What I find interesting is that some were locked whilst others were deleted. I wonder what the criteria is for a thread to be deleted as opposed to just being locked? |
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Altcoin discussion is much much worse, you can check on page 20 and you'll still see posts from today.
Most of it is stuff that should just be removed, massive spam threads asking the same questions over and over.
Bitcoin Discussion still has some decent conversation, while it's completely impossible to follow anything in Altcoin Discussion.
Yeah, although Altcoin Discussion hasn't been subject to the newbie bot invasion as far as I can see. I would agree with you that in general that place is a mess though. Can't really blame the moderation team on that one as mprep is the only dedicated mod, and has to deal with thousands of posts per day in that section alone never mind it's child boards. Yeah, I use plagiarism checkers if my initial search didn't come up with anything. |
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One possible guess would be a random dude having a myriad of accounts,and he sacrifices a few of those by plagiarizing topics,and using his other accounts to spam their way through. All this for bounties maybe. Cases like this have been true before,people managed to get hell a lot of rich.
Instead of totally abandoning Bitcoin Discussion, maybe just keep having discussions with those who want to. Create your own self moderated thread,and discuss stuff. We all came here to discuss about bitcoin and we are doing everything else other than that.
Maybe, I'm not sure. Most of the ones which I've reported have just been newbies posting plagiarized content. Doesn't seem they engage after that. Possibly, someone trying out their bot that they will eventually use for bounties. Some of the sources they are using are actually pretty difficult to find. If these are individual newbies who don't know whats what yet, I think something like a "search FAQ" bar that opens as you type your topic to recommend threads that ask the same question it might help reduce this. By this I mean something similar to binance when you open a ticket and it recommends similar things in the FAQ as you type your question.
I myself have posted a few bitcoin technical questions which I was sure that someone else has had to ask it in the past, unfortunately finding similar posts is a bit hard in some cases with the massive loads of topics being created, the problem kind of makes itself worse and snowballs on itself. Improving on the search functionality to make it "nicer" would definitely help. I am not sure as to what kind of load this'l add on the servers and how much of a workload it would be on the forums developers though.
On the other note, it is kind of a pity that people are repeat answering a question with the same answer just to get posts for their bounties. (Yes I know I have a sig in my profile, I get it the hypocrisy - I really try add new value to a discussion each time I post). I find that unless it is a very interesting topic and discussion people just read the first post and answers and moves on. I think somehow the idea of adding value to a discussion with a post needs to be reiterated. There is zero value in giving the same answer as everyone else.
This isn't the case. It's not the fact they are asking questions which have been asked before they are literally copy, and pasting questions, discussions and replies from various different sources including the forum. There's been a few Satoshi/Sirius posts that have been copied. |
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Today I took a deep breath and started to check today's new topics on the Bitcoin Discussion thread. Today our hard working little newbie ants has created 10 pages of new topics (roughly) and I took my time to check those topics which had less then 10 posts... it took an hour or more (even more...). The result is 127 reports but the reason I'm amazed/frightened is: 90% of the posts was done by a newbie with 1-2 activity points or a brand new user.... The naming concept of the newbie was like this: Firstname+numbers, like Annie456 and so on... and they were different users, of course.... Most of the topic opener posts were about bitcoin price speculation, in max. 2-3 lines... I still have a few (OK a lot) tabs open in my browser, for the post that were longer than 2-3 lines because I'll do a copypaste check on them, but it's possible that it will be the job of tomorrow  I hope the mods won't get headache from the amount of report I've generated for them Most are plagiarism. What they benefit from doing this I don't exactly know, but I've found several threads made by these 1 post newbies which are either completely copy, and pasting or are only using a snippet of the text from another source. They seem to be getting a lot of it from news websites, but are also copying from much earlier posts on this forum too. Seems like the person behind the bot likes to add a few emotes in it too. They seem to be targeting older posts that were made by substantial users, although they have just copied posts from earlier today too. They also like adding punctuation marks such as "!!!". Please can everyone report these |
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Fecking bots everywhere!
Yeah, I don't know what their gain is, but there's been several threads today that are copy and pasted posing as a question, and therefore are easily missed unless you've gone through several pages.
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Already did. Just making sure that the moderator doesn't just delete his latest post, but actually addresses this issue on a user level.
In future just specify that in the report field. Something like: "This user spamming ads in every post, please check post history". The moderator can then decide on what action is necessary. |
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I thought everybody had digaran on ignore. I've tried ignoring people in the past but, could never do it. I would always unhide their posts on the off chance that they say something interesting or worth while. They never do though... |
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I hate to admit that the legendaries, heroes, and some of the senior members got their merit because their post quality is above anyone else. The low-rank members' posts are just bad both content and writing technique. I don't have a problem with this thing, but something is bothering me. Some merit points were given freely in such a stupid reason, such as sucking up, when low-rank members seemingly agree with high-rank members idea and praise them. (Don't ask me for the prove, use your common sense and search engine). This is so bad for the community because the "devil's advocates" are needed to avoid "group-think." Yeah, some members got their merit just for being around for a long time, and don't particularly contribute high quality posts to the forum. However, that's fine you can't expect everyone to contribute solid ideas or information. But, these people will be highlighted because they aren't earning any merit points. Merit points only really effect those who want to earn from the forum. A newbie can contribute equally as much as a legendary. Am I the only one who tired of merit-related topics?
It's a major feature, and is still new. Years back you could get your rank merely by posting, and activity wasn't a thing. When theymos implemented the activity feature there were many threads. Especially, because a few people that were Hero Member got demoted. This is expected with any new feature that severely impacts the members of the forum. Unfortunately, such a feature limits the account farmers, and signature campaigns spammers so there will naturally be more people complaining, and pushing their ideas out. |
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How the HELL did you locate a thread like that so quickly? I'm impressed. And this post was extremely interesting to me:
Magic! Nah, I've read that thread multiple times before, and like you find myself looking back at the old threads in all kinds of different sections from time to time. It just so happens I remembered the name of that thread pretty well, and knew it was pretty early on in the forum. The good thing I see is that the posts he called out (facepalming and the like) aren't tolerated here. You can't just post an emoticon or "+1" or whatever, because those will get deleted. That kind of crap is tolerated to no end on other forums, and usually people who write those replies also quote a huge block of text.
I would agree. Even though this forum is plastered in spam right now I still think it's got a pretty good moderation policy, and only interferes when needed. I used to disagree with a few things, but soon came to realize that it's probably the best way to go about it. I'm so tempted to give SgtSpike a merit....but I won't.
It's a pity I don't see him around anymore as some of his posts were an interesting read. |
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Bounty stakes are there incentives, as an example I will put it as like:
Posting Rules in signature campaign:
minimum 25 posts in a week, out of which atleast 5 posts must be in the official ANN thread showing discussion and participation in conversation.
Ok! So discussion and participation in conversation is fine, but making it a hard and fast rule to participants, there will be unnecessary posts from bounty participants as they dont have an option, they posts which makes no sense, but eventually its fulfilling the motive for both: participant as they are completing the requirement / project/managers: as the ANN thread is getting a bump.
Personally, I find it as misguiding potential investors, as they get a fake impression of the thread being very active whereas all the bump the thread gets is from the participants.
If it's a requirement then you should report it as it's giving an incentive by offering them shares/stakes/chocolate to post in their thread. |
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One very interesting thing is how well people wrote in the early days of bitcointalk. Comparing post quality in 2010 to today is astounding. As clever a moneymaking mechanism as the signature campaign is, it was definitely a quality-killer for posts here once it sucked in the poor, non-English speaking folks (sorry, but it's true). Anyway, for people who really like bitcointalk, reading posts from way back when is almost addicting. It was like a different world.
It really depends though. Often times people like to look back on things, and think how good it was back then. Especially, when it's new content to them. Old posts which have been unread are always the most interesting, especially when relating to the history of the forum, and Bitcoin itself. In reality there was complaints back in 2011, 2012, and so on about the decline of quality posts on the forum. Thus, you would think that this is because, of the wider adoption of Bitcoin bringing in all kinds of different people, cultures, and ideas. This would of been seen as a good thing a few years ago, but unfortunately with widespread adoption/awareness comes the cons of people not being able/willing to speak good English or learn about Bitcoin, and it's related technologies. Here's a post back in 2011 which has a small, but interesting discussion about the progression of the forum, and the cons of it: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=9147.0I'd say a lot of the old members are still around, but probably are busy with their day to day lives.  Like that Johnthedong guy? |
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I believe admins are the only ones to have access to the edit history of a post, and I believe it's not as easy as it sounds to look at. Moderators can't see the edit history AFAIK, and implementing something like this would only be useful in certain scenarios where other times it will just be useless. I get annoyed when people on Reddit edit their post, and state "edit: a word". Can admins see editing history of a post? Yes, though it's a bit of a hassle. There's currently no history of profile fields, though, so you definitely can't rely on your signature or anything like that. |
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-Detecting ICO pumping/bumping services
- Those services are trying to keep specific ANN thread on the first page by posting in different forms every single day. I have reported quite some of those rule-breakers but most of the time those a bot accounts. There are different patterns to look for, most of the time are some "conversations" between different users quoting each other but posting only once per day. Usually those are accounts with 30-40 posts and it's really easy to be spotted by checking the post history. They have posts in the same thread every day, sometimes they are pumping more then 2-3 ICO simultaneously. Regarding this point, I have seen a lot of bounty campaigns which put it as a rule specifically that the signature participants must make some count of there total posts in the ANN thread only. This in a way or other do promote bumping of the ANN Thread. If they are offering an incentive for it then report the thread for offering an incentive to it's user to post on the thread, and include a quote of this. |
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You can view merit being awarded to legendary/staff as "burning". Burning is a practice that creates value in tokens. By burning merit, merit becomes more sought after, and people will be encouraged to create better quality posts to attain it.
At least, that's the politically correct point of view.
Merit doesn't go to waste on legendaries so can't really be comparable to burning Bitcoin. It doesn't really make it that more valuable whether it's given to a legendary or not, and therefore there's no comparison again. Merits are suppose to be rewarded to those who post high quality informative posts. If the post is high quality then rank shouldn't play in the factor. Plus, for every 2 sMerit you get 1 back, and therefore a few legendaries can send it to other members. This also gives the chance to users to demonstrate to theymos they are suitable for a merit source. It certainly isn't wasted that's for sure. |
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Doesn't really prove anything either though as the user could just be pulling numbers out of his arse, and trying to scam. I mean it's useful if we can find the account or closest matches, and watch whether the password/email changes.
Another thing Vod's project is good for!
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Well when you see someone give other 20+ Merits for just a translation post and the person rewarded the Merits replied by with 20+ Merit to a totally useless post ( All I see here is abuse yes both might be 2 different persons but for me it is not different from making new accounts and report them ) exchange Merit is against the rules , Abuse is abuse in all forms .
Yeah, your obviously referring to a specific scenario here, but if there isn't any trading back, and forth then it might not be abuse. It's annoying to see people send their merit to scam ICOs, or plain bad altcoin announcements, but I can't blame them for doing it if they believe in it. |
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Put me down for the £25 premier league one at the very least. World cup I'm still undecided... Belgium have the best team on paper but can they gel together as a team? They were my favourites to win the Euros in 2016 but that didn't happen and they lost to Wales in the semis, but they're always worth putting a bit of money on since the odds are usually pretty good.
Wales the best team confirmed. |
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IMO, using the default trust settings should be enough.
Probably would be enough, although the trust system isn't really useful for someone not registered. As trust is a way of indicating whether a user is trustworthy or not, and without being registered on the forum it would be unlikely they would use it. I don't see any point of limiting pages these to logged-in users. It would help immensely with archiving data: there have been many a time where I've wanted to archive merit history for busting users that are trading/selling/abusing. Same thing with trust pages.
Your case of archiving trust, and merit pages is likely a niche where only few people would be interested in. It being public would not really benefit those who aren't interested in trade. Plus, new users would likely get the wrong impression of several people due to their trust ratings, and may discredit their posts as a result of that hence the reason why certain sections do not show trust ratings. |
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I guess I need to step it up... Only 95% accuracy.
Still it's good to show the users some stats about their work, let them know that what they are doing is actually contributing some value to the forum.
Would be nice to also see a breakdown of who had the most accurate reports, could be like a competition (perhaps to decide the next mod?)
This is the most recent update(8 months ago): All time: +--------------------+-------+-----+-----------+----------+
| realName | good | bad | unhandled | accuracy |
+--------------------+-------+-----+-----------+----------+
| Lutpin | 11008 | 167 | 334 | 0.9851 |
| shorena | 10423 | 359 | 524 | 0.9667 |
| Cyrus | 4641 | 170 | 90 | 0.9647 |
| botany | 4568 | 159 | 220 | 0.9664 |
| xandry | 4271 | 89 | 91 | 0.9796 |
| xhomerx10 | 4098 | 65 | 184 | 0.9844 |
| mexxer-2 | 3936 | 80 | 71 | 0.9801 |
| Foxpup | 3719 | 21 | 99 | 0.9944 |
| EFS | 3597 | 74 | 171 | 0.9798 |
| rickbig41 | 3321 | 46 | 367 | 0.9863 |
| Quickseller | 2982 | 130 | 173 | 0.9582 |
| mprep | 2794 | 120 | 159 | 0.9588 |
| hilariousandco | 2723 | 82 | 30 | 0.9708 |
| TheButterZone | 2430 | 230 | 97 | 0.9135 |
| DannyHamilton | 2425 | 31 | 111 | 0.9874 |
| Welsh | 2213 | 42 | 20 | 0.9814 |
| achow101 | 1847 | 29 | 47 | 0.9845 |
| redsn0w | 1786 | 276 | 118 | 0.8661 |
| -ck | 1756 | 26 | 14 | 0.9854 |
| subSTRATA | 1633 | 58 | 121 | 0.9657 |
| mitzie | 1526 | 65 | 32 | 0.9591 |
| dbshck | 1523 | 14 | 9 | 0.9909 |
| deadley | 1495 | 79 | 16 | 0.9498 |
| SFR10 | 1417 | 5 | 14 | 0.9965 |
| EcuaMobi | 1370 | 13 | 17 | 0.9906 |
| malevolent | 1317 | 37 | 18 | 0.9727 |
| --Encrypted-- | 1268 | 23 | 28 | 0.9822 |
| tmfp | 1230 | 39 | 22 | 0.9693 |
| Lauda | 1197 | 22 | 66 | 0.9820 |
| suchmoon | 1111 | 119 | 172 | 0.9033 |
| Vod | 1110 | 17 | 23 | 0.9849 |
| okae | 1063 | 0 | 0 | 1.0000 |
| OmegaStarScream | 1060 | 17 | 14 | 0.9842 |
| railzand | 965 | 61 | 3 | 0.9405 |
| mocacinno | 955 | 0 | 0 | 1.0000 |
| austin | 896 | 46 | 0 | 0.9512 |
| Mitchell | 895 | 36 | 118 | 0.9613 |
| Muhammed Zakir | 877 | 71 | 89 | 0.9251 |
| unamis76 | 852 | 2 | 7 | 0.9977 |
| NLNico | 779 | 20 | 8 | 0.9750 |
| MissCrypto | 773 | 18 | 14 | 0.9772 |
| xetsr | 750 | 47 | 44 | 0.9410 |
| dogie | 725 | 215 | 109 | 0.7713 |
| KWH | 705 | 72 | 51 | 0.9073 |
| Chris! | 696 | 37 | 31 | 0.9495 |
| grv | 677 | 16 | 946 | 0.9769 |
| dihydrogenmonoxide | 647 | 159 | 87 | 0.8027 |
| pedrog | 643 | 5 | 5 | 0.9923 |
| ocminer | 617 | 33 | 6 | 0.9492 |
| cr1776 | 606 | 12 | 10 | 0.9806 |
+--------------------+-------+-----+-----------+----------+
Last 120 days: +---------------------+------+-----+-----------+----------+
| realName | good | bad | unhandled | accuracy |
+---------------------+------+-----+-----------+----------+
| rickbig41 | 1535 | 24 | 248 | 0.9846 |
| xandry | 1208 | 25 | 2 | 0.9797 |
| xhomerx10 | 542 | 9 | 31 | 0.9837 |
| Foxpup | 401 | 2 | 30 | 0.9950 |
| DannyHamilton | 363 | 7 | 32 | 0.9811 |
| Lutpin | 341 | 7 | 32 | 0.9799 |
| grv | 306 | 6 | 540 | 0.9808 |
| subSTRATA | 269 | 3 | 18 | 0.9890 |
| mprep | 248 | 1 | 27 | 0.9960 |
| frodocooper | 191 | 4 | 5 | 0.9795 |
| The Pharmacist | 176 | 2 | 20 | 0.9888 |
| -ck | 155 | 0 | 4 | 1.0000 |
| EFS | 154 | 0 | 14 | 1.0000 |
| vizito | 145 | 4 | 4 | 0.9732 |
| MissCrypto | 137 | 0 | 13 | 1.0000 |
| HI-TEC99 | 136 | 1 | 3 | 0.9927 |
| dbshck | 134 | 0 | 1 | 1.0000 |
| OmegaStarScream | 131 | 1 | 5 | 0.9924 |
| fxpc | 130 | 42 | 36 | 0.7558 |
| bL4nkcode | 123 | 9 | 12 | 0.9318 |
| PauloLauro | 122 | 106 | 3 | 0.5351 |
| Flying Hellfish | 109 | 10 | 1 | 0.9160 |
| shorena | 106 | 5 | 12 | 0.9550 |
| Vadi2323 | 105 | 19 | 3 | 0.8468 |
| Meuh6879 | 99 | 4 | 5 | 0.9612 |
| achow101 | 97 | 0 | 4 | 1.0000 |
| Pearls Before Swine | 97 | 11 | 7 | 0.8981 |
| mocacinno | 86 | 0 | 0 | 1.0000 |
| Kubra Dam | 85 | 13 | 0 | 0.8673 |
| NotFuzzyWarm | 85 | 2 | 7 | 0.9770 |
| Quickseller | 83 | 1 | 12 | 0.9881 |
| Mitchell | 81 | 3 | 17 | 0.9643 |
| Here4Trades | 78 | 1 | 7 | 0.9873 |
| Joel_Jantsen | 77 | 3 | 10 | 0.9625 |
| Vod | 72 | 0 | 6 | 1.0000 |
| P E K K A | 71 | 24 | 2 | 0.7474 |
| Blackshadow007 | 68 | 5 | 0 | 0.9315 |
| Byte16 | 66 | 7 | 0 | 0.9041 |
| instacalm | 66 | 5 | 2 | 0.9296 |
| AT101ET | 64 | 1 | 0 | 0.9846 |
| odolvlobo | 62 | 0 | 1 | 1.0000 |
| sweetdesirez | 61 | 3 | 4 | 0.9531 |
| sbogovac | 61 | 1 | 21 | 0.9839 |
| pooya87 | 59 | 0 | 9 | 1.0000 |
| Lauda | 59 | 0 | 1 | 1.0000 |
| nydiacaskey01 | 58 | 2 | 1 | 0.9667 |
| 110110101 | 57 | 0 | 0 | 1.0000 |
| richardivan | 55 | 7 | 2 | 0.8871 |
| suchmoon | 54 | 3 | 4 | 0.9474 |
| LeGaulois | 53 | 2 | 1 | 0.9636 |
+---------------------+------+-----+-----------+----------+
Thanks a lot to all active reporters! These stats have likely changed dramatically since then though. |
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