Something needs to be done, but until theymos figures out what to do just report the posts for the time being. I feel sorry for any of the moderators that have to deal with this nonsense and the amount of reports that come from these but, we can't simply ignore it. Limitations/restrictions likely need to be put into place or if the thread is inviting poor quality posts like the ones quoted above possibly the topic should just be scrapped and the OP warned. I've seen a few people doing self moderated threads which is a step in the right direction but, even then it doesn't seem like they are actively dealing with it.

I'm not even sure what restrictions would actually prevent this that wouldn't hinder a legitimate user. I've seen in the past that a few people have suggested requiring the OPs to pay a fee to post a thread in the section, but that wouldn't even deal with the problem as the problem is the amount of new accounts being created to bump the threads or in some instances higher ranked members being paid to bump the service.

I understand that reporting them is like fighting a losing battle as there's simply not enough manpower to deal with the amount of spam that's happening in that section but, it's got to make it at least a little bit better for the people who are genuinely interested in altcoins/ICOs.

If we are specifically talking about project owners hiring members to bump the topics by making it look like legitimate conversations then this is not something we can prevent. Like you said this happens off site via telegram or what ever and can't be moderated.  I will say though that these accounts are normally easily identifiable and I keep a private list of people I keep an eye on if I suspect them of doing this and then will report them if it's 100% that they are. I've been messaged by mods telling me exactly what happended to them and they are normally permanently banned and with the new merit system that's been introduced eventually we should be able to identify these accounts and be able to ban them completely. It will take time but, I can't see the types of people who actually do this bumping being able to farm their accounts with the new merit system.

Although, it's currently being drowned out by the nonsense there is actually legitimate discussions going on in this section. From my observations airdrops and promise of free coins increase the likelihood of the thread being spammed. The mass majority of the accounts that are bumping the threads are low ranked, and nuking them isn't going to slow them down because they normally make one post on the account and then make another anyway. The higher ranked accounts should see harsh consequences if they are repeatably doing it which from my observations the moderators are handing out harsher penalties if the user has a history of this. Mention this in the report if the user is repeatably bumping or making nonsense replies.

Campaign managers are already a thing and there's already enough of them anyway. Some of them are good and some of them aren't. The staff aren't likely to get involved so heavily by selecting members that are and aren't allowed to run campaigns because it would likely be open to complaints and accusations about them selecting people because they like them etc.

There's already rules in place in most signature campaigns that require quality posts and none of them should be in the megathreads it's not the problem about the lack of rules it's the managers not enforcing it because they accept work which they simply can't look after.

We wouldn't want a rush of environmentalists that start to complain about how this forum is contributing to the decline of the environment now would we?

Defeats the point then. They'll just continue using the very system they are using now and allowing people to login with their CPU would be a nothing less than a gimmick.

Anything that was implemented by theymos would either have it's flaws or be detrimental to it's users. It's no different with the current solution that's been implemented but, really I can't think of another way which would of been better and I'm sure if you can make any improvements on the current system theymos would appreciate a private message about the matter.

The way merit was introduced to a forum which had already been running for many years is going to have a dilemma on it's hand.  Either you reset everyones rank or you allow people to keep their rank. Obviously, the first option isn't ideal and a lot of people would be disappointed having to start again especially when there are limits apposed to those that are a lower rank which could mean that members who have been here from the beginning would have to wait 360 seconds just to post which could be detrimental to their usage of the forum. All of these users have been through this already and probably wouldn't appreciate it a second/third time around as I recall the way you rank up as changed twice before this implementation. For example, when I joined first of all it only required making a certain amount of posts and activity didn't exist.  

People who abuse the merit system heavily will be easily found out. If they keep sending it to the same accounts it becomes somewhat fishy and might be monitored by the default trust. It's up to the discretion of the person whether they feel a negative or neutral or any feedback is beneficial.

There was another approach that could of been taken and was allowing everyone to retain their current ranks but, not give them any sMerit at all and only allow merit sources. Although, in my opinion this would mean the merit system would of been harder to judge in the early days and would of taken a lot longer to take off. At the end of the day people making poor quality posts will not be able to earn any more merit and will eventually run out of it and not be able to distribute this to their alt accounts. Plus allowing members to send sMerit at the beginning was likely monitored by theymos to find suitable merit sources.

To your second question though;   There's likely no easy way to prove that you haven't been abusing the merit system. But, it doesn't matter too much if it's being abused on a small scale. It will likely only become a problem if a merit source was abusing the system and there's ways to tell whether they are abusing it.

I honestly thought we would see more untrustworthy people sending merits to those they dislike. I thought the likes of Lauda and is alts /s would be targeted by this just to make it look from an outside view that they were abusing the system.

1 day a month? Not everyone has time for that and I don't think we should be punishing those who go on holidays or simply have time off. Many well respected and good quality posters have had triple that time off the forum. If you earn it then it shouldn't be taken away as there's just too much room for abuse in all the suggestions I've seen about this.

It seems there's now guides on Steemit and similar websites advertising the fact that you can earn by joining a signature campaign. So it's probably not even their friends but, the guides that they are searching up.

Also in relation to this topic looking for merit we are seeing this behavior from many new members. They usually post a new thread because they know they are more likely to get more views and merit that way.

That's not currently implemented in the forum software AFAIK.


He's probably well aware of the local boards but, if I'm understanding him correctly then he's talking about the interface. For example, the menu bar, and inside profile settings being localized.

Tell your friend to create a new account here and contact theymos/cyrus with the following information: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=497545.0

You shouldn't be doing the leg work for your friend and account recovery should only be done by the original owner even with a signed address. If your friend can't provide the information provided in the link above then the account will not be recovered.

I'm not sure that this is the case, well I sure hope not! But, judging by the reports that I make and how they are dealt with the staff do indeed care about spam and deal with it if reported, and likely delete hundreds/thousands more spam posts before anyone reports them.

I don't think there's many more important things either. Obviously, Admins and Global moderators have a lot of responsibilities other than what is seen by the public, like cyrus dealing with the recovery of compromised/lost accounts or a few global moderators deal with private messages that have been reported. But, again most of them would be for spam purposes. I'm sure that certain members also have other responsibilities which aren't coming to my mind right now but, for most staff members around here the majority of their work likely comes from spam posts or posts which have been posted in the wrong sections.


Again, I'm not sure where you are sourcing this from but, why do you think spam is considered low importance and moderators are against dealing with spam. Yes, there's been multiple discussions about spam and there's probably no need of all these discussions. But, complaints get results. A lot of people complained about spam prior to the merit system and it's likely what made theymos implement it, or if he was going to implement it anyway then it likely made him do it quicker than he would of if there wasn't any complaints.

Watchlist can be useful, but it doesn't stop the fact that there might be multiple spam posts within that thread that you are watching.

It might be your opinion and I'm not disputing that. But, if you aren't bringing up any new points then what's the point of posting it? Opinions will overlap and that's fine, but when they are literally putting the same point across but, worded differently then that's no better than just posting "+1" which was a trend a few years ago. Possibly, in a few instances an opinion might need reinforcing via other people but, not to the degree that we see in these mega threads.

Blame the creator of the thread if you like, but that doesn't change the fact that a lot of people don't even read the replies on the same page of their reply let alone the other pages.

If they are spamming, yes. Doesn't matter how many people that does spam it's still spam and should be reported. It's only natural to miss out a few when there's so much of it going on and the moderators aren't to blame for that.

If it doesn't bring anything new to the discussion and is repeating what has already been said in the thread then it's likely spam and should be reported. If they are bumping a topic which hasn't had a reply in a few months and aren't adding anything new to the discussion then this is also a reportable offense.

As long as it's spam then the report to moderator should work and it should be dealt with eventually. There may be a delay depending on who's on at the time of reporting it. The moderators deal with spam elsewhere on the forum quite consistently so I don't see why it would be any different in the economics section.

theymos makes the point perfectly. We don't want to be dishing out negative trusts right, left and center as this doesn't achieve anything and more often than not results in a false positive. Think of it as a person rather than account, and how you wouldn't be so trigger happy at someone for committing a petty crime.

If it's Blatantly obvious and it's becoming a problem then we can have a look at the situation together over in the reputation section on a case by case basis. 

Just take a look at the reputation section and  you will find that this is currently rife. I'm assuming this is happening now due to it being a month? or so since the merit system has been introduced and people didn't want to give it time before they started to abuse it. Luckily if someone is abusing the merit system it's somewhat easy to recognize if it's done on the mass. 

Were they strict in the beginning? As far as I remember it took a very long time for them to actually address the legalization concerning holding Bitcoin and whether you need to pay capital gains or only pay taxes once you have converted to a fiat currency. I wouldn't say they are strict either, they require you to pay your taxes like any other capital.

Well, if you are talking about trading Bitcoin for other goods as well as buying into Bitcoin then Bitcoin wouldn't have the value that it has today. We need people to both hold, trade and buy into Bitcoin for it to continue to go up. Don't you worry as long as people are trading Bitcoin then it will have a value. It might not be to your hopes and visions, but it will certainly be valuable to certain people.

I'm not sure what you are quoting here, but they likely can't help you in this situation. Only theymos and cyrus is currently dealing with recovery of hacked accounts. They likely haven't answered due to no sufficient evidence that the account belongs to you. if it's as you said that you do not have an address linked to the account then you won't be getting access to that account.

I'm not familiar with SMF too much, but I would imagine it's difficult to implement a 2 factor authentication on top of the current software. It's already been stated it's going to be available in the new forum so at the moment we are just going to have to wait.  Depending on what options we are talking about it would be nice if we could see a Bitcoin address verification used for 2fa but, again probably easier to just implemented on the new forum that the current software.

I've never really understood the concept of gift cards in physical form or anything like that. It would be more practical to just send them the Bitcoin directly. They would only need a Bitcoin address and private key for it. I guess gift cards have sentimental value, but is it worth spending the money on a physical gift card? Plus, for anyone who cares about the environment then sending it directly is better too...

Who knows. What we do know it's currently the most used and most popular cryptocurrency. In the future an improvement may be made on Bitcoin and we may see some other coin take it's place. But, at the moment there's no signs of this and Bitcoin is the leader by quite a bit. If something does replace Bitcoin as the most popular choice doesn't mean it will drop in price either.

Yes to my understanding it's as soon as any details changed including the password and email. I've yet to test this since this has been added but, you only have to look around and people have already posted what the message contains when it's sent to you and it's as easy as clicking that link within 15? days.