A letter to the members of Bitcointalk forum... from a member...

[tss]

The monetization of the forum has destroyed the very essence of what discussion is about.

Having moderators judge what is and isn't a "substantial post" is like the thought police.

Banning members by judging their contribution to the subjects rather than removing members and posts from running ponzi scams and hyip is absurd.

There are many members here who have turned into professional re-writers.  Topics are filled with them.  Long post with nothing in it.  They post hundreds of spam posts each weekly.  All seem to say something but, if you look at them as a whole, it's the same song and dance over and over reworded to bypass your spam filter.

Signatures aren't going anywhere but i ask you to pay attention and read. 

CLICK THE "REPORT TO MODERATOR" button.  It only takes a second.

If you click it they will come!

[Hazir]

First and foremost - this topic should be in Meta section, as it is hardly a 'Bitcoin' discussion but rather 'why we have so many spam' discussion type. And I will tell you this - go check Reddit crypto subforum and check if they have only great 'super constructive posts' written by highly skilled professional coders and economists. Because they have no signatures, avatars nor any other form of monetization incorporated on their forum.
Yet amount of spam, idiotic posts, crazy theories, stupid people and trolls are overwhelming there. May I ask you why? Nobody is paying posters of Reddit anything after all...

[tss]

First and foremost - this topic should be in Meta section, as it is hardly a 'Bitcoin' discussion but rather 'why we have so many spam' discussion type. And I will tell you this - go check Reddit crypto subforum and check if they have only great 'super constructive posts' written by highly skilled professional coders and economists. Because they have no signatures, avatars nor any other form of monetization incorporated on their forum.
Yet amount of spam, idiotic posts, crazy theories, stupid people and trolls are overwhelming there. May I ask you why? Nobody is paying posters of Reddit anything after all...

EDIT for HAZIR:  "How to make bitcoins by using bitcointalk forum." So now its general bitcoin discussion.


thanks for chiming in.

SEE DannyHamilton Ignore List,
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=973843.0

[Hazir]

First and foremost - this topic should be in Meta section, as it is hardly a 'Bitcoin' discussion but rather 'why we have so many spam' discussion type. And I will tell you this - go check Reddit crypto subforum and check if they have only great 'super constructive posts' written by highly skilled professional coders and economists. Because they have no signatures, avatars nor any other form of monetization incorporated on their forum.
Yet amount of spam, idiotic posts, crazy theories, stupid people and trolls are overwhelming there. May I ask you why? Nobody is paying posters of Reddit anything after all...

EDIT for HAZIR:  "How to make bitcoins by using bitcointalk forum." So now its general bitcoin discussion.


thanks for chiming in.

SEE DannyHamilton Ignore List,
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=973843.0

I still think that is internal forum question and discussion, but let the mod decide this. You did not answer me at all. Instead you are showing list of ignored users created man who blacklisted EVERY user with signature even remotely resembling campaign's signature.
Quote from Danny Hamilton:

"Generally you get on my ignore list in one of the following 8 ways:

You have participated in a sig ad campaign
You have had a sig that I mistakenly thought was part of a sig ad campaign"

And you think this is fine to put every member with paid signature in the same bag? Even Moderators have them...

[onemorexmr]

i'd love if sig campaigns would be no longer allowed on this forum. it would remove soo many posts!
the problem is how to detect them

my sig is no sig-ad btw (i developed and host it myself)

[MicroGuy]

i'd love if sig campaigns would be no longer allowed on this forum. it would remove soo many posts!
the problem is how to detect them

my sig is no sig-ad btw (i developed and host it myself)

I don't think your going to see any moderating changes soon....the avatar functionality of this forum has been broken for years. That must be a super complicated fix. Too bad Satoshi's not around anymore. I bet he could figure it out. lol

[onemorexmr]

i'd love if sig campaigns would be no longer allowed on this forum. it would remove soo many posts!
the problem is how to detect them

my sig is no sig-ad btw (i developed and host it myself)

I don't if your going to see any moderating changes....the avatar functionality of this forum has been broken for years. That must be a super complicated fix. Too bad Satoshi's not around anymore. I bet he could figure it out. lol

well... i have some news for you: avatars working again and new forum soon *tm*

[MicroGuy]

well... i have some news for you: avatars working again and new forum soon *tm*

Great news! Thanks for the head's up! 

[tss]

I still think that is internal forum question and discussion, but let the mod decide this. You did not answer me at all. Instead you are showing list of ignored users created man who blacklisted EVERY user with signature even remotely resembling campaign's signature.
Quote from Danny Hamilton:

"Generally you get on my ignore list in one of the following 8 ways:

You have participated in a sig ad campaign
You have had a sig that I mistakenly thought was part of a sig ad campaign"

And you think this is fine to put every member with paid signature in the same bag? Even Moderators have them...

First and foremost - the reason you are on the DannyHamilton Ignore List is you are part of the suspect list i am suggesting. 

Also, you failed to include in your quote "Note: There are some people on my ignore list for reasons other than sig ad spam."

So you are either sig ad spam or other according to him...

While i'm not saying you're one of the worst offenders, your join date and post amount makes you a perfect example of a questionable subject.   

I applaud and respect you for posting on this topic, it is quite good of you to support spam.  I look forward to your rival campaign participants or maybe even one or several of your alts having a great writing class response as well. 

[H1N1]

This isn't a discussion forum anymore, it's just a place for spammers to congregate and spam their ads at each other. That and scams, ponzis, mlm's, and faucets. It's kinda sad seeing what it's become, and even mods participate, support, and even run some of the pay for spam campaigns.

[Quickseller]

The monetization of the forum has destroyed the very essence of what discussion is about.

It is a free market. Plus the minimization of the forum is going to allow and encourage a lot of people to get involved in bitcoin that would not otherwise be involved in bitcoin. It will also provide a venue that new bitcoin related businesses can advertise and increase the size of their business.

Having moderators judge what is and isn't a "substantial post" is like the thought police.

I would disagree. At least in a way that you are implying what the moderators are doing. When someone says that someone is the "thought police" they are generally saying that people who disagree with a certain viewpoint will be punished.

The way the moderation of the forum could possibly be considered to be "thought police" is that people who say things without thinking are punished.

Banning members by judging their contribution to the subjects rather than removing members and posts from running ponzi scams and hyip is absurd.

I think it is absurd that anyone would expect their hands to be held to protect them from getting scammed. If you can see that something is a scam then you should not invest and warn others to not invest.

In most cases people are banned and posts are deleted when it is very clear their post has no value and are not contributing to the conversation.

There are many members here who have turned into professional re-writers.  Topics are filled with them.  Long post with nothing in it.  They post hundreds of spam posts each weekly.  All seem to say something but, if you look at them as a whole, it's the same song and dance over and over reworded to bypass your spam filter.

I find it ironic that you bring this up the line after you are criticizing the forum for judging people based on their contribution to a thread.

The above described kind of people do get banned.

Signatures aren't going anywhere but i ask you to pay attention and read. 

CLICK THE "REPORT TO MODERATOR" button.  It only takes a second.

I hope you realize that the report to moderator button is for when a post/thread is either breaking the rules or is in the incorrect location. If someone is making a large number of shitposts then it would probably be better if you opened a thread here about them or sent a PM to a global mod or BadBear.

If you click it they will come!

[marcotheminer]

I'm going to be tightening up my spam tolerance even more with my campaign, which probably the most prominent one (the reason I'm going to do this)

[Lauda]

I'm going to be tightening up my spam tolerance even more with my campaign, which probably the most prominent one (the reason I'm going to do this)

Actually you're doing nothing in comparison to the people who ran signature campaigns in the past. If someone with improper English does nearly 40 posts and it's barely passed noon something is wrong.
Has anyone ever seen a reputable member whose posts are excellent (e.g. Danny) post 30 or 40 posts a day? I think not.

Bit-x provided a great offer here but it's going downside now. I've actually started ignoring people from the same signature campaign. There are too many members and the spam tolerance is high. Have you even removed anyone from the campaign yet?
Remember the time when Stunna filtered out the majority because their posts were bad? I miss those times.

[Tschai]

well... i have some news for you: avatars working again and new forum soon *tm*

Great news! Thanks for the head's up! 

Actually not at all.
Now, members even 'rent' their avatar for some Bitcoin-dust...

What's next, one wonders.

[marcotheminer]

I'm going to be tightening up my spam tolerance even more with my campaign, which probably the most prominent one (the reason I'm going to do this)

Actually you're doing nothing in comparison to the people who ran signature campaigns in the past. If someone with improper English does nearly 40 posts and it's barely passed noon something is wrong.
Has anyone ever seen a reputable member whose posts are excellent (e.g. Danny) post 30 or 40 posts a day? I think not.

Bit-x provided a great offer here but it's going downside now. I've actually started ignoring people from the same signature campaign. There are too many members and the spam tolerance is high. Have you even removed anyone from the campaign yet?
Remember the time when Stunna filtered out the majority because their posts were bad? I miss those times.

Which why I said I am going to be tightening up my spam tolerance.

It may seem like not much has changed but that is due to the campaign having over 190 members.

I have removed several members recently due to their posts, it'll continue until you see a difference.

[marcotheminer]

well... i have some news for you: avatars working again and new forum soon *tm*

Great news! Thanks for the head's up!  

Actually not at all.
Now, members even 'rent' their avatar for some Bitcoin-dust...

What's next, one wonders.

I for one am making sure that avatar ads are as unobtrusive as possible. Another campaign, DaDice, is having users are wear the same, entire-avatar, avatar which is kind of annoying I can imagine. Currently only 2 or so users have a full size Bit-X avatar, yet they are custom made so as to not cause confusion. For the time being, I will only purchase a handful of enrolled users' avatars (even if I bought all 190 of them, it would be like mine, not the entire avatar which is annoying I agree).

[Lauda]

Which why I said I am going to be tightening up my spam tolerance.

It may seem like not much has changed but that is due to the campaign having over 190 members.

I have removed several members recently due to their posts, it'll continue until you see a difference.

I wonder why you never capped the amount of people that can join the campaign? It is all good until it reaches one point at which it starts going the wrong way.
I haven't noticed anyone that was doing crazy amounts of posts get kicked. Although I wonder why bans are less frequent now? Remember back with PD people were getting banned in 'waves'.

[marcotheminer]

[...]
I for one am making sure that avatar ads are as unobtrusive as possible.[...]

Not sure if serious.  If you're browsing with Opera, here's what the rest of us see:

I said avatars.

[shogdite]

Another campaign, DaDice, is having users are wear the same, entire-avatar, avatar which is kind of annoying I can imagine.

That's not entirely true, the DaDice avatar design competition is still ongoing and there will be the option of having partial dadice avatars as you can see here:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=973949.msg11092737#msg11092737

Add-ons (To be worn added to the current Avatar)
5% Avatar bonus over total pay excluding any bonus every week.

I chose to have a full avatar, if it does become a major issue (which I doubt) I'd be more than happy to have just a partial or non dadice avatar.

[hilariousandco]

Which why I said I am going to be tightening up my spam tolerance.

It may seem like not much has changed but that is due to the campaign having over 190 members.

I have removed several members recently due to their posts, it'll continue until you see a difference.

I wonder why you never capped the amount of people that can join the campaign? It is all good until it reaches one point at which it starts going the wrong way.
I haven't noticed anyone that was doing crazy amounts of posts get kicked. Although I wonder why bans are less frequent now? Remember back with PD people were getting banned in 'waves'.

Campaigns should probably be limited or capped at something because at one point it becomes overkill and hard to manage. I've been reporting users to marco and he has been kicking most of them off but he and other campaign managers should be doing more to stop spam from happening in the first place or quickly put a stop to it when it happens. Having nearly 200 people on your campaign is impossible to police effectively so you should either cap it to an amount that you can handle or hire someone who will keep an eye on posters. It's in your interest to get on top of things because there wont be any campaigns to manage if this keeps up not to mention having spam participants on your campaign makes both you and the business look bad. I think bit-x has achieved its goal of having its brand spread across the forum and has enough advertisers now and definitely doesn't need any more. It's probably time to have a clean out and only accept new users after you've checked the quality of their posts. If every campaign manager checked the user's posts first before they're accepted poor quality posters would have nowhere to go and be forced to up their game or be outcast.