I have been on the bitcoin forum for almost 4 months now. Much of the initial 2 months were spent in reading through the posts and I reached the Jr. Member level. The incentive to level-up fast is pretty good because of the Signature & Bounty campaigns. Due to this we have all seen the kind of spam activity that many members use to level up their accounts fast.
I too have an incentive to do that because not all of us were lucky enough to get into BTC in the early days. I have bought some BTC but these campaigns are one of the ways for those on a learning cycle to benefit. It becomes difficult to comment on any topics because almost all the posts already have like 800 posts. I am looking to ask the experienced members that how to avoid spam activity and what are the benefits of slow organic growth rather than the viral one?
1. I see a topic with 100 pages of posts. I know i want to say something about it but it feels like almost everything relevant is said and done in the first few pages itself.
. One of the posting guidelines says that if you've nothing new to add then don't. What to do in such a case? Refrain or go for expressing your thought?
2. I know Signature campaigns are kindda frowned upon by some of the experienced members for the flurry of "Hey, joined" "Great Luck", "Jingle Bells" kind of posts on them. But some people do want to keep it better and not everyone in Sig campaigns support that. What are your honest thoughts on that? How strong is the prejudice?
3. Do the mods think that these groups will self-moderate or their is a need to enforce certain guidelines? Or is it still just early days of adoption to do this?
Lastly, I just wanted to say that the scholarship and idealism of the early days has slightly drowned out in the din but the work the early adopters have done is huge and I am sure it will sustain itself. Maybe force more of us to raise our standards.
1. Well, some topics are open for argumentation, like the one about whether god exists. You can discuss the subject with others and replying on what others have said before you.
2. Signature Campaigns are the cause of a lot of spam, whilst they are great if you take away all the spam. I feel like campaign managers aren't being strict enough, with all of these spammers crapping all over the forum. I have PM'd many of them, asking them politely to change and giving them suggestions. Only a couple actually responded and most of them told me to shut up. Only one of the many I PM'd actually listened and improved themselves. Most of the spammers won't change, because they want only one thing: Quick & Easy money. They don't care about others. We shouldn't care about them. We should exclude them and give them as much negative feedback as possible.
3. I assume the mods don't want to spend time judging all those posts and trying to remove all the spammers. Besides, it can often be really hard to do so and each moderator is different, meaning not everyone will be treated the same. We shouldn't need moderators to get these nasty spammers out of the way. We, as the Bitcointalk community, can easily solve it: Exclude them from all signature campaigns and give them negative feedback. It requires the co-operation of us all, but it will reward us all as well (besides the spammers, of course).
That's simply what I think about it. Something has to change, but no one knows what.
Regards,
Trump