Ideas for improving post quality?

[teddy5145]

Maybe make a system similar to overwatch in CS:GO?
Few trusted members in the community will be selected as the jurors, when someone pressed "Report" Button on a post that he think is a low quality post the Jurors will get to review those said post and vote whether that said post is low quality or not.
If the majority says the post is low quality, the post will be deleted and the user will be warned via PM, 3 warns and he will get perma-banned.
This will encourage the community to fight spam personally, and should be efficient in combating low quality posts.

I also see that many newbies account are created solely for advertising purposes by sending mass PMs or spams in topics.
Maybe restrict Newbies account from posting links?
When Newbies are posting links it will show up as [redacted] on his post.

Although, I do agree to Theymos's idea to implement forum section that does not have signature, this should be implemented in forum section that has the most spammers in it *cough*Bitcoin Discussion *cough*

[Grayy]

What are everyone's ideas for improving post quality?

I have mostly ruled out:

 - Removing signatures or sig ads globally.
 - Requiring payment to wear sig ads.
 - Banning account sales.

A couple of ideas that have been floating around in my head:

1. To attain ranks above Member, you'd have to earn some number of merit points. Merit points would be awarded in a monthly vote on best posts of the previous month, with various measures (TBD) to prevent gaming of the vote. Winning merit points might also come with a BTC prize.

2. Create or designate some sections as "serious discussion" sections, with no signatures. In those sections or maybe in different ones, also have poster restrictions such as Member rank or above only. And/or allow topic-creators to set these restrictions on their topics, similar to selfmod topics.

What do you think of these ideas, and what other ideas do people have?

I think a retweet  and/or favourite tool can cater for the concept of voting. The post that is retweeted/favorited  most gets awarded. I like the idea about "serious discussion". We can all learn from such a segment.

[covfefe_]

I feel there's no way out.
You ban signature, people will go for paid to advertise.
If you ban IP/account, there will be use of VPN, proxies and multiple ids. (We can't ban proxies and VPN because it's the right of a user)
If you let mods decide the quality of post, it will not be possible everytime and will further bring arguments.

[lion1987]

Posted this in an separate Thread but some said its sbetter to post my ideas here, so i will do that now.
Maybe there are some ideas you like

It's getting harder and harder to follow a topic.


New users simply write something to increase the number of post and rise to a new Board Rank and dont care about Status of a project. Its almost impossible to start  a real conversation
Isnt there any possibility to avoid that?

I have some ideas, but some of them  mean more work for the admins.

What about an automatic retention period after first Sign Up? Like 2 Days or so

A seperate "Introduction Thread" where its a must to make the First Post before the other Sections of the Board are visible

Lock Altcoin Section,  particularly Marcetplace/Bountys, till a minimum Posts of 15/Jr. Member/Activity 20

Disable Board Signatures for Newbies


Something like that. Are these Ideas possible to do? What do you think of it?

[V. J. Meyer]

I think it's too hard to improve posts quality. No one thinks same thing like the other. Some comments you think they're low quality but with the others they're good quality. We can't force anyone think the same thing like us.
P.S: Sorry for my bad english

[LTU_btc]

I think it's too hard to improve posts quality. No one thinks same thing like the other. Some comments you think they're low quality but with the others they're good quality. We can't force anyone think the same thing like us.
P.S: Sorry for my bad english

And this topic about improving post quality soon will become full of low quality replies like this one :/
What's the point of this topic if any of ideas posted which was posted here will be used...

[Tesorex]

Charge a fee for posting a topic in bounties.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

I think it's too hard to improve posts quality. No one thinks same thing like the other. Some comments you think they're low quality but with the others they're good quality. We can't force anyone think the same thing like us.
P.S: Sorry for my bad english

And this topic about improving post quality soon will become full of low quality replies like this one :/
What's the point of this topic if any of ideas posted which was posted here will be used...

No kidding.  I've reported a few of that cockroach's posts, as they're all nonsense run-on sentences, poorly conceived and poorly written.

I'd say just try something.  Even if it turns out not to work, then at least there'll be evidence of something not working.  The way it's going, bitcointalk is totally useless for discourse.  I don't want to attend a Pakistani family reunion and join in their conversation--no offense to Pakis, but it's not my culture or language and this IS an english-language forum.  You really ought to know the language if you're going to be posting here.

[legendster]

...

Do something against shitposters from the 3rd world that come here to spam 1 liners with 100 accounts each.
Just require 50-100$ per account (notice you are not paying to wear a sig) - rest can stay like it is and you wouldnt need to change anything

....

Stop distinguishing poverty by assuming it only originates from "third world countries". That's like claiming everyone born in first world country is immune to such issues. If that were the case Trump wouldn't be in power. Most of us here have already seen or known many who are from "first world countries" and still shitpost the forum to scam people and or just to make some cash off their signature space.

A thriving shitposting economy is actually good for the forum as it increases overall activity and brings in new eyeballs. But yes, some moderation is definitely required.


How about this?

Create a Post quality feature. One that automatically takes into account :

• The number of characters that are in the post itself
• Frequency of replies
• Vote counts

And that brings me to the other feature request. A post/reply voting/liking/thanking method.

Sort of like a Like button. The more of those one post gets, the better are its odds of getting a high post quality rating.

The campaign managers can up their ante in signature campaigns where people with the highest quality post ratings, say between 7 - 10 are only eligible to participate - irrespective of their member rank.


If you take out the ranking game from signature campaigns, then people would be more interested in posting good stuff & get their post quality rating up, rather than shitposting and increasing their member activity to get to a higher rank.


PS: I am posting this, without reading the existing messages here, so do overlook any aspects of my message that may have already been discussed.

[criptix]

[...]

PS: I am posting this, without reading the existing messages here, so do overlook any aspects of my message that may have already been discussed.

Good stuff - that is what makes you part of the shit posters brigade: not reading anything besides OP, adding something that was already said and then leaving thread for good  

And yes 90-99% of shitposters are from the 3rd world.
I understand them for doing that but it still destroys the forums post quality - but i already wrote that before, you just didnt read. Lol



Ps: The oceans of content is filled with an army from asian, african, south american and middle eastern shit posters and bounty hunters  

[hilariousetc]

I think we should consider bringing back the newbie jail in some capacity. People are getting annoyed by all the spam and useless questions/threads being smeared everywhere. I think prohibiting Newbies or lower ranked accounts from posting or creating threads in Off Topic and Politics & Society would also help. Those two subs are the go to boards for sig spammers and account farmers right now and the quality of threads being created in there is appalling.

I'm not sure if that's true. Most, or at least many, signature campaigns require to post within the Alt Coin section of the forum. That's also the section where the most spam occurs, according to what I've seen in the forum.

And it's not fair to put innocent newbies in jail just because they're newbies. I know that many of the ultra elite forum members have an obsession about punishing all who do not belong to their clique, but I find it ehtically wrong.  

You can find it ethically wrong all you want but Newbies aren't a race of people that are being discriminated against. They're new users who haven't learned the rules yet and often don't play by them hence why there needs to be certain restrictions put on them until they get used to the forum because most of the abuse is committed by them. Everyone starts off as a newbie and the restrictions were much harsher when I signed up but they actually worked pretty well as some sort of quarantine so we didn't have newbies signing up here and spreading their shit questions all over the forum: "why is my activity stuck", "wat is sign camp", "how do I earn money online", "do you liek blueberries" all posted in Bitcoin Discussion.

What if instead of banning bots and shitposters you shadowban them so they won't just create new accounts quickly? Or is this too harsh?

Shadowbanning has been discussed before but it wouldn't really work as most people would figure it out pretty fast, especially those with alts as many of the new users who sign up here have multiples of.

5 pages in finally found someone with the same idea.

In addition to this, campaign managers and the whole company/project itself should be the one to be punished more. Here are some problems I noticed:
- In bounty campaigns almost all sig camps have no limit in participants unlike in bitcoin paid campaigns. This potentially makes almost everyone in the forum be able to find a "job".
- Applying for bounty campaigns is too easy, fill up a form and you're in. There's no checking that's taking place unlike, again, in bitcoin paid campaigns.
- Campaign managers handle too many campaigns at the same time. This is not a problem if you can do your job properly. But the thing is there are only a handful of managers that actually read the posts of their participants. Others just count the posts and check where it is posted.

Signature campaigns are fine, but the campaign itself should be regulated with a strict policy. I think this and Hazaki's idea could fix this problem.

Something that I've also noticed is that a lot of these signature spammers still get accepted into many different signature campaigns, this is the root of the problem IMO.
It shouldn't be too difficult for campaign managers to weed out these people.

Well this is the whole problem isn't it. Signature campaigns managers aren't punished and any old shitposter can join a campaign. These are the two things that need to change at a minimum. I've always said that if campaign managers only accepted quality users then campaigns would actually clean up the forum and not just pollute it but as long as we let anyone advertise here for free with no repercussions for the spam they cause then nothing will change.

ID verification. Let people show their passports to be registered

phone to verify
verify via email

Nice try NSA!
Theymos values privacy, he didn't like to be forced to use Cloudflare for that reason, he allows total anonymous TOR-access, and I expect there is zero chance he'll require any ID or phone verifications.

Yeah, theymos isn't going to do this, but I agree some extra hoops to go through would be helpful. I think even simple things like requiring email verification would go a long way in curbing or stopping bots and account farmers.

[hilariousetc]

Theymos, are you against requiring payment for signatures as the only way to get them, or would you not be ok with offering them alongside being able to rank up naturally? Copper Membership seems to have been a small success and if you offered other memberships alongside current ranks similar to the perks of Full Members or Heroes etc I'm sure they would be even an bigger success. Let's be honest here, the vast majority of people only join this forum for signature campaigns and their only intention is to rank up in whatever capacity they can so why not give them the option just to skip the que rather than posting rubbish over x amount of time? People are either just going to lazily spam their way through ranks or just buy an account from a farmer or hacker so why not let them purchase it from the forum instead? That money could be put to good use and to finance other valuable projects that will benefit the greater community. It's win-win in my opinion and I don't see any negatives of it at all.

What are everyone's ideas for improving post quality?

I have mostly ruled out:
 - Requiring payment to wear sig ads.

How about instead of requiring a payment for all signatures, you only require a payment for Member/Full time member and above. That way people may still have their basic signatures for what ever they want, but to have a more advanced and flashy signature they would have to pay. This could also be incorporated into the lesser donation ranks that have been discussed before.

Why don't we at least trial something like a better donator rank than Copper Membership? I really don't see any issue with allowing users to purchase the equivalent rank from us under a different donator name. Either there could be one or two ranks that give you the same benefits as a Full Member and Hero member or we could offer some sort of premium rank that can only be achieved by buying it or maybe it can also be given out as a reward for great contributors. What I would suggest is it gives you some really great perks that you can't get in any other way. The biggest one I can think of is having the ability to have an image/jpg banner in your signature. I think campaigns would pay a premium for this one as it would be easier to create than a signature code. Maybe also give them a changeable custom title like Global mods have with a clickable url or something. That's one more thing that can add value to their account and would be worthwhile to advertisers. Buying this premium rank could also give you benefits like the ability to have an avatar and the possibility to change your name etc.

[TheQuin]

I agree with hilariousetc. Of all the ideas discussed in this thread, it really is the only thing that I can see making any difference. It would be great to know what theymos thoughts are and what if any objection he has to at least trialling it.

[Deena]

People care not about principles and thorough solutions. They want stopgap solutions. This thread proves it. Theymos must simply decide about his political utopia and construct the forum accordingly. Hilariousetc opts for some kind of oligarchic system where the rich get it all and the poor get nothing. Is that Theymos's ideal? Fine. He apparently doesn't like full freedom of speech. Fine. It's his forum. But it is not built upon principles. Just an example: Theymos allows multiple accounts but at the same time he allows it that some trust moderators punish users with multiple accounts. That's not coherent policy. I know. Nobody cares about a principle post like this. They will just turn to their stopgap remedies again. Probably Theymos included. However I say that this forum needs a thorough reconstruction.

[minifrij]

People care not about principles and thorough solutions. They want stopgap solutions. This thread proves it.

If all of these solutions are 'stopgap' then what would you suggest, oh wise one?

Hilariousetc opts for some kind of oligarchic system where the rich get it all and the poor get nothing. Is that Theymos's ideal? Fine. He apparently doesn't like full freedom of speech.

Not being able to have a large flashy signature doesn't impair someone's freedom of speech.

Theymos allows multiple accounts but at the same time he allows it that some trust moderators punish users with multiple accounts. That's not coherent policy.

Because the two systems are completely separate and irrelevant to each other. Forum moderaters and DT members are not the same, and therefore one has no need to follow the guidelines of the other. It's shocking that someone questioning principle and free speech cannot grasp this extremely simple concept.
By the rules, scamming is allowed on this forum. Do you suggest that we stop tagging scammers, just because the forum rules (which aren't even official) don't explicitly say it's wrong? If that's the case, why bother even having a trust system? Are you starting to understand how silly and misinformed your argument is yet?

[Zackgeno96]

What are everyone's ideas for improving post quality?

I have mostly ruled out:

 - Removing signatures or sig ads globally.
 - Requiring payment to wear sig ads.
 - Banning account sales.

A couple of ideas that have been floating around in my head:

1. To attain ranks above Member, you'd have to earn some number of merit points. Merit points would be awarded in a monthly vote on best posts of the previous month, with various measures (TBD) to prevent gaming of the vote. Winning merit points might also come with a BTC prize.

2. Create or designate some sections as "serious discussion" sections, with no signatures. In those sections or maybe in different ones, also have poster restrictions such as Member rank or above only. And/or allow topic-creators to set these restrictions on their topics, similar to selfmod topics.

What do you think of these ideas, and what other ideas do people have?

It will increase your work load and you will be required more staff in order to execute your plan. Lots of planning and manpower will be required to roll out your rules. I would suggest to make their rank to lower one if your team found anyone spamming.

[Deena]

If all of these solutions are 'stopgap' then what would you suggest, oh wise one?

Thank you. You may get up now.  

Not being able to have a large flashy signature doesn't impair someone's freedom of speech.

The very fact that Theymos opens this thread to hear ideas about how to influence what visitors say means that he does not want to let everyone totally free in their linguistic expression. I support restriction of expression. But I suggest that it must be based upon clear principles and visions, which seem to be lacking.

Because the two systems are completely separate and irrelevant to each other. Forum moderaters and DT members are not the same, and therefore one has no need to follow the guidelines of the other. It's shocking that someone questioning principle and free speech cannot grasp this extremely simple concept.
By the rules, scamming is allowed on this forum. Do you suggest that we stop tagging scammers, just because the forum rules (which aren't even official) don't explicitly say it's wrong? If that's the case, why bother even having a trust system? Are you starting to understand how silly and misinformed your argument is yet?

You summerize it well. Thank you. Stopping with tagging presupposed scammers because the forum rules don't say it's wrong is exactly what I am suggesting. I am suggesting that punishment must be rooted in clear principles and not in the subjective whims of a couple of moderators who also abuse the trust system for their own agenda. Don't you see? In the current situation we have punishment without rules. Either you install clear forum rules and punish objectively according to these rules or you install everyone with the power to punish so innocent victims of guilty moderators can defend themselves against them. Or you simply take away that power from everyone. If you leave the situation as it is you do not run the forum from principles, unless some kind of oligarchy (power to a few, subjectively utilized by a few) is the principle on which you want to base your forum structure. We have an animal farm here where all members are equal but some members are more equal. Of course the more equal ones want to keep it like that, and they're lurking for even more difference.

[Mcjergs]

If you are going to commit to post quality, first you must define exactly what quality is. This process involves statistical quality control, the process of setting a topics specifications and then sampling a small number of units from the topic line to see how closely they measure up to those topics Standards are set and, if too much deviation occurs (or if quality appears to be trending in the wrong direction), the quality posting process is altered.

[hilariousetc]

What are everyone's ideas for improving post quality?

I have mostly ruled out:

 - Removing signatures or sig ads globally.
 - Requiring payment to wear sig ads.
 - Banning account sales.

A couple of ideas that have been floating around in my head:

1. To attain ranks above Member, you'd have to earn some number of merit points. Merit points would be awarded in a monthly vote on best posts of the previous month, with various measures (TBD) to prevent gaming of the vote. Winning merit points might also come with a BTC prize.

2. Create or designate some sections as "serious discussion" sections, with no signatures. In those sections or maybe in different ones, also have poster restrictions such as Member rank or above only. And/or allow topic-creators to set these restrictions on their topics, similar to selfmod topics.

What do you think of these ideas, and what other ideas do people have?

Theymos, can you update us on where you are with this? I don't think we're going to get any more viable suggestions other than the ones already proposed in here. You've already implemented option two which is great but it still doesn't address the rest of the spam which is only going to get worse the longer we leave it. I still think we should strongly consider removing signatures from ranks or at the very least allow users the option to buy them if they wish. The people who can afford it will just pay rather than try spam their way through ranks. Alternatively, have you thought any more about option one? A merit based system would surely stop the majority of poor posters but I envision this system will be hard to implement and may cause a lot of hassle and complaints but it's better than allowing anyone to have unlimited accounts to spam from at least and I imagine everyone will try up their game if their livelihood depends on it.

[TheBeardedBaby]

Here is my idea and contribution to the community.

There are two type of Newbie spammers, the ones that are really new and have no idea what to do here in the forum and trying to joint bounties and repeatingly asking how to rank up. (I was the same in the beginning)

BTW is really messy here in the forum if you need find info. The search engine is horrible and the main guidelines are scatterd arround on differents posts.As a newbie it was really difficult for me to find what I needed.

The other ones are the side/fake accounts - for trade or extra profit.

For the first ones I have created one Rank and Activity calculator so they can stop asking every day when they are going to rank up.
Now I created hopefully something usefull and something that was missing from my point of view. Many people are here only for the bounties, and this is what they want: A list with all the bounties, here is what I created:
Google form to be filled by the bounty manager I have to note that it does not collect email addresses:
https://goo.gl/forms/hXdTSWTwSc7pvg6H3
The spredsheet with the answers:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CFL41C6zmkKkzBpqgghR93WGIvqp8N_XT4WlqeW4vkg/edit#gid=1594220160
I want to hear your opinion on this idea.

For the fake accounts I do report every suspicious activity I spot.