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

[Emilyearl]

Hiding signature of members who have been unable to get any merit to their default merit points will be a good idea but yet again, that won't still too shitposting. And need I remind you that not everyone who hasn't got any extra merit that ain't making good posts. So the idea won't favour those who are trying to produce quality posts and yet to get any merit. I would suggest spammy accounts or shitposting accounts gets demoted in rank.

[1714908892]

1714908892

[Emilyearl]

I think, that I am not the only one:
I did not receive a single merit since this new system started.
Maybe its because I am not making friends here. Maybe I am posting in the wrong threads. Maybe my postings don't reach that high quality which is needed for earning merits ... I don't know. I don't take care about it. It doesn't matter. In the meantime, I have said goodbye to the idea of being able to ascend again at all.
Again: That doesn't matter.

But getting a spammer's stamp on my account ... nah ... that matters.

So please take care, that you don't hit the wrong members when you try to solve a big (yes! it is!) problem here.

Regards!
McW


edit:
You should take a look here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3121688.0

It is very hard to earn merits. And when you let them drop every months, you will leave a lot of frustrated members behind...

That's another area people like the op don't see. Most merits gotten here, come from friends sharing their merits within their cliques and when you don't have friends, you might last forever without a merit except a good Samaritan stops by your post and merits it. Aol I stand to disagree with the OPs suggestions of hiding signature.

[boy130]

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.

I believe that this system would lead to covert merit selling, and it would be very difficult to trade since they will only be distributing 1 merit at a time. I suspect that this would undermine the entire system.

[fxstrike]

If you don't have all the metrics and calculate all probable outcome, this is just like beating the bush, without concrete evidence, and simply just categorized everyone that received no merit for the last 6 weeks as spammer.

What about those high rank member who is exchanging Merit between them ? freely posting unnecessary comment and reply mostly just threatening, harassing, abusing low rank members, don't their post count as spam too, they have incentive to post unnecessary reply to build up their activity count and they wear campaign sig as well, they get away form being caught because they have friend Meriting their unnecessary replies

[BTCforJoe]

I really do like this idea. It doesn't need to be something strict, such as requiring 1 merit every week. But just have a default amount that's necessary to unlock signatures. Just 1 merit. No time limit; no restraints (EDIT: On second thought, maybe 1 Merit every 120 days). I think what a lot of the naysayers here neglect to realize is that in due time, sMerit decay should take effect, and default sMerit (from when the system was introduced) will run dry. When this happens, there won't be as much merit to easily toss around, as it currently is.

But if this was made a default option, then shitty campaign managers would then be forced into actually reviewing their applicants, rather than just accepting anyone and everyone. "Joe, but they would just merit the accounts they accept into the campaign!" Let's say their campaign is for 50 participants. They'll need 50 sMerits to give to the participants, which means they'll need to receive 100 Merits in order to do so. This is not an easy task in itself.

I think it's a simple solution, and once implemented, does not need much oversight to enforce it.

Maybe its because I am not making friends here. Maybe I am posting in the wrong threads. Maybe my postings don't reach that high quality which is needed for earning merits ... I don't know. I don't take care about it. It doesn't matter. In the meantime, I have said goodbye to the idea of being able to ascend again at all.

It's because most of your posts are in Altcoins and Altcoin Speculation. Those really aren't great places for your post to receive merit, and there are some pretty hefty megathreads where your post may be overlooked within a matter of a day or two. If you look in the Meta and Services boards, there are currently TONS of ways to get your meritorious posts recognized to earn a few merits here and there.

I think the forums have enough moderators. They only need to step up their game and be top notch getting defaulters to face the wrath of the forum. The existing laws need to start getting enforced.

I disagree. Yes, it's fine and dandy when you have a watchtower filled with members who patrol the forums and report posts to moderators... But try for yourself. Pick a board, any board. Add that entire board to your watchlist. And then try to go through each thread and each post and act like a moderator. Read each post and see if it meets the forum requirements and rules. I think you'd be surprised as to how many posts are actually made on a daily basis here. And then imagine the times when you're not able to be online; what do you think you'll come back to? A forum that took a break and paused all of its activity because you were not online?

This forum needs more moderators. The existing ones are doing a great job, but the forum has grown immensely since most of them have been hired, and there are more shitposters than ever.

[rlim475]

Having read through the thread there seem to be a few themes in the responses.

1. What about the fact that people can abuse this by giving merits to friends or alts or buying them.

- This is 100% true but it shouldn't be the basis for not implementing something. It's like saying 'we won't make drugs illegal because people can still get them from other sources'. There is no measure that will be perfect but if it stops some people and makes it harder for others then it's a winner.

2. What about the people that don't spam but haven't earned merit.

- These are the guys who'd lose out in this case, there are people who just don't post much or might have been inactive for a while, it's unfair that they lose out.

The biggest suggestion I have and I've said it before and seen it said before in this thread and elsewhere is to stop JR Member accounts. Right now there is no barrier to entry for these accounts, they just sign up, spam 30 posts and they're ready to earn. Remove signatures completely for JR Members and then that problem is gone.

After the problem of an ever increasing number of JR Members is stopped then it shouldn't be so hard for moderators to keep a handle on things and clean up the rest of the place. I always liked the idea of having some system that flagged accounts to moderators if they'd not received a merit within a certain number of posts for example. It wouldn't be an automatic ban or neg trust but would just bring their accounts to attention.

[squatter]

The irony of this thread? It looks like everyone in support of the OP is wearing a paid signature ad. Many of the people you will be penalizing are not. That should be the first sign that you're barking up the wrong tree.

Why should someone lose signature privileges because they don't post very often? Or because they're inactive for a while? Or because there's not enough merit to go around? Or because they're not in a social group that customarily merits each other (like Default Trust cliques, the Wall Observer regulars, etc)? How do you even know that merit distribution is adequate to begin penalizing those who don't earn it?

If some posters aren't receiving merit, it doesn't necessarily follow that post quality is the determining factor, either. I've seen no change since I said this one month ago:

The merit system is very simple:  Meritorious posts earn merit.

That may have been the stated intent. But is it generally true? Some meritorious posts earn merit. We can agree on that. Certainly, not all meritorious posts are even noticed, let alone merited. You have to wade through a lot of shitposting in e.g. Bitcoin Discussion to find quality posts, and regarding sMerit, I suspect that's not where peoples' energy is going.

It's natural for merit to be concentrated in Meta, too. "About the forum" sections tend to be the most community-oriented boards out there. And at its core, merit seems to function like a social media "like" button. I don't see how you can stop people from meriting posts they like or agree with, just as they do with "like" buttons. But something you find agreeable =/= quality or noteworthy or deserving of merit. Not by definition, and not by the stated intent of the system.

I'm not too concerned either way, but I think it's a tad dishonest for us to act like post quality is the only determining factor -- or even the most dominant factor -- in deciding merit. It's just not logical. There are social/psychological dynamics that are going unconsidered.

I've raised the matter in Meta a couple times, but no one responds. They just continue to cheerlead, "The merit system is working so great!" Well then, let's see some statistics, please. And a handful of anecdotal data points about "exceptional posters" isn't nearly enough (IMO) to start actively penalizing most forum members. My sense is that there's too much passing around of merit within social circles and not enough given for thoughtful posts.

And you can be damn sure that no matter how meritorious a post is, you will not receive merit if your opinions are not agreeable. Nobody hits the "like" button when Debbie Downer is bringing everyone down. But this is a fucking forum. How popular you are (or the extent you're willing parrot popular opinions) shouldn't decide whether you can display a signature. It's fundamentally problematic to penalize people on such an uneven, subjective basis. That's the opposite of what a forum should be.

Do you want people to freely exchange ideas? Or do you want to create incentives so they post when they don't want to, and express ideas they don't agree with, just to make sure they crank out enough merit?

Merit can (and is being) gamed, and winners and losers will be created -- and not clearly as a matter of post quality. That's okay if the result is an unevenly distributed impediment on the ability to rank up. Big deal, right? But I don't think it's okay if we're talking about stripping basic forum functionality from most users. Fuck that.

I do understand your point. I did try and make the requirement as minimal as possible for this reason. One Merit in the last two months doesn't really require being that active. Also, it is only tempory as the signature is only hidden until they do get a merit point.

What's your basis for saying that? Your anecdotal experience in the context of the initial sMerit distribution? There are millions of forum members.

Something like users must earn 5 merits a months for their account to display a signature

I really hope theymos doesn't stand for this kind of bullshit.

I suggest prohibiting signature campaigns entirely as an alternative.

[tranquynhtien]

--- snip ---
I suggest prohibiting signature campaigns entirely as an alternative.

I don't think so. Theymos stated that he don't want to destroy the marketing industry in the forum (signature campaigns, in particular); but he will probably think about this 'last' (might be last) solution if the merit system failed to control / eliminate spammers out of the forum. I strongly believe that Theymos will not launch new rules which prohibit signature campaigns, because as you can see merit system has shown strong positive impacts on the forum users (on different ranks of users, from lower-ranked to higher-ranked users).

[Lovecove]

I do think that the scam/spam accounts who got ported over from the old system are now slowly losing sMerit, but it would take at least 2 or 3 months before they're completely gone. We're talking about people with 500 or 600 merits... that means they can send 300 merits = 30 member accounts.

And for signature campaigns, Member accounts is all you need to get in.

The merit system is still young, barely 2 months old. I would give it a month more for the landscape to develop.

But after reading through some of hte ideas on this thread, I would propose the following:

1. A DT Merit attribute. Just like DT1 and DT2 people, we should have a DM1 and DM2 system for merits. I've stated it before -- the merit system is evolving into a quasi-trust system where people don't give merit on mere post quality, but on Trust as well. That said, we can cut the number of false sMerits being thrown around by simply diminishing the weight of each sMerit given by spam accounts.

For example, if an account doesn't get a merit within X number of days, then he's no longer DM1 or DM2. The sMerits he gives out during this period are equivalent to 0.5 merits. E.g.: non-DM1/2 account sends 2 sMerits to Z, Z only gets 1 Merit.

But if an account receives a merit within X number of days, he's either in DM1 or DM2. Then his merit weight is normal: If he sends 2 sMerits to Z, Z gets 2 Merits.

I believe this is a fair system that doesn't delve into demeriting or merit decay. But it does help "drain the swamp of sMerits." With this in play, spammers are forced to send 1 merit to an account before that account can send merits to another account... And this kind of activity is easily detected by the mods because you'll see one inactive account with lots of sMerits suddenly gain 1 Merit out of the blue, and like a couple of hours or minutes later, that account will suddenly send out a bunch of merits to another account.

2. Signature Hiding. We can also implement hiding signatures for ACCOUNTS BELOW A CERTAIN RANK. I'm not sure off-hand what the number of spam accounts have reached Hero / Legendary level, but I'd say anyone below Full Member should get a timer. This seems rather fair, yes?

If a Jr. Member or a Member doesn't get a merit within 30 days then their signatures get hidden. It's a little Nazi, but i'm sure that will do the job quite nicely.

[mattcode]

This forum needs more moderators. The existing ones are doing a great job, but the forum has grown immensely since most of them have been hired, and there are more shitposters than ever.

I'm not sure, I've reported a few posts and they end up getting deleted pretty quickly.

The irony of this thread? It looks like everyone in support of the OP is wearing a paid signature ad. Many of the people you will be penalizing are not. That should be the first sign that you're barking up the wrong tree.

Why should someone lose signature privileges because they don't post very often? Or because they're inactive for a while? Or because there's not enough merit to go around? Or because they're not in a social group that customarily merits each other (like Default Trust cliques, the Wall Observer regulars, etc)? How do you even know that merit distribution is adequate to begin penalizing those who don't earn it?

If some posters aren't receiving merit, it doesn't necessarily follow that post quality is the determining factor, either. I've seen no change since I said this one month ago:

Something like users must earn 5 merits a months for their account to display a signature

I really hope theymos doesn't stand for this kind of bullshit.

I suggest prohibiting signature campaigns entirely as an alternative.

That definitely would work but it would be the nuclear option. I think that as soon as you're paid to post it would become very difficult to not drop your post quality. Maybe if people were limited to something like 5 paid posts per month it would improve things.

[TheQuin]

Hah!  Easy for you to say...  What about cute trolls like me that people seldom give merits to?  I sure am a narcissistic assh*le in the forum at times, but I'm far from being a spammer.

And I'm not here to please anybody for merits.  F*ck that.

One way to make this forum better is to be extra stict for a year or so...

Hey tokeweed, that name I haven't seen around for a long time, you just reminded me of the Cloudhashing thread. I'm sure you don't want to please anybody for merits but I see you got a few anyway.

Sure being strict and banning all the shitposters would be better but there's no sign of that happening. I've reported copy pasters that don't get banned, I've posted in the Known Alts thread about farmers and the Merit abuse thread about that. It's very rare that someone gets tagged. So I went off to come up with a way of automating it.

It's certainly not meant to punish anyone like you or anyone that just doesn't post very often as @squatter and @SaltySpitoon pointed out. I'm sure it would be easier for the moderators to whitelist the few people affected by seeing they obviously are not shitposters than trying to ban the thousands that are.

[livingancient]

I can say the idea is brilliant and I think it will become effective. My only comment is this will become unfair if the number of merit sources is not enough. So if this will be implemented in the future I think Theymos should make sure that the number of merit sources is enough.

[digaran]

We should find them and have a review of their posts and merit them if they have merit worthy posts. not everybody here has a few merit source friends to notice their contribution.

[allahabadi]

This

We should find them and have a review of their posts and merit them if they have merit worthy posts. not everybody here has a few merit source friends to notice their contribution.

This

Why should someone lose signature privileges because they don't post very often? Or because they're inactive for a while? Or because there's not enough merit to go around? Or because they're not in a social group that customarily merits each other (like Default Trust cliques, the Wall Observer regulars, etc)? How do you even know that merit distribution is adequate to begin penalizing those who don't earn it?
-snip-
And you can be damn sure that no matter how meritorious a post is, you will not receive merit if your opinions are not agreeable. Nobody hits the "like" button when Debbie Downer is bringing everyone down. But this is a fucking forum. How popular you are (or the extent you're willing parrot popular opinions) shouldn't decide whether you can display a signature. It's fundamentally problematic to penalize people on such an uneven, subjective basis. That's the opposite of what a forum should be.

And This

I think, that I am not the only one:
I did not receive a single merit since this new system started.
Maybe its because I am not making friends here. Maybe I am posting in the wrong threads. Maybe my postings don't reach that high quality which is needed for earning merits ... I don't know. I don't take care about it. It doesn't matter. In the meantime, I have said goodbye to the idea of being able to ascend again at all.
Again: That doesn't matter.

But getting a spammer's stamp on my account ... nah ... that matters.

So please take care, that you don't hit the wrong members when you try to solve a big (yes! it is!) problem here.

Regards!
McW


edit:
You should take a look here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3121688.0

It is very hard to earn merits. And when you let them drop every months, you will leave a lot of frustrated members behind...

Possibly I've been wrong, but most merits are distributed among coteries and groups. The posts that tend to belittle others and point fingers are the ones that have been receiving merits as well. Posts like ICO ANN and Bounties ANN by Bounty managers are receiving merits( WHY ).

I've rarely tried to please people and have also tried to increase the quality of my posts in the past months, but I've rarely received merits from unknown sources, just people that know or those I have merited (dunno if it was a gesture or anything but I never asked them for it).  

A lot of people have been harping on the Sig campaigns thing. Here are a couple of things:

Q1. Why do companies have Sign Campaigns?

A. To
    (a.) To grab eyeballs so that people know about them and invest or use those services.
    (b.) To pay posters who make good posts on BCT.

I think it's the (a.). (Correct me if I'm wrong or have a wrong notion anywhere in this post.)

Q2. Do people make decisions to invest in ICO or use a service based on the Sign Holders?
A. I've seen people wear the Signature of a Mixer, I have looked into the service and it looks AWESOME. I wouldn't care if a racist half-wit is wearing that signature and spamming endlessly (actually someone racist is wearing it), I have and will use the service.

I've also seen many good posters wear the sign of a Mining company and I have looked into it again, will I invest, HELL NO!

Q3. What's the use of merits and such regulations then?
A. I hate to say it, but the winners are ICO Bounties that need to pay less (Sorry Satoshi, but Centralized Institutions are winning), because people won't rank up. I think the only useful system is the TRUST, that too when u are trading and not proselytizing your political opinions. As for rest, all Ranks and Merits should be abolished and each Bounty Manager shud be made to count posts and assess the quality and pay for them. ICOs are happy to have 100 Jr. Members Shit-Post and say Good Project while grabbing attention to their projects, because that also is a form of marketing. Why do the PAUL BROTHERS and their gangs have Millions of views when all they make is SHIT, because even cringe is appealing and makes for good marketing.

Q4. What's my proposed solution?
A. Read the BOLD part up.
EDIT : Initiatives such as SMAS list by Lauda is a good reference point and I applaud them, although I'm on the list (Rightly so!) and believe that it has little utility in terms of marketing. (Again grabbing eye-balls is more important !)


My 2cents : All of us can agree that Sign campaigns pay well, but do they pay to make good posts or to grab eyeballs. If it was to make good posts, add that in Article Bounties. I hope someone points out valid loopholes and assumptions that I made.

Thanks.


P.S. Can some marketing veteran point it out that my logic has fallacies, but remember that most investors in ICOs are extremely clueless and not a reformed crowd that they would care for quality of adverts or advertisers. We also have instances in the past to prove it. MIOTA raised a small seed on forum and was being called a SCAM all the time. The marketing was shit, but most of us can agree that the project is doing good today.

[Jet Cash]

@McWorse

I gave you a merit for making what I thought was a rational reasoned post. I think your problem could be that you spend too much time on the Alt Boards, and some of us think that the Alt Boards attract the spam posters who are the cancer affecting the forum. There are a lot of great boards here, and a whole new life outside the Alt-World.

[Naitik]

yes you are right. it is very hard to get merit in the post.
It takes lots of time for myself to get 10 merits.
I know how much i have to work to get the merit.
but this thing give me lots of knowledge about crypto.
Thanks to the forum. I am very happy where i am right now.

[McWorse]

@McWorse

I gave you a merit for making what I thought was a rational reasoned post. I think your problem could be that you spend too much time on the Alt Boards, and some of us think that the Alt Boards attract the spam posters who are the cancer affecting the forum. There are a lot of great boards here, and a whole new life outside the Alt-World.

Thank you very much Jet Cash!
The thing is, that I place my main focus on Alts. Alts are the reason, why I am here. I am interested in new and (hopefully) good projects and this is the best platform to get informations. Nowhere else in the www does so many knowledge come together as here. So when you look into the altcoin sections, you have to make some differences in your view, because the cancer is not the Alts. The problem is the lack of moderation. But ask me, how you can moderate something like this... I have no answer. Except you have a full army of mods. People are spamming with multiple accounts, destroying many serious threads. They think, if they spread FUD, they can manipulate the prices. They think, they can do what they want. I don't know, how we can call this kind of users to order. Every idea I have may hit the wrong people:

- implement a strong post limit for newbies and junior members (one, maybe two posts per day), no post during the first 120 hours after registration, exept in a section for important questions.
- create sections where it is impossible to post for newbies & junior members, but where they can read. Once they are a member, they can write one post per day in this sections. After some merit they can post more.

The hurdles have to be high for new members, but they should always have the possibility to make themself heard. But the admittance to the main sections should be restricted. Until they have proven that they deserve access. Once they have access ... maybe they are proud. They consider their accounts valuable, protect their status and don't throw it away so quickly.
?

Now, one could object: What about the sig-campaigns with 10 to 20 requested posts? Isn't it mean, that newer members can't take part? I think no. The system of the sig-campaigns will adapt. Has to adapt. This is first and foremost a platform on which you can exchange information. And somewhere after that, it's about making money. Right now, it's the other way around. And that rotten tooth needs pulling.

Regards!
McW

[digaran]

How could you even bother talking about receiving merits? you are a shill for crapcoins, you think that XRP is better than Bitcoin and it should replace it in market. if you are blind to the truth, how could you contribute something worth a merit?

[McWorse]

It is the wrong place to discuss this. Specially, when facts hitting religion. Because from a technical point of view: XRP is better than BTC. Anyone who denies this isn't worth discussing with. I never said, that XRP should replace BTC. I never said, that I like the system behind XRP. I never said, that I like the global financial system. Quite the opposite! But I can differentiate. Sadly, most of us here can't. You seem like a good example for that...

[LKingLion]

In my opinion this will harden the hearts of under not merited.

This will knock out everyone who aren't merited yet. Take note op that it will be more complicated. More postings will come in every sides steps of this forum then more earn shitpostings posted garbages maybe including me, hope not so.