That could be something that's implemented. But, honestly I don't think its that big of a deal to implement something like this. These users abusing the system will likely not be able to generate good enough posts to gain merit legitimately, and will eventually run out of sMerit to abuse.

Its exactly why statistics are misleading. I've had more than 90 days from the forum in the past if I recall correctly. Actually, a lot longer than that. So it will naturally fluctuate, and will likely yield in different results throughout the year.

Like the other users have mentioned too...the damn bots.

Yeah, changing your DNS settings or anything on your end won't do anything. It's a forum issue, and everyone should be experiencing these issues. Its pretty bad at the moment, and most of my pages are timing out.

At least posts are going through even though it might take a while.

The thing is the users that do spam don't care that they are spamming. They all have their own motives for spamming, but the majority are to get paid. They don't really care about their accounts too much, because its simple enough to just make a new account, and spam with that.

So, telling spammers how to avoid spamming isn't going to do an awful lot.

Yeah, as a generalized view repetitive questions aren't that bad. People tend to understand better if they can ask their own questions in their words though. Blockchain, is a topic which is well documented enough. But, things like Bitcoin wallets for example might sound like they are well covered, but receive updates all the time which could change things or make things easier.

Should they not be rewarded some other way? Wouldn't the trust system be more suited than rewarding them with merit? They might run a good campaign, but might not be the best of posters themselves. After all the merit system is suppose to reward those with high quality posts, and not high quality services. Maybe, its just me, but I would prefer to not give them merit for how well they run the campaign.

Damn, I reported so much spam there. I remember at one point is was unreal. Patrol was covered in DeepOnion spam accounts, and there was no real way of fighting them off. The fact that they'e received merit when there's other more deserving users is a pain in the arse too. However, the fact that thread is going to continue having traffic just because its one of the most merited is also annoying.  

Yeah, but with an evolving technology like Bitcoin there's quite a bit of information which is out of date, and misleading, and that's exactly why a forum is useful for ongoing discussion. Its only natural that your going to get repetitive questions every so often. Its really not that big of a deal in my opinion, unless there's literally several other threads ongoing at the same time.

Unfortunately, altcoins have been somewhat healthy because of the promise of free coins, and the next Bitcoin. Which has resulted in great media coverage for all cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin. Its this exact reason why we are seeing so many scam projects. I'm not going to pull a figure out of my arse here, but the majority of altcoins on this forum aren't worth the effort of reading.

I've tried in the past to ignore users, but honestly I could never do it, and had to take them off the list. Just because I was intrigued about what they had to say. Even though the majority of the time it resulted in me pulling out my hair...

I wouldn't be completely against the idea of removing the default merits to further distinguish the good quality posters from those who earned it by just being around here for a long time, and being somewhat active. Probably a little bit of an extreme measure though.

Although, anyone that has been here for even a short period should know of those that are of a particularly high standard. If we are talking from a campaign standpoint, then maybe the managers just need to raise their requirements. But, again that's up to them, and unless we start putting restrictions on campaigns they aren't going to do this voluntarily.

Yeah, I'm going to be looking to sit down, and do as many as possible as I won't have too much time on my hands for about 3 weeks in October. I managed to watch some of the weekend games though, and wanted to judge their performances on my future predictions. I'm not really that bothered by missing a few rounds.

I quite like the idea of having only members, and above with signatures. That would literally solve so many problems of the bounty spam within the alternate cryptocurrencies section, but also would likely have an impact on several other sections too.

Sometimes reports go unhandled. Maybe, because the staff members who have have the permissions to deal with it don't know what the right course of action would be or there could be a few other reasons. You could always report it again if you think it needs to be removed.

The thing is ICOs are now going the route of hiring people via external sites like Fiverr, and other similar type of websites so its not always public information, and can be somewhat hard to prove. In that case we can only deal with the users that we find are spamming it, and not prove that the project owners are behind it.

Well, I didn't have chance to do any predictions the last round. But, I'm still quietly confident Nah, I'm just in it for the fun as I'll probably miss a few rounds in the future too.

Although, this might look like its the case. There's no actual proof of this. Normally, these types of advertisement spams are offering a reward to its users rather than spamming themselves because its much more efficient. Plus, because there's several accounts which have been registered for a few months, and have suddenly started posting the advertisement spam I think that they may well be offering some sort of bonus.

I haven't researched in enough depth to see if this is the case yet though.

I'm normally against imposing too many restrictions, but honestly I think the pros greatly outweigh the cons on this one. Most of the spam is coming from low ranked members posting garbage, and they don't really care whether they get reported, banned or whatever because its easy to just make another account, and continue spamming. Let's not mention that these types of users already have an alt army that they abuse bounties with.

I'm not too sure on the motivations behind it right now. But, it seems that existing accounts which have never spammed these types of messages have been doing it too. Makes me think that there's some type of reward for doing it. I'm not sure, I haven't been able to look into it in depth yet.

Depending on your intentions for the forum, you might not need merit. A few users are here just to discuss about Bitcoin, and related technology, and don't need merit per say. Most users will want merit to join signature campaigns though.