in a campaign recently where they gave reduced stakes for posts they deemed as below a certain quality level. While this is subjective, I think it had the desired effect of raising the quality of posts. I don't really consider the rank of a poster when (on the rare occasion) I click on a signature, so it raises the 'argument' that the quality of the post doesn't really matter as much as we might think. Minimum number of words and a post quality check by the bounty manager would seem to be the minimum requirements to maximise the advertising potential. Adding in a 'merit bonus' could be an additional measuring tool, although it could open the door for another avenue of abuse. Maybe a merit bonus with the post reviewed by the bounty manager before issuing it. Not an easy job though.   

the bottom line is that merit is highly subjective. it's the prerogative of the advertisers how they want to incentivize posters, but i'd personally avoid any campaign that used merit instead of post quality to deny payment.


indeed. i get the impression that some campaigns are mostly intended for google results, not forum impressions or clicks. dealing with that kind of motive is a whole different can of worms.


but how do you get all managers to do this?

The same way you get all managers to require 1 merited post per week. You don't, without theymos making some changes.

The only solution that I can see to avoid these "shitposting" in Megathreads is, Delete all Megathreads. As we can see, these Megathreads are already worthless, they're just like a trashcan full of garbage and the only solution to clean up all the mess is to dispose it.

Some people really hates spams usually to Megathreads, some people are just using it/posting on it in order to increase their activity and not worrying about the quality of the posts. But why don't we kill the root? Which is these existing spam flooded threads.

you can lock/delete them, but that doesn't solve the problem. many more similar threads will pop up in their place the next day. and it's a lot of work for mods to stay on top of.

these bounty spamming farms are quite mechanical; i think some of them are even employing bots now. i think they'll immediately build new megathreads in short order.


the only scalable (read: automated) solution i see here is self-locking threads after a certain number of pages. but it's probably a bad idea, as it will arbitrarily cut off ongoing discussion in the case of non-spam threads. otherwise moderators need to address it manually, which probably isn't sustainable for any real length of time.

More reason to hold them accountable for their campaign participant's actions, or kick them the fuck out! Those bounties are shit opportunities for people anyway, literally peddling rubbish.

But going as extreme as getting per merit doesn't help the companies trying to do the advertising and will lead to other cheating activities. Let's not try to complicate the system, let's just do a better job calling out and eliminating those that abuse it.



As long as Yahoo and others are policing their campaign's people. Yahoo's been around a long time, I don't expect anything less from him.

Look at it as from the youtube ad system. They might not want their ads on racist youtubers, the ones who spread hatred,etc.. but they still want a larger viewer base. Advertisement is meant to be seen by as many people as it can.

If I were to own a business I'd probably prefer 20+ quality posts and a bonus for merited posts as a motivation.

The only thing you can think about is merit abuse. Just accept the fact that merit trading if happening underground it cannot be prevented. But such cases if identified will be tagged accordingly. If you are not happy with this then please leave the forum rather than taking this tone/attitude or suggest some better method to weed out such sales.

Sarcastically speaking the 99.99% of the forum population is here for the signature campaigns and bounty hunting. Who cares about the forum or its discussions any more?
It is important that bounty managers apply strict merit rules on signature campaign participants.

Exactly. Having merit requirements doesn't really work and I'm kinda against it, because people will just start buying merits, meriting their alts or just trading merit between themselves. What happens if you're making excellent posts but you just don't manage to receive any merits, whereas a generic shitposter has his friend merit one of his shitposts or he buys it or promises them he will merit them back and bingo he's getting paid. Campaign managers should just start doing their job properly and only accept quality posters in the first place.

I am running a campaign for self promotion (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3759887.0) (It's actually a bit different than the regular campaigns)

Even-though...
# I have escrowed my fund
# Transparent with the data I am receiving
# Responding the community whenever they are asking for anything
# Offering min 0.002BTC and maximum 0.0036 BTC for one time task. 

I am not receiving much response from the community.

The reason I can identify is... It's not a guaranteed payment. One will win the bounty price. So, the hunters are not much motivated.

If the scenario was like this...

# Create a eye catching website
# Create a useless ERC20 token

and then create a twitter bounty to award these useless ERC20 token to people who will spam it on twitter then we would see these people will join the party.

People actually follow the crowd knowing nothing about the reason.

Interesting suggestion, but as a member who didn't get a merit last two months for sure I do not support it  ::) I do not know what is the reason, my poor English or poor ideas or both, but merit doesn't going well to me.
Backing to the OP I can say that the forum is the place where a user can stay his opinion openly and if you do not agree with that it doesn't mean that it is a shitpost. The problem is in bots which are counting the number of posts and characters without watching the post how it is. I am sure if managers would check every commentator the situation would became much better.

Obviously both.
Probably the reason why people stay less merit now is that they spent all of they had in the most beginning. How many people on the forum? As I see here there are much more low raked users who got few merits to share, so they simply spent it all in first few days.

The awarding of merit is not consistent. One week you could get 6 and then for a month nothing, even if your posts are of the same subjective 'quality'.

So perhaps merit is used as more of an entry requirement for the bounty. Such as 'must have at least 10 merit awarded since merit started to join bounty'.

Yah, Yahoo actually initiated that method but for some time he too has stopped using that criterion. On the overall, this world is such a horrible place. People (dissidents) will always find loopholes in everything good and circumvent it. Merit trading became the order of the day while the Yahoo method lasted. Although many accounts were surprisingly nuked for that.

On the 1merited post "bill", I don't think advertisers will like it. Publicity is advertising and advertising is publicity. You don't get the needed spread and publicity with people writing just a post. You get that with numerous posts.

Bounty managers don't have an incentive to stop spammers: they pay a fixed amount of made-up Tokens. If ten times more people join, they just all get a smaller part of the pie, but the campaign gets more exposure.
I really dislike Tokens: it's Ethereum's way of taking market share from Bitcoin by spamming social media for their own financial gain.
I'd love to see all campaigns with payment in Tokens banned from the forum. If campaigns are only allowed to pay an actual amount of Bitcoin per post, they'll be forced to start caring about quality.

This is is the issue here really. A select few of the best campaign managers can run their campaigns excellently with zero spammers on there like Darkstar and Chipmixer for example, but when you've got dozens of crapcoin campaigns which pop up and accept hundreds of users each it's useless and they just dwarf everybody else by the thousands. You have to remember the crapcoin campaigns don't care about the quality of posts or how it effects this forum, and the more people shitposting with their signature the better. Running a campaign is probably at least a part-time job if not a full one but when people can get away with doing nothing they will. Would you turn up to work everyday if you were still going to get paid regardless of whether you got out of bed or not? Same situation here. Crapcoin campaign managers aren't going to do any work when they don't need to and this is the source of the problem.

Would it then be out of place to suggest to CM by way of regulation not to accept more than, let's say, 30-50 participants per campaign? That won't be a bad idea, would it? This should go a long way in controlling spamming and shitposting, I should believe as the managers will have roving eyes on participants posts.

So far the Idea was good I've seen the positive side of it because in signature campaigns your post should be constructive yet highly content in order to achieve the exposure needed by the project but there are 2 results it's either be horrible or not.

1. The Shitposters will improve their posts as well as the quality of their contents.
2. Since most of them likes to take advantage, It's either they will buy merit to others or they will user their alts to give merit to their own posts.

But if I'm going to guess most of them would do the number 2.

This suggestion is good for the forum but will not  help the advertisers. Advertisers need more visibility to their signature or project and that comes in the second case. If a member makes one post and gets merit for it, he will not make further posts. This will reduce the exposure the campaign will get.

Even if posts are low quality, they will get some traffic from search engines based on various factors. Thus, I am not in support of this. Having additional merit requirement after those post requirements may be a better idea.

I'm running the ChipMixer campaign with currently 59 participants just fine  :P

How about a harder task of 30 posts per week yet gain 2 merits from bounty managers and moderators? Just a suggestion yet managers do reviews post before giving rewards and stakes right?

And how about adding a rule that a single shitpost would lead to no stakes? For campaign participants to take posting sriously.

Bounty Managers and Moderators do not have sMerits to award unless they are Merit Sources or have earned the merit themselves. Therefore, regardless of the idea, most of them would not even have a bucket load of sMerit to deploy the suggested option.
Even so, Moderators are not there to be complicit with Campaign Managers in helping out with their Campaigns (it should actually be the other way around; Campaign Managers should control the spamming on their Campaigns in order to help Moderators – and the forum overall).
Currently, very few Campaign Managers are leaning towards anti-spamming campaigns, although I have seen some and let’s hope it becomes a trend.

That may be in the minds of anti-spamming managers, but is certainly not a general practice. I doubt that it will be an enforced Forum Campaign rule, although those Campaign Managers that align with it should have some sort of benefit (and I don’t just mean that the Campaign will be better off due to a better bearing of the ICO’s name, but something more in the line of visibility as we have discussed on another thread just this week in Meta ( The core of Bitcointalk's spam problem (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4500659.msg40504834#msg40504834)).

good idea , but IMO i  think its hard to implementation , there are good post but still didnt have get merit because the limited of merit source ,also the merit source didnt always check all post

The prime purpose of signature campaign is to advertise whatever website or ICO it is. If the metric for payment is Merited post then the purpose of advertisement will be destroyed. Advertising is disseminating information about the website/ICO and the number of post is crucial. So at the end the number of post will still be counted and not the merit.

I like the idea, but probably the ICO team won't be happy with it and would fire the bounty manager. For them, quantity over quality wins. I start questioning the effectiveness of signature campaigns. Nothing caught my eye recently, I trust more some experts and do my own research later rather than clicking on some member's signature. And I can see sig campaign stakes allocation dropped significantly. So I'm not alone who think the same.

The idea isn't bad. But I am afraid that this will make more merit abusement. People can easily merit them by alt account or friends account. Perhaps, I like the rules of Yahoo. You need a certain amount of merit to join or get a higher pay. But our manager definitely can take your idea and do an experiment once. 

Profy managers of signature campaigns do not pay for 25 shitposts at all, they mark it in their spreadsheets as usual. But as I see, your suppose about 1merited post per week, can become our future here on the forum. If we started from 5-10 earned merits to join to some of signature campaigns now we need to have from 30 to 50 earned merits to join the newest signature campaign. Who knows what is going to be in the future?!

Sir, I agree with you, the idea is really good, it will save the forum from a "heap of garbage"! But then the bounty campaign in the Russian locale will die. To get an Merit for the posted messages in Russia locale quality of the message is not enough. =( You need a lot of luck to get Merit  in Russia locale .

Not bad idea. But there will some thing happen if managers implement this policy. First thing will be happen, any company will not interest for signeture campaign. Next thing even some company will agree but it will increase merit abusing. Every one will try to buy or trade merit. Sure it will happen.

I think it's best option to prevent spam is earn merit requirement for signeture campaign. I have noticed many managers already enquired that.
I hope it's very good example on LoyceV thread. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4675126.msg42289619#msg42289619

It's best policy for me to avoid spam.

I believe that would benefit experienced and high rank members, but I think it would be hard for full members below. Given that there are only a few sources of smerits and that they are very valuable and rare, it would be really difficult for others. However, I think that would make participants of signature campaigns more credible. It's a double-edged sword  ;D

That would be a good idea but these Ico's will have a free campaign because we all know how hard getting a merit so if you have 20 bounty hunters in a signature and only two get a merit for entire campaign, they will just transfer to a signature campaign that does not implement this kind of rule