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

[ChainWorld]

Am new to this forum and read why merit system was introduced,basically its cuz of decrease spamming
And to force members to post quality posts in order to get higher rank.
But whole point was people still do shit post and account farming only reason was BOUNTY'S.
It can be stop if bounty manager's have a strict rule for signature campaign
Like minimum ___  word of post only get counted or something like if your post get a merit
Then you get ___ number of stake extra etc...

[InvoKing]

Am new to this forum and read why merit system was introduced,basically its cuz of decrease spamming
And to force members to post quality posts in order to get higher rank.
But whole point was people still do shit post and account farming only reason was BOUNTY'S.
It can be stop if bounty manager's have a strict rule for signature campaign
Like minimum ___  word of post only get counted or something like if your post get a merit
Then you get ___ number of stake extra etc...

It is ineffective.
Almost all of them afaik have minimum words and it didn't reduce the spam. You can make min 500 words limit, they will write redundant content/ideas until they hit that limit.
Giving them a way to increase their reward by owning merit is simply inciting them to trade merit between them/their (alt)accounts.

[Jet Cash]

Minimum word count is a bad move. Brevity, as long as it makes the point, should be rewarded instead.

I wonder if the bounty managers realise that a long formatted post takes their sig off the page, and thus it isn't dispayed. It is then skipped over when the reader moves down the thread.

[virendarnagpal]

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.

I agree Joel_Jantsen; Earning merit is not guaranteed parameter of standard quality post and non earning of even one merit point by the poster does not mean that he is just a shitposter.  
People are very clever; no one can stop them in barter trade; i.e. sending merit to the person and in exchange getting merit from the receiver.  Also selling and buying is not so  difficult as we have been getting news from different members about the issue.  
Though it is also true that members are stuck at 10 100 250 500 etc etc also they got these merit points just because of their long back presence at this platform.

[McWorse]

Why asking, what the forum has to do?
We should better aks, what the offerer of the sig-campaigns should do.

Sometimes I'm browsing the bounty threads. And most sig-campaigns have the requirement to write at least 20 (sometimes 30) quality posts per week. That means  around 3 (to 4) quality posts per day. I avoid such campaigns, because to write 3 to 4 really good posts I need up to two hours. 14 hours a week for mostly some pennies. But many users don't care. They are taking part and: spam.

Instead of punishing users now, those responsibles for the sig-campaigns should be punished. Maybe their ANNs deleted or other hurtful things. They are responsible for the abuse of this platform, so they are in dept to deliver and not this platform.

?

Maybe they should be forced to reduce the reqirements. 5 post max per week. And if a member is blatant spamming, they should kick this member immediately. If not, the ANNs will be deleted.

[allahabadi]

Why asking, what the forum has to do?
We should better aks, what the offerer of the sig-campaigns should do.

Sometimes I'm browsing the bounty threads. And most sig-campaigns have the requirement to write at least 20 (sometimes 30) quality posts per week. That means  around 3 (to 4) quality posts per day. I avoid such campaigns, because to write 3 to 4 really good posts I need up to two hours. 14 hours a week for mostly some pennies. But many users don't care. They are taking part and: spam.

Instead of punishing users now, those responsibles for the sig-campaigns should be punished. Maybe their ANNs deleted or other hurtful things. They are responsible for the abuse of this platform, so they are in dept to deliver and not this platform.

?

Maybe they should be forced to reduce the reqirements. 5 post max per week. And if a member is blatant spamming, they should kick this member immediately. If not, the ANNs will be deleted.

I too had this thought and have encountered it in other threads. The fact that some Sign campaigns have uneven expectations and want to enforce them, has been the undoing of this forum too. Too many posts, simply to reach the post count has a detrimental effect.

Quantity compromises Quality.

[ivrytwr3]

Block access to certain levels of the site until certain post counts have been reached?  You don't know what you are missing then

[charlie137]

That merit thing is becoming a communistic idea. For Newbies like me, merit will be mandatory for progressing, and I understand this. But harassing everyone to earn merit constantly is a bit too much, really. Now it aims to impose more and more restrictions. This forum should be a place of freedom, but it is getting restricted more and more, sadly.

it will take some time to understand that the freedom you mentioning is abused by majority. and the merit system is a try to fix the outcome of this freedom lol

[TheQuin]

That merit thing is becoming a communistic idea. For Newbies like me, merit will be mandatory for progressing, and I understand this. But harassing everyone to earn merit constantly is a bit too much, really. Now it aims to impose more and more restrictions. This forum should be a place of freedom, but it is getting restricted more and more, sadly.

it will take some time to understand that the freedom you mentioning is abused my majority. and the merit system is a try to fix the outcome of this freedom lol

It will also take a little time to understand that being given the privilege of being allocated some advertising space underneath your posts is an extremely generous action by the site owners. Did you think about how much Twitter and Facebook earn from placing adverts next to what you write?

Asking people to do something as trivial as posting something that gets given a merit every couple of months to earn that privilege is not harassing or imposing restrictions on anyone. WTF is this talk of freedom? You are free to use the forum without a signature.

[gawer33]

it's not the farmers will get affected by this but the ones who got a single account. farmers got a lot of accounts, experience, and friends they can give/ask merits from another account. the one will be affected by this are the solo poster, single who had no friend on bitcointalk, the ones whos inactive and post very less will be affected also. to be honest I hate this idea.

[charlie137]

it's not the farmers will get affected by this but the ones who got a single account. farmers got a lot of accounts, experience, and friends they can give/ask merits from another account. the one will be affected by this are the solo poster, single who had no friend on bitcointalk, the ones whos inactive and post very less will be affected also. to be honest I hate this idea.

i guess one post could get you a lot of merit that would be enough for months. but with current amount of merit sources it feels completely impossible to get any merit if you not 5star well-known user. hope this will change soon, a lot of good material is being ignored

[Wind_FURY]

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.

This will play to the advantage of the spammers. All they have to do is pass merits around with each other, while the real accounts have no one to pass merits to them unless some other real account decides to.

[TheQuin]

This will play to the advantage of the spammers. All they have to do is pass merits around with each other, while the real accounts have no one to pass merits to them unless some other real account decides to.

I think I'm going to need to add a FAQ section to the OP.

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.

[Wind_FURY]

This will play to the advantage of the spammers. All they have to do is pass merits around with each other, while the real accounts have no one to pass merits to them unless some other real account decides to.

I think I'm going to need to add a FAQ section to the OP.

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.

That still does not make it a good suggestion in my opinion.

I believe the quicker way is to not allow newbies and Jr. members to create new threads, except in beginners and help, then clean up the rest of the forum from spambait topics and spam mega threads.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

OP, your idea isn't horrible, but I do think we're way too early in the game to depend on lack of merits being responsible for someone getting censored or anything like that. You know I'd be all in favor for a goal like you mentioned, but I think this proposal has too many potential pitfalls to work--yet.  Maybe in a year or so if we still have jr members with 600 activity and 23 merit...those folks might deserve to be stealth banned or some such thing. 

Remember, it is in fact pretty hard to get merit points for the vast majority here.  It's really going to take some time for them to rank up--especially if their English sucks and they don't avail themselves of the local boards.

[TheQuin]

I believe the quicker way is to not allow newbies and Jr. members to create new threads, except in beginners and help, then clean up the rest of the forum from spambait topics and spam mega threads.

I'd support bringing back Newbie Jail and hiring a load more moderators as well. But that doesn't address the same problem that I was trying to. It's the thousands of higher ranked accounts making pointless repetitive posts that are above the threshold to get deleted by the mods but are only made for signature payment.

OP, your idea isn't horrible, but I do think we're way too early in the game to depend on lack of merits being responsible for someone getting censored or anything like that. You know I'd be all in favor for a goal like you mentioned, but I think this proposal has too many potential pitfalls to work--yet.  Maybe in a year or so if we still have jr members with 600 activity and 23 merit...those folks might deserve to be stealth banned or some such thing. 

Remember, it is in fact pretty hard to get merit points for the vast majority here.  It's really going to take some time for them to rank up--especially if their English sucks and they don't avail themselves of the local boards.

You might be right about it being too early and there not being enough Merit flowing through the system yet. Remember this isn't about censoring or punishing anyone. I just want to turn having a signature into something that has to be continually earned rather than a default right. That's effectively what Merit has done for new accounts but what about the many thousands of shitposters that are already here?

[bakasabo]

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.

Hello TheQuin,

By doing it you want to hide signatures from Jr.Members also? It's harder for them to get at least 1 merit point, then why would be so cruel for them? Using your suggestion Jr.Members will never get any higher rank, since I have noticed, that people rarely grant merit for Junior, and rather give merit to Hero or higher rank (even just for a huge post, but with few useful words).

I would suggest to make "Anti-Merit" button.

For example if you see some high ranking member is posting some crap, then few (for example 5 members) can start a vote to remove 1 Merit from him.

If they win this vote - crap poster got merit reduction.
If they lose, they (for example) lose their 1 merit point.

This will protect merit owners from being zerged members, willing to cut their merit points.

Of course I understand that my suggested Anti-Merit button should be discuses so that there will be no system abusers in future.

[TheQuin]

Hello TheQuin,

By doing it you want to hide signatures from Jr.Members also? It's harder for them to get at least 1 merit point,

I'd suggest that is ridiculous. People give Merit to the post not the signature underneath it.

I would suggest to make "Anti-Merit" button.

This has been suggested countless times since the introduction of merit and I think it would simply be used as an "I disagree" button or for personal vendettas. I just can't see it working.

[Bardman]

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.

Hello TheQuin,

By doing it you want to hide signatures from Jr.Members also? It's harder for them to get at least 1 merit point, then why would be so cruel for them? Using your suggestion Jr.Members will never get any higher rank, since I have noticed, that people rarely grant merit for Junior, and rather give merit to Hero or higher rank (even just for a huge post, but with few useful words).

I would suggest to make "Anti-Merit" button.

For example if you see some high ranking member is posting some crap, then few (for example 5 members) can start a vote to remove 1 Merit from him.

If they win this vote - crap poster got merit reduction.
If they lose, they (for example) lose their 1 merit point.

This will protect merit owners from being zerged members, willing to cut their merit points.

Of course I understand that my suggested Anti-Merit button should be discuses so that there will be no system abusers in future.

No no, just stop guys, you are trying to make it too complicated. This is a forum after all, we can't keep implementing new systems all the time to stop shitposters, every forum has them, sure there is an incentive to post crap in this one but still. The merit system as is, it's perfect, eventually people that cheat will run out of merits and usually get busted and the high rank spammers usually get busted as well, they either get banned or red tagged by someone like vod or other people that usually tags shit posters. It just needs time, in a year from now, I can assure you there will be significantly less spammers.

[bakasabo]

...I can assure you there will be significantly less spammers.

Btw I think it will be more, not less spammers. Previously, acc traders make few accounts and pump to highest rank. Now I see they are making tons of newbie and jr.members accounts and selling then. I even saw someone selling newbie accounts for 5$. Ridiculous.

My "voting" method will cut all merits from high rank accounts sellers, that now sell merit...

Hello TheQuin,

By doing it you want to hide signatures from Jr.Members also? It's harder for them to get at least 1 merit point,

I'd suggest that is ridiculous. People give Merit to the post not the signature underneath it.

Ok, there is true in your words, but who will give merit for a post from newbie?
In my experiance, more often merit receive users with beautiful signature and avatars, than a person with only nickname and number of activity and merit number..