Two new no-signature boards

[theymos]

I created two boards:

 - Serious discussion. No limit on topic, but moderation of on-topicness and general sanity will be extra harsh. No advertising of any kind. Signatures are not displayed.
 - Ivory Tower. As above, but you must be at least a Member in order to post there.
 
Currently these boards are not treated specially in the activity calculation. I'm currently feeling that:
 - Removing them totally from the activity calculation is kind of unfair to posters there.
 - Allowing them just to activate a potential-activity period isn't much different from treating them normally for activity.
 - Treating them normally for activity won't be so bad, maybe.

But we'll see how it goes. These boards are largely experimental.

Update:

I see that newbies were already posting junk in Serious Discussion, so I made changes:
 - The member limitations are moved up one rank. You must be a Jr Member to post in Serious Discussion and a Full Member to post in Ivory Tower
 - Posts in Serious Discussion only activate an potential-activity period. They do not increase your post count.
 - Posts in Ivory Tower neither activate a potential-activity period nor increase your post count.

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[dothebeats]

That's the first thing I noticed today upon visiting this forum. Nice to see an addition of a new childboard which focuses mainly on sensible topics (and not like the ones posted mainly on other boards and whatnot). Though I'd like to ask, would these new boards cater all types of serious discussion such as altcoin discussion, politics and stuff or is this still Bitcoin Discussion 2.0 but only with serious flow of conversations? Kinda confusing since there aren't much details on what topics these boards would and could contain.

Oh and just a suggestion though, since Meta is mainly about account bans, retrievals, new addition to the forum and forum-related topics, wouldn't it be best to just remove the signature display in here as well so as to maintain the integrity even of the three boards and to remove signature spammers in here as well?

[theymos]

Altcoin talk is OK there as long as it doesn't look like an advertisement. Any topic is OK unless explicitly banned (eg. Investigations content).

[Lauda]

What exactly is the motivation behind this? Which of the existing forum's problems is this supposed to solve?

[otrkid70]

Altcoin talk is OK there as long as it doesn't look like an advertisement. Any topic is OK unless explicitly banned (eg. Investigations content).

I like the Idea and it's a step in the right direction to Avoid Sig Ad Spammers but i think what you said above is going to backfire and it's going to be a mess in there in a few days.

[botany]

A big thumbs up. It is a small step.
If most of the non-spam discussions shift to the serious discussion board, we will know what the forum members really want.

[Welsh]

What about topics which would normally reside in Meta? I think keeping forum related topics should be kept in meta. Potentially adding one serious child board for each section could also be something to look at so it's easier to filter if this is successful and popular enough.

I like the Idea and it's a step in the right direction to Avoid Sig Ad Spammers but i think what you said above is going to backfire and it's going to be a mess in there in a few days.

As theymos stated, it's entirely experimental which means if it's abused then more defined restrictions could be put into place once it's been tried and tested.

What exactly is the motivation behind this? Which of the existing forum's problems is this supposed to solve?

Readability. I think it was JetCash awhile back complaining that his constructive thread was getting drowned out by the mass of signature spammers and account farmers. Hopefully, this will be a place which can rectify this and allow people to discuss what they want without being exposed to the bullshit responses.  

[mprep]

A step, in sort of a decent direction. A few issues with the current approach though:

• Not excluding these boards from activity and post calculations is going to result in some people attempting to pad their post count (though considering the strictness, they might avoid it since it's easier to do so elsewhere)
• As a user already mentioned, avatars and personal text (and as such avatar and personal text campaigns) are still enabled (a minor issue but still)
• If the name "Ivory Tower" wasn't intended as a satirical jab at the current situation of the forum as well as the new boards' position within the aforementioned context, you might've misnamed it.

[Jet Cash]

Sounds like a good move,

I'm getting interested in the RMG blockchain because of its association with physical assets. Is this something that could be discussed there, or should it be kept on the current alt boards?

[The Sceptical Chymist]

A big thumbs up. It is a small step.
If most of the non-spam discussions shift to the serious discussion board, we will know what the forum members really want.

Ditto.  I applaud Theymos for (sort of) acknowledging how lousy discussions have gotten here and actually doing something about it.  If it doesn't work, it doesn't work, but if nothing is tried, then no problems are going to be solved.  So kudos.  I do hope the "extra harsh" moderation and lack of incentive will eliminate no-English shitposters, but it'll definitely be interesting to see what happens.

Ivory Tower is an interesting name for that subsection.

[hilariousetc]

A step, in sort of a decent direction. A few issues with the current approach though:

• Not excluding these boards from activity and post calculations is going to result in some people attempting to pad their post count (though considering the strictness, they might avoid it since it's easier to do so elsewhere)

Yeah, without removing it from post count/activity calculation all it is is another board for farmers to post in and a lot of lazy campaigns will still end up paying for posts in that section. Making it heavily modded just adds a crazy amount of more workload to already overworked staff as well and it's still going to be heavily abused by lazy posters and their halfassed one liners as long as a posts in there count. I get that it's unfair to penalise users in there but if it's stated that contributions in that sub don't count towards your total count then there's nothing to complain about and I'm sure most users will just be appreciative that we're trying to do something about the spam. Why don't you experiment and have one board that counts and one that doesn't and see what the results are?[/list]

[Lauda]

Readability. I think it was JetCash awhile back complaining that his constructive thread was getting drowned out by the mass of signature spammers and account farmers. Hopefully, this will be a place which can rectify this and allow people to discuss what they want without being exposed to the bullshit responses.  

If it were somewhere at the top, I'd understand. However, this section is listed under Off-Topic which itself is listed far down.

A step, in sort of a decent direction.

It doesn't solve issues at all, so what direction are you talking about? All this board is supposed to do is create a small environment for legitimate people to *possibly be serious*. It does literally nothing to combat any problem that exists in any board.

[mprep]

A step, in sort of a decent direction.

It doesn't solve issues at all, so what direction are you talking about? All this board is supposed to do is create a small environment for legitimate people to *possibly be serious*. It does literally nothing to combat any problem that exists in any board.

Since theymos doesn't want to untie signatures from activity (as suggested by hilariousandco), which IMO would solve the issue of both illiterate spammers polluting the forum as well as stop account farming, this seems to make at least a couple of sections where discussion won't get usurped by inane sig spammers. As I said, while not a step in the exact direction I would've wanted, it's better than nothing.

Maybe if these experimental boards work as intended, we'll have some forum-wide changes for cracking down on spammers.

[hilariousetc]

Readability. I think it was JetCash awhile back complaining that his constructive thread was getting drowned out by the mass of signature spammers and account farmers. Hopefully, this will be a place which can rectify this and allow people to discuss what they want without being exposed to the bullshit responses.  

If it were somewhere at the top, I'd understand. However, this section is listed under Off-Topic which itself is listed far down.

It probably should be at the top or under Bitcoin Discussion (though I'm not entirely sure what discussion the sub board is intended to include right now (just bitcoin related topics or any kind of worthwhile/important discussion not necessarily exclusively bitcoin related)).

A step, in sort of a decent direction.

It doesn't solve issues at all, so what direction are you talking about? All this board is supposed to do is create a small environment for legitimate people to *possibly be serious*. It does literally nothing to combat any problem that exists in any board.

Since theymos doesn't want to untie signatures from activity (as suggested by hilariousandco), which IMO would solve the issue of both illiterate spammers polluting the forum as well as stop account farming, this seems to make at least a couple of sections where discussion won't get usurped by inane sig spammers.

I really hope he address why he is so against this as I really can't see any other way we're going to put a stop to account farming. As long as sigs are tied to activity/post count then shitposting/farming is always going to be an issue and will in fact only continue to grow worse over time.

It doesn't solve issues at all, so what direction are you talking about? All this board is supposed to do is create a small environment for legitimate people to *possibly be serious*. It does literally nothing to combat any problem that exists in any board.

Well it doesn't solve much currently but maybe lets see how the experiment goes. Hopefully it's just the first change of many but at least it is a start. Removing some boards from activity or disallowing certain ranks from posting in them would be another and not difficult to implement (especially the latter and some boards are already restricted from certain ranks). Punishing signature campaigns in various ways is another and is what should have been done with the Signature Guidelines thread.

[theymos]

I see that newbies were already posting junk in Serious Discussion, so I made changes:
 - The member limitations are moved up one rank. You must be a Jr Member to post in Serious Discussion and a Full Member to post in Ivory Tower
 - Posts in Serious Discussion only activate a potential-activity period. They do not increase your post count.
 - Posts in Ivory Tower neither activate a potential-activity period nor increase your post count.

If the name "Ivory Tower" wasn't intended as a satirical jab at the current situation of the forum as well as the new boards' position within the aforementioned context, you might've misnamed it.

The name is supposed to be whimsical and slightly self-deprecating, not to imply that the idea of such a section is stupid/wrong.

[OgNasty]

If the name "Ivory Tower" wasn't intended as a satirical jab at the current situation of the forum as well as the new boards' position within the aforementioned context, you might've misnamed it.

The name is supposed to be whimsical and slightly self-deprecating, not to imply that the idea of such a section is stupid/wrong.

I'll admit I glanced at the calendar when I saw the name.  My first thought was, "It can't be April already."

[Lauda]

Maybe if these experimental boards work as intended, we'll have some forum-wide changes for cracking down on spammers.

Why is that required though? Aren't we well aware of how enormous the problem has become?  Haven't we discussed a numerous amount of suggestions for tackling the problem?

It probably should be at the top or under Bitcoin Discussion (though I'm not entirely sure what discussion the sub board is intended to include right now (just bitcoin related topics or any kind of worthwhile/important discussion not necessarily exclusively bitcoin related)).

Looks like the intent is various kind of serious discussion (not limited to Bitcoin), but the board is not placed properly IMO.

I really hope he address why he is so against this as I really can't see any other way we're going to put a stop to account farming. As long as sigs are tied to activity/post count then shitposting/farming is always going to be an issue and will in fact only continue to grow worse over time.

A simple way to start the combat against this issue is adding a rule that both account farming and account trading is permanently bannable. Dislocating signatures from activity/post is a more *radical* change IMO, but that I'd agree with too.

Removing some boards from activity or disallowing certain ranks from posting in them would be another and not difficult to implement (especially the latter and some boards are already restricted from certain ranks). Punishing signature campaigns in various ways is another and is what should have been done with the Signature Guidelines thread.

Both of these are needed badly.

- The member limitations are moved up one rank. You must be a Jr Member to post in Serious Discussion and a Full Member to post in Ivory Tower

I would suggest an even higher rank requirement for that section. Maybe Senior Member. Although that is no guarantee that the poster is legitimate at all.

[Jet Cash]

I suspect that we should wait and see how the characters of these boards develop. We can help this process by supporting them. I started a thread in Ivory Tower. If this is unsuitable, then please move it, but I hope that after the first 50 or so threads, we can get a feel for the use of the boards.

[hilariousetc]

I see that newbies were already posting junk in Serious Discussion, so I made changes:
 - The member limitations are moved up one rank. You must be a Jr Member to post in Serious Discussion and a Full Member to post in Ivory Tower
 - Posts in Serious Discussion only activate a potential-activity period. They do not increase your post count.
 - Posts in Ivory Tower neither activate a potential-activity period nor increase your post count.

Can we implement some of these restrictions in Off Topic and Politics and Society boards as requested here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2694534.msg27528982#msg27528982

I think we should restrict them both to at least Junior member but personally I think a higher rank of something like Full Member and above would be better and far more effective in combatting spam and farming because it's become ridiculous in there and only continues to get worse the longer we leave it.

[ibminer]

My initial thoughts... I like it. I'm curious to see how the threads develop and maybe one day I will feel legitimate enough to post in the "Ivory Tower" 
All in all, this seems like a step in the right direction... and is at least some sort of acknowledgement that theymos hasn't completely left the forum to build a seastead, and still has some interest in improving the forum.