And do you know what's worse? Look at the users posts surrounding that. They all appear to be alts. In fact, look at the entire user accounts all on that page. Very likely some bumping bot service or a farmer. All registered around the same time and all have around 30 posts:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2270687 nmgfsdnfgwjio     July 10, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2300957     Totodecaan120     July 23, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2300305 JessicaMcDonnell     July 23, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2301076 Raphagalthena2     July 23, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2270652     dfwafgdge July 10, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2305050     Monica88Fowler July 25, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2274921 2287aidaduo     July 12, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2300227     Elizabeth4Mitchell July 23, 2018,
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2224096 Weaver_Scir June 20, 2018,
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2294919 Dopedealer    July 20, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2300683     Edgarroni     July 23, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2300321     Amber73McCoy July 23, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2274719     hdueuieo123 July 12, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2301013 Thuocbacnauvit009 July 23, 2018,
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2294762     Niggasdonttalktome     July 20, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2300245 HeatherAdams00     July 23, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2300250 Danielreynolds0 July 23, 2018,
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2274921     2287aidaduo July 12, 2018

Next page more of the same:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2292483     deadcomeback July 19, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2300378     MadisonWood1212 July 23, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2274774     ndhdiwo234 July 12, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2301107     Cidolfusorlandeau July 23, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2268505     gergfghfh     July 09, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2270670     njklhwioa     July 10, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2300271     Courtneyhardy89     July 23, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2274787     hdueueiw432     July 12, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2300556 michellebson2     July 23, 2018,
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2300530 GemmaYoung757     July 23, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2288220     iwuwi12ueiei212     July 17, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2300870     kosaymoive333     July 23, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2285987     hungtrajamd12j33     July 16, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2270700     nsmdgw July 10, 2018,
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2300897 thithoikochoi123     July 23, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2275066     haruharu732     July 12, 2018

All except one all use one of three email address domains as well: supercoinmail.com mailschain.com & foundationbay.com

I would say that they all belong to the same user (except probably the guy with the sole different email).

I'm sure there's many more on the other pages but I can't be bothered wasting my time with them as almost certainly nothing will be done about them sadly.



Just another user who knows very little about bitcoin but has come here to earn so just posts childish rubbish.

Lolwut? You got a source there? Newbies do buy accounts. Do you think it's just old timers that do? If newbies come here to earn and they realise they can buy an account then many of them do. Some people will just be told to buy an account straight away rather than wasting time trying to get merit and activity.


This isn't relevant to anything. This forum essentially sanctions the sale of accounts, so newbies will think it's fine and ok to buy one. Their sale might even go through ok (assuming they don't get scammed), then hours or days later their account is taken back.


How is this going to help when admins aren't looking into hacked accounts? Many people have signed messages from addresses that are still visible, but they're just not being restored and theymos' auto-system likely isn't going to help that either as I doubt it will take into consideration deleted posts, but even if it does what if somebody has another or an older address posted. Can they still claim the account back?


People should, but nobody is invincible or watertight with their security. The forum was hacked. Who's fault was that? Shit happens sometimes and anyone can slip up somewhere, doesn't mean they should just be left to languish in limbo for eternity.

Some gems in the thread How safe is Bitcoin?
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4555802.msg41037342#msg41037342


Does mytherwallet accept bitcoin? 


Too bad the entire thing seems to be a copy and paste: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/8vb82s/how_safe_is_bitcoin/

Unless that reddit guy copied him.

Cases should be taken on a case by case basis, but there should be few exceptions. I suspect this user just used that as a desperate excuse to try get out of the ban, but is this just a one off? Usually copy and pasters don't just do the one and have copied multiple posts and make a habit of it. When I used to search for them and I found one I'd try find another because if you find two or three cases then they don't really have a leg to stand on and if you can find another or more examples then this excuse would become less believable. People should really make sure they're quoting people properly in the first place though, but I fail to see how this was a misquote. If it was surely there would be some original material in there?


Maybe that's something we should do but only theymos can implement that. He has himself suggested signature bans/blacklists so hopefully they will happen whether on this forum or the new one. If people can redeem themselves by posting then I'm all for giving them a second change, but most will probably just abandon the account if they had to wait a year I reckon. Maybe make a handful of post in the meantime then try their luck after the sig ban duration expires.


But you can see his error there. I don't see the error in the other.

Well there's not much you can do to enforce this. I wouldn't really be against people having to hire someone trusted or experienced to run campaigns, but then that becomes an issue of who gets to be trusted especially if you never allow new people. Existing campaign managers would then have a monopoly over running them. How do you decide who gets to run them or not as well? Rank? People could then just buy an account. Zapo is a new campaign manager and he's a rarity in that he actually does what he's supposed to and doesn't accept shitposters and those without merit. Should he not be able to run campaigns because he hasn't had any previous experience even though he's doing a better job than some of the current 'experienced' managers here? What happens if you're a new company but have a trusted member of staff who is prepared to run them efficiently but they would still be a newbie here? Should we be forcing them to hire someone just because they don't have a high rank or activity? I would rather just let people run campaigns, but if they clearly don't know what they're doing then they should be warned and then face punishments if appropriate. That to me seems the most sensible way to tackle it, but the problem is the issue isn't being tackled at all right now and anyone can run a campaign as bad as they want with absolutely no repercussions at all and that's something that needs to change.

It's rare that theymos actually commits a deadline or time-frame to such things and this is probably why. I've asked him a couple of times over the years for a rough estimate of when the forum will be ready and never received a response. I would still like to know if it's something that will or won't be out this year, or even a 'maybe' or 'no' to next year, but again, he'd probably rather just not commit to saying something if he can help it because people will just hold him to it if that time passes. Would be nice to get a rough percentage of how finished it is from him though.

Still, I would much rather him spend his time on either coding the forum or implementing some of the other things that will benefit this forum and make it a better place rather than just adding some superficial badges.


How did he ask you by mistake? The forum could do with some extra mods or patrollers at least and if someone has reported thousands upon of thousands of posts then they will likely be beneficial to the forum (unless theymos knows something about them that I don't). All you can do is keep reporting and maybe one day you will become a chosen one.

Or just severely increase account scams when sellers just take their accounts back after they've sold them. Most newbies won't be aware that they can be reclaimed in such a way and falling victim to this will become rife (unless theymos has though of a way to stop this). I still think we should allow users to purchase the bigger signatures via donating for Silver and Gold Membership etc. This would essentially kill the account sales market and account scams with it so it's win win for everyone and the forum gets the money instead of some account farmer or scammer. Users don't get scammed, the forum gets the money and users can have the bigger signature which is what they wanted in the fist place.

I also wonder what will happen to those users who can't sign a message posted here because the hacker deleted it but the address can still be found archived online or on one of the bitcointalk mirrors etc. There's also the issue of those who don't have a bitcoin address but can sign one from an alt coin wallet. I'm going to assume theymos' auto-recovery system will be bitcoin only?

Numerous people including myself had suggested something such as 'likes' or something similar, though merit is a little different and probably works better than others envisioned.


It's much longer than that. Theymos sticked the thread in the New forum software in March 2014 and it had been in development before that: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=523070.0

From what I understand theymos is the sole person working on it, so that's both likely why it's taking so long and he has less and less time to dedicate to here as well.


This is it. They barely have a signature that is useful for anything anyway and it's largely worthless to even ICOs, but they don't care. They pay people for free and at least it gets their name out there they might as well utilise it as they have nothing to lose. This is why it needs to go and wouldn't be a huge issue even if it did. Users can still purchase a Copper Membership anyway to get a signature and I think that's something the forum should experiment with or even move towards (purchasing larger signatures via donator ranks like Silver and Gold etc).

Combo was broken yesterday 


Merit ruins lives  .



Not necessarily. I've given a few merits out to people who I didn't agree with, but they've certainly made the effort or put their point across articulately. I agree that people tend to give them more to posts they agree with or 'like' but there's nothing we can do abut that other than try urge users to give posts for effort rather than you just agreeing with them or liking their point.

And memes can be both funny and constructive. At least they lighten this place up a bit. I'd much rather merit a meme that a one-liner (especially if they've actually edited/customised the meme to be relevant).



Yeah. Neither of these things require much effort from theymos, he just needs to actually implment them and let staff handle the rest.

What makes you think theymos cares much about traffic? Theymos recently said he thought about removing the ad slot here completely because it's too much of a hassle for him (which I think would be ridiculous to do), so I'm not sure if theymos cares too much about traffic or the Alexia rank because traffic is only really good for monetising the site. I always assumed that sig campaigns and bounties were only allowed to remain here because to get rid of them would probably kill off at least 80% of traffic. What he should care about though is the spam and usability of the forum, and I know that bothers him too, but he's the only one that can do anything about that and he needs to start implementing certain things and listening to the community on ways to combat it. We can still find a compromise without having to ban them or removing signatures completely but it's not going to happen without some help from him or permission to start dishing out punishments for the worst of campaigns.


As I said above, theymos recently mentioned getting rid of the only ad slot we have here so I'm not sure how much the forum being monetised efficiently or not is a concern to him. Theymos makes very little directly from this forum and an active mod makes more than him per month. Most ad revenue probably goes into the pot to pay mods (and we might actually be losing money on a monthly basis), but if theymos wanted to enrich himself personally or just the forum he could do so in a multitude of ways and many I have suggested myself (more ad slots, pay himself a reasonable wage and do admin duties full time, more donator ranks amongst other things). Regardless of whether theymos cares about ad revenue or traffic we should work together to make sure the forum is fit for purpose and he himself said this board shouldn't be a 'welfare system' for people but that's what it is right now so we need to find a compromise between people getting paid and what is and isn't acceptable to be paid for and punishments for people who do it the unacceptable way. If we let people get away with paying and being paid for spamming then they will continue to do it.

Yeah, I think good reports will only be taken into consideration. Otherwise people wouldn't care what they reported good or bad as long as it counted towards their badge.


These badges will be cool and all, but they're pretty far down on the list of things I'd like to see implemented here. I would much rather more mods be added (or current ones promoted to dedicated sub mods), and more importantly signatures removed from Newbs and Juniors and/or a merit requirement added for the latter.


I like them, but they're too hard to distinguish between.

A lot of posts in Politics & Society are taken from elsewhere. That user has probably used some text jumbling service to avoid detection, and this is becoming a huge problem because a simple google search will usually won't be fruitful. It's a sad state of affairs where users and now going to have to google a post before they merit it. something else really needs to change with the culture here because people are just going to find more and more ways of being sneaky to avoid being caught. One thing I know though is Newbies and Juniors shouldn't be able to get paid for doing this and that's why their signatures need to go because ICO campaigns will keep paying them to do this otherwise.

Read the rules. Often you can work out what they were likely was removed for. However, I do think the deleted notification should be changed slightly, and a link to the rules provided as well, so again, people can try figure out why their post might have been removed. Most of the time users just aren't aware of the rules and the post may appear legit to the person who made it, but could have been a duplicate, double post, or in a necrobumped thread etc.


An option for staff to leave a note or choose from a drop-down menu of the most common reasons would be helpful. Ie "double post", "off topic", "no ref links" etc.


Nah. Most users won't do it and if it's against the rules then staff should just remove it.


It should be anonymous. Staff members would just be hassled if it told you who deleted it. I sometimes even get angry messages asking why a post was removed even though it had nothing to do with me but users assume it was me because my username is on that sub-board. Thank yourself you even get a notification though. On many other forums you don't and your post just disappears with you being completely unaware.

As others have said, it it was just a 'thanks' then that maybe why.

There's a few things that have happened that people have mentioned already like the homographs and the 24 hour bump deletion thing, but don't forget about the merit system as well. Theymos is probably reluctant to spend too much time coding things for this forum when he's busy working on the new one (and any time he spends here he loses time on the development of the new one (though maybe/hopefully the same work/coding can just be implemented on the new board as well so it's win-win and not a waste of time)). If the new forum software is still a year or two away though then I think some more things should be implemented here in the meantime. Workload definitely needs to be distributed between staff and a few new mods being made to help out wouldn't hurt either and that's something that can be done by theymos with a few clicks and they'll help clean up this place and keep some order in the meantime.

I'm hoping that something will be done about removing signatures from Newbies/Juniors or requiring the latter to achieve some merit to become one. Clamping down on ICO campaigns who do little to nothing other than pay for spam would also go a long way and these are things that wouldn't require much effort from theymos and the staff can take care of the rest.

Well we are probably the exception. For as long as I've been here I've never taken signature campaigns for granted. People used to complain that I was 'spamming' merely because I was making a lot of posts (many more than I do these days), but I was never banned despite numerous people requesting so, and I always made sure to put a lot of thought and effort into them. I still do now, maybe even more so. I know I don't need to write a paragraph or quote multiple people in the same post or write as much as I do even on Chipmixer. I know I could get away with just writing a short paragraph or even just two sentences or so, but I don't. You've also got to remember we are native British English-speaking people who have at least an above average understanding of bitcoin. It's a sad fact that many of the new people who sign up here these days do so just to earn and have probably only heard of bitcoin via someone telling them that they can earn here merely by posting. Now, imagine if you're an Asian schoolkid who doesn't have much money, can't speak English very well and knows little to nothing about bitcoin and cares just as much about it. That's a recipe for disaster, but they need to get paid and this is their best opportunity to earn online, so they either force out a sentence or two of largely hollow nonsense, or copy and paste someone else's post and that's all they need to do when campaigns will pay them for it. When there's no repercussions both for making low quality posts and those that pay them to do so nothing is going to change and in fact things will just get worse because they realise they can get away with it. Some users posts will in fact just get sloppier and sloppier as time goes on especially when they start creating more accounts to maximise profits. If more users started getting bans for sloppy posts and campaigns started getting them for paying users to make them things would change. If every campaign were run properly like Chipmixer then the forum would clean itself up rather quickly because spammers wouldn't be able to get on a campaign at all, so they would be forced to up their game or languish forever. That's why we need some standards or regulations on how campaigns can operate here. It can't be acceptable to do nothing about all about spammers and until there's punishments for that they will continue to be both lazy and greedy.


Things can change, but not without more manpower being thrown at it. Theymos says money isn't an issue so we can hire more mods to help with this. We could have a team of mods set up just to police ICO campaigns or deal with sig spam. We also need to delegate workload between staff. The need for more admins aside, either new or current staff could be assigned to certain sub boards like Bitcoin Discussion and they can then dedicate their time to cleaning up their own subs up. I've been saying for years that Bitcoin Discussion needs it's own dedicated mod (or even two). They can then trash crap threads on sight and that place will become a lot more usable in the process. These are simple fixes that will benefit the quality of content here remarkably.

Why would they bother doing more work when they don't need to? Imagine going to work where the boss was never there and would pay you at the end of the month regardless of the quality of work that was done just as long as you met the deadlines of when it needed to be in. You wouldn't bother going above and beyond because there's no point putting in the extra work because as long as you meet the minimum requirements you'll get paid regardless. That's exactly what's wrong with the culture here. Why would anyone actually bother contributing to discussions and with anything in depth when a one liner will get them paid the same. Time is money when you're a bounty hunter or farmer so they're not going to bother writing a paragraph when they can break that paragraph into five sentences and post it over their five accounts and get paid x5. With Juniors being able to be farmed or botted merely with 30 posts over a couple of activity periods this just leads them to abuse campaigns in such a way because they need to do that in order to be able to earn a substantial amount. That needs to change. Get rid of signatures for Newbies and Juniors and let them earn ten merit before they can earn by posting (or purchase a Copper Membership).

The forum has moved away from its original purpose, but we are trying to find a compromise to meet somewhere in the middle and make the forum a better place in the process. People should be able to get paid to post, but they shouldn't be able to get paid to spam or copy and paste. The people who complain about merit do so because it effects their ability to get paid to post and that is a good thing, but I think we need to go further with it. You already need merit to be a Member and every other rank after it in increasing proportions. This requirement should also extend to Juniors because that rank is now being exploited because it's the only one you can earn from without any merit. The merit system works in that it stops the vast majority of spammers being able to rank up past Member, but does nothing for Juniors and people are now exploiting that and farming or botting Juniors to do the abuse instead.


Isn't that exactly what we're doing? Numerous ideas have been suggested to help clean up the forum but we now just need theymos to implement them. Removing signatures from lower ranks, requiring merit to become a Junior and punishing badly run signature campaigns seem to be the most popular and easiest to implement and would have a drastic effect on both the spam and culture here.


We already have the six minute waiting time between posts for newbies, which can be extremely annoying. I dare say it actually turns a lot of users away, but the people who are determined to earn here will grin and bare it. We need to make suggestions that don't effect or annoy people who just want to post here so they don't leave, and the compromise isn't always that easy to be found. Removing signatures from lower ranks or requiring merit for Juniors doesn't effect anyone's ability to post here nor does punishing ICO campaigns and that's why I'm strongly pushing for them.

It wouldn't effect traffic at all, nor does it effect anybody being able to post here. All it effects is your ability to earn via signatures as a Newbie or Junior and that's not what this forum is about anyway and I don't think they should be able to earn here straight away because that's what leads to the abuse and people trying to post about something they little to nothing about. Newbies and Juniors who come here to earn aren't going to magically just throw in the towel because they can't earn by posting straightaway and they now need ten merit or whatever. They can still collect bounties for a start, or just cough up for a Copper membership... or, you know, just earn the merit naturally by making meritable posts. Ten merit isn't a lot and you could probably achieve that by writing one great post or a few at most. I'm sure other members would be more liberal with their merits if this happened as well. I want to see people making worthwhile posts and I want them to be able to earn here in the process. I just don't want copy and paste bots and lazy farmers writing a hollow sentence over however many dozens of accounts they have.

I didn't say that. Quite the opposite. It's theymos who has stated that the next solution will likely be to just remove signatures, but that's not as easy as it sounds either (you'll have to remove avatars and personal texts as well) nor do I think we should ever do that fully. I don't think it's fair to remove them from everyone when it's the newer users that come here to spam in their hundreds that have ruined it for everyone. What about those who just want to advertise their own business or their items for sale in their signature? They're then penalised because of the behaviour of others who have decided to monetise and abuse theirs. The penultimate solution if you were going to go gung-ho and remove signatures would be to remove them from all lower ranks. Maybe leave only Hero or Legendary or those that have got a great deal of merit (and not just auto-merit) so this doesn't penalise those that have been here a long time or made a lot of quality contributions. You could even go with my suggestion of removing signatures completely (or from all lower ranks) and allowing users to purchase them via donator ranks (copper, silver, gold etc). The problem with signatures here is that it's free to create as many accounts as you want and people do. When there's a cost to have a signature nobody is going to be able to afford them on all their 12 to 200 accounts.


Theymos has already said he will never bring back newbie jail which is essentially what you're suggesting, so you might as well forget about that and look at other ways to prevent abuse.


It also stops genuine users from making posts. Those that come here to abuse the system will just swap over to one of their 12-200 alt accounts whilst they wait. Abusers will always find a way to bypass the system whilst it puts off genuine users who can't be bothered jumping through all these hoops just to post or get an answer to a question.


Theymos recently said he thought about removing the ad slot here completely because it's too much of a hassle for him (which I think would be ridiculous to do), so I'm not sure if theymos cares too much about traffic. If he doesn't though I'm not sure why he allows signature campaigns here (or lets them do what they do). I always assumed that they were only allowed because to kill them would probably kill off at least 80% of traffic. We can still find a compromise without having to ban them or removes signatures but it's not going to happen without some help from him or permission to start dishing out punishments for the worst of campaigns.

People need to accept that this is not a discussion board anymore; it's a post or copy and paste to get paid one. Until thyemos is going to do something about that or put someone in charge who will then not only will nothing change but things will get worse.


The problem is the way we allow users to make money. Getting paid to post is great, but it needs to be regulated. We can't let ICOs come here and literally accept anyone and everyone including Newbies and Juniors and ppay thgem for whatever dribble they can drool out or copy and paste. If you accept Newbies and Juniors then it is going to be exploited by spammers, farmers and copy and paste bots. It can't be acceptable to earn from this forum by copy and pasting but that's what is happening. That's why Newbie and Junior signatures need to be removed completely. They then cannot get paid for this until they become a Member and earn ten merit. Ten merit is not a lot to ask, but it is if you're a bot or the worst of the worst of posters.


Well that's unfair too. The jump from Hero to Legendary is huge and will take a very long time to achieve if everyone thinks like you. What do you define as a 'high' rank as well? Full? Senior? If people are writing great posts then they should be merited for them regardless of ranks.