Merits, an idea to spot shitposters based on posts/merits ratio!

[Oulay]

While I was in the frog pond I came across this guy: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1659648
He posted +600 posts yet failed to get any merits! He even started a thread just to say this:

Today Bitcoin is at $11,000.

If you buy Bitcoin at $1,000 after the price falls, you get/save $10,000. That's profit.  

When Bitcoin goes $1,000 to $2,000, you get $1,000 profit.  

I reported the post and it has already been deleted...

So... My idea is that all members with a post count that is more than 100 times - or whatever the staff see fits - their earned merits should have their post history checked by the mods for a possible ban. I guess it could be implemented so those accounts automatically appear for the mods to check them.
Edit: Based on TheQuin suggestion, you can add time to the equation so that it only gives members with +X (eg. +100) posts in the last month.

Why wait for the shitposters to stop using the forums? Lets take action and start banning them!

Edit: Does anyone know how to report a spammer to the mods?

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[TheQuin]

Nice idea but you would have to include time into the equation. It would have to be the number of posts since 24th Jan 2018, not total posts. 600 posts over the last year is not a lot, 600 posts in a month is.
 

[Oulay]

Nice idea but you would have to include time into the equation. It would have to be the number of posts since 24th Jan 2018, not total posts. 600 posts over the last year is not a lot, 600 posts in a month is.

Could also do that. My idea could be implemented without time into the equation for new users - ranked member and below - as I don't think a hero/legendary member that has been here for over a year would threaten his account just to shitpost.

As for the account in my OP, those posts are from 11 January this year and it's a lot.

Anyway, if the admins think of implementing this idea they could add time to the equation if it gives them better results.

[guschin]

Why wait for the shitposters to stop using the forums? Lets take action and start banning them!

I really cannot understand the purpose of such a member making posts here. I mean they mus have realized that they are not going to get any merit points for future posts and thus will never rank up. Adding too many posts (even if they are shit posts) does take some time. Are they using some sort of bot to post these.
One possibility is that they are still hoping that the merit system will be taken back and then will rank based on the number of posts they made. Or they might be preparing the accounts with potential activity to sell later.

[Oulay]

Why wait for the shitposters to stop using the forums? Lets take action and start banning them!

I really cannot understand the purpose of such a member making posts here. I mean they mus have realized that they are not going to get any merit points for future posts and thus will never rank up. Adding too many posts (even if they are shit posts) does take some time. Are they using some sort of bot to post these.
One possibility is that they are still hoping that the merit system will be taken back and then will rank based on the number of posts they made. Or they might be preparing the accounts with potential activity to sell later.

Though it's weird, both scenarios are possible. He is even a junior member which means he should wait some time between posts..
Whatever it is, the merit system can't stop all the shitposters and the remaining ones should be banned if we want the forums to be free of shitposts.

[Blue Tyrant]

Seems like a good idea which I guess the staff already does that to an extent but there's still some holes in what you say IMO

• A lot of people may not post in the regular sections of the forum. Merits are much rarer in sections like lending, services (apart form the merit threads) auctions and so on. It's common to do short to the point posts which aren't shitposts but they usually don't get much merit.
• Merit distribution is currently rather on the slower side. Yeah the merit system is new and I know it's supposed to reward the contributing members but the thing is most of the merits are concentrated in two places. First the merit sources and the older members who started off at a much higher threshold and second with the merit farmers. Trading and resale of merit is pretty common at the "shady" level of stuff if you carefull observe the merit movements especially some of those highlighted in thread exposing some of these account farmers.

In the end you'll end up with a significantly large number of people who're flagged for a bad ratio for merits. Which leaves us not much better than before

[Oulay]

Seems like a good idea which I guess the staff already does that to an extent but there's still some holes in what you say IMO

• A lot of people may not post in the regular sections of the forum. Merits are much rarer in sections like lending, services (apart form the merit threads) auctions and so on. It's common to do short to the point posts which aren't shitposts but they usually don't get much merit.
• Merit distribution is currently rather on the slower side. Yeah the merit system is new and I know it's supposed to reward the contributing members but the thing is most of the merits are concentrated in two places. First the merit sources and the older members who started off at a much higher threshold and second with the merit farmers. Trading and resale of merit is pretty common at the "shady" level of stuff if you carefull observe the merit movements especially some of those highlighted in thread exposing some of these account farmers.

In the end you'll end up with a significantly large number of people who're flagged for a bad ratio for merits. Which leaves us not much better than before

It can be changed so that it shows users ranked full member and below. Anyway, I don't think a 100 post/merit ratio would flag any nonspammer no matter where and what you post.

[thescimitarr]

This is a great idea and I completely agree on this.
Nowadays because of the signature bounty campaigns and the minimum post count in a week, most of the users post just to increase their post count. I've seen some post with replies which are not at all related to the thread.
Right now, the forum is flooded with such users. This will bring a halt to this.

Or maybe instead of directly blocking the user, it would be better to put a limit on the number of posts so that they are still active on bitcointalk.

[Oulay]

This is a great idea and I completely agree on this.
Nowadays because of the signature bounty campaigns and the minimum post count in a week, most of the users post just to increase their post count. I've seen some post with replies which are not at all related to the thread.
Right now, the forum is flooded with such users. This will bring a halt to this.

Or maybe instead of directly blocking the user, it would be better to put a limit on the number of posts so that they are still active on bitcointalk.

Most members agree that if you're here to spam signature campaigns then you have no place in these forums. At the same time bans don't have to be permanent and a second chance can be given to those spammy users.

By the way, if you see posts not related to the thread they're being posted in, go ahead and report them. I'm sure the mods will be deleting those posts.

[Praesidium]

This idea is feasible, we can easily detect spammers/shitposters with date-registered and posts/merit ratio. If we can see a huge amount of post in a short period of time report it directly to moderators, unless it has some sense on it.

Why wait for the shitposters to stop using the forums? Lets take action and start banning them!

I really cannot understand the purpose of such a member making posts here. I mean they mus have realized that they are not going to get any merit points for future posts and thus will never rank up. Adding too many posts (even if they are shit posts) does take some time. Are they using some sort of bot to post these.
One possibility is that they are still hoping that the merit system will be taken back and then will rank based on the number of posts they made. Or they might be preparing the accounts with potential activity to sell later.

I think why they're continue to post even though they won't get any merit is that they are still able to join signature campaign even with low rank accounts, Thus if they use any kind of tool to auto-post something, they will still earn from it. It is really a good thing that they're stuck up to their current rank tho.

[thescimitarr]

This is a great idea and I completely agree on this.
Nowadays because of the signature bounty campaigns and the minimum post count in a week, most of the users post just to increase their post count. I've seen some post with replies which are not at all related to the thread.
Right now, the forum is flooded with such users. This will bring a halt to this.

Or maybe instead of directly blocking the user, it would be better to put a limit on the number of posts so that they are still active on bitcointalk.

Most members agree that if you're here to spam signature campaigns then you have no place in these forums. At the same time bans don't have to be permanent and a second chance can be given to those spammy users.

By the way, if you see posts not related to the thread they're being posted in, go ahead and report them. I'm sure the mods will be deleting those posts.

I completely agree with you. But the problem is that most of the helpful posts go unnoticed most of the times. So even if a user is not spamming around, it may happen that no one merits his/her posts. But yes, eventually such users will come to notice in the long term

[StarKay]

Though you cited a good example to support your call but I am not totally in agreement with you.
Not everyone with lots of post count without merit are 'shitposters', I guess you don't participate in Airdrops and bounties.
You have to report your weekly activities on the bounty thread so if you were to participate in 8 tweeter/Facebook campaign, that will be 8 unmeritable post in a week; let's say you also join Airdrop and you're required to post a Proof of Authentication on the thread.
I just want you to understand that people are on this forum for different reasons and recommending a ban for low merit/post ratio is unacceptable by me.
Only ban 'shitposters' aka spammers even if they have a thousand merit.

[Oulay]

I just want you to understand that people are on this forum for different reasons and recommending a ban for low merit/post ratio is unacceptable by me.
Only ban 'shitposters' aka spammers even if they have a thousand merit.

I never said to ban users with a low merit/post ratio, what I said was:

should have their post history checked by the mods for a possible ban.

And btw no shitposter should ever get close to 100 merits not to say 1000, unless of course if he was abusing merits.

If we can see a huge amount of post in a short period of time report it directly to moderators,

Do you know what is the best way to report such a user?

[paxmao]

While I was in the frog pond I came across this guy: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1659648
He posted +600 posts yet failed to get any merits! He even  started a thread just to say this:

Today Bitcoin is at $11,000.

If you buy Bitcoin at $1,000 after the price falls, you get/save $10,000. That's profit.  

When Bitcoin goes $1,000 to $2,000, you get $1,000 profit.  

I reported the post and it has already been deleted...

So... My idea is that all members with a post count that is more than 100 times - or whatever the staff see fits - their earned merits should have their post history checked by the mods for a possible ban. I guess it could be implemented so those accounts automatically appear for the mods to check them.
Edit: Based on TheQuin suggestion, you can add time to the equation so that it only gives members with +X (eg. +100) posts in the last month.

Why wait for the shitposters to stop using the forums? Lets take action and start banning them!

Edit: Does anyone know how to report a spammer to the mods?

Not bad, but the merit system for the moment is not working at cruise speed. Particularly, I don´t need any equation to spot a shitposter, I just read the name of the user on the top left conner besides a shitpost.

[TheBeardedBaby]

Edit: Does anyone know how to report a spammer to the mods?

Yeah, you can both report a spam post and in the report you can mention that the user needs a review of his post history from the Mods
Or
Do like I did. I contacted mprep and he suggested that I can do a list with the spammers.
And this is what I did :
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2977866.msg30599391#msg30599391

[Oulay]

Edit: Does anyone know how to report a spammer to the mods?

Yeah, you can both report a spam post and in the report you can mention that the user needs a review of his post history from the Mods
Or
Do like I did. I contacted mprep and he suggested that I can do a list with the spammers.
And this is what I did :
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2977866.msg30599391#msg30599391

Nice work! This is actually the first and only user that I noticed, so I can't actually create a list. Maybe you can add this guy to your list if you think that he deserves a ban. Though I don't think that he broke any rules other than spamming one liners and shitty posts like the one quoted in the OP. Which got deleted so I don't think that you can add it as a proof, but I heard that some staff members can see deleted posts and thus they can confirm what I'm saying.

[TheBeardedBaby]

Edit: Does anyone know how to report a spammer to the mods?

Yeah, you can both report a spam post and in the report you can mention that the user needs a review of his post history from the Mods
Or
Do like I did. I contacted mprep and he suggested that I can do a list with the spammers.
And this is what I did :
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2977866.msg30599391#msg30599391

Nice work! This is actually the first and only user that I noticed, so I can't actually create a list. Maybe you can add this guy to your list if you think that he deserves a ban. Though I don't think that he broke any rules other than spamming one liners and shitty posts like the one quoted in the OP. Which got deleted so I don't think that you can add it as a proof, but I heard that some staff members can see deleted posts and thus they can confirm what I'm saying.

Will do, tomorrow:)
Edit: you can use my thread, just post a comment with the profile of any rule-breaker and I'll add it to the list.

Re-edit. I'm on my mobile last few days, I'll add him as soon as I get back to my PC.