Suggestion: Merit Phase 2 - Drain the Swamp (@theymos)

[TheQuin]

The Merit system has been with us for six weeks now and is clearly having some success in reducing the spam. It is now very hard, if not impossible, for account farmers to provide a constant supply of high ranked accounts. This, of course, is good news for any of us who have become tired of finding any interesting content quickly buried under a pile of shitposts.

What this hasn't addressed is the large number of accounts already in the hands of shitposters. Let's be honest about what rank is all about - signatures and the ability to gain income from them. The ability of someone who is already in possession of, for example, a Hero account (or 10) to continue to get paid for every shitpost they tack on the end of a spam megathread has not diminished or been restrained by the Merit system.

Some campaign managers have taken the initiative to make minimum Merit requirements compulsory to join their campaigns but those managers were already the ones with high standards. They were not the problem, it has always been the managers that just blindly accept the first x hundred people to apply and pay them regardless of the spam they produce.

I have noticed that these spammers are very easy to spot now, they are the ones stuck on 100, 250, 500 or whatever merit number they were initially given. They haven't managed to gain one single Merit point in the last 6 weeks.

So to my suggestion:

Amend the forum to hide signatures of any account that hasn't earned at least 1 Merit in the last 2 months.

This will bar them from getting paid to post and not have any negative impact on anyone making even the tiniest contribution to the forum. Nobody loses their rank and even if someone is away from the forum for a while they can quickly get their signature back.

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[tranthidung]

I agree with you. Accounts which won't get any merit (or specific number of merits depends on each rank because higher ranks should have more knowledge, more skills, more experience, so they will probably have more chances to earn merits) over a specific period (might be one, two or three months) should be disabled ability to wear signature.

Prerequisites related to merit points to join campaigns, bounties depends on those campaigns managers, not forum admin. So this suggestion is not appropriate.

Thanks for all of your recommendations, TheQuin.

[TheQuin]

Prerequisites related to merit points to join campaigns, bounties depends on those campaigns managers, not forum admin. So this suggestion is not appropriate.

That's the idea. It doesn't stop anyone joining a Twitter bounty or whatever but there would be no point paying anyone to post on the forum if their signature was hidden.

Not bad idea, but i think it's too complicated. Disable signature or limit signature usage (far less character, no background/color) is more effective.

How is it complicated? I suggested disable (hide) the signature rather than limit it as many of the bounty sig campaigns have decided to continue to recruit Jr. Members and just put a text URL in it.

[Cobalt9317]

Yes it could be implemented I remember back then that I wasn't able to wear a signature for at least a weeks.
If those persons haven't receive a single merit there's a possibility that those individual is only posting without even reading the thread or the topic of discussion.

So it would mean that those person is only using the forum for their own interest.

[Jet Cash]

It sounds like a good idea on the face of it, but I suspect that the bad managers will arrange for their posters to receive merit to bypass the restriction.

[TheQuin]

It sounds like a good idea on the face of it, but I suspect that the bad managers will arrange for their posters to receive merit to bypass the restriction.

I did think of that. Unfortunately, any system devised by man there will be another man trying to game it. The problem they will face is that they will quickly run out of sMerit to abuse, that was why I suggested an ongoing requirement. Like the Merit system itself, it will take time for it to show its full effect.

[mattcode]

There is currently no such thing as a "demerit". I'm hoping that the positive merits alone will be fine. I could add demerits pretty easily later on if necessary, though.

Maybe it's time for demerits to be implemented. I think that if a demerit subtracted merit from the sender too, or cost twice as much sMerit it would minimize abuse.

[TheQuin]

There is currently no such thing as a "demerit". I'm hoping that the positive merits alone will be fine. I could add demerits pretty easily later on if necessary, though.

Maybe it's time for demerits to be implemented. I think that if a demerit subtracted merit from the sender too, or cost twice as much sMerit it would minimize abuse.

I think that is a terrible idea as it will just be used to demerit posts that people disagree with and as part of personal vendettas. I suggested an alternative that I don't think has these disadvantages. Do you have any comment on it?

[yahoo62278]

Eventually the account farmers will run out of merits to tip themselves. Hilariousandco has nailed a few accounts already for merit abuse, as has Lauda I believe. This is when we can successfully implement rules for campaigns(or theymos cam implement them).

Something like users must earn 5 merits a months for their account to display a signature if being done by theymos or managers can make a user earn 1 merit per week to stay in a campaign.

The problem is still gonna be the same managers whom accept anyone and everyone. If all aren't on board it will fail. Kinda why I feel theymos should implement the restrictions.

[mocacinno]

I like the basis of the idear, however i do think there are a couple high-ranking members that post only very seldomly... If they have only made 1 or 2 posts since the merit system was introduced, they risk losing their sigspace if this system were to be automated. Granted, those members aren't in a sigcampaign to begin with, but they do use their sigspace to promote threads, promote their own businesses, insert funny quotes, show the address of their tipjar,...

I guess it might be better if mods had the power to disable signatures for everybody who received less than 1 merit in the last month... That way the mod could use his own judgement wether or not the person in question is a spammer, or just a very low volume poster that just didn't receive any merits because of their low post frequency.

Just my personal opinion tough...

[tranthidung]

Something like users must earn 5 merits a months for their account to display a signature if being done by theymos or managers can make a user earn 1 merit per week to stay in a campaign.

This idea is good, and suitable to apply for next campaigns with new rules from forum admin. I am waiting for this one. It will be better to restrict campaigns like this because it will help to eliminate accounts which have already stayed at higher ranks before the launch of merit system. Those ones should be prevent to join campaigns somehow, and your suggestion might be one of appropriate solution to control spamming-higher-rank users.

[Joel_Jantsen]

Something like users must earn 5 merits a months for their account to display a signature if being done by theymos or managers can make a user earn 1 merit per week to stay in a campaign.

I strongly disagree with this.Even though the merit system is doing well,I don't think every quality poster is awarded merits.My point being,a participant could be a great quality poster but due to whatever reasons his unmerited posts shouldn't stop him from participating in campaigns.

This also means anybody who has earned 1 merit in a week but is a spammer to the core will also be eligible to display the signature.I can show you 10 shit one liner posts which have been credited with 10+ merits.

[mattcode]

There is currently no such thing as a "demerit". I'm hoping that the positive merits alone will be fine. I could add demerits pretty easily later on if necessary, though.

Maybe it's time for demerits to be implemented. I think that if a demerit subtracted merit from the sender too, or cost twice as much sMerit it would minimize abuse.

I think that is a terrible idea as it will just be used to demerit posts that people disagree with and as part of personal vendettas. I suggested an alternative that I don't think has these disadvantages. Do you have any comment on it?

I don't think that it would solve the problem. The spammers would just send themselves (or buy) one merit point every two months.

Maybe if somebody received a large amount of demerits they could have their signature rights revoked, or maybe an increased cooldown between posts.

[TheQuin]

Eventually the account farmers will run out of merits to tip themselves. Hilariousandco has nailed a few accounts already for merit abuse, as has Lauda I believe. This is when we can successfully implement rules for campaigns(or theymos cam implement them).

Something like users must earn 5 merits a months for their account to display a signature if being done by theymos or managers can make a user earn 1 merit per week to stay in a campaign.

The problem is still gonna be the same managers whom accept anyone and everyone. If all aren't on board it will fail. Kinda why I feel theymos should implement the restrictions.

Making rules for campaigns to follow means that someone has to police them so my suggestion pretty much amounts to the same thing but automated.

As to the numbers, I suggested 1 Merit / 2 months, but really if it's 5 Merit / Month or whatever, that's just detail that needs to be finessed.

I like the basis of the idear, however i do think there are a couple high-ranking members that post only very seldomly... If they have only made 1 or 2 posts since the merit system was introduced, they risk losing their sigspace if this system were to be automated. Granted, those members aren't in a sigcampaign to begin with, but they do use their sigspace to promote threads, promote their own businesses, insert funny quotes, show the address of their tipjar,...

I guess it might be better if mods had the power to disable signatures for everybody who received less than 1 merit in the last month... That way the mod could use his own judgement wether or not the person in question is a spammer, or just a very low volume poster that just didn't receive any merits because of their low post frequency.

Just my personal opinion tough...

There is inevitably a little collateral damage as you suggest. My thinking is that a signature is a reward for providing content for the forum, so if you no longer provide content why should you continue to be rewarded in perpetuity?

I don't think that it would solve the problem. The spammers would just send themselves (or buy) one merit point every two months.

Maybe if somebody received a large amount of demerits they could have their signature rights revoked, or maybe an increased cooldown between posts.

They'll soon run out of sMerit. Demerit is open to hundreds of times the level of abuse.

[fxbit]

I think disable sig for all is much easier and fair solution, changing this and that probably can introduce bugs into the system and probably can lead to unknown catastrophic vulnerability. This is not a place to make money and everyone should go by the same rule.

[TheQuin]

I think disable sig for all is much easier and fair solution,

It is definitely easier but alas less fair. The forum allows its members to directly benefit from providing content by allowing them advertising space in return. You are suggesting that everyone should be punished because of the actions of some.

changing this and that probably can introduce bugs into the system and probably can lead to unknown catastrophic vulnerability.

You should put that crack pipe down.

[LogitechMouse]

So to my suggestion:

Amend the forum to hide signatures of any account that hasn't earned at least 1 Merit in the last 2 months.

This will bar them from getting paid to post and not have any negative impact on anyone making even the tiniest contribution to the forum. Nobody loses their rank and even if someone is away from the forum for a while they can quickly get their signature back.

I like your idea of hiding the signatures of the signature campaign participants. This will force them to make a high quality posts in order for the signatures to be seen. Although I see that mostly will abuse it by just giving their alt one merit and they will be paid but it can be solved because you can track the merits of a certain user.

There is currently no such thing as a "demerit". I'm hoping that the positive merits alone will be fine. I could add demerits pretty easily later on if necessary, though.

Maybe it's time for demerits to be implemented. I think that if a demerit subtracted merit from the sender too, or cost twice as much sMerit it would minimize abuse.

To be honest, I don't like the word demerit. Demerit if added in this forum will be abuse by many users. Lets say, I am angry with user X and lets say I will demerit him 5 times or 10 times not because he is a shitposter but because I am angry with him. This can happen with anybody that is why I don't like demerit in the forum. Just merit 

In my opinion, maybe all of the bounty campaigns must have a minimum merit requirement and all of the campaign manager must put a minimum merit of maybe 3-5 to Jr member, 15-20 to Member, 105-110 to Full member and so on and so forth. In this way, it will be harder for shitposters to join in the signature campaign because they don't have enough merits to join.

[elda34b]

-snip-
Although I see that mostly will abuse it by just giving their alt one merit and they will be paid but it can be solved because you can track the merits of a certain user.

We should note that it might cause a dispute whether giving +1 merit for 'this' or 'that' post is abusive or not.
But this is not a big problem as we can discuss it openly.

Giving money to those shitposters is much more problematic.

[SaltySpitoon]

There are a lot of cases where innocent people would be penalized under the proposed system. People who don't post that often, those who go on a break from the forum, people who post in sections where merit sources are still thin, etc would all have a much higher risk of unfairly having their signatures removed. The last thing I'd like to see is decent occasional posters begging for merit or posting when they don't want to just so they can keep their signature.

I think the better option is to just let the account farmers continue to get frustrated, and the moderators will find them eventually.

[athanz88]

Is there any chance for all managers to gather and discuss a standard of merit requirement for the campaign they handle? In my opinion this is an interesting to do because managers can be served as spammer controller and this would be a great addition to the SMAS.