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Other => Meta => Topic started by: LoyceV on September 18, 2018, 06:21:07 PM



Title: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: LoyceV on September 18, 2018, 06:21:07 PM
Totally revised version (original quoted at the end of this post)!
This makes adding new data less work :)

Theymos announced the "Enhanced newbie restrictions & requirements" in post 45810047 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5030366.msg45810047#msg45810047). This was on Sep 17 06:27 (Dutch time).

Post 44746501 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4880157.msg44746501#msg44746501) was made 3 weeks (plus 60 minutes) earlier. In 3 weeks (+60 minutes) before the announcement, 1063546 posts were made. On average, in 3 weeks before the announcement, the forum saw 353813 (https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1063546%2F(3*168%2B1)*168%3D) new posts per week. This is the number I'll use to compare results with.

Post 46096455 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3372699.msg46096455#msg46096455) was made 1 week later.
Post 46376958 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5036366.msg46376958#msg46376958) was made 2 weeks later.
Post 46636652 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5027467.msg46636652#msg46636652) was made 3 weeks later.
Post 46900337 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3290076.msg46900337#msg46900337) was made 4 weeks later.
Post 47140676 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3094922.msg47140676#msg47140676) was made 5 weeks later.
Post 47380721 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5043718.msg47380721#msg47380721) was made 6 weeks later.
Post 47600410 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5045547.msg47600410#msg47600410) was made 7 weeks later.
Post 47818184 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5067450.msg47818184#msg47818184) was made 8 weeks later.
Post 48033319 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5064086.msg48033319#msg48033319) was made 9 weeks later.
Post 48232805 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4502836.msg48232805#msg48232805) was made 10 weeks later.
Post 48410472 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5031712.msg48410472#msg48410472) was made 11 weeks later.
Post 48569803 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5066831.msg48569803#msg48569803) was made 12 weeks later.
Post 48714784 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5071808.msg48714784#msg48714784) was made 13 weeks later.
Post 48854475 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5059321.msg48854475#msg48854475) was made 14 weeks later.
Post 48978781 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4939977.msg48978781#msg48978781) was made 15 weeks later.
That means:
  • In the first week after the announcement, 286408 posts were made (-19.05%).
  • In the second week after the announcement, 280503 posts were made (-20.72%).
  • In the third week after the announcement, 259694 posts were made (-26.60%).
  • In the fourth week after the announcement, 263685 posts were made (-25.47%).
  • In the fifth week after the announcement, 240339 posts were made (-32.07%).
  • In the sixth week after the announcement, 240045 posts were made (-32.15%).
  • In the seventh week after the announcement, 219689 posts were made (-37.91%).
  • In the eighth week after the announcement, 217774 posts were made (-38.45%).
  • In the nineth week after the announcement, 215135 posts were made (-39.20%).
  • In the tenth week after the announcement, 199486 posts were made (-43.62%).
  • In the eleventh week after the announcement, 177677 posts were made (-49.78%).
  • In the twelfth week after the announcement, 159331 posts were made (-54.97%).
  • In the thirteenth week after the announcement, 144981 posts were made (-59.02%).
  • In the fourteenth week after the announcement, 139691 posts were made (-60,52%).
  • In the fifteenth week after the announcement, 124306 posts were made (-64,87%).



My old OP:

I was curious:
Theymos announced the "Enhanced newbie restrictions & requirements" in post 45810047 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5030366.msg45810047#msg45810047). This was on Sep 17 06:27 (Dutch time).
Post 45752895 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4825074.msg45752895#msg45752895) was made 24 hours earlier, and post 45853867 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3212532.msg45853867#msg45853867) was made 24 hours later.
Post 45705944 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4929601.msg45705944#msg45705944) was made 48 hours earlier, post 45894771 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4898731.msg45894771#msg45894771) was made 48 hours later.
Post 45469471 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4980243.msg45469471#msg45469471) was made 1 week (plus 7 minutes) earlier, post 46096594 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4932904.msg46096594#msg46096594) was made 1 week (plus 7 minutes) later.
Post 45113538 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4626635.msg45113538#msg45113538) was made 2 weeks (plus 19 minutes) earlier, post 46377227 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5018627.msg46377227#msg46377227) was made 2 weeks (plus 19 minutes) later.
Post 44746501 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4880157.msg44746501#msg44746501) was made 3 weeks (plus 60 minutes) earlier, post 46637557 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5037199.msg46637557#msg46637557) was made 3 weeks (plus 60 minutes) later.
That means:
  • In 24 hours before the announcement, 57152 posts were made.
  • In 24 hours after the announcement, 43820 posts were made.
  • In 48 hours before the announcement, 104103 posts were made.
  • In 48 hours after the announcement, 84724 posts were made.
  • In 1 week (+7 minutes) before the announcement, 340576 posts were made.
  • In 1 week (+7 minutes) after the announcement, 286547 posts were made.
  • In 2 weeks (+19 minutes) before the announcement, 696509 posts were made.
  • In 2 weeks (+19 minutes) after the announcement, 567180 posts were made.
  • In 3 weeks (+60 minutes) before the announcement, 1063546 posts were made.
  • In 3 weeks (+60 minutes) after the announcement, 827510 posts were made.
In 24 hours, that's 23.3% less posts.
In 48 hours, that's 18.6% less posts.
In 1 week, that's 15.9% less posts.
In 2 weeks, that's 18.6% less posts.
In 3 weeks, that's 22.2% less posts.


When I click Show unread posts since last visit. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=unread), I can now see some actual real threads again! There is still ANN and BOUNTY pollution, but in between are real topics (I have no boards on ignore on this account).


Update: theymos posted data (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5032314.msg45912431#msg45912431) on the number of posts per day in the past 30 days.


Update: My list of new Merit receivers (including both abusers as well as innocent users): List of demoted Jr. Members who were ranked up again (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5037073.0).


Title: Re: Is the new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) already paying off?
Post by: Lafu on September 18, 2018, 06:27:54 PM
So looks like the change from Theymos on the ranking system has done good things about spam posts !

And also nice to read what easy changes can do to the whole Forum !


Title: Re: Is the new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) already paying off?
Post by: coinlocket$ on September 18, 2018, 07:00:19 PM
Are you able to calculate how many jr.members were born from yesterday to today and from who were born?
For example, if a person gave the birth to 10 or 20 or 30 Jr.Members can starts to be suspicious!


Title: Re: Is the new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) already reducing spam?
Post by: Initscri on September 18, 2018, 07:03:22 PM
Are you able to calculate how many jr.members were born from yesterday to today and from who were born?
For example, if a person gave the birth to 10 or 20 or 30 Jr.Members can starts to be suspicious!

Are you talking location wise, or IP?
There's really no way to determine "from who were born" unless the accounts are linked together (using a script of some sort)

Admins may have more information, but this would be difficult to achieve w/ public information.


Title: Re: Is the new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) already paying off?
Post by: LoyceV on September 18, 2018, 07:03:51 PM
Are you able to calculate how many jr.members were born from yesterday to today and from who were born?
I can, but mocacinno (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5030366.msg45826022#msg45826022) is planning something similar already.

Quote
For example, if a person gave the birth to 10 or 20 or 30 Jr.Members can starts to be suspicious!
o_e_l_e_o (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5031341.0) is chasing those abusers.


Title: Re: Is the new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) already reducing spam?
Post by: InvoKing on September 18, 2018, 07:16:10 PM
Newbie accounts are useless right now and most of real users will try to enhance the quality of their posts to get out of the imposed restrictions.
Another option is to buy copper membership or try to buy some smerit in the dark which isn't profitable at all for auto-bots managers.
So yeah, +1 merit is effective and it will remains for the next few months at least.


Title: Re: Is the new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) already paying off?
Post by: Theb on September 18, 2018, 07:22:34 PM
For example, if a person gave the birth to 10 or 20 or 30 Jr.Members can starts to be suspicious!
o_e_l_e_o (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5031341.0) is chasing those abusers.
Still hard to connect which account owns what account/s especially if the account farmer is cautious on sending out merits to their own farmed accounts. Right now just by looking at the recent merit (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=recent) page you will see a lot of members handing out 1 merit consecutively to different users (who just became Jr. Members) but if you look at the post it is either in a different language (which is hard to judge the quality of the post) or somewhat a worthy post for one merit. But the thing that surprises me is these accounts who have received 1 merit are mostly newbie members who just became Jr. Members with that one merit. Which tells me that they are just receiving merits just to rank up to a rank where they can wear a signature again.


Title: Re: Is the new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) already reducing spam?
Post by: feelingfroggy on September 18, 2018, 07:57:22 PM
You have to believe the real problem scammers will be able to obtain a single merit.  I feel like there may be a shelf life on this fix.  As they flip accounts 1 by 1 from Newbie to Jr. Member the shit posts will continue. 

I do believe the low intelligence spammer was just completely wrecked due to this new rule.  You can see it in the forum posts.  I think the rule was good.  Very abrupt for the unaware (I suck and never even knew about the META section until the new rule set off a massive posting glut and everyone was talking about it.)

I have a serious desire to see a 3 merit for Jr. Member limit set  (even though it will set me back).  A Jr. Member account will be much more valuable than previously so it seems like a good trade for the real posters and a disaster for the spammers. 

Glad to have found the META section as this is a fascinating situation being discussed. 

I'm a recovering semi shit poster that didn't even realize what was the score was concerning how or what to post.  I was just firing away opinions and answers.  Never been on a forum with money making tied in so I never imagined all the rules for posting.  I tried to be relevant but I'm now upping my contributions and elaborating on my ideas.



Title: Re: Is the new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) already reducing spam?
Post by: vphasitha01 on September 18, 2018, 08:13:22 PM
Are you able to calculate how many jr.members were born from yesterday to today and from who were born?
I can, but mocacinno (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5030366.msg45826022#msg45826022) is planning something similar already.
I think @mocacinno will be able to scraped all the newbies who ranked up to Jr. Member from yesterday to today, but he won't(at least take lot of scraping) catch up the Jr. members who demoted yesterday but ranked up again within the same day.

Another thing we can't take decisions just by trusting our gut feelings as mentioned by @mocacinno. I don't know why people so bothered about to find out those demoted users and try to make a relationship between that one merit they got assuming only from a merit abuser. Why people couldn't create any script to catch the big fishes who awarded Merits with big numbers in perticulary in ANN threads rather finding needle in a haystack. I know abuse is an abuse wether it's one or few but we are playing waiting game when it comes to the big numbers.

Quote
Quote
For example, if a person gave the birth to 10 or 20 or 30 Jr.Members can starts to be suspicious!
o_e_l_e_o (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5031341.0) is chasing those abusers.
I'm totally agreed with that statement and those persons who gave sudden births to be banned if they found guilty.


Title: Re: Is the new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) already reducing spam?
Post by: LoyceV on September 19, 2018, 07:53:35 AM
I think @mocacinno will be able to scraped all the newbies who ranked up to Jr. Member from yesterday to today, but he won't(at least take lot of scraping) catch up the Jr. members who demoted yesterday but ranked up again within the same day.
Scraping all accounts that received Merit isn't much work, especially if you only scrape the once that recently received their first Merit.


Title: Re: Is the new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) already reducing spam?
Post by: Malam90 on September 19, 2018, 08:02:03 AM
From your calculations, it is clear that after the announcement of new ranking system posts in the forum has slightly reduced. It will help reducing spam posts too in the upcoming days. Maximum Jr.Member will try to collect 1 Merit from now but we expect their merit collection will be improving post quality.


Title: Re: Is the new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) already reducing spam?
Post by: Jet Cash on September 19, 2018, 08:11:02 AM
I still believe that the best option would have been as follows. -

Brand new - no posting requirement and no merit. No signature
Newbie - one post and <10 merit - no signature
Junior - <30 posts and <10 merit - simple text sig with no URL or site reference
Member - >29 posts and >9 merit - basic signature.

This would encourage the better new members to become juniors by participating in the forum activities.


Title: Re: Is the new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) already reducing spam?
Post by: Cogy on September 19, 2018, 08:14:36 AM
Newbie accounts are useless right now and most of real users will try to enhance the quality of their posts to get out of the imposed restrictions.
Another option is to buy copper membership or try to buy some smerit in the dark which isn't profitable at all for auto-bots managers.
So yeah, +1 merit is effective and it will remains for the next few months at least.

I agree with you sir, This is not permanent solution because if their intention to be a Junior Member to participate in bounty then today or tomorrow they will achieve it. If anyone give 1 merit on a simple post we will not take it seriously. Now we observe it very seriously because of current situation, think 20 or 30 days ahead we people will forget it and they will get a merit easily with a good post or they will buy. After get 1 merit they (spammer) will never try to post to get another merit because they already achieve their goal. Their goal is to ware a signature to earn some money to participate in bounty.


Title: Re: Is the new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) already reducing spam?
Post by: hugeblack on September 19, 2018, 09:28:35 AM
When I click Show unread posts since last visit. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=unread), I can now see some actual real threads again! There is still ANN and BOUNTY pollution, but in between are real topics (I have no boards ignoring on this account).
Short Answer: Yes, for a limited period.
It's only a temporary period, there have been a lot of posts because of wearing signatures. I expect members to be more engaged with campaign managers than posting in the forum.
Also, Jrmembers's accounts was sold, so many create more accounts to sell it "because it was rank-up based on activity."
Over time the number of posts will be reduced until those members find a way back to that rank and then post again.


Title: Re: Is the new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) already reducing spam?
Post by: TMAN on September 19, 2018, 10:03:00 AM
With the current that the admins are doing from yesterday to this has reduced a lot of new people can not write articles. minimize spam
The groups are discussing a lot about the new policy

what the fuck is this nonsense?


Title: Re: Is the new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) already reducing spam?
Post by: jademaxsuy on September 19, 2018, 10:16:07 AM
Are you able to calculate how many jr.members were born from yesterday to today and from who were born?
For example, if a person gave the birth to 10 or 20 or 30 Jr.Members can starts to be suspicious!
This is a really hard work and a full time job right here. I cannot do like this and definitely I rather go home early and be with my kids and my wife.

Another option is to buy copper membership or try to buy some smerit in the dark which isn't profitable at all for auto-bots managers.
So yeah, +1 merit is effective and it will remains for the next few months at least.
This is what theymos has said that the brighter side on implementing the +1 merit requirement for every newbie rank to rank up to jr. member is equally fair and reasonable. Yet, it should remain +1 merit requirement since I had only 2 on my profile and for somehow I get scared so I should be serious this time taking my posts to next level.


Title: Re: Is the new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) already reducing spam?
Post by: coinlocket$ on September 19, 2018, 10:22:19 AM
Are you able to calculate how many jr.members were born from yesterday to today and from who were born?
For example, if a person gave the birth to 10 or 20 or 30 Jr.Members can starts to be suspicious!
This is a really hard work and a full time job right here. I cannot do like this and definitely I rather go home early and be with my kids and my wife.

~

LOL. What are you talking about. Nobody does it by hand.
It is a matter of creating a script and using "snapshots" calculations from differences and some otputs, which is feasible for those with skills in this field. Nobody reads the profiles one by one manually. Once the script it's done is just press one botton.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: danbitcoin1 on September 19, 2018, 10:51:39 AM
It's reduced the amount of posts, doubt that the average quality has changed that much. I see just as much junk posted from high level accounts as from Jrs.
Giving old accounts a lot of merit when the system was released was a mistake, they've since mostly been giving merit out to eachother.


Title: Re: Is the new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) already reducing spam?
Post by: mocacinno on September 19, 2018, 11:03:44 AM
--snip--
I think @mocacinno will be able to scraped all the newbies who ranked up to Jr. Member from yesterday to today, but he won't(at least take lot of scraping) catch up the Jr. members who demoted yesterday but ranked up again within the same day.

Another thing we can't take decisions just by trusting our gut feelings as mentioned by @mocacinno. I don't know why people so bothered about to find out those demoted users and try to make a relationship between that one merit they got assuming only from a merit abuser. Why people couldn't create any script to catch the big fishes who awarded Merits with big numbers in perticulary in ANN threads rather finding needle in a haystack. I know abuse is an abuse wether it's one or few but we are playing waiting game when it comes to the big numbers.
--snip--

I wasn't aware off this thread yesterday, but since i accidentally stumbled upon this thread today, i wanted to take the time to reply.

My script CAN and WILL find all users that:
  • were junior members before theymos's rule change
  • AND were demoted because of theymos's rule change
  • AND received exactly 1 merit AFTER they were demoted in order to be promoted again

The only timestamp that's important is the exact unix timestamp on which Theymos made the code change... All other factors are unimportant. It doesn't matter if the newbie re-promotes the same day, or 3 days later... My script will filter them out.
The script works on LoyceV's full merit history to filter out potential abusers, after this step, it'll make 1 request per potential abuser. Even if 2000 people are filtered out, the script should still finish in about an hour  (2 seconds sleep every iteration in order not to overload bitcointalk's server).

Also, i wanted to mention that i never proposed to automise a gut feeling by automising neg repping or ignoring. My script will filter out all POTENTIAL abusers and that's it (nothing more, nothing less). Since i'm pretty sure that a lot of those POTENTIAL abusers are in fact false-positives (since i'm pretty sure a lot of demoted users will have re-promoted on legitimate grounds).
My proposition was to filter out potential abusers using my script, then manually verify the list and only punish those that received merits for posts that are complete garbage... If there is any doubt wether or not somebody received a merit legitimately, the user should be left alone (i'd even go as far as proposing we go trough his/her post history and see if there were other merit-worthy posts aswell).

Last but not least: catching the "big fishes" (the people that sent 1 merit to loads of demoted users) is also pretty easy to do... As a matter of fact, my script already keeps a list of the senders to potential abusers. It's just a matter of counting how many times each sender's uid pops up in the senders list... I haven't implemented this yet, but this implementation would just be 3 or 4 extra lines of code... No biggie...


Title: Re: Is the new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) already reducing spam?
Post by: LoyceV on September 19, 2018, 11:13:38 AM
My proposition was to filter out potential abusers using my script, then manually verify the list and only punish those that received merits for posts that are complete garbage...
This leaves the possibility the shitposter received Merit without buying it. The sender on the other hand is for sure guilty in this scenario.

Your project deserves it's own thread!


Title: Re: Is the new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) already reducing spam?
Post by: mocacinno on September 19, 2018, 11:18:35 AM
My proposition was to filter out potential abusers using my script, then manually verify the list and only punish those that received merits for posts that are complete garbage...
This leaves the possibility the shitposter received Merit without buying it. The sender on the other hand is for sure guilty in this scenario.

Your project deserves it's own thread!

Yeah, there are still a lot of loopholes (which i won't list), i was just going for a way to discourage this kind of behaviour by filtering out the bulk of the potential abusers and holding them responsible for what they've done... That way other people might think twice before buying or exchanging 1 merit to get out of the "newbie hell" (source needed for the expression "newbie hell"... I don't remember who came up with the term, but it's my new go-to expression)


I might make a thread as soon as friday's merit statistics become published (i don't want to make a thread for a script that can't be used right away)... Sorry to have hijacked your thread, i'll try not to do it again  ;)


Title: Re: Is the new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) already reducing spam?
Post by: MagicSmoker on September 19, 2018, 11:20:47 AM
...
Also, i wanted to mention that i never proposed to automise a gut feeling by automising neg repping or ignoring. My script will filter out all POTENTIAL abusers and that's it (nothing more, nothing less). Since i'm pretty sure that a lot of those POTENTIAL abusers are in fact false-positives (since i'm pretty sure a lot of demoted users will have re-promoted on legitimate grounds).
...

Excellent idea! FWIW, I intentionally merited 4 newbies to jr. member in the wake of the bitcointalk snappening (c.f. - Avengers: Infinity War) and I'll admit that a couple of those posts were marginal, but I looked at their history and felt they were making a sincere effort rather than just spew crap in spam megathreads or post bounty reports (marginal because English clearly isn't their primary language). The posts in question are:

HappySun (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3922106.msg45314697#msg45314697)

NiklasFalk (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5028870.msg45885345#msg45885345)

b9ron (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2525508.msg45260948#msg45260948)

SpceGhst (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5031000.msg45833925#msg45833925)

This may help with context on some of the marginal cases; basically, some review of the merit receiver's post history might be necessary and that rapidly becomes too time-consuming to be practical.


EDIT - agree with LoyceV that you should make a new thread in meta about this.


Title: Re: Is the new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) already reducing spam?
Post by: LoyceV on September 19, 2018, 11:28:02 AM
That way other people might think twice before buying or exchanging 1 merit to get out of the "newbie hell" (source needed for the expression "newbie hell"... I don't remember who came up with the term, but it's my new go-to expression)
I saw it first used by MagicSmoker (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5030749.msg45824521#msg45824521), but the oldest reference I can find is Omega0255 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=18799.msg243288#msg243288) more than 7 years ago.

Quote
I might make a thread as soon as friday's merit statistics become published (i don't want to make a thread for a script that can't be used right away)...
I'll update mine in about 48 hours. Theymos' original data will be a couple hours earlier.

Quote
Sorry to have hijacked your thread, i'll try not to do it again  ;)
No problem, I started it :P


Title: Re: Is the new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) already reducing spam?
Post by: MagicSmoker on September 19, 2018, 11:32:48 AM
That way other people might think twice before buying or exchanging 1 merit to get out of the "newbie hell" (source needed for the expression "newbie hell"... I don't remember who came up with the term, but it's my new go-to expression)
I saw it first used by MagicSmoker (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5030749.msg45824521#msg45824521), but the oldest reference I can find is Omega0255 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=18799.msg243288#msg243288) more than 7 years ago.

Don't report me for plagiarism! I came up with it independently, I swear!!!  ;D



Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: xtraelv on September 19, 2018, 11:45:16 AM
The reductions are actually more in the other topics if you take into account the influx of merit related posts now in Meta.

Meta - one of the few safe harbors from spam has be decimated by threads about merit.


Title: Re: Is the new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) already reducing spam?
Post by: Piggy on September 19, 2018, 12:00:28 PM
--snip--
I think @mocacinno will be able to scraped all the newbies who ranked up to Jr. Member from yesterday to today, but he won't(at least take lot of scraping) catch up the Jr. members who demoted yesterday but ranked up again within the same day.

Another thing we can't take decisions just by trusting our gut feelings as mentioned by @mocacinno. I don't know why people so bothered about to find out those demoted users and try to make a relationship between that one merit they got assuming only from a merit abuser. Why people couldn't create any script to catch the big fishes who awarded Merits with big numbers in perticulary in ANN threads rather finding needle in a haystack. I know abuse is an abuse wether it's one or few but we are playing waiting game when it comes to the big numbers.
--snip--

I wasn't aware off this thread yesterday, but since i accidentally stumbled upon this thread today, i wanted to take the time to reply.

My script CAN and WILL find all users that:
  • were junior members before theymos's rule change
  • AND were demoted because of theymos's rule change
  • AND received exactly 1 merit AFTER they were demoted in order to be promoted again

The only timestamp that's important is the exact unix timestamp on which Theymos made the code change... All other factors are unimportant. It doesn't matter if the newbie re-promotes the same day, or 3 days later... My script will filter them out.
The script works on LoyceV's full merit history to filter out potential abusers, after this step, it'll make 1 request per potential abuser. Even if 2000 people are filtered out, the script should still finish in about an hour  (2 seconds sleep every iteration in order not to overload bitcointalk's server).

Also, i wanted to mention that i never proposed to automise a gut feeling by automising neg repping or ignoring. My script will filter out all POTENTIAL abusers and that's it (nothing more, nothing less). Since i'm pretty sure that a lot of those POTENTIAL abusers are in fact false-positives (since i'm pretty sure a lot of demoted users will have re-promoted on legitimate grounds).
My proposition was to filter out potential abusers using my script, then manually verify the list and only punish those that received merits for posts that are complete garbage... If there is any doubt wether or not somebody received a merit legitimately, the user should be left alone (i'd even go as far as proposing we go trough his/her post history and see if there were other merit-worthy posts aswell).

Last but not least: catching the "big fishes" (the people that sent 1 merit to loads of demoted users) is also pretty easy to do... As a matter of fact, my script already keeps a list of the senders to potential abusers. It's just a matter of counting how many times each sender's uid pops up in the senders list... I haven't implemented this yet, but this implementation would just be 3 or 4 extra lines of code... No biggie...

If you want to get out those information, you can also run this query in this tool i made, once the data is coming out on Friday

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4551881.0

maybe adjust it as you see fit but something like this should be more than enough(i'm finishing to update the user ranks as well):

Code:
SELECT MeritData.Date, giver.Rank, giver.Username as 'Giver', receiver.Rank, receiver.Username as 'Receiver', MeritData.Merit,
MeritData.Board,MeritData.SubBoard, MeritData.TitleThread,
'<a href=https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=' || msg || '#' || substr(msg,instr(msg,'.')+1) || '>Link Merited post</a>' as MeritedPost
FROM MeritData
INNER JOIN UserData as receiver ON receiver.UserId = MeritData.toid
INNER JOIN UserData as giver  ON giver.UserId = MeritData.fromid
Where (receiver.rank = 'Newbie' Or receiver.rank = 'Jr. Member' Or receiver.rank = 'Brand new')
AND date BETWEEN '2018-09-17' AND '2018-09-21';


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: athanz88 on September 19, 2018, 12:22:35 PM
My proposition was to filter out potential abusers using my script, then manually verify the list and only punish those that received merits for posts that are complete garbage...
This leaves the possibility the shitposter received Merit without buying it. The sender on the other hand is for sure guilty in this scenario.

Your project deserves it's own thread!

I hope your works can be done as soon as possible @mocacinno. I am sorry to say that and it sounds kinda annoying but if the works can be done as soon as possible, then people can really use it to mark that "lucky member" so they can not advance to upper rank. At least I would do that if no one doing it, with my ignore button.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: LoyceV on September 19, 2018, 12:48:05 PM
Meta - one of the few safe harbors from spam has be decimated by threads about merit.
I've never had to report so many posts in one of my threads in Meta before!


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: Findingnemo on September 19, 2018, 01:09:04 PM
This is just the beginning,the best results will come up in the upcoming weeks and months because now newbies were trying to create one quality post rather than creating 30 shitposts for being a junior member but once they got that 1 merit then the spam will comes again for this all bounties need to only accept the people above the members so the lower ranked people try to make only quality posts.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: MainIbem on September 19, 2018, 04:21:11 PM
There are three kinds of posts in bitcointalk.org.

1. Post for activity. For your activity to continue to grow, you are required to make at least 1 post every 14 days. This is required by all forum members. Some persons will just make a post to escape being redundant for a month.

2. Post for signature. members who are partaking in a signature campaign have a requires a number of posts per week to earn the weeks reward. Most under this circumstance are under pressure to make it up to the required weekly post counts. This group no doubt account for the high number of shitposts, spam post, trolling and so many other kinds of stuff.

3. Post for merit. It is obvious that the future of forum members is tied to quality posts. Some members have developed the nack for a quality post that will earn them merits and they are getting it.

Until this new rule, so many newbies and junoir members never thought it wise to learn and master the art of quality post. I won't be surprised if the analysis confirm my thinking in (2) above.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: stompix on September 19, 2018, 07:30:15 PM
There are three kinds of posts in bitcointalk.org.

1. Post for activity
2. Post for signature.
3. Post for merit.

Until this new rule, so many newbies and junoir members never thought it wise to learn and master the art of quality post. I won't be surprised if the analysis confirm my thinking in (2) above.

You've forgotten posts for merit begging, currently the meta is flooded with newbies suddenly realizing how great this new rule is and how good and Yada Yada.... and how they will contribute and Yada Yad .....trying to impress somebody, get a merit and go back to bounty hunting.

Back to the stats, I would love to see the daily posts made for this week as I'm pretty sure the number will continue to go down a lot. Some have not realized it yet (I'm sure of it!), some are making threads of what happened, some are flooding the board in desperation to get some merit, I wound't be surprised if the daily posts will go down by 50% by the end of the week.



Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: theymos on September 19, 2018, 07:41:52 PM
All posts:
Code:
+----------+-------+
| Days ago | posts |
+----------+-------+
|        0 | 26510 |
|        1 | 42433 |
|        2 | 46736 |
|        3 | 54921 |
|        4 | 45271 |
|        5 | 48072 |
|        6 | 48926 |
|        7 | 46559 |
|        8 | 45886 |
|        9 | 49366 |
|       10 | 55894 |
|       11 | 47335 |
|       12 | 50829 |
|       13 | 53678 |
|       14 | 48648 |
|       15 | 49082 |
|       16 | 50333 |
|       17 | 57172 |
|       18 | 48595 |
|       19 | 52579 |
|       20 | 57679 |
|       21 | 40384 |
|       22 | 54342 |
|       23 | 56030 |
|       24 | 61043 |
|       25 | 48891 |
|       26 | 48744 |
|       27 | 50118 |
|       28 | 47206 |
|       29 | 51689 |
+----------+-------+

Deleted posts (not necessarily by a moderator):
Code:
+----------+-------+
| Days ago | posts |
+----------+-------+
|        0 |   749 |
|        1 |  3004 |
|        2 |  2430 |
|        3 |  1950 |
|        4 |  2275 |
|        5 |  2395 |
|        6 |  2836 |
|        7 |  3439 |
|        8 |  2743 |
|        9 |  3244 |
|       10 |  3793 |
|       11 |  5510 |
|       12 |  5153 |
|       13 |  5681 |
|       14 |  4870 |
|       15 |  5974 |
|       16 |  4685 |
|       17 |  5909 |
|       18 |  7518 |
|       19 |  7709 |
|       20 |  6472 |
|       21 |  5671 |
|       22 |  8891 |
|       23 |  7594 |
|       24 |  6634 |
|       25 |  6694 |
|       26 |  6433 |
|       27 |  5401 |
|       28 |  6260 |
|       29 |  5504 |
+----------+-------+

That's "24-hour periods from now", not calendar days.

There was a bug for the last ~7 hours which prevented all newbie posts, so that's going to make a big dent in the stats.


Title: Re: Is the new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) already reducing spam?
Post by: bitart on September 19, 2018, 08:19:46 PM
....
My script CAN and WILL find all users that:
  • were junior members before theymos's rule change
  • AND were demoted because of theymos's rule change
  • AND received exactly 1 merit AFTER they were demoted in order to be promoted again
...
Maybe it should contain all the users who has received 2 merits or some more, or to do this check after you have finished the 1 merit list...
I think if someone farms a lot of accounts, and wants to distribute merits somehow unnoticed, they won't just pour all the merits from the same account to all of the farmed members but will send 2 merits to an account and that account will have 1 sMerit, so it can send it to another farmed one. It means in the end that the farmer has sent 2 merits and merited 2 accounts with it, so merit has not lost in the transaction...
Just a quick idea...


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: r1s2g3 on September 20, 2018, 12:16:58 AM
It is achieving the objectives. The next step is to see if it can be kept this way with the existing automated or semi-automated surveillance.

Too early to say, At least we should wait for a month.
I am suspecting apart from Merit abuse, it might  trigger more quality post but  plagiarized ,text spin, para phrased post. All are newbies so none of them will not mind to be banned and start doing ban evasion.

As per Forum is concerned , I see these all demoted guys lost there privilege to post in "Serious Discussion" Board.
Can we create one more board like Serious Discussion (No increase in activity and post) but anybody having more than 100 activities can post. Might this board will be helpful to them to discuss things.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: suchmoon on September 20, 2018, 12:37:08 AM
There was a bug for the last ~7 hours which prevented all newbie posts, so that's going to make a big dent in the stats.

Sounds awesome. I'd call it a "feature" and put it in crontab to activate twice a day.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: LoyceV on September 20, 2018, 07:37:50 AM
As per Forum is concerned , I see these all demoted guys lost there privilege to post in "Serious Discussion" Board.
Can we create one more board like Serious Discussion (No increase in activity and post) but anybody having more than 100 activities can post. Might this board will be helpful to them to discuss things.
I doubt someone who can't earn a single Merit (before he reaches 100 Activity) has anything useful to add to Serious Discussion.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: serhio_coin88 on September 20, 2018, 07:56:55 AM
All posts:
Code:
+----------+-------+
| Days ago | posts |
+----------+-------+
|        0 | 26510 |
|        1 | 42433 |
|        2 | 46736 |
|        3 | 54921 |
|        4 | 45271 |
|        5 | 48072 |
|        6 | 48926 |
|        7 | 46559 |
|        8 | 45886 |
|        9 | 49366 |
|       10 | 55894 |
|       11 | 47335 |
|       12 | 50829 |
|       13 | 53678 |
|       14 | 48648 |
|       15 | 49082 |
|       16 | 50333 |
|       17 | 57172 |
|       18 | 48595 |
|       19 | 52579 |
|       20 | 57679 |
|       21 | 40384 |
|       22 | 54342 |
|       23 | 56030 |
|       24 | 61043 |
|       25 | 48891 |
|       26 | 48744 |
|       27 | 50118 |
|       28 | 47206 |
|       29 | 51689 |
+----------+-------+

Deleted posts (not necessarily by a moderator):
Code:
+----------+-------+
| Days ago | posts |
+----------+-------+
|        0 |   749 |
|        1 |  3004 |
|        2 |  2430 |
|        3 |  1950 |
|        4 |  2275 |
|        5 |  2395 |
|        6 |  2836 |
|        7 |  3439 |
|        8 |  2743 |
|        9 |  3244 |
|       10 |  3793 |
|       11 |  5510 |
|       12 |  5153 |
|       13 |  5681 |
|       14 |  4870 |
|       15 |  5974 |
|       16 |  4685 |
|       17 |  5909 |
|       18 |  7518 |
|       19 |  7709 |
|       20 |  6472 |
|       21 |  5671 |
|       22 |  8891 |
|       23 |  7594 |
|       24 |  6634 |
|       25 |  6694 |
|       26 |  6433 |
|       27 |  5401 |
|       28 |  6260 |
|       29 |  5504 |
+----------+-------+

That's "24-hour periods from now", not calendar days.

There was a bug for the last ~7 hours which prevented all newbie posts, so that's going to make a big dent in the stats.
Of course there is an effect, but I'm sure it's temporary!
And in a week or two it will be necessary to make a rule - 2 merits for the jr. member.
And to solve this problem completely, I propose to introduce mandatory periodicity (for example, 1 merit per week) of receiving a merit by all active participants of the forum, regardless of rank.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: mocacinno on September 20, 2018, 08:01:09 AM
--snip--
And to solve this problem completely, I propose to introduce mandatory periodicity (for example, 1 merit per week) of receiving a merit by all active participants of the forum, regardless of rank.

We already have activity for this... You can only gain 14 activity every 2 weeks... I don't see a point in using the same technique for merits.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: coinlocket$ on September 21, 2018, 12:03:01 AM
Let's see what happens in a week or so, I do not think spam has dropped so much or am I wrong? I thought it would come to -50% but we are around 5-10% what do you think? how much do you think can go down?
The thing that seems more visible to me is the decline in deleted messages rather than the decline in written messages, but this is perhaps due to the fact that people are reporting fewer messages and therefore this value can be considered "untrustworthy".


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: MagicSmoker on September 21, 2018, 10:44:36 AM
Let's see what happens in a week or so, I do not think spam has dropped so much or am I wrong? I thought it would come to -50% but we are around 5-10% what do you think?
...

The data posted by theymos a couple days ago shows about a 40% decrease in messages from the day before the meritocalypse occurred (aka the snappening, bitcointalk edition), but my informal observation of spam megathreads over the last few days is not dissimilar to yours: more specifically, posts by newbies - ie, those without signatures - have gone down dramatically, but posts by copper and jr. members with signatures has gone up quite a bit, almost cancelling each other out.

Reporting copper/jr. members for spamming is far more rewarding than no-signature newbies, however, and will likely have a greater effect on reducing spam over time. Ideally, these shitposters will all resort to buying merits or copper memberships only to keep getting nuked for spamming/plagiarism; at some point they'll realize this is no longer a profitable endeavor, and we'll have won.

One can dream, anyway...



Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: Thekool1s on September 21, 2018, 11:15:19 AM
it was expected to happen. But I am now waiting for this to happen.

https://i.imgur.com/WBM3Gu2.jpg


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: Piggy on September 21, 2018, 11:29:42 AM
if this means 10 merits received despite the rank you can flip the graph and will be good to show the suicide rate.  :)


Title: Re: Is the new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) already paying off?
Post by: mazdafunsun on September 21, 2018, 03:09:04 PM
Are you able to calculate how many jr.members were born from yesterday to today and from who were born?
For example, if a person gave the birth to 10 or 20 or 30 Jr.Members can starts to be suspicious!

If you havent yet seen it, I suggest you take a look at this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5034141.0
It shows the top users who have given merit to Newbies.

It is very nice to see that this new system is working even with all the abusers.
This was a rational way to  reduce spam in this forum. Thank you, theymos!

I imagine that we will see similar situation as when the merit system was introduced, abusers sent merit  to their alts back and forth till merit run out and then if mods will have time, they will catch the abusers one by one.




Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: ngoctunghp on September 21, 2018, 05:28:32 PM
I was curious:
Theymos announced the "Enhanced newbie restrictions & requirements" in post 45810047 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5030366.msg45810047#msg45810047). This was on Sep 17 06:27 (Dutch time).
Post 45752895 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4825074.msg45752895#msg45752895) was made 24 hours earlier, and post 45853867 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3212532.msg45853867#msg45853867) was made 24 hours later.
Post 45705944 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4929601.msg45705944#msg45705944) was made 48 hours earlier, post 45894771 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4898731.msg45894771#msg45894771) was made 48 hours later.
Post 45469471 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4980243.msg45469471#msg45469471) was made 1 week (plus 7 minutes) earlier, post =I'll update this next week was made 1 week (plus 7 minutes) later.
That means:
  • In 24 hours before the announcement, 57152 posts were made.
  • In 24 hours after the announcement, 43820 posts were made.
  • In 48 hours before the announcement, 104103 posts were made.
  • In 48 hours after the announcement, 84724 posts were made.
  • In 1 week (+7 minutes) before the announcement, 340576 posts were made.
  • In 1 week (+7 minutes) after the announcement, ZZZ posts were made.
In 24 hours, that's 23.3% less posts.
In 48 hours, that's 18.6% less posts.
In 1 week, that's zzz% less (???) posts.


When I click Show unread posts since last visit. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=unread), I can now see some actual real threads again! There is still ANN and BOUNTY pollution, but in between are real topics (I have no boards on ignore on this account).


Update: theymos posted data (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5032314.msg45912431#msg45912431) on the number of posts per day in the past 30 days.
I see on this forum merit very important? No, it's very important to people who do bounty, bitcointalk worth trying to limit spam? but i see everyone doing bounty not just jr member, not too many jr members, the problem is the bounty of the ICO, all the ICO ask for the post number / 1 week => everyone want to do bounty they have to cmt => lots of post / 1 day and can not avoid spam, who dare sure everyone from rank member up not spam? When bitcointalk requests merit for jr member it makes a lot of people unable to do bounty and reduces the number of commet, which is very easy to understand, if bitcointalk can give up bounty with signature ("I know it is funny when I say this, but there is a vicious circle: making bounty => comment => many comments become spam to complete the bounty task) without the bounty on the forum signature will become true with the forum of crypto,Spammers will disappear, only those who want to exchange knowledge, skills, experience .... will stay, you can count how many post / 1 day, that is the actual number you ưant, with me: bounty = spammer,


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: Jrashid on September 21, 2018, 06:03:02 PM
In addition, I have noticed a couple of threads in altcoin boards which were interesting to read. I mean, there was a healthy discussion in last days. At least we are now started to have a little real discussion.
Long live Merit  ;D


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: ngoctunghp on September 21, 2018, 06:19:10 PM
it was expected to happen. But I am now waiting for this to happen.

https://i.imgur.com/WBM3Gu2.jpg
really? shitpost decrease to 0?? if you want to see that,bitcointalk should reject bounty by signature :)),why do you think from jr member up will not shitpost?only newbie has shitpost?? when all people come this forum with the attitude building, swap knowledge, learn exprience,there are no spam post,if wr still be used rank to do bount,we will be get shit post,nothing is  absolute so I think spam post decrease to 0 is impossible,we only can restrict post spam


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: LoyceV on September 24, 2018, 11:25:38 AM
I've updated the OP:
In 24 hours, that's 23.3% less posts.
In 48 hours, that's 18.6% less posts.
In 1 week, that's 15.9% less posts.
Unfortunately, it looks like the spam reduction is already diminishing. That can be caused by the fact that last week the number of users with 1 Merit went up 25x faster (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5030366.msg45988709#msg45988709) than it did in previous weeks. Many Newbies were promoted back to Jr. Member, and many of those (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5031341.0) were ranked up through Merit abuse. I also see more Newbies wearing Copper Membership now, which allows them to continue spamming their signature.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: Thekool1s on September 24, 2018, 11:57:41 AM
I've updated the OP:
In 24 hours, that's 23.3% less posts.
In 48 hours, that's 18.6% less posts.
In 1 week, that's 15.9% less posts.
Unfortunately, it looks like the spam reduction is already diminishing. That can be caused by the fact that last week the number of users with 1 Merit went up 25x faster (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5030366.msg45988709#msg45988709) than it did in previous weeks. Many Newbies were promoted back to Jr. Member, and many of those (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5031341.0) were ranked up through Merit abuse. I also see more Newbies wearing Copper Membership now, which allows them to continue spamming their signature.

The requirement should have been 5-10 merits. We saw immediate results as soon as 1 merit rule was introduced. I believe, we can let this 1 merit run for a trial period of a month or two and if things are still the same we should bump up the merit requirement. As for Newbies Buying copper, let them buy. The next target for DT members should be the managers who are accepting these spam posts. They Deserve the Red tag immediately.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: criz2fer on September 24, 2018, 12:32:12 PM
it was expected to happen. But I am now waiting for this to happen.
...
It would take time to make it possible. We need more data and analysis if this is needed or not because if it will be immediately implemented, the interest of people would also at risk specially there this is not only the medium in having more reliable information about cryptocurrency.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: stompix on September 24, 2018, 12:51:55 PM
I've updated the OP:
In 24 hours, that's 23.3% less posts.
In 48 hours, that's 18.6% less posts.
In 1 week, that's 15.9% less posts.
Unfortunately, it looks like the spam reduction is already diminishing. That can be caused by the fact that last week the number of users with 1 Merit went up 25x faster (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5030366.msg45988709#msg45988709) than it did in previous weeks. Many Newbies were promoted back to Jr. Member, and many of those (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5031341.0) were ranked up through Merit abuse. I also see more Newbies wearing Copper Membership now, which allows them to continue spamming their signature.

I'm ok with 15%
Don't forget that when comparing the 24h interval you're comparing Sunday with Monday, and you can see a drop one week before also


Quote
0 | 26510 |
1 | 42433 |
2 | 46736 |
3 | 54921 |
4 | 45271 |
5 | 48072 |
6 | 48926 |
7 | 46559 |
8 | 45886 |
9 | 49366 |
10 | 55894|

Posting tweeter and fb links was not affected by this and I assume a lot of them started posting more since the signature option was no longer available. Judging by the fact that the Bounties board has become the second largest it might be safe to approximate 25% of the traffic goes there so the drop comes from the other sections.

And unfortunately, there are a lot of spammers with 0 merits that have ranked a long time ago and those are not affected.


 


Title: Re: Is the new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) already reducing spam?
Post by: Mpamaegbu on September 24, 2018, 01:07:07 PM
With the current that the admins are doing from yesterday to this has reduced a lot of new people can not write articles. minimize spam
The groups are discussing a lot about the new policy

what the fuck is this nonsense?
Hehehehe...That's the effect of getting hit in the head. Don't you realize the recent amendment by Theymos was a punch?

BTW, I really get pissed when I see certain good posts from Newbies which don't get merited. I know a lot of merit sources would rather merit a post by Theymos or known high ranked members here than merit a noob with great comments. This is my observation and I think the DT members should also start tagging those who merit signature and bounty OPs. What the heck is that for to merit bounties if not to lick asses.


Title: Re: Is the new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) already reducing spam?
Post by: suchmoon on September 24, 2018, 06:01:31 PM
BTW, I really get pissed when I see certain good posts from Newbies which don't get merited. I know a lot of merit sources would rather merit a post by Theymos or known high ranked members here than merit a noob with great comments.

You have merited only 1 or 2 newbies so you must be not that pissed really.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: chiyenbtre on September 25, 2018, 03:12:35 AM
Unfortunately, it looks like the spam reduction is already diminishing. That can be caused by the fact that last week the number of users with 1 Merit went up 25x faster (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5030366.msg45988709#msg45988709) than it did in previous weeks. Many Newbies were promoted back to Jr. Member, and many of those (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5031341.0) were ranked up through Merit abuse. I also see more Newbies wearing Copper Membership now, which allows them to continue spamming their signature.
It is the important point.
As @coinlocket$ presented in his thread, the merit distribution increased more than 90% over the last week, since the implementation of new rank requirement, which requires 1 merit to be a Junior Member.
The start of new ERA!

https://puu.sh/BzDhw/e923a86f4e.pnghttps://puu.sh/BzDiI/53722c8a7b.png


Every single transactions can be found here, https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1R3dE2huMLqjvC1JpFUimRvXvktBxjD-Sgqw61S5oYhk/edit#gid=0

Feel free to find and report abusers!
It's also noticeable that more and more Junior Members that have 1 merit after that day.
Before that day, I believe that it is hard to find a Junior Member with at least 1 merit.
Personally, I call it as one of side effects of the new rank requirement.

Anyway, thanks @Theymos by the latest adjustments on ranking system.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: YOSHIE on September 25, 2018, 06:39:08 AM
I was curious:
Theymos announced the "Enhanced newbie restrictions & requirements" in post 45810047 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5030366.msg45810047#msg45810047). This was on Sep 17 06:27 (Dutch time).
Post
When I click [url=https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=unread]Show unread posts since last visit. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?

[hr), I can now see some actual real threads again! There is still ANN and BOUNTY pollution, but in between are real topics (I have no boards on ignore on this account).


Update: theymos posted data (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5032314.msg45912431#msg45912431) on the number of posts per day in the past 30 days.
Under these conditions if there has not been any change to the policy and the application of this new rule of socialization related to the regulation, by establishing a regulation and marketing of Bitcoin Core and Merit recently implemented and the Forum Board witnessing both success and failure, I think it is necessary to collaborate with the characteristics successful new rules.


1.) DON'T EVER RECRUIT "NEW MEMBERS":

All Forums must adopt @theymos policy. The standard value of the Global Forum is to hire the best Members in the Forum,

2.) STEALING THE SCIENCE FROM COMPETITORS:

Most Forum Members only focus on their projects and tokens and are blind to other things.

3.) VALUE FOR DIVERSITY:

in building a team
Most of the Forums under the auspices of Bitcoin Core have teams from various ethnic groups, but there are still gender gaps.

4.) DO SOCIALIZATION QUICKLY:

Every Forum Board has made a mistake in recruiting talents, sometimes too slowly so that they lose good talent. In other situations, there are only members who are not suitable for the Bitcointalk Forum but pass the recruitment process. Remember, being a Forum wrongdoer is a natural thing that is important is how the Board makes improvements quickly.

5.) EVERYTHING TEST:

For Forum members it's about experimenting and testing initial assumptions and hypotheses.
Change everything according to the feedback the Board gets.
Let's say you run a pilot; it sounds much better.

6.) COMPLETED TASK :

If board have a lot of time and money, Bitcointalk Furum will be able to set a high target.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: DdmrDdmr on September 25, 2018, 06:41:36 AM
<...>It's also noticeable that more and more Junior Members that have 1 merit after that day.
Before that day, I believe that it is hard to find a Junior Member with at least 1 merit.<...>
There were quite a few before the change of rules (just over 5K):
As of 21/09/2018: 6.561 Jr. Members with at least 1 received sMerit (after the change of rules).
As of 14/09/2018: 5.087 Jr. Members with at least 1 received sMerit (before the change of rules).
As of 07/09/2018: 4.908 Jr. Members with at least 1 received sMerit.

You can see the boost caused by the change of rules though, going from a weekly increment of just 200 cases the week before, to nearly 1.500 after the first four days of change in rules. Most are re-ranked cases (1.463 of them back to Jr. Member from Newbie). Aside from that 145 Newbies that did-not rank-up were merited for the first time, and 29 went all the way up to Member from Newbie.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: MagicSmoker on September 25, 2018, 10:24:09 AM
1.) DON'T EVER RECRUIT "NEW MEMBERS":

All Forums must adopt @theymos policy. The standard value of the Global Forum is to hire the best Members in the Forum,
...

What the hell is this gibberish*? The only members that have been hired here are the staff and some (all?) moderators; the rest of us are here voluntarily.







* - a rhetorical question, really.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: YOSHIE on September 25, 2018, 02:26:37 PM
1.) DON'T EVER RECRUIT "NEW MEMBERS":

All Forums must adopt @theymos policy. The standard value of the Global Forum is to hire the best Members in the Forum,
...

What the hell is this gibberish*? The only members that have been hired here are the staff and some (all?) moderators; the rest of us are here voluntarily.
It is clear that those who work are staff, monderator ...
(all?) is (local?).
What do I mean to say? about new Members, if this is uncontrolled in (one) day if it continues to grow by around 100 people throughout the country, newbie members, do not expect spam to disappear?
"So every newbie member who registers must go through a selection of staff, Monderator, and local forums. If necessary, create a profile photo for newbie members, then all spam issues are resolved .... Not nonsense ... after all the requirements are complete, all decisions are received or not in hand @Theymos


"- the it new rhetorical...


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: criz2fer on September 25, 2018, 03:04:21 PM
Unfortunately, it looks like the spam reduction is already diminishing. That can be caused by the fact that last week the number of users with 1 Merit went up 25x faster (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5030366.msg45988709#msg45988709) than it did in previous weeks. Many Newbies were promoted back to Jr. Member, and many of those (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5031341.0) were ranked up through Merit abuse. I also see more Newbies wearing Copper Membership now, which allows them to continue spamming their signature.
It is the important point.
As @coinlocket$ presented in his thread, the merit distribution increased more than 90% over the last week, since the implementation of new rank requirement, which requires 1 merit to be a Junior Member.
The start of new ERA!
.....
Every single transactions can be found here, https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1R3dE2huMLqjvC1JpFUimRvXvktBxjD-Sgqw61S5oYhk/edit#gid=0

Feel free to find and report abusers!
It's also noticeable that more and more Junior Members that have 1 merit after that day.
Before that day, I believe that it is hard to find a Junior Member with at least 1 merit.
Personally, I call it as one of side effects of the new rank requirement.

Anyway, thanks @Theymos by the latest adjustments on ranking system.
From 6922-merit sent 23/09/2018

Now, we could just filter those merited newbies and check them which are legit and alt accounts. It would minimize the job of the mods to catch the account farmers and the spambies in the forum.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: cabalism13 on September 25, 2018, 03:14:58 PM
Now, we could just filter those merited newbies and check them which are legit and alt accounts.

You can now start the hard work by using these data of LoyceV ;D :
http://loycevsbasement.privatedns.org/First_Merit_Received/Meritreceivers_4_days_after_changes_for_JrMembers.html

It would minimize the job of the mods to catch the account farmers and the spambies in the forum.

Yeah, it is indeed too much handy-dandy if they will still be bothered by these accounts.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: DdmrDdmr on September 25, 2018, 03:17:58 PM
<...>
From 6922-merit sent 23/09/2018

Now, we could just filter those merited newbies and check them which are legit and alt accounts. It would minimize the job of the mods to catch the account farmers and the spambies in the forum.
I shared the complete list a few days ago, with all newly up-ranked newbies:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KmBvi21XZn6Oxh8c6Vsuax6wxSAhsQWsAzDYfsYOU2E/edit#gid=0

Nevertheless, Mods will not likely follow-up potential cases. It’s up to whoever wishes to investigate the cases and bring them up in Reputation or threads dedicated to Merit Abuse. 


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: Johnnygroomq on September 25, 2018, 03:39:33 PM
and so thank you for such a change. And so half of the forum in a panic because of the lowering of rank) They do not know where to go))))thanks for the new changes.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: criz2fer on September 25, 2018, 03:57:57 PM
<...>
From 6922-merit sent 23/09/2018

Now, we could just filter those merited newbies and check them which are legit and alt accounts. It would minimize the job of the mods to catch the account farmers and the spambies in the forum.
I shared the complete list a few days ago, with all newly up-ranked newbies:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KmBvi21XZn6Oxh8c6Vsuax6wxSAhsQWsAzDYfsYOU2E/edit#gid=0

Nevertheless, Mods will not likely follow-up potential cases. It’s up to whoever wishes to investigate the cases and bring them up in Reputation or threads dedicated to Merit Abuse. 

Lets get started  ;). Although I'm not a full time here, i'll just give a shot on those abusers. Small actions may have a big effect if all members are contributing to clean the forum.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: stompix on September 25, 2018, 05:23:37 PM
<...>
From 6922-merit sent 23/09/2018

Now, we could just filter those merited newbies and check them which are legit and alt accounts. It would minimize the job of the mods to catch the account farmers and the spambies in the forum.
I shared the complete list a few days ago, with all newly up-ranked newbies:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KmBvi21XZn6Oxh8c6Vsuax6wxSAhsQWsAzDYfsYOU2E/edit#gid=0

Nevertheless, Mods will not likely follow-up potential cases. It’s up to whoever wishes to investigate the cases and bring them up in Reputation or threads dedicated to Merit Abuse. 


That list is so demoralizing

Volpcoin has received 1 merit for an ann
savitardty is a weird case as he has received a merit for a post for June but he hasn;t logged in for 40 days
Jhonkar has 5 merits for 5 deleted posts
morata21 is tagged as an alt of a plagiarist.
enzo24 received a merit on a June post that is pure crap (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3397571.msg43192178#msg43192178)
asensio22 (woken up after 1 year of hibernation) got 1 merit for posts number #1047 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1923060.msg21670317#msg21670317) in a mega thread

stompix sad  :'( :'( :'(
 


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: slocker on September 25, 2018, 05:33:51 PM
This is really helpful and must say interesting in many way. First i have almost a day in time spend here, but i try to spend as much time reading and not asking same question twice (my only concern is that search is not sorted by date). So far that I read this merit system is good call and its reduced not just spam and junk as well. Hopefully some new improvement will bring even better for this forum, this is my humble saying cuz im not that big rank or skilled in many skill here.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: DdmrDdmr on September 25, 2018, 05:53:42 PM
<...>
Which goes to prove that the 1 merit rule is up to some extent easy to bypass by farmers, but even so, many will not be able to even achieve it (not enough merits to cover all the Alts from the father account). A step-up in the criteria could, at a later stage, be obviously requiring more merit but from x distinct people (i.e. 5 merits from 5 different people). Not impassable, but certainly tougher to overcome. Anyway, we’ve just changed the rule, so that is going to stay for a while. At best, people can work on the diverse lists for suspicious clear cases, and farmers know that they are being watched …


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: Piggy on September 25, 2018, 06:07:34 PM
<...>
Which goes to prove that the 1 merit rule is up to some extent easy to bypass by farmers, but even so, many will not be able to even achieve it (not enough merits to cover all the Alts from the father account). A step-up in the criteria could, at a later stage, be obviously requiring more merit but from x distinct people (i.e. 5 merits from 5 different people). Not impassable, but certainly tougher to overcome. Anyway, we’ve just changed the rule, so that is going to stay for a while. At best, people can work on the diverse lists for suspicious clear cases, and farmers know that they are being watched …


In the end what ever method somebody could come with, there are always going to be smart ass with enough merits or strategies to bypass them. It would make life just harder for legit people.

As somebody as already proposed, there could be people with the power to reverse the merit given, if the case is a clear abuse.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: criz2fer on September 26, 2018, 10:03:15 AM
<...>
Which goes to prove that the 1 merit rule is up to some extent easy to bypass by farmers, but even so, many will not be able to even achieve it (not enough merits to cover all the Alts from the father account). A step-up in the criteria could, at a later stage, be obviously requiring more merit but from x distinct people (i.e. 5 merits from 5 different people). Not impassable, but certainly tougher to overcome. Anyway, we’ve just changed the rule, so that is going to stay for a while. At best, people can work on the diverse lists for suspicious clear cases, and farmers know that they are being watched …


In the end what ever method somebody could come with, there are always going to be smart ass with enough merits or strategies to bypass them. It would make life just harder for legit people.

As somebody as already proposed, there could be people with the power to reverse the merit given, if the case is a clear abuse.
That would make's life unfair. :) But for a better forum, its worth a shot for everyone to benefit from learning crypto. Spammers are inevitable for every forum, we should live with it but if there are to much, we should control it.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: Rtalk on September 26, 2018, 10:19:06 AM
Sorry, but for every action there is a reaction.Who is spamming here earlier and is going to continue to do so-will always find a way to get merit.It is important that innovations had a positive impact on those participants who are here for the sake of knowledge.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: mazdafunsun on September 26, 2018, 11:10:14 AM
The thing that i have spotted in last few days is that i see more new topics in sections which usually are populated exsluisvely only by mega threads, it seems that they are not burried instantly as before. This is a good sign and it means that we are on the right path atleast.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: MagicSmoker on September 26, 2018, 01:43:05 PM

What the hell is this gibberish*? The only members that have been hired here are the staff and some (all?) moderators; the rest of us are here voluntarily.
It is clear that those who work are staff, monderator ...
(all?) is (local?).
What do I mean to say? about new Members, if this is uncontrolled in (one) day if it continues to grow by around 100 people throughout the country, newbie members, do not expect spam to disappear?
"So every newbie member who registers must go through a selection of staff, Monderator, and local forums. If necessary, create a profile photo for newbie members, then all spam issues are resolved .... Not nonsense ... after all the requirements are complete, all decisions are received or not in hand @Theymos
...

Don't edit or strikeout what people have written when you quote their post; if you don't like what was written or it is irrelevant to the discussion then just don't include it in the quote. I use the ellipsis (...) to indicate words were omitted, but "~snip" is also popular here.

That said, your reply is also nonsensical because you clearly don't understand English that well, but it seems you are saying that every new user should submit an application - including a picture - for review by staff/moderators/theymos before being allowed to join the forum. If this is a correct interpretation of what you wrote then I can assure you, despite not having any inside information whatsoever, that this will never fly here.



Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: LoyceV on October 01, 2018, 08:35:46 AM
In 24 hours, that's 23.3% less posts.
In 48 hours, that's 18.6% less posts.
In 1 week, that's 15.9% less posts.
In 2 weeks, that's 18.6% less posts.
OP updated.
I'm happily surprised to see the reduction go up again.

If I ignore the one week before and after theymos' changes, and only look at the number of posts made a week earlier and later (so posts made from September 3 to September 10, and from September 24 to October 1), it went down from 355933 to 280633 posts. That's a 21.2% reduction.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: DooMAD on October 01, 2018, 09:01:12 AM
That list is so demoralizing

(...)

stompix sad  :'( :'( :'(

Really?  The fact that people such as yourself care enough to take time out of their day to check this stuff is highly uplifting for me.  Yes, this new requirement is causing some to attempt to cheat, but at the same time, many of them are going to get caught because there are some incredibly diligent people around here who are doing their best to make this forum a better place.  The ones abusing the system will effectively weed themselves out.  I'd say all is working as intended, so don't let it get you down.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: hilariousetc on October 01, 2018, 09:29:41 AM
<...>
Which goes to prove that the 1 merit rule is up to some extent easy to bypass by farmers, but even so, many will not be able to even achieve it (not enough merits to cover all the Alts from the father account). A step-up in the criteria could, at a later stage, be obviously requiring more merit but from x distinct people (i.e. 5 merits from 5 different people). Not impassable, but certainly tougher to overcome. Anyway, we’ve just changed the rule, so that is going to stay for a while. At best, people can work on the diverse lists for suspicious clear cases, and farmers know that they are being watched …


It's sadly too easy to bypass especially for those who are abusing it the most. The biggest abusers of the forum aren't just going to give up because of this requirement, but we're already seeing how they're dishing merit between alts their dozens of alts: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5037225.msg46135292#msg46135292

That's why I think it should be more than one. One is fine for moving from Newbie to Junior but it shouldn't get you a signature. Remove signatures from Juniors and then you have to get ten Merit and become a Member to get one. Getting ten merit is ten times more difficult and costly and also much easier to spot abuse. Anyone can get one merit just for bothering to make one decent post that they could have copied from anywhere. Ten merit is much harder to get and that would at least be some sort of competency test for whether you should be allowed to earn via signatures here (and not everyone should be).


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: o_e_l_e_o on October 01, 2018, 01:19:17 PM
-snip-

That's certainly an encouraging start. My worry is as hilarious pointed out - gaining 1 merit is easy. Even if they can't trade between alts, they can easily beg, buy, or plagiarize for a single merit. A 20% reduction is great, but only if it continues. As the system stands, that 20% will slowly fall as more and more of the spambies start to level up again. Not only would a 10 merit requirement reduce that rate of fall significantly, it would likely result in a further reduction of spam as many of the newbies still spamming in the hope of gaining 1 random merit would just give up entirely if they knew they had to reach 10, as well as knocking out many multiple account users who would not have enough merit to level up all their alts.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: LoyceV on October 09, 2018, 06:56:42 AM
In 24 hours, that's 23.3% less posts.
In 48 hours, that's 18.6% less posts.
In 1 week, that's 15.9% less posts.
In 2 weeks, that's 18.6% less posts.
In 3 weeks, that's 22.2% less posts.
OP updated.
The reduction in total posts went up again!

If I ignore the one week before and after theymos' changes, and only look at the number of posts made a week earlier and later (so posts made from September 3 to September 10, and from September 24 to October 1), it went down from 355933 to 280633 posts. That's a 21.2% reduction.
If I ignore the two weeks before and after theymos' changes, and only look at the number of posts made two weeks earlier and later (so posts made from August 27 to September 3, and from October 1 to October 8), it went down from 367037 to 260330 posts. That's a 29.1% reduction.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: stompix on October 12, 2018, 06:56:16 AM
Checking the patrol seems like the link posting is not affected at all and paid bumping continues, the bounties section is almost 12% of the entire forum in one year, so most of the posts probably go there.
So in the end, those 20%-30% are where it really matters,and if a few (hundred) mega threads would be trashed it would probably still be some hope to save the bitcoin discussion section.

Oh, and there are a few dozen higher rank member that get banned for plagiarism each week, cutting down useless posting  ;D

I wonder how new registrations stats looks like...




Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: slocker on October 12, 2018, 07:55:43 AM
Checking the patrol seems like the link posting is not affected at all and paid bumping continues, the bounties section is almost 12% of the entire forum in one year, so most of the posts probably go there.
So in the end, those 20%-30% are where it really matters,and if a few mega (hundred) mega threads would be trashed it would probably still be hope save the bitcoin discussion section.

Oh, and there are a few dozen higher rank member that get banned for plagiarism each week, cutting down useless posting  ;D

I wonder how new registrations stats looks like...

This is totally true and I personally agree with you. I cannot follow tokens and bounties anymore. Look one thing after few second this is already on page five. This should be reduced by bounty manager. They should create some spreadsheet with google easily and this could reduce everything by at least 30%. Almost every topic have post in this form you twit and facebook post. This can be reduced with google form. It should be like bitcoin signature campaign post until its full then campaign manager post bounties are send or payment is send. Nothing more.



Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: DdmrDdmr on October 12, 2018, 08:43:59 AM
<...>
I wonder how new registrations stats looks like...
I’ve taken a quick look, using the forum official stats and WayBackMachine to get different snapshots (*). This is what it looks like recently:
Code:
Date         nRegistered         nDays      nRegPerDay
12/10/2018    2.417.202           7           1.293
05/10/2018    2.408.148           10          1.797
25/09/2018    2.390.175           9           1.171
16/09/2018    2.379.633           14          1.423
02/09/2018    2.359.700           7           1.500
26/08/2018    2.349.200           6           1.589
20/08/2018    2.339.665           11          1.705
 
It seems we’re getting between 1.2K and 1.8K new registered users per day (not the 439.36 that we see on the stats which must be taking into account all history). The date range between the 16/09/2018 and the 25/09/2018 seemed to decrease the registration process a bit (change of Jr.Member rule) , but it spiked up again during the ten days after that, to decrease again over the last 7 days. It’s a bit of a roller coaster really.

(*) Snapshots are not taken at the same time, so some dates have more hours accounted for than others have, but still it’s the best we can do from the outside.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: LoyceV on October 12, 2018, 09:39:27 AM
I wonder how new registrations stats looks like...
I’ve taken a quick look, using the forum official stats and WayBackMachine to get different snapshots (*).
You can easily get very accurate registration data by just looking at the registration dates in the profiles ;)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2400000 for instance was registered September 20, 2018, 02:28:47 PM, and on September 28, 2018, 07:49:28 PM there were 10000 more accounts.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: stompix on October 12, 2018, 10:33:46 AM
I wonder how new registrations stats looks like...
I’ve taken a quick look, using the forum official stats and WayBackMachine to get different snapshots (*).
You can easily get very accurate registration data by just looking at the registration dates in the profiles ;)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2400000 for instance was registered September 20, 2018, 02:28:47 PM, and on September 28, 2018, 07:49:28 PM there were 10000 more accounts.

Nice one... ;D
So the interval between 10 000 accounts registration has been indeed fluctuating quite a lot..

September 20, 2018, 12:28:47 PM
September 28, 2018, 05:49:28 PM
October 01, 2018, 05:43:00 PM
October 10, 2018, 05:37:46 AM

and we've got, 710.501 , 258.812 and 777.286 seconds.

Now this made me curious  ;D , before that the interval between 10k accounts was also 699.208 seconds.
So somewhere between Sep 28 and October 01 we witnessed a new spike in users interested in bitcoin some ICO bumpers got new clients.



Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: TheBeardedBaby on October 12, 2018, 10:38:05 AM

Now this made me curious  ;D , before that the interval between 10k accounts was also 699.208 seconds.
So somewhere between Sep 28 and October 01 we witnessed a new spike in users interested in bitcoin some ICO bumpers got new clients.

It's more likely a new wave of bots coming towards us coz many got banned last month, and it takes a bit of a time for the puppeteer to figure all out.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: DdmrDdmr on October 12, 2018, 01:28:31 PM
<…>
It’s highly likely a batch of accounts prepared for bots as you say. Looking at the interval we focused on, using @Loyce’s system I managed to narrow down a huge peak of new accounts created on September the 29th 2018, with over 7K accounts created in the span of 24 hours, way above average:

Code:
UserId    Date Registered                                   Hours and minutes to next block of 1k accounts
2409000    September 27, 2018, 11:59:27 PM                   23:59
2410000    September 28, 2018, 07:49:28 PM                   19:50
2411000    September 28, 2018, 11:06:53 PM                   3:17
2412000    September 29, 2018, 03:12:44 AM                   4:05
2413000    September 29, 2018, 06:56:44 AM                   3:44
2414000    September 29, 2018, 11:11:30 AM                   4:14
2415000    September 29, 2018, 02:15:30 PM                   3:04
2416000    September 29, 2018, 05:36:53 PM                   3:21
2417000    September 29, 2018, 08:36:16 PM                   2:59
2418000    September 30, 2018, 02:58:29 PM                   18:22
2419000    October 01, 2018, 09:25:49 AM                     18:27
2420000    October 01, 2018, 07:43:00 PM                     10:17
2421000    October 02, 2018, 02:13:11 PM                     18:30
2422000    October 03, 2018, 09:07:42 AM                     18:54
2423000    October 04, 2018, 02:20:10 AM                     17:12
2424000    October 04, 2018, 09:51:51 PM                     19:31
2425000    October 05, 2018, 07:50:27 PM                     21:58
Fits my peak and @stompix's narrowed down version.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: LoyceV on October 12, 2018, 01:49:43 PM
@DdmrDdmr So some spammer registered about 6000 accounts in the time that normally 1000 accounts would have been registered. That means 6 out of 7 accounts in that block are owned by a spammer, and somewhere in the future they'll be running spam bots.
I checked a few usernames, and see very similar patterns. And this comes on top of the normal spam accounts that are created already!

Some usernames:
Af7er68957h3da
usedA3ri31a
d3l0r4As1e3p3241
Alys5mi5sion
l4r63karoly
Eachzaria5005

And they probably use different patterns too.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: DdmrDdmr on October 12, 2018, 02:01:27 PM
<…>
Yes, it rather interesting and dam well worrying to see these sorts of patterns, creating large set of accounts waiting to be set in motion at some point (or going through evil IP issues and spinning IPs somehow until they get accounts created that are free of this concept). Maybe the subscription process could/should be tightened a bit at some point somehow. It seems just too easy to program a burst of automated account creations right now…


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: bitart on October 12, 2018, 07:28:20 PM
...
So in the end, those 20%-30% are where it really matters,and if a few (hundred) mega threads would be trashed it would probably still be some hope to save the bitcoin discussion section.
...
I always suggest to just delete those megathreads and 99% of the off topic section, that would decrease the activity count of the farmed accounts....
I know that there is a lot of useful post in the spam megathreads too, but anyway... "Wo gehobelt wird, fallen Späne." (similar in engish: "You can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs")


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: LFC_Bitcoin on October 13, 2018, 12:07:56 PM
Loyce, what would you have done here? Found myself in two minds a while ago. This poster made a good, constructive post. I checked his post history though & it was litteted with crap posted in the Bounty/Altcoin subsection.

I was going to send him the 1 Merit he needed for the original post but decided against it because I’d be the one responsible for him ranking up.

Merits can be earned by posting high quality topics and a topics that can produce a good discussion ! Yes it's a reality that only high rank members get a lot of merits and us newbies or low ranks gets nothing because of these reasons:

1. High rank people has more knowledge and experience in this forum thus they can produce a good topic and discussion
2. Mostly high ranking people gets the chance to create & manage bounties (legit and high quality bounties gets a merit from participants or reviewers)
3. High rank people are not afraid to post a comment or topic because they know all the rules to avoid a ban

Those are some of the major reasons I think... if there is some other reason just qoute it ! :)

Here is a reason why newbies or low ranks don't get any merits or less merits:

1. Low Rank people or newbies has less/no knowledge and experience thus they cannot produce a good topic or a good comment in this forum
2. Low Rank people or newbies (those accounts who are not owned by ICO's) didn't get the chance to create & manage bounties for the reasons that ICO's base only on trust, ranks & importantly experiences
3. Low Rank people or newbies is afraid to post a comment or topic because they really don't know fully the rules to avoid a ban

And also in addition many says that merits are just created just to ruined the lives of newbies and low ranks they are created to make the people on top more rich. Maybe that's true but its up to you newbies & low ranks if you want to make your rank up ! You need to make more effort and have more learnings about this business for you to be able to make a good topics and discussions to produce merits ! Everything cannot be owned without efforts ! Face it ! Don't compare yourself to those high ranks make your own name and be on top and you can make a change by helping those newbies go up also ! :)

https://mokas.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/MICKEY-MOUSE-IF-YOU-CAN-DREAM-IT-YOU-CAN-DO-IT--1.jpg

I was going to send you 1 Merit for this post but I checked out your post history & it’s littered with Bounty Hunting spam so I’m not going to now, sorry.

You’ll never rank up if the majority of your posts are in that shit hole of the forum. More posts like this though & you’ll rank up.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: LoyceV on October 15, 2018, 08:17:19 PM
OP updated, and calculation slightly changed:
  • In the first week after the announcement, 286408 posts were made (-19.05%).
  • In the second week after the announcement, 280503 posts were made (-20.72%).
  • In the third week after the announcement, 259694 posts were made (-26.60%).
  • In the forth week after the announcement, 263685 posts were made (-25.47%).


Loyce, what would you have done here? Found myself in two minds a while ago. This poster made a good, constructive post. I checked his post history though & it was litteted with crap posted in the Bounty/Altcoin subsection.
I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I'm with hilarious on this one:
But isn't this attitude counter-productive? We're meant to be rewarding users who make decent posts and if a user makes one then that post probably should be merited. I get your logic though ~
But on the other hand I'm with DdmrDdmr too:
~A decent post does not make up for a lame prior posting history. ~
To conclude my mixed feelings: I've merited all posts on the subject in that thread, including the "bounty spammer". It's all worth reading. Since he (she?) is a Copper Member anyway, and received 1 Merit by the time I read the post, one more Merit isn't going to change anything. I'd like to encourage users to stop spamming, even if it's just one post.
The worst case would be if it's one of many alt accounts that receives 1 Merit for 1 good post, after which the spammer continues spamming with his army of alt accounts. If that's the case, he'll never continue making good posts.
On the other hand, if it's a real user, he might put in a bit more effort in at least some of his posts in the future. If my Merit can help accomplish that, it's well worth it.
There's another thing: as much as I hate spammers, I don't really mind them as long as they stay on their own bounty spam board. Theymos created that board for that reason, and as long as theymos allows it, who am I to judge them?


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: MagicSmoker on October 15, 2018, 10:15:57 PM
But isn't this attitude counter-productive? We're meant to be rewarding users who make decent posts and if a user makes one then that post probably should be merited. I get your logic though ~
But on the other hand I'm with DdmrDdmr too:
~A decent post does not make up for a lame prior posting history. ~

I'm mostly in DdmrDdmr's camp, too, but I also get the point hilariousandco is making. If newbies haven't made at least a couple of decent posts in the month since the new requirements for jr. member took effect then it's probably safe to say they will never get better. Conversely, if a former shitposter/bounty hunter has managed a few good posts in that time then I am less opposed to meriting them. I, personally, won't merit anyone whose post history mostly consists of bounty reports, but that's just a personal preference and, like I said, I see the point hilariousandco is making w/r/t encouraging those users who (might) have realized the error of their shitposting ways.





Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: Armagh1234 on October 15, 2018, 10:52:56 PM
Of course this is going to happen. This is no mystery. You removed the signature of so many users by demoting them to newbie. All the users and multi-account owners that were shitposting non-stop to get to 15 posts a week for the signature campaigns.

You want to make it even better? How about this:

This is my humble suggestion: :
Have a MAXIMUM number of activities or posts for junior and Member ranked profiles in Bitcointalk per week or month.
I see people with 200+ activities and only one merit that they probably bought/scammed someone to get. THESE accounts are the real shitposters.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: hilariousetc on October 16, 2018, 07:55:32 AM
But isn't this attitude counter-productive? We're meant to be rewarding users who make decent posts and if a user makes one then that post probably should be merited. I get your logic though ~
But on the other hand I'm with DdmrDdmr too:
~A decent post does not make up for a lame prior posting history. ~

I'm mostly in DdmrDdmr's camp, too, but I also get the point hilariousandco is making. If newbies haven't made at least a couple of decent posts in the month since the new requirements for jr. member took effect then it's probably safe to say they will never get better. Conversely, if a former shitposter/bounty hunter has managed a few good posts in that time then I am less opposed to meriting them. I, personally, won't merit anyone whose post history mostly consists of bounty reports, but that's just a personal preference and, like I said, I see the point hilariousandco is making w/r/t encouraging those users who (might) have realized the error of their shitposting ways.





This is why I think we should make the merit requirement ten. Nobody has time to go through a users post history to check it and this is something we shouldn't even have to do. I'm fine with one merit for becoming a Junior, but not to get a signature. Lets remove Juniors sigs completely and make the merit requirement ten to get one. That way we can be way more liberal with merits and at least a shitposter will have to redeem themselves by making multiple quality posts so their previous history shouldn't be something we have to worry about as they've probably redeemed themselves if they've managed to get the ten merit. Ten merit is also obviously ten times harder/more costly to abuse and one is far too easy to get or abuse right now. I think this benefits everyone and will probably make it easy for users to get the merit, or at least make them put more effort in over several posts rather than just hoping they get the merit for one decent post (which users are obviously reluctant to merit if it's an anomaly).


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: MagicSmoker on October 16, 2018, 10:15:09 AM
...
Lets remove Juniors sigs completely and make the merit requirement ten to get one. That way we can be way more liberal with merits and at least a shitposter will have to redeem themselves by making multiple quality posts so their previous history shouldn't be something we have to worry about as they've probably redeemed themselves if they've managed to get the ten merit.
...

Hmm... the phrase I underlined is an interesting point which I hadn't thought of despite that I already agreed with your 10 merits to enable sigs suggestion. I definitely would be freer with handing out merits if it took 10 to enable sigs and though I would still check posting history because that's just the way I am, I rather suspect I wouldn't be nearly so thorough about it - just skim the first page, rather than actually read each post on the first 2-3 pages. But this is mainly because of the new form of insidious bump-bot I've been hunting, which engages in "low value discussion" (that is, a two-way conversation that is devoid of real content, as opposed to low value posting, which is basically unidirectional).



Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: coin8coin8 on October 16, 2018, 10:24:24 AM
Quote
Hello, I have been a member of forum since 7-8 months now and was ranked a Junior Member a few days back but recently i coudn't login due to bad health for quite some time and now finally when I was back and healthy and logged in, it showed my rank to be a Newbie. Can anybody elaborate what actually happened? Sad Huh Huh Huh Huh Huh Huh

Quote
As you can see my activity is more than 30, which is required for anyone to become a junior member. However, it has become newbie rank. I don’t understand why this has happened. Has the ranking system changed? do I need to appeal for my rank? What do I do?

Kindly, someone help me out with this query. I don’t know what to do.

Thanks.

What went wrong with my account because I have been on a Jr member position and have opened my profile today when it has changed to a newbie, what's the problem???

Questions about 1 merit/newbie have created some sort of new spam. You can see similar topics every day in Beginners & Help section. Don't you think these topics are spam?
If they are not lack of reading ability, the topic that is repeatedly posted by these lazy people should be considered as spam.
Maybe a rule should be added to the forum rules. “Post questions about Merit/rank are not allowed.”


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: farelada33 on October 16, 2018, 05:41:23 PM
It's reduced the amount of posts, doubt that the average quality has changed that much. I see just as much junk posted from high level accounts as from Jrs.
Giving old accounts a lot of merit when the system was released was a mistake, they've since mostly been giving merit out to eachother.
I disagree with your opinion, sometimes the rank of Jrs also needs their aspirations to be asked in this forum.
I don't think all Jrs accounts make junk posts, but need to be reminded if their posts aren't quality.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: chokomenia on October 16, 2018, 06:21:27 PM
You are absolutely right, you will easily notice it if you are a regular reader or commenter on the altcoin section of the forum, the amount of comments and new topic has reduced since the implementation of the 1 merit to Jr.Member, this has got to show that many Jr member in the forum are farm account. The next place admins should focus attention is on the bounty section. 


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: LoyceV on October 30, 2018, 01:00:07 PM
OP updated:
  • In the first week after the announcement, 286408 posts were made (-19.05%).
  • In the second week after the announcement, 280503 posts were made (-20.72%).
  • In the third week after the announcement, 259694 posts were made (-26.60%).
  • In the fourth week after the announcement, 263685 posts were made (-25.47%).
  • In the fifth week after the announcement, 240339 posts were made (-32.07%).
  • In the sixth week after the announcement, 240045 posts were made (-32.15%).
Note how close the fifth and sixth week's number of posts are.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: erikoy on October 30, 2018, 01:19:41 PM
OP updated:
  • In the first week after the announcement, 286408 posts were made (-19.05%).
  • In the second week after the announcement, 280503 posts were made (-20.72%).
  • In the third week after the announcement, 259694 posts were made (-26.60%).
  • In the fourth week after the announcement, 263685 posts were made (-25.47%).
  • In the fifth week after the announcement, 240339 posts were made (-32.07%).
  • In the sixth week after the announcement, 240045 posts were made (-32.15%).
Note how close the fifth and sixth week's number of posts are.
This means that the number of farm accounts post has stabilized and reduced to nearly -32.15%. This is really a good news to the forum and bad news for the user account farmer. I bet spam post will be minimize and users will be encourage to post constructively.

I am more than happy for this because it is so difficult to jump up a discussion with pointless idea posted in a certain thread. I'm afraid that hundreds of post per thread are all pointless and spam which is not good for a discussion process.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: stompix on October 30, 2018, 02:45:04 PM
OP updated:
  • In the fifth week after the announcement, 240339 posts were made (-32.07%).
  • In the sixth week after the announcement, 240045 posts were made (-32.15%).
Note how close the fifth and sixth week's number of posts are.

So, have we hit bottom?   :D
To be honest I would have expected the numbers to be back in the green from a week ago as more and more newbies get promoted the right way or by buying their rank and the initial shock is long gone.

Probably the only thing that will cut spam and bring the number even lower will be a decrease in ICOs and that might prove even more devastating for account farmers than this 1 merit requirement



Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: LoyceV on November 08, 2018, 01:25:32 PM
I forgot to update this thread last Monday, here it is:
  • In the first week after the announcement, 286408 posts were made (-19.05%).
  • In the second week after the announcement, 280503 posts were made (-20.72%).
  • In the third week after the announcement, 259694 posts were made (-26.60%).
  • In the fourth week after the announcement, 263685 posts were made (-25.47%).
  • In the fifth week after the announcement, 240339 posts were made (-32.07%).
  • In the sixth week after the announcement, 240045 posts were made (-32.15%).
  • In the seventh week after the announcement, 219689 posts were made (-37.91%).

So, have we hit bottom?   :D
No, the number of posts dropped further!

Quote
To be honest I would have expected the numbers to be back in the green from a week ago as more and more newbies get promoted the right way or by buying their rank and the initial shock is long gone.
I think most of the deranked Jr. Members are still Newbies. To my best knowledge, many tens of thousands of Jr. Members were deranked, and at most a couple of thousands received at least 1 Merit or bought Copper Membership.

Quote
Probably the only thing that will cut spam and bring the number even lower will be a decrease in ICOs and that might prove even more devastating for account farmers than this 1 merit requirement
Possibly :)


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: TheBeardedBaby on November 08, 2018, 02:40:44 PM
Slowly going towards the 50% drop. Soon we have to celebrate.The homographs are gone (almost 100% based on the forum search engine). Some sections look way better than before, including the Off-topic.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: tranthidung on November 12, 2018, 09:11:44 AM
It is possibly that the new rank requirements, which specifically target at Junior Members [abundant in the forum before the implementation] has shown its strongly long-lasting effects.
Despite of merit abusements from demoted Juniors who ranked up again, but it is obviously that there are so many guys who can not abuse the system and have still got stucked at Newbie.
Most of them stopped showing their shits around the forum.
No, the number of posts dropped further!

One more thing, the total merits distributed within the week from 28th of October to the 4th of November fell dramatically.
Therefore, it is interesting to wait for next weeks to see that whether we will see the first week that has total merits distributed below 2.5k.
2.5k is a figure which imply potential outliers 25th quartile.
More details analysed and presented there:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2818350.msg47817456#msg47817456


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: LoyceV on November 12, 2018, 09:27:08 AM
OP updated:
  • In the first week after the announcement, 286408 posts were made (-19.05%).
  • In the second week after the announcement, 280503 posts were made (-20.72%).
  • In the third week after the announcement, 259694 posts were made (-26.60%).
  • In the fourth week after the announcement, 263685 posts were made (-25.47%).
  • In the fifth week after the announcement, 240339 posts were made (-32.07%).
  • In the sixth week after the announcement, 240045 posts were made (-32.15%).
  • In the seventh week after the announcement, 219689 posts were made (-37.91%).
  • In the eighth week after the announcement, 217774 posts were made (-38.45%).

~it is obviously that there are so many guys who can not abuse the system and have still got stucked at Newbie.
Most of them stopped showing their shits around the forum.
If I look at patrol (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=recent;patrol), I'll be the "glass half full" guy who says many are still spamming :(

Quote
One more thing, the total merits distributed within the week from 28th of October to the 4th of November fell dramatically.
I see nothing out of the ordinary. Look at coinlocket$ (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1339716)'s graph:
Merit distribution is back to the long term "bottom", after a sharp peak 8 weeks ago (largely because of abuse) when the new Jr. Member restrictions were implemented.
There was however a large Merit source removed in the past weeks.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: S_Therapist on November 12, 2018, 09:41:35 AM
If I look at patrol (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=recent;patrol), I'll be the "glass half full" guy who says many are still spamming :(
The only spamming is now being happened by the ANN thread bumper which can only be controlled by people who says many are still spamming. There is nothing more to do without reporting those in a constructive way.

Quote
One more thing, the total merits distributed within the week from 28th of October to the 4th of November fell dramatically.
I see nothing out of the ordinary. Look at coinlocket$ (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1339716)'s graph:
Although we can't say it fell drastically, it was quite big amount. Anyway, it may be because of inactivity of merit sources in last week (not sure though) or may be because of merit deserving posts or removing one of the large merit source as you mentioned below.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: tranthidung on November 12, 2018, 09:41:40 AM
By saying drop dramatically, I meant the fall since the all time high of weekly distributed merit, above 9.6k, LOL.
Merit distribution is back to the long term "bottom", after a sharp peak 8 weeks ago (largely because of abuse) when the new Jr. Member restrictions were implemented.
There was however a large Merit source removed in the past weeks.
In the attached image, the percentage drop of the last week compared to median (of weekly distributed merit since 5th of March) is nearly 24% [3320 compared to 4405].
Weekly update on merit distributions since the 5th of March.
As I posted previously, the normal range of merit distribution is from 2.5k to 6.2k.
Quote
< ... >
In a nutshell, weeks that have total distributed merits above 6.2k or below 2.5k should be taken into consideration because they are highly potential outliers. It is probably that the sorts of outlier-weeks occur due to significant changes in the forum rules/ systems, etc.
Of course, the exact value of outlier thresholds, both above and below, will change over time, but it will be somewhere around those points (2.5k and 6.2k).
< ... >
In my opinion, the median, which fluctuated around 4.4k, should be use as a gold figure to measure changes of weekly distributed merits. Medians are recognised as nearly true means, more closely to true means, and should be used to have more exact overview.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: tranthidung on November 13, 2018, 01:43:04 AM
< ... >
By the way, would you mind spending your precious time to give me statistics (weekly figures) of distributed merits for weeks before the 5th of March.
The data given by @coinlocket$ only started from the 5th of March.
Highly appreciate your time if you can help me to have full data observations since the start day of merit system and new rank requirements in 24th of January this year.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: stompix on November 13, 2018, 10:01:58 AM
So I was wrong again, this feels like bitcoin trading I always fail at this  ;D

@Loycev or the AI residing in that hat, whoever reads this first, would it be possible for you to scrape the first page of the forum each week so we can have a picture where the posts are actually made?
Having this data might show us what sections are getting hit by the merit requirement and what boards were filled with newbies till it.

I did this for the https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=stats for the last week but I 've just realized that it contains only the top 10 boards not all of them. Besides I get two errors out of seven so....the programs I'm using are not too reliable.

Anyhow my incomplete data put the altcoins section well above half of the total posts with bounties getting the largest share of the pie.
We're still closer to altcointalk than bitcointalk





Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: LoyceV on November 13, 2018, 11:52:31 AM
By the way, would you mind spending your precious time to give me statistics (weekly figures) of distributed merits for weeks before the 5th of March.
Sure! I've used the same "time convention" as I used for my full merit transaction history (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4444830.0): "Days" start the second the first Merit was transfered, and count exactly 3600*24 seconds after that. It has nothing to do with calendar days in any time zone. "Weeks" use the same, but count 7*3600*24 seconds after the first Merit transaction.

Per day:
Day 1: 13018 Merit
Day 2: 6761 Merit
Day 3: 4493 Merit
Day 4: 3489 Merit
Day 5: 3188 Merit
Day 6: 3799 Merit
Day 7: 4192 Merit
Day 8: 2820 Merit
Day 9: 2545 Merit
Day 10: 2568 Merit
Day 11: 1867 Merit
Day 12: 2167 Merit
Day 13: 2077 Merit
Day 14: 2308 Merit
Day 15: 2141 Merit
Day 16: 2141 Merit
Day 17: 1448 Merit
Day 18: 1747 Merit
Day 19: 1442 Merit
Day 20: 1331 Merit
Day 21: 1579 Merit
Day 22: 2513 Merit
Day 23: 1991 Merit
Day 24: 1411 Merit
Day 25: 1608 Merit
Day 26: 1289 Merit
Day 27: 1403 Merit
Day 28: 1169 Merit
Day 29: 1266 Merit
Day 30: 1279 Merit
Day 31: 1046 Merit
Day 32: 1409 Merit
Day 33: 1186 Merit
Day 34: 1382 Merit
Day 35: 1326 Merit
Day 36: 991 Merit
Day 37: 1333 Merit
Day 38: 1696 Merit
Day 39: 1089 Merit
Day 40: 989 Merit
Day 41: 1245 Merit
Day 42: 1074 Merit
Day 43: 1109 Merit
Day 44: 922 Merit
Day 45: 789 Merit
Day 46: 1023 Merit
Day 47: 1091 Merit
Day 48: 1354 Merit
Day 49: 994 Merit
Day 50: 1159 Merit
Day 51: 1130 Merit
Day 52: 840 Merit
Day 53: 797 Merit
Day 54: 1035 Merit
Day 55: 992 Merit
Day 56: 1322 Merit
Day 57: 1227 Merit
Day 58: 764 Merit
Day 59: 733 Merit
Day 60: 1045 Merit
Day 61: 858 Merit
Day 62: 808 Merit
Day 63: 879 Merit
Day 64: 848 Merit
Day 65: 1043 Merit
Day 66: 928 Merit
Day 67: 968 Merit
Day 68: 1233 Merit
Day 69: 1146 Merit
Day 70: 1080 Merit
Day 71: 1061 Merit
Day 72: 838 Merit
Day 73: 620 Merit
Day 74: 614 Merit
Day 75: 1056 Merit
Day 76: 884 Merit
Day 77: 768 Merit
Day 78: 963 Merit
Day 79: 917 Merit
Day 80: 682 Merit
Day 81: 681 Merit
Day 82: 592 Merit
Day 83: 609 Merit
Day 84: 628 Merit
Day 85: 681 Merit
Day 86: 848 Merit
Day 87: 563 Merit
Day 88: 522 Merit
Day 89: 880 Merit
Day 90: 709 Merit
Day 91: 626 Merit
Day 92: 687 Merit
Day 93: 675 Merit
Day 94: 583 Merit
Day 95: 623 Merit
Day 96: 682 Merit
Day 97: 822 Merit
Day 98: 741 Merit
Day 99: 759 Merit
Day 100: 747 Merit
Day 101: 597 Merit
Day 102: 688 Merit
Day 103: 599 Merit
Day 104: 898 Merit
Day 105: 618 Merit
Day 106: 761 Merit
Day 107: 475 Merit
Day 108: 867 Merit
Day 109: 415 Merit
Day 110: 719 Merit
Day 111: 674 Merit
Day 112: 700 Merit
Day 113: 652 Merit
Day 114: 574 Merit
Day 115: 542 Merit
Day 116: 587 Merit
Day 117: 617 Merit
Day 118: 626 Merit
Day 119: 639 Merit
Day 120: 531 Merit
Day 121: 554 Merit
Day 122: 370 Merit
Day 123: 575 Merit
Day 124: 559 Merit
Day 125: 589 Merit
Day 126: 638 Merit
Day 127: 599 Merit
Day 128: 687 Merit
Day 129: 698 Merit
Day 130: 461 Merit
Day 131: 511 Merit
Day 132: 773 Merit
Day 133: 731 Merit
Day 134: 504 Merit
Day 135: 506 Merit
Day 136: 766 Merit
Day 137: 672 Merit
Day 138: 575 Merit
Day 139: 519 Merit
Day 140: 422 Merit
Day 141: 786 Merit
Day 142: 528 Merit
Day 143: 445 Merit
Day 144: 654 Merit
Day 145: 464 Merit
Day 146: 601 Merit
Day 147: 662 Merit
Day 148: 707 Merit
Day 149: 705 Merit
Day 150: 774 Merit
Day 151: 643 Merit
Day 152: 829 Merit
Day 153: 1138 Merit
Day 154: 435 Merit
Day 155: 516 Merit
Day 156: 470 Merit
Day 157: 479 Merit
Day 158: 778 Merit
Day 159: 641 Merit
Day 160: 711 Merit
Day 161: 902 Merit
Day 162: 557 Merit
Day 163: 577 Merit
Day 164: 475 Merit
Day 165: 506 Merit
Day 166: 525 Merit
Day 167: 455 Merit
Day 168: 620 Merit
Day 169: 555 Merit
Day 170: 644 Merit
Day 171: 542 Merit
Day 172: 627 Merit
Day 173: 796 Merit
Day 174: 636 Merit
Day 175: 641 Merit
Day 176: 608 Merit
Day 177: 554 Merit
Day 178: 606 Merit
Day 179: 567 Merit
Day 180: 547 Merit
Day 181: 684 Merit
Day 182: 444 Merit
Day 183: 492 Merit
Day 184: 673 Merit
Day 185: 521 Merit
Day 186: 418 Merit
Day 187: 420 Merit
Day 188: 471 Merit
Day 189: 632 Merit
Day 190: 435 Merit
Day 191: 376 Merit
Day 192: 421 Merit
Day 193: 695 Merit
Day 194: 768 Merit
Day 195: 595 Merit
Day 196: 610 Merit
Day 197: 647 Merit
Day 198: 471 Merit
Day 199: 567 Merit
Day 200: 517 Merit
Day 201: 587 Merit
Day 202: 513 Merit
Day 203: 565 Merit
Day 204: 626 Merit
Day 205: 470 Merit
Day 206: 451 Merit
Day 207: 561 Merit
Day 208: 432 Merit
Day 209: 658 Merit
Day 210: 600 Merit
Day 211: 612 Merit
Day 212: 530 Merit
Day 213: 528 Merit
Day 214: 385 Merit
Day 215: 476 Merit
Day 216: 457 Merit
Day 217: 383 Merit
Day 218: 488 Merit
Day 219: 514 Merit
Day 220: 379 Merit
Day 221: 432 Merit
Day 222: 412 Merit
Day 223: 536 Merit
Day 224: 567 Merit
Day 225: 654 Merit
Day 226: 509 Merit
Day 227: 458 Merit
Day 228: 395 Merit
Day 229: 455 Merit
Day 230: 472 Merit
Day 231: 580 Merit
Day 232: 595 Merit
Day 233: 540 Merit
Day 234: 517 Merit
Day 235: 463 Merit
Day 236: 2463 Merit
Day 237: 1862 Merit
Day 238: 1294 Merit
Day 239: 1268 Merit
Day 240: 846 Merit
Day 241: 807 Merit
Day 242: 944 Merit
Day 243: 804 Merit
Day 244: 749 Merit
Day 245: 596 Merit
Day 246: 562 Merit
Day 247: 675 Merit
Day 248: 518 Merit
Day 249: 669 Merit
Day 250: 619 Merit
Day 251: 509 Merit
Day 252: 760 Merit
Day 253: 705 Merit
Day 254: 521 Merit
Day 255: 513 Merit
Day 256: 660 Merit
Day 257: 603 Merit
Day 258: 678 Merit
Day 259: 578 Merit
Day 260: 639 Merit
Day 261: 616 Merit
Day 262: 399 Merit
Day 263: 460 Merit
Day 264: 430 Merit
Day 265: 655 Merit
Day 266: 626 Merit
Day 267: 732 Merit
Day 268: 774 Merit
Day 269: 643 Merit
Day 270: 538 Merit
Day 271: 853 Merit
Day 272: 694 Merit
Day 273: 674 Merit
Day 274: 759 Merit
Day 275: 553 Merit
Day 276: 424 Merit
Day 277: 426 Merit
Day 278: 415 Merit
Day 279: 534 Merit
Day 280: 529 Merit
Day 281: 495 Merit
Day 282: 433 Merit
Day 283: 454 Merit
Day 284: 430 Merit
Day 285: 464 Merit
Day 286: 562 Merit
Day 287: 405 Merit
Day 288: 691 Merit
Day 289: 104 Merit (incomplete day)

Per week:
Week 1: 38953 Merit
Week 2: 16373 Merit
Week 3: 11836 Merit
Week 4: 11406 Merit
Week 5: 8910 Merit
Week 6: 8434 Merit
Week 7: 7288 Merit
Week 8: 7283 Merit
Week 9: 6324 Merit
Week 10: 7276 Merit
Week 11: 5848 Merit
Week 12: 5082 Merit
Week 13: 4855 Merit
Week 14: 4821 Merit
Week 15: 4919 Merit
Week 16: 4619 Merit
Week 17: 4243 Merit
Week 18: 3825 Merit
Week 19: 4466 Merit
Week 20: 3978 Merit
Week 21: 4156 Merit
Week 22: 5237 Merit
Week 23: 4511 Merit
Week 24: 3733 Merit
Week 25: 4447 Merit
Week 26: 4018 Merit
Week 27: 3682 Merit
Week 28: 3918 Merit
Week 29: 3883 Merit
Week 30: 3811 Merit
Week 31: 3377 Merit
Week 32: 3336 Merit
Week 33: 3536 Merit
Week 34: 7743 Merit
Week 35: 6023 Merit
Week 36: 4318 Merit
Week 37: 4305 Merit
Week 38: 3831 Merit
Week 39: 4916 Merit
Week 40: 3646 Merit
Week 41: 3249 Merit
Week 42: 798 Merit (incomplete week)

would it be possible for you to scrape the first page of the forum each week so we can have a picture where the posts are actually made?
Having this data might show us what sections are getting hit by the merit requirement and what boards were filled with newbies till it.
You mean just https://bitcointalk.org/ ? I could, but I don't really want more scraping tasks :P This should be quite easy to do manually: save the page today, and do it again next week.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: tranthidung on November 13, 2018, 12:06:59 PM
Sure! I've used the same "time convention" as I used for my full merit transaction history (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4444830.0): "Days" start the second the first Merit was transfered, and count exactly 3600*24 seconds after that. It has nothing to do with calendar days in any time zone. "Weeks" use the same, but count 7*3600*24 seconds after the first Merit transaction.

Per day:
~
Perfect!
It's always better to 'play' with daily datasets, because it will disclose effects of forum rules/ changes on daily merit distribution. Weekly or monthly datasets might blur effects in some cases.
I will make data entry and make some analysis on full daily merit dataset.
Thanks for your help.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: Manhenro on November 13, 2018, 12:27:12 PM
Spamming is this forum has being a problem that we have been battling with. The new policy really reduced the spamming rate because all those junior members that join various bounty campaigns and spam the forum won't be able to do so again.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: tranthidung on November 14, 2018, 02:26:33 PM
< ... >
Hi,
I made it.
Time Series Analysis on Distributed Merits in the forum (daily, weekly, monthly) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5069140.0)
More things to come later when I have spare time to make it.

By the way, I can do same things for new users registered, total daily postcounts, etc. if I can have data.  ;D


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: LoyceV on November 19, 2018, 03:36:59 PM
Update:
  • In the first week after the announcement, 286408 posts were made (-19.05%).
  • In the second week after the announcement, 280503 posts were made (-20.72%).
  • In the third week after the announcement, 259694 posts were made (-26.60%).
  • In the fourth week after the announcement, 263685 posts were made (-25.47%).
  • In the fifth week after the announcement, 240339 posts were made (-32.07%).
  • In the sixth week after the announcement, 240045 posts were made (-32.15%).
  • In the seventh week after the announcement, 219689 posts were made (-37.91%).
  • In the eighth week after the announcement, 217774 posts were made (-38.45%).
  • In the nineth week after the announcement, 215135 posts were made (-39.20%).
I'm starting to be curious how much of this was the result of the new Merit requirements, and how much of the post reduction is caused by the crypto price drops. But I can't easily distinguish between posts made by higher or lower ranks, so I can't really answer my curiousity.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: tranthidung on November 19, 2018, 04:25:08 PM
It requires lots of skills to retrieve and/ or process from raw data.
I can't too, but I have plans to learn SQL for my interests.
I wanna sort raw data out and get my target variables for analysis.
It's better with the approach, rather than waiting for help if someone else. And worthy to spend my time to learn, for future use.


Can you me data on forum posts since 14th December of 2017, please.
I will keep find them, but it's great if you already have it.
I made a graph based on data in your OP, but I think it might be better if we can have full forum post history (weekly/monthly).

Box plot
Basic statistics on central tendency of Weekly Newposts presented below:
1) Mean +/- Standard deviation: 247253 +/- 26716
2) Median (Interquartile range): 240339 (219774 - 263685).
3) Min - max: 215135 - 286408.
Compared to the median of the previous three weeks, based from @LoyceV resutls (simply asssumed it is the median to make comparision), at 353813; we can easily see the big difference.
---> The Percentage Difference Between Medians of the two period is calculated as:
(240339 - 353813)*100/353813 ~ -32.1% (nearly 32% decrease).


Time series of Weekly Newposts, since Sep 17 06:27 (Dutch time)

In a nutshell, the median of weekly newposts over the recent 9 week since Sep 17 06:27 (Dutch time) has decreased about 32% compared to the 'assumed' median of previous period.
32% decrease in median over the 9-week period is significant impact, in my opinion.


Importanly to note about the 'assumed median' of weekly posts for the period before 17th Sep. It is assumed median because I don't have enough datapoints to get real median.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: tranthidung on November 20, 2018, 07:02:07 AM
I would like to disclose one more thing, merit per post during the last 10 weeks.

My approach:
1) Total weekly merits: Calculated from real data.
2) Total weekly posts (weekposts): Calculated from real data, except the week #2018w37, which is only the assumed median/ mean from the continuous three weeks (2018w35, 2018w36, and 2018w37). I took it from the OP.
3) Merit per post (meritperpost): = round(merit/weekposts,0.001).

Real dataset is here:
Code:
. list, abb(30)

     +-------------------------------------------------+
     |    week   merit   weekposts   id   meritperpost |
     |-------------------------------------------------|
  1. | 2018w37    5630      353813   34           .016 |
  2. | 2018w38    7825      286408   35           .027 |
  3. | 2018w39    4388      280503   36           .016 |
  4. | 2018w40    4271      259694   37           .016 |
  5. | 2018w41    3800      263685   38           .014 |
     |-------------------------------------------------|
  6. | 2018w42    4821      240339   39            .02 |
  7. | 2018w43    3945      240045   40           .016 |
  8. | 2018w44    3339      219689   41           .015 |
  9. | 2018w45    4513      219774   42           .021 |
 10. | 2018w46    1740      215135   43           .008 |
     +-------------------------------------------------+
Results:
Merit per post has fluctuated during the 10-week period, from 0.015 to 0.207 merit per post.
The shocking figure found here is that there is 80-percentage difference between the highest and the lowest compared to the lowest.
Code:
. di (0.027-0.015)*100/0.015
80

The last week (#2018w46) is incomplete one, with only half of the week collected in the dataset.

Here is the plot of the ten-week-period merit per post:

Notes:
It is better if having dataset on different ranks in the forum (for merits, posts), but I unfortunately have not had them so far.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: LoyceV on November 20, 2018, 11:23:33 AM
merit per post during the last 10 weeks.
If you have the time, this could be interesting to do from the start of the Merit system. It's a bit of a pain to find the number of posts in a week, but it can be done by trial and error: Just select a spam thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5032641.0) on the Bounty board, browse to the date you're looking for, and you're likely to find a post close to the time needed. The post number gives you the number of posts per week, if you correct for the exact time of the post you'll get an accurate number of posts per week.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: stompix on November 20, 2018, 01:17:05 PM
Update:
  • In the first week after the announcement, 286408 posts were made (-19.05%).
  • In the second week after the announcement, 280503 posts were made (-20.72%).
  • In the third week after the announcement, 259694 posts were made (-26.60%).
  • In the fourth week after the announcement, 263685 posts were made (-25.47%).
  • In the fifth week after the announcement, 240339 posts were made (-32.07%).
  • In the sixth week after the announcement, 240045 posts were made (-32.15%).
  • In the seventh week after the announcement, 219689 posts were made (-37.91%).
  • In the eighth week after the announcement, 217774 posts were made (-38.45%).
  • In the nineth week after the announcement, 215135 posts were made (-39.20%).
I'm starting to be curious how much of this was the result of the new Merit requirements, and how much of the post reduction is caused by the crypto price drops. But I can't easily distinguish between posts made by higher or lower ranks, so I can't really answer my curiousity.

Sep 10, $ 6,320.74
--------------------
Sep 17, 6,370.50
Sep 24, 6,634.65
Oct 1,   6,601.08
Oct 8,   6,639.74
Oct 15,  6,713.99
Oct 22,  6,490.82
Oct 29,  6,370.17
Nov 5,   6,451.78
Nov 12, 6,407.36
Nov 19, 5,154.91

I would probably blame it not so much on the price but on the drop in ICOs that really pay and the amount of reward claimed.
We might have hit a price where is more profitable to solve captchas than "doing bounty".





Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: Resurrekt on November 20, 2018, 04:57:18 PM


I think what I am trying to say is that the way this forum FEELS, makes it extremely unappealing for real, NEW members to become involved. It's almost as if you have to "prove" yourself because there is such a pandemic of fake shitposters. But the shitposters are allowed to continue being shitposters. Things seem to only be modified to make it HARDER for real people to become "worthy" of being considered valid (so to speak).


The common denominator is the same though. Greed. So if you are going to fight an enemy as difficult as greed, you have to be militant about it.

Sorry if that comes across rude, I'm not trying to be. I just see that you guys seem to really care about your forum, but it has a cancer. And rather than just grabbing a scalpel and cutting it out, it's like every holistic therapy is being tried first.

Just imagine the amount of quality that may show up if people knew that it wasn't going to be washed over by a sea of bullshit.

Just my 1 cent. (I had to pay the other one in gas to send this message ;D JK)


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: Resurrekt on November 20, 2018, 05:30:52 PM
Ok. I'm going to try something. I've never used this before.

TLDR;  Just institute martial law. Start executing shitposters without due process. They truly are insanely easy to identify. They approach it like a war or battle and so should you.


Damnit. I still have more to say. That's why I don't like the TLDR. Leave's too much open to ambiguity. Kinda like the merit system. Lol.

I just really think the merit system and the necessity for real people to prove their "realness"  is definitely deterring quality forum members from participating.  meanwhile, your forum is being invaded and overrun by an enemy that treats accomplishing their objective much more militantly than the forum does in deterring it. Why avoid attacking the real problem?  Because it also potentially allowing a vast number of "spies" to infect your forums, since having some merit probably gives people a shield of legitimacy and excuses them when maybe they shouldn't be.  I could write posts like this for one day, get a few merit points, and then be in like flint right? So am I excused if the quality of my posts suddenly turns to shit because I have a handful of merit points?  If merit becomes the accepted norm for legitimacy, then people will develop "merit blindness". Not to mention, if accounts with merit end up with value, it will just spawn a market around it. And then you have a whole new problem on your hands.

But if it is well known that the forum is enforced more militantly, where shitposters are executed without mercy or second thought, then People won't have a choice, and quality posts will simply become normal posts. Either post real content, or get merk'ed.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: LoyceV on November 26, 2018, 09:53:22 AM
I would probably blame it not so much on the price but on the drop in ICOs that really pay and the amount of reward claimed.
We might have hit a price where is more profitable to solve captchas than "doing bounty".
You may be right. But whether it's profitability or Merit, less ICO spam is a good thing anyway.

I've updated the OP:
  • In the first week after the announcement, 286408 posts were made (-19.05%).
  • In the second week after the announcement, 280503 posts were made (-20.72%).
  • In the third week after the announcement, 259694 posts were made (-26.60%).
  • In the fourth week after the announcement, 263685 posts were made (-25.47%).
  • In the fifth week after the announcement, 240339 posts were made (-32.07%).
  • In the sixth week after the announcement, 240045 posts were made (-32.15%).
  • In the seventh week after the announcement, 219689 posts were made (-37.91%).
  • In the eighth week after the announcement, 217774 posts were made (-38.45%).
  • In the nineth week after the announcement, 215135 posts were made (-39.20%).
  • In the tenth week after the announcement, 199486 posts were made (-43.62%).

I think what I am trying to say is that the way this forum FEELS, makes it extremely unappealing for real, NEW members to become involved. It's almost as if you have to "prove" yourself because there is such a pandemic of fake shitposters. But the shitposters are allowed to continue being shitposters. Things seem to only be modified to make it HARDER for real people to become "worthy" of being considered valid (so to speak).
Although your post is slightly off-topic, you're clearly a real user who can add value to this forum. And indeed, new users must prove themselves, but when they do, they can quickly stand out by earning Merit.
Many high ranking users love seeing real new users (and hte future of this forum depends on it).

Quote
And even though I am very very new to the internet and forums in General, it is NOT HARD to pick out a fake, shitposter. Literally, it can pretty much be done by picking even one post at random from someone. Why not just take a hardline stance against those types of accounts? This isn't a utopian democracy is it? Start lining them up and just pulling the trigger.
Many accounts get banned each day, but there's a fine line between censorship and banning shitposters. This forum offers more freedom than any other forum I've seen online, but it comes at a price.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: LoyceV on December 05, 2018, 08:48:00 AM
Update:
  • In the first week after the announcement, 286408 posts were made (-19.05%).
  • In the second week after the announcement, 280503 posts were made (-20.72%).
  • In the third week after the announcement, 259694 posts were made (-26.60%).
  • In the fourth week after the announcement, 263685 posts were made (-25.47%).
  • In the fifth week after the announcement, 240339 posts were made (-32.07%).
  • In the sixth week after the announcement, 240045 posts were made (-32.15%).
  • In the seventh week after the announcement, 219689 posts were made (-37.91%).
  • In the eighth week after the announcement, 217774 posts were made (-38.45%).
  • In the nineth week after the announcement, 215135 posts were made (-39.20%).
  • In the tenth week after the announcement, 199486 posts were made (-43.62%).
  • In the eleventh week after the announcement, 177677 posts were made (-49.78%).
That's 50% less posts within 3 months! But when I look at Show unread posts since last visit. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=unread) (without any boards on ignore), it's still only [ANN], [ICO], [BOUNTY] and [PRE-ICO] (and 2 Russian threads I can't read) in the first 10 topics.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: Lauda on December 08, 2018, 06:41:29 AM
Just noticed this thread now. Excellent thread and excellent results. I'm sure that we'd even have better results if the requirement further increased.

  • In the eleventh week after the announcement, 177677 posts were made (-49.78%).
https://i.imgur.com/e0vHz2x.gif


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: LoyceV on December 12, 2018, 10:34:28 AM
Update:
  • In the first week after the announcement, 286408 posts were made (-19.05%).
  • In the second week after the announcement, 280503 posts were made (-20.72%).
  • In the third week after the announcement, 259694 posts were made (-26.60%).
  • In the fourth week after the announcement, 263685 posts were made (-25.47%).
  • In the fifth week after the announcement, 240339 posts were made (-32.07%).
  • In the sixth week after the announcement, 240045 posts were made (-32.15%).
  • In the seventh week after the announcement, 219689 posts were made (-37.91%).
  • In the eighth week after the announcement, 217774 posts were made (-38.45%).
  • In the nineth week after the announcement, 215135 posts were made (-39.20%).
  • In the tenth week after the announcement, 199486 posts were made (-43.62%).
  • In the eleventh week after the announcement, 177677 posts were made (-49.78%).
  • In the twelfth week after the announcement, 159331 posts were made (-54.97%).
The number of posts keeps dropping hard.

~ when I look at Show unread posts since last visit. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=unread) (without any boards on ignore), it's still only [ANN], [ICO], [BOUNTY] and [PRE-ICO] (and 2 Russian threads I can't read) in the first 10 topics.
The current (momentary) top 10: a gambling thread, [ICO], Russian, Turkish thread about Bitcoin, Turkish thread about KFC, another gambling thread, [BOUNTY], Altcoin Discussion, Beginners & Help and another [ICO].
It's a small improvement, that page used to be completely worthless.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: iillaa on December 12, 2018, 08:35:15 PM
in addition to the new rule . i guess the reason why we may have  low number of posts is the current market situation ..  and that is because even telegram groups that used to be so active are now dying slowly :/


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: InvoKing on December 13, 2018, 10:30:53 AM
in addition to the new rule . i guess the reason why we may have  low number of posts is the current market situation ..  and that is because even telegram groups that used to be so active are now dying slowly :/

It is related to reduced bot activity mainly. For the telegram thing, it is related to altcoins price drop and the fear of investing in that community.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: LoyceV on December 17, 2018, 10:28:02 AM
Update:
  • In the first week after the announcement, 286408 posts were made (-19.05%).
  • In the second week after the announcement, 280503 posts were made (-20.72%).
  • In the third week after the announcement, 259694 posts were made (-26.60%).
  • In the fourth week after the announcement, 263685 posts were made (-25.47%).
  • In the fifth week after the announcement, 240339 posts were made (-32.07%).
  • In the sixth week after the announcement, 240045 posts were made (-32.15%).
  • In the seventh week after the announcement, 219689 posts were made (-37.91%).
  • In the eighth week after the announcement, 217774 posts were made (-38.45%).
  • In the nineth week after the announcement, 215135 posts were made (-39.20%).
  • In the tenth week after the announcement, 199486 posts were made (-43.62%).
  • In the eleventh week after the announcement, 177677 posts were made (-49.78%).
  • In the twelfth week after the announcement, 159331 posts were made (-54.97%).
  • In the thirteenth week after the announcement, 144981 posts were made (-59.02%).

I don't think this large drop is still caused by the new Merit rules. I'll keep updating this list, because I expect the post count to go up once Bitcoin starts going up in price.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: iillaa on December 17, 2018, 11:25:03 AM


It is related to reduced bot activity mainly. For the telegram thing, it is related to altcoins price drop and the fear of investing in that community.

the main purpose for these bots is to spam on ico bounties and get free tokens = free $ ..  while this market is  doing so  bad  for btc and altcoins  . the data show that is doing terrible for icos as well .

also joining icos / bounties  is just waste of time in this market since it is not profitable with all these scam icos or legit icos that are not able to rise the soft cap ... even those who success in getting the soft cap .. get dumped in the first exchange  which leave bounties hunters  with very small profits  for alot of work and time spending for legit ones  or  for lot of spam and shitposting for those who don't care about the forum .

i expect the spam to return when the market situation  improve  and the bounty business return to be profitable again .





Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: Gloverwrt on December 17, 2018, 11:55:16 AM
I don't think this large drop is still caused by the new Merit rules. I'll keep updating this list, because I expect the post count to go up once Bitcoin starts going up in price.

Initially the merit system might have had a significant effect in the drop in posts, as lots of demoted jr members had no reason to keep actively posting in the forum. We were left with those determined to earn merits and those complaining about the unfair system.

The bad market of the past month has reduced interest of most in bitcoin and cryptocurrency related content.
I also expect a rise is activity with that of bitcoin.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: Marshall14 on December 17, 2018, 12:08:55 PM
while this market is  doing so  bad  for btc and altcoins the data show that is doing terrible for icos as well
It's obvious,what do you of expect of coins that are not established and lack a focal point of what the blockchain technology is all about,when the bitcoin that is king is declining daily,you should expect ICO's to crumble immediately,which is exactly what's happening at the moment
This ICO's need the bitcoin/market to improve,or else only the genuinely good ones would be able to survive


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: slocker on December 19, 2018, 07:21:53 AM
I don't think this large drop is still caused by the new Merit rules. I'll keep updating this list, because I expect the post count to go up once Bitcoin starts going up in price.

Initially the merit system might have had a significant effect in the drop in posts, as lots of demoted jr members had no reason to keep actively posting in the forum. We were left with those determined to earn merits and those complaining about the unfair system.

The bad market of the past month has reduced interest of most in bitcoin and cryptocurrency related content.
I also expect a rise is activity with that of bitcoin.

In one way this is true if we take price for parameter. On other hand many see that earning merit is not that simple, you cant get merit just for post something you need to pick the right time for it. This system is good and so far made results. Reading little and see that some suggest we have demerit maybe this could effect something as well. Or we will have on the other hand again new users complaining about unfair system (this is something that I have read here that most newbies and jr. members as well as demoted jr. member were complaining about).

No matter what happens this will be in one way another good solution for the forum to have some good post and another way to reduce spam, cuz think it could be good idea if someone goes to - merit he could be maybe restricted to post once every 2,3 or four hours difference.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: Buttermellow on December 19, 2018, 09:03:57 AM
It was good to reduce spam in the forum. However, if you will going to check and see there are still a lot of work to reduce those spam because until now the problem is still a problem. We could rely on the good results of the statistics but the posts that are visually shown in some threads were an eyesore to the eyes and it even contribute to almost 50% of it in the total number of replies in the SMT.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: darklus123 on December 19, 2018, 10:15:40 AM
Update:
I don't think this large drop is still caused by the new Merit rules. I'll keep updating this list, because I expect the post count to go up once Bitcoin starts going up in price.

I still think that it is, since I have also noticed the difference seeing threads with no more posts from newbies that might still be a good indication, you were right tho to just atleast wait for the price to go up but IMO your stats still relates to the current new rule.

If ever that the price will go up and the newbies will be swarming up again then that forfeits your data


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: LoyceV on December 24, 2018, 10:30:01 AM
Update:
  • In the first week after the announcement, 286408 posts were made (-19.05%).
  • In the second week after the announcement, 280503 posts were made (-20.72%).
  • In the third week after the announcement, 259694 posts were made (-26.60%).
  • In the fourth week after the announcement, 263685 posts were made (-25.47%).
  • In the fifth week after the announcement, 240339 posts were made (-32.07%).
  • In the sixth week after the announcement, 240045 posts were made (-32.15%).
  • In the seventh week after the announcement, 219689 posts were made (-37.91%).
  • In the eighth week after the announcement, 217774 posts were made (-38.45%).
  • In the nineth week after the announcement, 215135 posts were made (-39.20%).
  • In the tenth week after the announcement, 199486 posts were made (-43.62%).
  • In the eleventh week after the announcement, 177677 posts were made (-49.78%).
  • In the twelfth week after the announcement, 159331 posts were made (-54.97%).
  • In the thirteenth week after the announcement, 144981 posts were made (-59.02%).
  • In the fourteenth week after the announcement, 139691 posts were made (-60,52%).

The number of posts is still dropping, but less fast. I'm curious to see if it goes up again once crypto keeps recovering as it did in the past week.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: LoyceV on January 01, 2019, 10:07:50 AM
Update:
  • In the first week after the announcement, 286408 posts were made (-19.05%).
  • In the second week after the announcement, 280503 posts were made (-20.72%).
  • In the third week after the announcement, 259694 posts were made (-26.60%).
  • In the fourth week after the announcement, 263685 posts were made (-25.47%).
  • In the fifth week after the announcement, 240339 posts were made (-32.07%).
  • In the sixth week after the announcement, 240045 posts were made (-32.15%).
  • In the seventh week after the announcement, 219689 posts were made (-37.91%).
  • In the eighth week after the announcement, 217774 posts were made (-38.45%).
  • In the nineth week after the announcement, 215135 posts were made (-39.20%).
  • In the tenth week after the announcement, 199486 posts were made (-43.62%).
  • In the eleventh week after the announcement, 177677 posts were made (-49.78%).
  • In the twelfth week after the announcement, 159331 posts were made (-54.97%).
  • In the thirteenth week after the announcement, 144981 posts were made (-59.02%).
  • In the fourteenth week after the announcement, 139691 posts were made (-60,52%).
  • In the fifteenth week after the announcement, 124306 posts were made (-64,87%).


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: S_Therapist on January 01, 2019, 02:37:34 PM
I'm curious to see if it goes up again once crypto keeps recovering as it did in the past week.
In that case, you can collect some data during ATH, during BTC at $10k and the current situation. Then you will have a little idea how much it has been decreased due to price crash and how much for the new 1 merit system.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: Timelord2o67 on September 12, 2020, 11:16:28 PM
Sorry to necro bump this thread, have you continued to study the decline of posting over time?  It'd be interesting to see if there was a rise during the Covid-19 outbreak and subsequent lock-downs.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: FIFA worldcup on September 13, 2020, 04:52:43 AM
Sorry to necro bump this thread, have you continued to study the decline of posting over time?  It'd be interesting to see if there was a rise during the Covid-19 outbreak and subsequent lock-downs.

You can find the past 7 days data here. The post made in last 7 days is only 45543 which is very low as compare to the last data shared on this thread.

Source: https://loyce.club/active/7d.html

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Active users and top posters on Bitcointalk.org in the past 7 days:

Total: 45543 posts (6962 users)


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: LoyceV on September 13, 2020, 08:39:54 AM
have you continued to study the decline of posting over time?
No. I stopped keeping track when the weekly number of posts dropped a lot.
We're currently (https://loyce.club/active/7d.html) at -87.1% of the 353813 weekly posts mentioned when I started this topic. I guess this result is a combination of the Merit system and the demise of ICOs.

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It'd be interesting to see if there was a rise during the Covid-19 outbreak and subsequent lock-downs.
For the last year, you can quite easily find the post count at the start of each week in my post archive (https://loyce.club/archive/posts/). Without checking the data, I haven't seen much effect from the lockdown when I occasionally checked weekly data (https://loyce.club/active/7d.html).


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: friends1980 on September 13, 2020, 09:04:08 AM
I guess this result is a combination of the Merit system and the demise of ICOs.

Which leads us to another interesting question: is the Merit system responsible for the demise of ICOs? Does this mean the Merit system has indirectly reduced the number of scams - supposing that genuine "honest" ICOs could survive even without bounty campaigns and Merit posters? Maybe that subject deserves a separate thread and study... 8)


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: SquirrelJulietGarden on September 13, 2020, 09:10:32 AM
I occasionally checked weekly data (https://loyce.club/active/7d.html).
I clicked on top posters, newbie, brandnew and their posts are in Off-topic. Why do they post much in Off-topic? 150, 200, 300 posts in 7 days.  ???


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: LoyceV on September 13, 2020, 09:19:39 AM
is the Merit system responsible for the demise of ICOs?
Probably not, Twitter also started banning accounts for ICO spam, and after the large crypto price drop with 99% or more losses on BS tokens, I can imagine many people learned their lesson.

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supposing that genuine "honest" ICOs could survive
Do they even exist? I consider (almost) all ICOs as money-grabbers for the creators. Much like the current defi hype, so maybe they didn't learn their lesson yet after all.

Why do they post much in Off-topic? 150, 200, 300 posts in 7 days.  ???
See Rapid shitposting attack (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5274456.0).


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: jademaxsuy on September 13, 2020, 09:29:05 AM
Probably not, Twitter also started banning accounts for ICO spam, and after the large crypto price drop with 99% or more losses on BS tokens, I can imagine many people learned their lesson.
Twitter also flooded with hastag for cryptocurrency and seeing this happen in their platform they acted upon immediately banning user with cryptocurrency hashtags or promoting ICO projects or any related to cryptocurrency. They pretty much know that most of the user promoting ICO are making fake twitter account another reason for them to ban these users. If there is a rule here in the forum like this prohibiting the user to promote scam related links which seem to be lot in other sections then I guess many users here will get ban. However, that is not a small job for the mods to do I guess. Anyway, I am glad to see that the forum had improve and has way better today compared before.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: UserU on September 13, 2020, 09:41:26 AM
Sorry to necro bump this thread, have you continued to study the decline of posting over time?  It'd be interesting to see if there was a rise during the Covid-19 outbreak and subsequent lock-downs.

I'd bet there's some spikes/ steady rise during the first few months ;D


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: Lordhermes on September 14, 2020, 10:24:57 PM
I clicked on top posters, newbie, brandnew and their posts are in Off-topic. Why do they post much in Off-topic? 150, 200, 300 posts in 7 days.  ???
Because they think their posts aren't helping enough, I have always think that posts in off topics are junkies types of posts, spamming ones that has no meaning in contributing to someone crypto life. How can a newbie user would ask 'which colour of wears you put on today, what can you gain from such discussion, so they probably feel they can post what comes to their mind in less constructive maybe one line sentence without mods deleting their shit posts. I can't even remember the last time I visited off topic section and I don't think I would.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: The Sceptical Chymist on September 14, 2020, 11:36:55 PM
We're currently (https://loyce.club/active/7d.html) at -87.1% of the 353813 weekly posts mentioned when I started this topic. I guess this result is a combination of the Merit system and the demise of ICOs.
WOW.  That drop is astonishing to me--and the strange thing is that I hadn't noticed it happening except for two things:  

1) I have observed a decrease in shitposts in sections like Economics, which was getting pretty bad for a while.  I haven't been reading/posting much in Bitcoin Discussion, but I would think the quality has improved...?  
2) I've noticed that there haven't been as many new threads catching my attention for at least the last few months.  There's been much less drama, but there has also been a reduction in the number of good threads that can at least spark a discussion.

I thought I was losing interest in the forum for a while there, but now I'm starting to think that it might not be anything to do with me.  

Which leads us to another interesting question: is the Merit system responsible for the demise of ICOs?
I doubt it, but I agree that it would be an interesting question to answer with data and some research.  The reason I doubt it is because I think ICOs were doomed from the start.  None of the projects solved any real life problems, and while the tokens may have made a profit for some traders, there was no good reason for that era of crypto to have existed at all IMO. 

I think people wised up to the fact that most new ICOs were scams.  Bounty hunters weren't getting paid, or they were hit with KYC requirements at the end, and it was a 3-ring shit circus toward the end. 


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: Timelord2067 on September 15, 2020, 12:06:15 AM
I'd bet there's some spikes/ steady rise during the first few months ;D

It doesn't sound like it - according to LoyceV's post just after mine there hasn't been a noticeable spike upwards this year.  I've always said the merit system is a good thing, but the concentration of merit sources is not a good thing (which is a discussion for another thread)


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: casperBGD on September 15, 2020, 01:03:52 PM
I'd bet there's some spikes/ steady rise during the first few months ;D

It doesn't sound like it - according to LoyceV's post just after mine there hasn't been a noticeable spike upwards this year.  I've always said the merit system is a good thing, but the concentration of merit sources is not a good thing (which is a discussion for another thread)

what do you mean by "concentration of merit sources"
yeah, i do also think that having some "merit sources" is not good thing, if they are not trust-less, and they could not be trust-less, they have to have their own bias in rewarding users, since you reward posts that you find helpful, and that is different from each point of view, what one could find helpful, other person may not, but it is better with merit system, than without it


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: Timelord2067 on September 15, 2020, 02:11:34 PM
what do you mean by "concentration of merit sources"
yeah, i do also think that having some "merit sources" is not good thing, if they are not trust-less, and they could not be trust-less, they have to have their own bias in rewarding users, since you reward posts that you find helpful, and that is different from each point of view, what one could find helpful, other person may not, but it is better with merit system, than without it

I don't know the number, but my understanding is it's around one hundred users are merit sources.  (feel free to quote to me the true number).  Perhaps there should be more merit sources that have a far lesser number of merits each week/month at their disposal (and overly generous merit giving should be heavily discouraged).

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if they are not trust-less, and they could not be trust-less

Nope, never said that.  Not even implied that.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: LoyceV on September 15, 2020, 03:16:49 PM
I don't know the number, but my understanding is it's around one hundred users are merit sources.
There are 97 merit sources with a total merit generation of up to 21171 sMerit per 30 days (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=sources).

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Perhaps there should be more merit sources that have a far lesser number of merits each week/month
A practical limit is the amount of time theymos wants to invest to assign new Merit sources, and probably check how they're doing once in a while.
I think the main goal of the Merit system has been reached: there's much less spam.


Title: Re: The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam
Post by: Timelord2067 on September 15, 2020, 11:56:47 PM
I don't know the number, but my understanding is it's around one hundred users are merit sources.
There are 97 merit sources with a total merit generation of up to 21171 sMerit per 30 days (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;stats=sources).

As always, thanks for the information.  8)

Quote
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Perhaps there should be more merit sources that have a far lesser number of merits each week/month
A practical limit is the amount of time theymos wants to invest to assign new Merit sources, and probably check how they're doing once in a while.
I think the main goal of the Merit system has been reached: there's much less spam.

That's a fair call.