I'd say temp ban due to most of their posts being of low quality, and obviously trying to push a website with their low quality posts too. Its up to the global moderators what they deem temp ban worthy though. If they were at least putting some major effort into the posts before linking their website then I could understand this not being so black, and white. However, that certainly isn't the case here.

The global moderators probably deal with 1000s of reports a day, and it might take them a little while to get through all of them. Especially, when handling bans.

Going back to my original point, you can create a thread like that yourself. It doesn't require a moderator to do it, and anyone is free to make a discussion post about Bitcointalk history or noteworthy threads on the forum. I'm sure some users are already planning a few threads for the 22nd of November, and I imagine theymos will have a few things to say himself. However, if you want a thread before then you can make it.

Ah, I didn't consider newbies wouldn't be able to submit anything. If you've got a few noteworthy posts you can post them here, and I'm sure a few users would be willing to add them if they're substantial.

You can submit threads/posts via this link: https://bitcointalk.org/captions.php

Its suppose to show the historical, and noteworthy posts of the forum. I feel we need to get some comical posts in there too so feel free. You can also vote on other users submissions. If you have any other ideas though there's nothing stopping the community from making threads about the celebration of the 10th anniversary as long as they are substantial.

My guess would be keeping up to date statistics considering how active the forum is, and every time a new addition is added it needs to be reworked within Epoch. Look at major additions of Merit, and bump changes, and they'll likely need to be mitigated over, and its probably not as simple as copying the data over. Anyone who has dealt with software in the past will know once you've made changes to one line of code it could very well conflict with earlier or later lines in your code. 

Alternatively, users can start merited in higher amounts to high quality posts instead of 1/2/5's. I think the merit system is working fine, and its suppose to take years to get to the highest rank. In my opinion its not an issue of too high requirements, but instead users are trying to spread out their merit points by only meriting with 1/2's, but a high amount of users, but it would probably be better if we rewarded very high quality posts with higher amounts of merit.

I hate to say it, but its the argument over quality over quantity. Merit sources obviously have much more leeway when meriting because they can spread while still giving a decent amount of merit per post.

I've dealt with all the ones that I can, however none of them were reported via the "report to moderator" button. If you report the bumps via that they have a much better chance of getting dealt with.

What's the error message you receive? That might make it a little easier to figure out whats going on here. You've already registered, and made a few posts, and using a VPN on the forum is fine. So, I guess the question would be; is it this account that you were trying to post with, but got blocked?

Good point that didn't come to my mind.

Although, I feel like knowing the list of bumpers would be useful, and I'm assuming those hiring these services will keep an eye on whether the thread is actually being bumped higher. So, if they pay attention they could work out whether the bumping service is working or not.

It could be a staff only feature, but I don't think that would be as beneficial as to allowing the community to expose these sorts of services.

I'm not quite sure how it would benefit bumping services to know this as they already know which threads they have bumped. Its not easy to prove, but its another tool on the communities belt to spot bad projects. I understand that the bump score is based on merit etc, however some of these projects may well have highly merited users, and the same goes for the bumping services.

A few individuals stepping up, and a moderator with jurisdiction would be all that is needed. Potentially, giving a staff member temporary moderator permission within the section, and having them dedicate a day to moving everything out, and dealing with reports so that Cyrus can get on with more important things. I'd be willing to report any posts that I can't move out.

I think a day of some hard dedicated work would get it sorted. It'll be nice to better organize the Altcoin section, and I think the users who only care about Bitcoin would appreciate it too.

At the end of the day, "bumping" services will still exist as users will still create fake conversations for fake buzz. However, now that the majority of the forum doesn't get to see that I'd say its a positive change for that alone. Unfortunately, its hard to tell whether the bump changes is effecting legitimate altcoins without seeing how many users have used that bump button. Assuming, that a lot of users would have used it in the first day or so just to test it out it'd be interesting to see the last 7 days or so.

I think publicly showing who pressed the bump button could be a way of establishing whether there's any paid bump services going on, but other than that I think its reduced the amount of spam, and if it hasn't reduced as much as I think its definitely decreased the amount of exposure it has to the majority of forum users.

It's like a prison with those restrictions, and rules. I think Bitcointalk.org can still claim the title of being the most censorship free forum relating to Bitcoin.

That's more or less forum guidelines though. If you break a rule you'll likely get a warning whether that's through a personal message or deleted posts. Warnings can also be temporary bans.

The only signature campaign guidelines there are is this: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1684035.0 which are somewhat common sense except for the ban duration, and a lot of it is just advice.  Anyway, this doesn't necessarily have to be a restriction from the forum, but could be something which the campaign managers try to enforce. If the campaign managers require from their employer to include their contact details within the signature then that could prove to be beneficial to the community.

Its a tool which should be used in conjunction with other factors. Its an aid, and not a be, and end all solution. The tools exist, but only a few managers are utilizing them effectively.

I don't know about the community consensus, but the way I look at it is the signature campaign process shouldn't be a guaranteed payout every week. What I mean by that is participants should be under constant review, and these borderline cases are the ones that should be considered for removal for better users. Thus, the signature campaign would always be evolving to include the best of the best posters that have applied, and possibly keep certain users in a queue so that once you have determined these borderline cases these users in the queue could be sent a message to see if they would be interested in joining the campaign still, and then removing these borderline cases.  Note, that these users wouldn't be banned from the campaign per say, but removed for a better poster at that time. They could apply again after a certain period of time has passed which would be determined by the manager. This would hopefully encourage users to always be thinking, and posting substantial posts rather than getting into a campaign, and then letting their posting habits drop once they're receiving their weekly payments.

Signature campaigns should not be black, and white; so just because a user is deemed borderline doesn't mean you shouldn't be looking to improve the quality of users, and therefore promoting more effective advertising by replacing them with better posters at the time.


I think we are far more likely to see signature campaigns completely banned outright rather than placing restrictions that signature campaigns have to abide by to operate on Bitcointalk.

Either one or both. Doesn't really matter in a sense. If you have the time to use the report to moderator button then go for it. If not, I keep an eye on this thread periodically as well as some other moderators. Stuff like spam would be dealt very quickly when using the report to moderator button, but anything more complex will take a little time. It will probably be dealt with quicker in queue than on this thread. However, if you don't have enough time to report individually then you can post it here.

First of all, don't store your credentials or wallet in one place. I would also suggest not storing your password digitally as that can easily be  lost through a variety of ways; Such as lost, theft, and corruption. Storing your wallet file via a USB is okay, as long as that's not your only backup. You should have a seed which is generated once you create your wallet. This needs to be stored in multiple secure locations.

Create a password which is strong, and you can remember. Alternatively, you could use a offline password manager, but that's down to your discretion as there's pros, and cons to this. If you would like to secure Bitcoin securely without having to worry about the technical aspects then you could invest in a hardware wallet such as the Trezor.

More information about the different kinds of wallets can be found here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1631151.0

This is definitely something that I would consider as a campaign manager, but it wouldn't be the only determining factor of course. When used in conjunction with other behavioral habits then it can be a vital tool.  From the point of view of the signature campaign manager, and those that are hiring the manager to then hire users to advertise for them. You'd be expecting users to be active in the community already, providing substantial posts which are likely to be recognized by a good amount of users, and have decent exposure through other means.

That decent exposure from other means could come from merit received, and other sites which are displaying how many merits was sent one week, and to who. It shouldn't all be based on posts alone. It seems the correlation with users who are posting the maximum amount, and then stop posting completely are the ones with the generic low quality posts. Of course, this isn't always the case, but is definitely something worth looking at when reviewing participants.

Its a lot of work, but I'd estimate collecting, archiving, and sending would only take around an hour or two every Sunday. This doesn't necessarily have to be managed by one person either. The thread manager is simply organizing the thread, and composing it in a readable way to the individual campaign managers. Plus, we would already be expecting the signature campaign managers to be doing this, but that's not always the case.

Those great project, and thank you posts not only break the forum rules, but likely break any respectful signature campaigns rules. When I'm dealing with reports (this week I've been ill so rather slow dealing with them) for forum issues then I tend to not even look at if the user is wearing a signature or not. That injects bias, and can lead to being more harsh than you would have without seeing it. I might pick that up subconsciously, and maybe its a good idea for me to nullify that by enabling "Don't show users' signatures." when I'm dealing with reports.

The spam posts are highly subjective like you say, however I'd encourage anyone who thinks a post is spam to report it in that post. The thread manager will not be rejecting reports, but simply compiling them, and sending them off to the appropriate signature manager. Therefore, when the signature manager reviews them he's the only one making the decision whether its a valid report or not, and can manage those reports per the signature guidelines.

In the perfect world all signature managers would be doing this themselves, but despite them receiving a nice little paycheck to do this they just don't. Of course, there are some noteworthy managers which are reviewing every post, but even then mistakes can be made, and the odd missed user might occasionally happen.

My stance would be trying to cover this from as many angles as possible if we are to do it properly without adding it as a core natively into the forum software. Creating a userscript would be beneficial to those that are willing to use it, however many users will stay away from userscripts, and therefore we might lose out on a few reporters. Having both a userscript, and an alternative such as a thread which is available to anyone would mean anyone willing to put effort in will be able to report.

Eventually, we could form a unified spammers list which all campaign managers use, and agree on (like SMAS). However, that would likely prove difficult as these are largely subjective cases when excluding users. Thus, the thread would provide users a platform to publicly report users, and the thread owner could send that list off every week or so to the campaign manager. Obviously, getting permission to send the messages regularly to the campaign managers.

We cover the spamming issue with signature campaign users as much as possible from a forum moderation point of view, but that probably just means that they get their post deleted, unless they're an exceptionally ban poster, and they may run into a temporary ban. However, these issues are separate to signature campaign guidelines, and in many cases the signature campaign rules are more defined, and comprehensive. Therefore, what might require deletion from a forum stand point of view, might well warrant removal from the campaign from a signature campaign managers point of view, but these are definitely not mutually inclusive.