Prohibiting Newbies from creating threads in Off Topic and Politics & Society

[hilariousetc]

I propose that we should strongly consider restricting Newbies from either being able to create threads in Off Topic and Politics & Society or from even being allowed to post in there at all. In fact, I don't think we should just restrict this to Newbies but maybe up until Full Member or something. It's pretty much standard practice now for new users to sign up here and head straight into Off Topic just to try spam their way through ranks because they either can't contribute anything else of substance or just can't be bothered doing so and it's much easier to post about your top ten Adam Sandler Movies or post in threads asking whether you prefer "this or that" or "x vs y" etc. Politics & Society has now met a similar fate and is favoured amongst spammers who join campaigns that don't pay for posts in Off Topic but they will in Politics, hence why we get dozens of "fake deep" threads created by kids every day proposing the most ridiculous of topics.

This is a bitcoin forum after all so I don't see any good reason why Newbies or lower ranks should even be allowed to post in or create threads in there because it just leads to abuse en mass. I think prohibiting them will put a stop to all this spam as it's just become unmanageable with the huge number of users signing up here just to rank up to earn from signature campaigns. Off Topic has been discussed and proposed to be removed from counting towards post-count/activity before and the quality of threads in there just gets worse day by day with more and more users signing up here just because they heard you can earn by posting. If you don't know anything about bitcoin where else are you going to post? I still think the only way we're ever going to put a stop to this is by removing signatures from ranks/activity somehow but if that's not going to happen then other restrictions need to be put in place. Here's just a small selection of the sort of threads I'm talking about that I've trashed the past week or so:


Off Topic threads:

Batman vs Ironman

Who is more genius and more wealthy?  

SEX or CHOCOLATE

chocoLate after sex ..  

How long do you take to have SEX?

Averagely I spent about 30 to 1 hours to f...ck my wife before i ejaculate. Is it normal, too much or short. What about you.

Tell me how tall you are

I'm 180cm tall, how about you?  

How much do you weigh?

Maybe someone will dare to tell his/her real weight  
Since this topic is mine..
I weigh 53 kg  

Favorite porn category?

Anal, Amateur, Virgin or something else? And why you like that category?

What time do you have to wake up for work?

I have to get up at 4:30am to get to work.

Update your status today

I just filed a resign letter to my boss  

Do You Watched TV Daily?

Do You Watched TV Daily?

What's on your mind about water ?  

What's on your mind about water ?  

WHAT'S YOUR NAME?

HELLO AM DAVID    AND YOU?

What is your favorite Household Chores?

Mine is playing video games  

Politics and Society:

Which do you prefer? Beach or Malls?

I would like to hear you opinions and suggestions in terms of choosing a proper place where you spend your time. Do you prefer shopping? or sun bathing?

Pork

What are the disadvantages of eating pork meat?  

how does bitcoin look like ?

how does bitcoin look like ?

furture life

What u think about super cars ?

Evolution or Creation ?

Creation

How Much You Give to Your Religion?

How Much You Give to Your Religion?

What would you prefer? Premarital sex or Sex after Marriage?

what would you prefer? Premarital sex or Sex after Marriage

Time or Gold?

What is the most important to your lifestyle? What is that and why?

bitcoin make you rich?

is it possible guys?

Will Trump support Bitcoin?

BTC

do you love your mother?

if I'm sure because mom to me is everything, what about you?

Do you believe in Angels?

I believe in Angels.

Angels are all around us to guide us and help our journey. I believe that angels tell us divine things, and some people are good enough to hear them.
Angels exist. Just as there is a paradise where we will all go after we die.

And you, do you believe in Angels?

  

Your Wife/GF/BF or Bitcoin?  

My GF wants me to quit bitcoin, because she thought that Bitcoin is a scam.   I can't seem to convince her that I'm going to be rich with this.

I think some of these threads really tell you the age of users signing up here and dozens of them are created every day and are immediately swarmed by shitposters frothing at another thread they can easily post in. I really don't think there is any good reason why at the minimum newbies shouldn't be allowed to create threads in those two boards, but ideally I think we should prohibit various lower ranks from even being able to post in there at all since they're only going to use it as a place to easily rank up their accounts.

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[Don Pedro Dinero]

I support that proposal but don’t you think that wouldn’t be a problem if sig. campaigns managers didn’t hire such bullshit posters?

I remember you also proposed taking action against lazy campaign managers for not doing their job properly, and if that measure was implemented, it wouldn’t matter people posting crap on off-topic and politics boards because nobody would hire them.

[hilariousetc]

I support that proposal but don’t you think that wouldn’t be a problem if sig. campaigns managers didn’t hire such bullshit posters?

Well that is one of the problems, but most people just use Off Topic and Politics to farm their accounts to even get onto a campaign. If campaign managers did their job properly then these sorts of users would never even be allowed onto the campaigns in the first place, but they obviously don't do their job hence why they need to face punishments. It's pointless banning signature spammers without tackling the root cause of it all.

I remember you also proposed taking action against lazy campaign manager for not doing their job properly, and if that measure was implemented, it wouldn’t matter people posting crap on off-topic and politics boards because nobody would hire them.

Well that's down to theymos. The last he mentioned of it he didn't seem too keen on banning campaign managers for some reason. Maybe he's changed his mind but he did agree to blacklist problem campaigns signatures after some petitioning from staff, hence why the Signature Campaign Guidelines thread was created, but despite requesting several campaigns have their signatures blacklisted he never did so we're just back to square one.  

[bigvito19]

I agree with this post, I wish y'all could get rid of off-topics period, and anything that does not have nothing to do with crypto.

[hilariousetc]

I agree with this post, I wish y'all could get rid of off-topics period, and anything that does not have nothing to do with crypto.

This would be an alternative solution rather than punishing everyone by getting rid of those boards altogether. I wouldn't be against removing them completely per se, but back when I signed up there used to be some decent discussions going on in Politics and Society. You could even have some decent threads in Off Topic but gradually those boards just got swamped by lazy shitposters and account farmers abusing them as easy fodder with shit threads to rank up. Stopping lower ranks from either being able to create threads in there or post altogether would soon clean them up and hopefully decent discussions would gradually come back.

[Welsh]

Off Topic has been discussed and proposed to be removed from counting towards post-count/activity before and the quality of threads in there just gets worse day by day with more and more users signing up here just because they heard you can earn by posting.

Although, I wouldn't be against your proposal here. I believe that sections such as Off topic and Politics & Society just shouldn't count towards activity. Any board which isn't directly related to Bitcoin/Cryptocurrency shouldn't count towards activity. I think this way it won't only prevent newbies from creating shit threads, but higher ranked members too. Preventing newbies from creating threads in these sections would only hinder them and they would just post there to rank up their accounts when they've passed the restrictions.

 If you don't know anything about bitcoin where else are you going to post?

This is the exact reason why activity shouldn't be counted in the sections mentioned. They are a farming ground currently which is drowning out all of the legitimate discussion.

[hilariousetc]

Off Topic has been discussed and proposed to be removed from counting towards post-count/activity before and the quality of threads in there just gets worse day by day with more and more users signing up here just because they heard you can earn by posting.

Although, I wouldn't be against your proposal here. I believe that sections such as Off topic and Politics & Society just shouldn't count towards activity. Any board which isn't directly related to Bitcoin/Cryptocurrency shouldn't count towards activity. I think this way it won't only prevent newbies from creating shit threads, but higher ranked members too. Preventing newbies from creating threads in these sections would only hinder them and they would just post there to rank up their accounts when they've passed the restrictions.

 If you don't know anything about bitcoin where else are you going to post?

This is the exact reason why activity shouldn't be counted in the sections mentioned. They are a farming ground currently which is drowning out all of the legitimate discussion.

I wouldn't be against those boards not counting towards activity either but there are also plenty of other boards that would then also meet the criteria such as Gambling Discussion (which is basically a board that was created due to shitposters being 'forced' by the signature campaigns to make x amount of posts in Gambling, hence why they started created threads to talk about every possible league and tournament of sport that is ever played. Either I'd be fine with but it might be easier just to prohibit certain ranks from posting as that's already happened in certain boards (the "Other languages" board for example where it's now not allowed for ranks lower than Senior to create threads there due to all the spam). As I said before as well, people can still have decent discussions in there but it's all the newbies that have drowned that out.

[LeGaulois]

Not only it shouldn't count towards activity but it should be deleted directly. While I understand the administration wanted to make the boards to allow members to talk about something else than cryptos it's not topics that have a place in the Bitcoin forum.

There are some interesting discussions that can take place, but to be sincere how do you want to talk politic with teenagers
 See, they prefer batman VS ironman

[InvoKing]

+1
I even suggested a more radical (and painful ) measure (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2467866.0)

[Astargath]

+1
I even suggested a more radical (and painful ) measure (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2467866.0)

Meh, wouldn't solve much. Sure it's not bad to have it but they will just spam existing threads like they already do and there are so many high rank accounts already that new topics will just keep coming. I still feel like the best way to stop it is having strict campaign managers. Also the new bounty section has a ton of signature campaigns that are basically un-moderated.

[Welsh]

I wouldn't be against those boards not counting towards activity either but there are also plenty of other boards that would then also meet the criteria such as Gambling Discussion (which is basically a board that was created due to shitposters being 'forced' by the signature campaigns to make x amount of posts in Gambling, hence why they started created threads to talk about every possible league and tournament of sport that is ever played. Either I'd be fine with but it might be easier just to prohibit certain ranks from posting as that's already happened in certain boards (the "Other languages" board for example where it's now not allowed for ranks lower than Senior to create threads there due to all the spam). As I said before as well, people can still have decent discussions in there but it's all the newbies that have drowned that out.

I too believe Gambling Discussion should be added to the no activity counted list. I can't comment on the local sections, but it seems there's already measures there to prevent spam. Possibly adding it to the Alt coin annoucement/bountie threads could prove beneficial. A lot of accounts are posting utter rubbish there as you know and not all of them are low ranked members either.

[pugman]

How about not having a politics and society board at all? Only a few users find it useful, others just spam there. Adding to off-topic, politics and society, gambling, I'd like to add the alternative currencies section - > especially the giveaway and bounty along with the Announcements boards respectively to be the boards which do not add to the activity . Bring back the newbie jail for even better cause, I read what saltyspoon had to say on this, but with differentiated rules which someone suggested in a different thread, a huge amount of spam can be reduced. Have a test for campaign managers if they pass, they can manage, if not, tell them to fuck off.

[LoyceV]

I think some of these threads really tell you the age of users signing up here and dozens of them are created every day and are immediately swarmed by shitposters frothing at another thread they can easily post in.

Can't you use this as a honey pot for spammers? Let a thread be for a while, then have a look at the recent posts of everybody who posted in that thread, and ban like 98% of them?
It would probably be possible to use a bot: all accounts with more than 5 out of their first 10 posts on those boards are very likely insubstantial posters.

I'm afraid restricting them from these sections just moves their spam to other boards. Other than that, I am in favour of making off-topic and politics boards only accessible to high-ranking members.
I'd love to see them all banned before they level up and turn to different sections of the forum, but I also expect they'll just create 10 other accounts after the first ones are banned.

Off-topic has a sticky thread: Low quality topics and posts are not allowed:

Off topic is a section for any other topics that do not fit into any other sub, however, it is not a subforum for account farmers to lazily spam their way through the ranks and doing so will no longer be tolerated. If you are caught spamming unsubstantial posts just to farm or rank up your account your account(s) will be immediately permabanned without warning.
~
If all your posts are short and spammy and it is clear you are only making them for either signature payment or to farm then you will still be banned.

Is this currently being enforced? I see so many users with only worthless posts in these sections and the Altcoin threads.

I support that proposal but don’t you think that wouldn’t be a problem if sig. campaigns managers didn’t hire such bullshit posters?

Would it be an option to only allow signature campaigns to pay in Bitcoin (or also altcoins with an established value), and ban all campaigns that pay in "tokens"? Most spam comes from the ICO and bounty hunters who have hundreds of spammers in their campaign.


I barely post in off-topic, and try to stay away from politics, but when I check the post history from someone who posts rubbish, I often end up in those threads filled with garbage posts.
I've been reporting so many posts lately that I run into the "only once every 4 seconds"-limit all the time, the amount of spam is endless!

[InvoKing]

How about not having a politics and society board at all? Only a few users find it useful, others just spam there.

Removing the jungle and merge it with off-topic is a good solution that i suggested in the past tho...

Adding to off-topic, politics and society, gambling, I'd like to add the alternative currencies section - > especially the giveaway and bounty along with the Announcements boards respectively to be the boards which do not add to the activity .

No, i don't support the idea of boards without activity, finding a way to limit the number of counted posts per period in some specific boards is better.
For example : making more than 5 posts per period in off-topic (the jungle merged with it) will grant you a maximum of 5 activities only.

Bring back the newbie jail for even better cause, I read what saltyspoon had to say on this, but with differentiated rules which someone suggested in a different thread, a huge amount of spam can be reduced. Have a test for campaign managers if they pass, they can manage, if not, tell them to fuck off.

Neutral with these ideas.
Forcing an escrow and a manager (same person or 2) for every signature campaign and bounties will :
1- reduce spam
2- reduce scam in our forums...

[tonyja2017]

Your article has a great investment. I support your opinion on these meaningless posts, but do not ban all the newbies discussed in Off Topic and Politics & Society. We should just ban the posts really meaningless as you set out above. Because newbies will not understand much about bitcoin so they have to go through these topics to find out what the bitcoin forum is and how bitcoin is. I think Off Topic and Politics & Society are 2 topics needed for newbies.

[hilariousetc]

I wouldn't be against those boards not counting towards activity either but there are also plenty of other boards that would then also meet the criteria such as Gambling Discussion (which is basically a board that was created due to shitposters being 'forced' by the signature campaigns to make x amount of posts in Gambling, hence why they started created threads to talk about every possible league and tournament of sport that is ever played. Either I'd be fine with but it might be easier just to prohibit certain ranks from posting as that's already happened in certain boards (the "Other languages" board for example where it's now not allowed for ranks lower than Senior to create threads there due to all the spam). As I said before as well, people can still have decent discussions in there but it's all the newbies that have drowned that out.

I too believe Gambling Discussion should be added to the no activity counted list.  

You might as well just get rid of it in this case as 99% of people only post in there because of signature campaigns. There wasn't even any topics on sports in there until certain campaigns implemented rules where you needed to make a minimum x amount of posts in the Gambling section a month to collect payment. People obviously struggled with this so they just started creating threads to discuss sports in any capacity so they could to hit their quota. If it's removed from post count then it would be redundant as a board altogether as nobody is going to waste time talking about sports if there's no financial benefit for them.

I think some of these threads really tell you the age of users signing up here and dozens of them are created every day and are immediately swarmed by shitposters frothing at another thread they can easily post in.

Can't you use this as a honey pot for spammers? Let a thread be for a while, then have a look at the recent posts of everybody who posted in that thread, and ban like 98% of them?

I already do this but I can spend hours a day doing it and it barely makes a dent. Creating one of the spam threads above will get you banned if all your posts are the same but opening one of them up to check posts is like going down a rabbit hole of spammers because it's dozens of accounts creating dozens of threads. You check one users post history alone and 99%-100% of their posts are in spammy off topic threads and you then find new spam threads they've posted in or created that you've missed and you open them up and then find hundreds more accounts in each thread doing the same and it just spirals on deeper and deeper.

Off-topic has a sticky thread: Low quality topics and posts are not allowed:

Off topic is a section for any other topics that do not fit into any other sub, however, it is not a subforum for account farmers to lazily spam their way through the ranks and doing so will no longer be tolerated. If you are caught spamming unsubstantial posts just to farm or rank up your account your account(s) will be immediately permabanned without warning.
~
If all your posts are short and spammy and it is clear you are only making them for either signature payment or to farm then you will still be banned.

Is this currently being enforced? I see so many users with only worthless posts in these sections and the Altcoin threads.

Yes, it's being enforced but I am only one person and it's a losing battle. How can I keep up with sig spammers creating and farming hundreds of accounts? I can't. It's a waste of time without other restrictions put into place because it's like trying to save a sinking ship.

[Quickseller]

I would reject your proposal to restrict new(er) users from creating threads in off topic. I suspect that low level accounts cost fairly little and it would be more or less trivial to purchase a sufficiently high level account to create these kinds of shit threads. I also don’t think it is the threads themselves that cause issues but rather are the shit replies that cause issues - for example someone could buy one account to create 50 shit threads and subsequently use those threads to farm many accounts they create themselves.

Restricting low level accounts from posting in off topic would be a different story. If many accounts are being farmed in the off topic section then I don’t see a major issue with restricting these users from posting here. Off topic is, by definition not bitcoin related so I don’t think anyone will join bitcointalk to post in off topic, so this will not realistically turn anyone away.

I might go a step further and either remove off topic or significantly restrict what can be posted there. The vast majority of what is posted is shot and adds very little to the community.

The politics section I more complicated because it is well political. Restricting the politics section would reduce the forums protection of free speech which is something I know theymos greatly values.

[Astargath]

How about not having a politics and society board at all? Only a few users find it useful, others just spam there. Adding to off-topic, politics and society, gambling, I'd like to add the alternative currencies section - > especially the giveaway and bounty along with the Announcements boards respectively to be the boards which do not add to the activity . Bring back the newbie jail for even better cause, I read what saltyspoon had to say on this, but with differentiated rules which someone suggested in a different thread, a huge amount of spam can be reduced. Have a test for campaign managers if they pass, they can manage, if not, tell them to fuck off.

Well personally I find it very interesting since I mostly post there but as I said, I do agree that there is a ton of spam. I just feel like the best solution to kill spammers for good without worrying about a specific section or specific threads is to enforce strict signature campaign rules. That's the easiest and fastest solution. No one would spam the off-topic section with crap if they knew they wont get accepted in any signature campaign because of their post quality.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Yes, it's being enforced but I am only one person and it's a losing battle. How can I keep up with sig spammers creating and farming hundreds of accounts? I can't. It's a waste of time without other restrictions put into place because it's like trying to save a sinking ship.

Dude, if you're giving up then I'm going to stop reporting shitposters.  I won't waste my time, but I am tagging them when I see them. 

I agree, it's a monumental, thankless task and change needs to come from theymos, but he seems to be too fucking blind to how lousy bitcointalk has become.  It's pretty sad, but I'm sure he's not the one shedding any tears.  This place is his personal gold mine.

[hilariousetc]

Yes, it's being enforced but I am only one person and it's a losing battle. How can I keep up with sig spammers creating and farming hundreds of accounts? I can't. It's a waste of time without other restrictions put into place because it's like trying to save a sinking ship.

Dude, if you're giving up then I'm going to stop reporting shitposters.  I won't waste my time, but I am tagging them when I see them.  

I agree, it's a monumental, thankless task and change needs to come from theymos, but he seems to be too fucking blind to how lousy bitcointalk has become.  It's pretty sad, but I'm sure he's not the one shedding any tears.  This place is his personal gold mine.

Whether you want to stop reporting them is up to you but sadly nothing being done at an admin level about the numerous issues this board has just has a knock on effect with many people giving up on both sides because it's essentially futile and a waste of time. Users reporting and staff subsequently banning a handful of shitposters every day doesn't really do anything when we're not tackling the root cause of the issue which is the campaigns. As long as they can get away with doing nothing then why would they change?  

Also, I don't really buy how theymos is personally profiting off these issues though. Any active staff member currently earns more money from moderating than he does. If theymos wanted to earn more money from this forum he could do so in numerous ways. I've personally suggested multiple ways the forum could be better monetised with simple things like a premium banner at the top of a few of the more popular sub boards (bitcoin discussion, gambling etc). I've even suggested if he doesn't trust anyone else to be an admin then he should just consider paying himself a reasonable wage and do forum admin duties full time because one is badly needed. Removing signatures from ranks and charging people to have them would also easily bring in tens if not hundreds of thousands in forum income a year. I think the lack of change or action regarding issues is simply down to him not having time and possibly worries about how restrictions will effect the traffic here more than it is to do with money (I'm sure he's doing alright for coins and cash).