I don't think it is. Two weeks is nothing. I could get next to zero points the following weeks. It won't be interesting until many rounds have passed arguably even months. It doesn't matter if you're at the bottom of the table for the next few weeks as you could just as easily turn it round with a good run (or even if higher up users have a bad run).


It's not really a weekly prize. Those prizes still won't be deiced until the end but it is for the top 5 users who have scored the highest points in a weekly round. It's just a way for users to have something still to play for if/when it becomes apparent they are very unlikely to get a top 5 spot on the leaderboard. 

How do you know they're all sharing an IP? Many farmers will share one or a handful of IPs but the smartest ones wouldn't. I wouldn't be against something like once an IP is used to create an account it is 'burned' and no more accounts can be created from that one. Maybe paying the evil fee or whatever per account could white-list them, but not sure how effect either suggestion would be.


Fell free to suggest them here. I plan to compile users suggestions and others can vote on them and the most popular ones among the community will be moved to the top of the list. There's no guarantees that theymos will ever implement them or not but at least he and we can see what is popular amongst users here.

That's not true at all. What is more likely the case is that higher-ranked members tend to make the much better posts. There are thousands upon thousands of lower-ranked members here making very low quality posts so of course those ones aren't going to get any merit. You, for example, haven't made any posts worth meriting in my opinion. I personally would much rather give merit to lower ranked users like you than higher ones because most higher ranks don't even need merit. Once you're a Hero or Legendary member there's not really much benefit to merit to be honest. I would much rather reward newbies for great posts than anyone else, but if a Hero or Legendary makes an exemplary post then I'm not not going to give them merit. They should be rewarded. Anyone should that is making great contributions. You don't even need to be a bitcoin expert either. I'm certainly not and I gained the vast majority of my merits from making suggestions in Meta that others have deemed worthwhile.

It's a joke.


All I care about is the info being there. I don't actually care whether they read it or not as they'll be banned, but that will then be their own fault. Would we accept the excuse, well I did read the rules but it wasn't in red so I didn't take notice. No. We're not here to babysit idiots or let them off on technicalities for those that don't read. The rules should be displayed and they have the option to read them or not. Anything else is irrelevant and I don't care about any excuses or what ifs.


Cleavage is all you need. Men are simple creatures.

How about just an image:



And/or perhaps it should also be sound-tracked by some obnoxiously loud filthy dubstep as well that autoplays as soon as you successfully sign up to really get their attention? Perhaps we could create a dubstep track with the hook or lyrics of the song just being "READ THE RULES" over and over? 50 Merit to anyone who creates this.

Alternatively, an image of a half-naked woman could be displayed, and if you look closely READ THE RULES could be edited across her boobs? I'm sure that would get their attention. 10 merits for this.

Seriously, we don't need to have everything in caps and bright colours to get their attention. If they don't read it then that's their problem. People generally don't read terms and conditions because they're often overly long and in undecipherable legal spiel. This is short and sweet for those exact same reasons. Before they even sign up or as soon as they successfully create an account here a warning to read the rules could be displayed, but there's really no excuses for not reading it other than your own foolishness

The offer of 50 merit for the dubstep track with the hook still stands and 10 for the boobs (make sure she's not actually naked or topless though and don't put it in image tags. Also mark it as NSFW).

You get it by number 2. I can't believe you actually thought it might be number one.

You get merit by making meritorious posts. Read the FAQ stickied in this sub.

The sad thing is is that this guy is already a Junior Member and would easily be able to get onto an ICO campaign. Sure, he'll likely be a Junior indefinitely but that doesn't matter. Create more accounts, make 30 spam posts and maximise earnings. This is why a merit requirement is desperately needed and/or Juniors should have no signature at all. You literally just need to be bothered to make 30 spam posts over however many accounts you need and you can earn via them all. This needs to change. One merit or no signature at all until you've got ten merit and become a Member isn't too much to ask and would work wonders to curb spam and farming.

Some members might not in fact give you any merit because they're greedy and want to sell or give it to their alts, but there are many more times that amount who love to give it away to random people for great posts. Make great posts that stand out from the rest and I'm sure you'll get it.


Better solutions such as? I earned 500 merit in a matter of months and ranked up from Hero to Legendary in the process. If I created a new account from scratch I'd be able to do the same. Why are you people complaining that you now actually have to put effort in and write constructive posts here? It's like your manager at the office telling you to actually do some decent work instead of the shoddy and sub par job you've been doing by putting the minimal amount of effort in possible and you then complaining about that. You're the exact sort of user that merit system was put in place as to stop people like you from farming accounts by contributing little to nothing here. You came to this forum likely because somebody told you you could easily earn here and because you very likely know little to nothing about bitcoin headed straight to off topic to post crap in there:


Clearly you're not an evolutionary biologist. Go read a book because this isn't how evolution works. Richard Dawkins has several that will answer your confusion and misunderstandings about evolution. Also, we are animals. We're apes with shoes, but wasn't too long ago we we're shitting and fucking in the grass and worshipping solar eclipses and made-up sky gods. Oh...wait. Some people clearly haven't even moved on from that.

Also, your two posts not in off topic are in the Filipino section and are both just about how you can earn here. No surprises there.

That's a shame. I wondered why your reports had stopped coming in. I'd hoped that you'd just either found them all or the bots got the idea and realised it wasn't worth it. Sadly, there's probably hundreds that are still going that will now evade detection, but this is yet another reason why there should either be a merit requirement for Juniors and/or their signatures removed completely. I understand why you've stopped as even I have been contemplating not handling reports on copy bots and not banning them as a protest until things have changed. You literally cannot win a war against someone using a bot to farm unlimited accounts because it's just like playing whack a mole with ghosts. As long as they can get paid as Juniors then they will continue to farm accounts this way because it is easy money and costs them nothing to do so. Even if we ban 100 of them there could be thousands more still earning and that needs to change. Campaigns need to be forced to stop accepting them and the only way we can do that is to remove their signatures.


I strongly agree with the merit requirement, but theymos seems to be strongly against limiting new accounts to certain boards so this almost certainly won't happen. I still have hope for the merit though.

Doesn't it already do this? Besides, there's already 'copy and paste' in there as well. I'm not going to dumb things down any more than they need to be and it's not my problem if somebody doesn't understand something. Will we then accept the excuse that "I didn't understand the rules" or "too many big words - no comprende". As many people already say, people should know it's never ok to copy someone else's content regardless of whether they know what plagiarism means or not, but the info is there.  This is all about giving the info to people as soon as they sign up so there's no excuses for not being aware but not understanding the rules because of terminology isn't going to be an excuse that flies. If you don't speak English or understand a word then translate it or read the rules of your local board which this will likely be translated to and stickied there also (translations could also be linked to in the op). If they don't understand something then they should either google it or ask somebody else like anyone with a brain cell would do.

Depends on the rule you broke. Temporary bans are given for minor infractions but people who copy and paste content almost always get a permaban as they're not here to contribute but just to earn and/or farm accounts with the minimal amount of effort possible. I've already given you enough info on how you can continue here but that's up to you to work out. Your original account almost certainly won't be unbanned though.

Yeah, you're probably right. Will change it later.



I'll probably sticky it in bitcoin discussion or something, but ideally I think it should be both sticked and either directly linked to on sign-up or ideally shown as soon as they sign up.


I'm not sure what half of you're even trying to say here, but the bits I think I do seem to have already been addressed or included.


Like you? Did you even read the op?


It is already condense, but again, I don't think you actually even bothered to read what I wrote.


Illegal in your jurisdiction or that of the United States then. We don't need a thread discussing what it and what isn't legal in everyone's possible location.


It really can't get any shorter than it already is and I'm not about to add colours just for the idiots with short attention spans or are in too much of a rush to start spamming. If people don't read it because it's not in red or abbreviated leetspeak then that's their fault. The info is there and they've been suggested to read it and if they don't then they can't cry when you lose your account to your own ignorance.

NSA DETECTED! What is this, 1984? This is ridiculous.


Same. Clearly he hasn't seen Citizenfour.


Sadly, I think hell will be more likely to freeze over before anything gets implemented here.


I think more people would find this annoying than helpful. I dislike how we have to go to a separate page to give merit, but merit should just be pumped up somehow without having to go to a separate page at all. And as TheQuin said you can just open it in a new page anyway.

I can't work that First77 guy out. I've already warned him about all the threads he keeps posting in the wrong sections, and he doesn't seem to be interested in bitcoin and even keeps creating crap threads in the wrong section usually seemingly trying to slag bitcoin off and promote gold investment instead. Think he's likely just trying to get hits to his website and YouTube videos in his signature more than anything.

This isn't really true. His accounts will only possibly be banned if they're publicly directly linked somehow. Op could create 20 new accounts from the very same IP and computer and nobody will ever know because there's nobody looking into these sorts of things. People  are farming accounts on an industrial scale and are still free to post away on their hundreds of other accounts no matter if we've already banned 50 of them. In fact, this likely isn't op's only account and I'm sure his "friend" is still posting away.

Don't forget my one as well:

Require a small amount of merit to become a Junior Member

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4654923.msg42027113#msg42027113

It's very difficult to search for these threads anyway because typing in 'junior' will just bring up loads of random things.


Semantics, but I don't think allowing Juniors to have a signature only outside certain boards will solve anything. They either need to be there or not. Campaigns will still pay for them if so or just tell them to post in boards where they show. They need to have their hand forced not to accept them and this will only happen if the signatures are removed completely from lower ranks. They can still purchase a Copper Membership or a higher donator rank if implemented so it isn't that restrictive either.  

Again, possibly, but that's all in the other guides and rules etc. Might be too long to explain the intricacies of what is and isn't considered spam or not. Also, it's all well and good saying "no spam or low quality posts" but 80% of the forum should be nuked if that's the case. Bitcoin Discussion is probably 80% generic bullshit one/two liners churned out as fast as they possibly can over their multiple accounts. The bots and account farming going on in there is embarrassing and it's blatant to see for anyone who spends a couple of minutes reading a spam thread in there. Accounts registered with similar usernames posting one after the other in the exact same format are rife and nothing is done about it. The ones who aren't as stupid and more difficulty to spot will dwarf the ones we know about as well.

Maybe, and that certainly is a problem, but the search function here is shit though. Barely works or brings up what you want half of the time. People also tend to search and then necrobump threads as well with their issue when ideally it might have been better in another or a new thread completely. Damned if they do damned if they don't.


Again, that's in the forum rules. Trying to keep it as short as possible, but that info is there and is their responsibility to make sure they've read them. Multiposting isn't a huge issue either.


Maybe something like this could be a good idea, but theymos would have to implement that. It could even add as another barrier to protect against bots. Maybe there could be a set of random simple questions that they have to answer where the info can either be found in the welcome message or the rules. Could be multiple choice with a drop down menu for example:

How many accounts are you allowed to have here:

One
Two
Ten
About tree fiddy
As many as you like

Are referral links permitted:

Yes
No
Only in certain boards

Maybe we can have one to weed out social justice warriors and special snowflakes:

How many genders are there:

Two
Three (including attack helicopters)
24
There is no such thing as gender as gender is a social construct
I'm offended that you're even asking





I've suggested something like this in the community generated suggestions, and they should be sub board specific. Ie in before posting in Bitcoin Discussion: DONT POST TOPICS ABOUT THE PRICE OF BITCOIN OR YOU WILL DIE BY THE HAND OF SATOSHI, YOU CRYPTOPLEB. THEY BELONG IN SPECULATION. Or something  .


Well that's up to theymos but it should either be displayed as soon as they've successfully signed up or linked to it in a sticky somewhere. Would prefer it being shown as they sign up because most won't bother reading it but it could also be sticked and they're just forced to read it. Could also get sent to their email and/or pop up in their messages as well. Plenty of options.

That info is already included in the merit/rank FAQ but I suppose it could be added, but I'd prefer to keep it to only the most important things. Most new users won't have any idea about what merit even is until they've either read about it in the FAQ/rules or been here a bit and realised they either haven't got or aren't getting any. Then the begging comes in but if they'd've read the guide then they would know not to do this.

You could probably do this in project discussion, or alt discussion if it's mostly alt coin related. Anything that requires any sort of thought put into a discussion probably won't get many comments by sig spammers here though. They just want somewhere to write their one/two-liner as fast as possible then move on to the next thread. You could self-mod it to keep them out or away as well.

A while ago I asked theymos if we could implement a welcome/introductory message that is shown to all Newbies when they sign up which will include all the info they need to get started. He agreed, so I suggest we brainstorm what that should include. Ideally I think the initial message should be as concise as possible with only the most important rules being listed, but contain further links to more in depth guides and FAQs so they can do their own further research. Throwing too much info at newbies is probably overkill so let's try keep it as short and as sweet as we can.

Here's what I've got so far:

---------------------

Welcome to Bitcointalk. Before you start posting please take a short while to read through this guide. Due to anti-spam measures you will have to wait six minutes between your posts (and this includes logging in) so please use this time wisely to familiarise yourself with the rules. Additionally, to bypass some of these limits you can consider buying a Copper Membership here. A full list of forum rules can be found here, but the most important ones are listed below and breaking them will likely lead to an immediate ban:

Do not post referral links.
Do not plagiarise content or copy and paste another user's posts. Any content that is not your own should be properly quoted and a link provided to the original source.
Do not offer to sell anything illegal or such things as hacked/shared accounts.
Do not beg for money whether for personal reasons or a supposed charity.

Before posting in a sub board please take the time to read the sticky/pinned threads at the top of them as answers to the most frequently asked questions can be found there along with other helpful guides, but here are some that may interest you:

A guide for Newbies can be found here.
A guide on how to earn bitcoins and join signature campaigns and bounties can be found here.
A guide on how forum ranks, activity and merit work can be found here.

Please note: Bitcointalk is an English speaking only board and if you struggle with English or aren't fluent then you should stick to your local language sub board which can be found here.

-----------------------

I'm up for this being completely re-written or adding more things in depth but I think it should be as short as possible so people actually get the gist of the most important things and can spend additional time reading into the finer details as well. As long as all the info can be found when you sign up then there should be no excuses for breaking the rules or all the same newbie threads asking how do I join a bounty or what is or how do I get merit etc etc.

Please suggest anything you think should be included.