Easier newbie integration

[RealBitcoin]

Hello I have a few sugestions how to make it easier for newbies to integrate in the forum. First of all the newbie post timer is just horrible. They have to wait 6 minutes between posts, i`m sure this drives away many people. If one newbie just asks here a question, and then wants to reply he has to wait an awful lot amount of time. Of course there are spammers and bots too with newbie accounts, so we need a better filter system to differentiate the honest newbies from the spambots.

So these are my suggestions:

1) Reduce the newbie post timer to 60 seconds instead of 360

2) Configure or change the registration captcha to one that has more characters, if its possible to configure it like that.


Expected results:

1) Less spambots

2) More newbies, bigger community

3) Bigger ad revenue for the forum, since newbies will be more engaged, stay longer on the forum, and click on more ads

[Lauda]

The first things that come to my mind are:
More spam, more account farming. Without a way of dealing with these problems, I disagree with the idea.

[Joel_Jantsen]

1) Less spambots

If the timer is reduced to 60 seconds,5 new useless threads will be created in the span of 5 minutes.Where with the current settings only 1 thread is possible.

2) More newbies, bigger community

More spam.If a newbie really wishes to be a part of community,they will not mind the time factor either way.

3) Bigger ad revenue for the forum, since newbies will be more engaged, stay longer on the forum, and click on more ads

That's hypothetical.On what grounds?

[RealBitcoin]

The first things that come to my mind are:
More spam, more account farming. Without a way of dealing with these problems, I disagree with the idea.

If the timer is reduced to 60 seconds,5 new useless threads will be created in the span of 5 minutes.Where with the current settings only 1 thread is possible.

Thats a pretty harsh filter.

Sure a newbie can just buy many Hero member accounts and do the same thing for sig campaign.

However when there is a huge influx of real newbies everytime a major news article comes out, thousands of newbies come to this forum.

And if they cant use it, they will just leave, perhaps quit bitcoin as well.

We need to capture the newbie waves, not to scare them away.  No other forum on the internet has 6 minute posting interval, so I`m sure there are other ways to eliminate spam.

That's hypothetical.On what grounds?

More newbies stay and they remain interested in the forum and bitcoin. Then the forum banner impression count will go up. And then people will bid more on the forum ad auctions, because the advertising system is bigger.

[Lauda]

Thats a pretty harsh filter.  Sure a newbie can just buy many Hero member accounts and do the same thing for sig campaign.
However when there is a huge influx of real newbies everytime a major news article comes out, thousands of newbies come to this forum.

In my opinion, it is a soft one. The cases in which one would have to post twice within 6 minutes is very rare. Most people, aside from spammers, usually do not do this anyways.

And if they cant use it, they will just leave, perhaps quit bitcoin as well.

Having to wait 6 minutes between posts != not being able to use it.

[Hugroll]

plus i dont think the bot farmers have automatic captcha recognition, i think they manually sign up and then let the bots do the work. I doubt the longer captchas would have any effect. and if a newcomer to the forum is genuinly interested in bitcoin, I don't think they would mind the 360 timer. i know i didnt mind it at all because i knew once my rank goes up itll go down

[Evildrum]

Understand the 5 minute wait time and think its something people just need to live with when joining but why is there also a wait on searches? That one I do not understand because people will tend to search once,not find what they wanted,attempt a second search and see they have to wait. So they post or they give up.

Curious why that one is needed.

[RealBitcoin]

Thats a pretty harsh filter.  Sure a newbie can just buy many Hero member accounts and do the same thing for sig campaign.
However when there is a huge influx of real newbies everytime a major news article comes out, thousands of newbies come to this forum.

In my opinion, it is a soft one. The cases in which one would have to post twice within 6 minutes is very rare. Most people, aside from spammers, usually do not do this anyways.

And if they cant use it, they will just leave, perhaps quit bitcoin as well.

Having to wait 6 minutes between posts != not being able to use it.

Well people nowadays have higher expectations for IM.

Imagine if facebook chat would have a 6min post timer. I dont think restricting the frequency of posts in a discussion board is productive for it.

If spam is the big concern then there should be other ways to filter that, but not by restricting people to post.

[Lauda]

Imagine if facebook chat would have a 6min post timer. I dont think restricting the frequency of posts in a discussion board is productive for it.

Facebook does not have 'pay-per-each message' and that is what makes a huge difference here.

If spam is the big concern then there should be other ways to filter that, but not by restricting people to post.

Sure, ban signature campaigns completely and soften the restrictions. That could work.

[RealBitcoin]

Facebook does not have 'pay-per-each message' and that is what makes a huge difference here.

Not directly, but there are 3rd party services that pay/post, so i bet there is tons of spam there too, with financial incentive.

Sure, ban signature campaigns completely and soften the restrictions. That could work.

No, because then people will come up with other ways to spam , like paying people for shilling and stuff like that.

It's pretty hard to imagine spammers stopping, on a financially oriented forum, where you have decentralized peer to peer payment systems.

Its almost like begging to get spammed. However there could be more efficient methods to stop spam, i can think of some good ideas.

[Lauda]

Not directly, but there are 3rd party services that pay/post, so i bet there is tons of spam there too, with financial incentive.

I disagree. Unless if you mean posts on pages which are different since you were talking about IM.

No, because then people will come up with other ways to spam , like paying people for shilling and stuff like that.

You aren't providing solutions to this problem while you suggestions makes it easier (i.e. makes it worse). Until you provide adequate solutions I will have to strongly disagree with the suggestion.

[RealBitcoin]

I disagree. Unless if you mean posts on pages which are different since you were talking about IM.

Well both actually, because there is a restriction on PM's for newbies as well, however that I`d leave as it is (because that is clearly a spam vector).

However facebook posting is similar to forum posting in that sense.

You aren't providing solutions to this problem while you suggestions makes it easier (i.e. makes it worse). Until you provide adequate solutions I will have to strongly disagree with the suggestion.

Well its not me who has to provide it but the free market.

My theory would be that if more people join, and become engaged, they might spam, up to the point where there would be too many people enrolled in sig campaigns, and the sig campaign payout/post would be so low, that almost all sig campaigns would switch to fixed weekly payments.

Then the spam would drastically lower, and people would not be incentivized again to post like crazy, instead they would just wear the signature comfortably, and get paid every week for it.

At this point would spam really go away, because the incentive ceases. This way we keep both the sig campaigns and the newbie's interest in the forum.

[Lauda]

Well both actually, because there is a restriction on PM's for newbies as well, however that I`d leave as it is (because that is clearly a spam vector).

IM spam doesn't work. You can't even message me without being close to my circles (if I had an account that is; but this is how it used to work for me) as these messages will never reach me.

Well its not me who has to provide it but the free market.

Exactly what has this 'free market' done to prevent the spam so far? All that we have is a few (very few) members that occasionally report spammers that they find. Everything else, is up to the moderators.

[notlist3d]

So these are my suggestions:

1) Reduce the newbie post timer to 60 seconds instead of 360

2) Configure or change the registration captcha to one that has more characters, if its possible to configure it like that.

1) Should be here and should not change.  There is just to much spam if you allow new accounts to post quickly. They already post as much as they can before getting spotted.  Asking to wait 6 minutes to make a constructive post at a brand new user is not much to ask.   It is great how it is also prevents someone from trying to farm 10 posts in a few minutes.  They have to at least wait a hour... which is good.   Good outweighs the bad by far.

I think this would help spam and account farmers, neither of which I really care for them to change rules to help.

2.  The registration page is MUCH more complex then you are thinking.  They have "bad IP's" and it charges to make on bad IP's based on amount of bad things.  But registration is fine the way it is.  Those trying to cheat it likely are having to use proxy's and I would guess could type in capatcha's.  Might be some automated on sign up... but I would guess more successful farmers are manual.



I find it kinda funny someone who pushes new people to get multiple accounts and join sig campaigns is suggesting this - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1424958.0  

He suggests for new people to have 4 accounts "7❱ Buy 3 more accounts, sign up those too, that will be around 80 posts/day which can be done in 7-8 hours like a dayjob. Work only 7 hours/day only and you can earn 0.84BTC/month (350$)! It can be a full time job if you are dedicated, but remember no spam or you get banned!" So suggesting a total of 4 accounts.

Standard user should not be pushed to 4 accounts but one and in time get lesser and lesser posting limitations.

[RealBitcoin]

I find it kinda funny someone who pushes new people to get multiple accounts and join sig campaigns is suggesting this - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1424958.0  

I`m not pushing that anymore, its locked as you can see. I changed my mind about that.

However I still think newbies should integrate easier. I`m sure there are other ways to reduce spam, we should not be close minded about this.

[notlist3d]

I find it kinda funny someone who pushes new people to get multiple accounts and join sig campaigns is suggesting this - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1424958.0  

I`m not pushing that anymore, its locked as you can see. I changed my mind about that.

However I still think newbies should integrate easier. I`m sure there are other ways to reduce spam, we should not be close minded about this.

If your truly not pushing it anymore unlock thread get rid of guide on front and put how you changed your mind and re-lock.   As of now you still have a guide up supporting multiple accounts (4 per person), and I believe pro spam in many ways.

As of now someone can search and it still shows your guide you were very supportive until last post.     You have to admit a person who made a guide like that is not the one we should be getting suggestions on loosening new accounts as not long ago you fully supported 4 per person.

[Chris!]

When I was a newbie I was here to learn about Bitcoin. Actually I still consider myself a newbie. I had absolutely no problem waiting 6 minutes to post a thought. Actually, to tell you the truth I never even noticed that limitation. I read a lot and didn't post often.

I've been logged into this forum for 14 days, 5 1/2 hours and I have 280 posts. That's 1.22 hours (or 1h13m) per post. If you're really here as a newbie and not trying to make a quick buck for posting nonsense then you'll have a similar ratio. If you've been logged in 10 hours and you have 1000 posts you're clearly not here to learn anyways, so the topic of less time between posts for newbies becomes irrelevant.

[RealBitcoin]

If your truly not pushing it anymore unlock thread get rid of guide on front and put how you changed your mind and re-lock.   As of now you still have a guide up supporting multiple accounts (4 per person), and I believe pro spam in many ways.

Are you happy now my Lord?

[Dassi]

Most people spam here because they want to earn from sig campaigns. Earning is not bad in itself, it's just the low quality posts that newbies usually make at first that neccesitates the restriction. As they get used to the system and learn from others, they will make more quality posts and everybody will be happy. So for now, the six minutes restriction is serving a purpose.

[notlist3d]

If your truly not pushing it anymore unlock thread get rid of guide on front and put how you changed your mind and re-lock.   As of now you still have a guide up supporting multiple accounts (4 per person), and I believe pro spam in many ways.

Are you happy now my Lord?

Do I like it better .... yes.  That guide telling people to get 4 accounts was not good for anyone.   So I think you did right thing pulling it vs just locking. 

Not sure why the My lord part.  If you make a suggestion in meta be prepared for feedback.  When you want to lower new account post time and have written in past a guide on basically spam.... you feedback might not be what you want.  But as you can see most think it's more then fair to keep the current timer to stop spam, and sig spammers in low levels.