Alt ideas other than merit system

[stein888]

I see a lot of people who complaining  about merit system because many quality posters didn't get any merits, which is true.So if someone will give you a chance to express your thoughts and suggest any alternative solutions other than merits which can help to improve this forum and stop those spammers and account farming by posting quality posts  what ideas can you possibly suggest? If you are complaining, you must have any better ideas to contribute to this forum.

[hilariousandco]

Ban signatures. Problem solved.

[TMAN]

Ban signatures. Problem solved.

^^ the man has it right^^^

Even though I wear a Sig now I didn't for years, no odds to me if they go and I am sure it would better the community, Although I can understand Theymos's reluctance as selling a forum with Xmillion users is more value than 100K users..

[Cobalt9317]

Ban signatures. Problem solved.

+1 merit I don't have one and I personally think that will do for now.

Although I'm a signature designer by nature I hope that somehow this signature space will be of any use other than promoting an ICO/Bounty of any promising altcoin.

[stein888]

Ban signatures. Problem solved.

Sounds funny but really serious idea. Now that I think of it, most of the members here are aiming to rank up just to join signature campaigns where they can earn more pennies. They keep on posting just to reach the minimum posts for their campaign.

[TheQuin]

Ban signatures. Problem solved.

Sounds funny but really serious idea. Now that I think of it, most of the members here are aiming to rank up just to join signature campaigns where they can earn more pennies. They keep on posting just to reach the minimum posts for their campaign.

theymos has already said that if Merit doesn't cure the shitposting problem this is the next step. I don't think there's much point coming up with alternatives other than that.

Ban signatures. Problem solved.

^^ the man has it right^^^

Even though I wear a Sig now I didn't for years, no odds to me if they go and I am sure it would better the community, Although I can understand Theymos's reluctance as selling a forum with Xmillion users is more value than 100K users..

I'm in the same position, I've only had a paid signature for about 6 months. I think theymos's reluctance is also about the people providing content being able to monetise it. It is a unique place (AFAIK) that the contributors can sell advertising space rather than the site owner. But that generosity has been exploited badly.

[Talk merit]

I've been active on various forums for over 20 years, and I've moderated and owned some of them. The difficulties stem from the fact that it seems that to achieve high volumes you need to pay members to post in some way. Signatures are a way to reward active posters, and they allow members to choose their own way to gain these rewards, and they remove the need for the board owners to have to pay posters directly for posting. This causes a bit of a conflict, as the more posting that sigs generate, the more page views that are generated, and this increases the potential revenue from the forum's advertising. However, it comes at a price.

Talk merit has given me a bit more of an understanding of the dynamics  of Bitcoin Talk, and I would suggest the following changes to "improve" the forum. They do not include changes to merit or activity, as I think both of those are beneficial.

- Don't allow signatures to promote any obvious frauds or other scams, they damage the reputation of the forum.
- Delete low grade spam postings.
- Leave Bitcoin discussion as a frog pond for the spammers.
- Create a Beginners discussion board for new members and spammers.
- Moderate a beginners help board, and keep spammers out of it.
- Move topics posted on the wrong boards over to the correct board as soon as possible.
- Moderate the serious boards such as the technical, legal and economic ones, and senior discussions, and remove spam postings from them.

I think these changes would allow the forum to continue to operate at a profit, and it would allow members interested in Bitcoin and crypto to discuss these topics in an adult fashion. It would also allow newcomers to the exiting world of crypto economies to learn about, and understand, the dramatic changes that are part of the emerging economies.

[malikusama]

Ban signatures. Problem solved.

Indeed this one is the only possible solution after merit system.
The second solution is to remove/restrict the condition of minimum post count from signature campaigns.

[hilariousetc]

The second solution is to remove/restrict the condition of minimum post count from signature campaigns.

A minimum post count is better than unlimited. Minimum post counts usually aren't excessive so the user isn't forced to make hundreds, but a user has to make a minimum of x amount posts otherwise people just won't do anything. A better solution would be to actually make managers do something about spam. When you have managers like sylon who accept hundreds of users and don't do any sort of quality checks then that's when they get abused. Chipmixer has a minimum requirement of 50 posts a week but we don't see any spam coming from their campaign. The onus should be on poor managers not what minimum amount of posts are required because any amount of posts will include spam if nobody is poling them.

[KWH]

Ban signatures. Problem solved.

I'm all for that.

[TMAN]

The second solution is to remove/restrict the condition of minimum post count from signature campaigns.

A minimum post count is better than unlimited. Minimum post counts usually aren't excessive so the user isn't forced to make hundreds, but a user has to make a minimum of x amount posts otherwise people just won't do anything. A better solution would be to actually make managers do something about spam. When you have managers like sylon who accept hundreds of users and don't do any sort of quality checks then that's when they get abused. Chipmixer has a minimum requirement of 50 posts a week but we don't see any spam coming from their campaign. The onus should be on poor managers not what minimum amount of posts are required because any amount of posts will include spam if nobody is poling them.

then the sig campaign managers need to be approved to work on the forum? I know it is more work for someone, but if mods actively managed the signature campaign managers then it would stop the need for 50%+ of the post removals ETC.  It seems like more work for them initially but in reality it will make the mods life easier in the long run..

[LTU_btc]

You can look at this thread:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2605767.0
Many members posted their ideas hiw to improve quality of posts there.
I'm not complaining about Merit system, I think it's one of the best things happened to forum lately. I also liked idea to require payment to wear signature.  Now I think that Merit system are better solution than require payment to wear signature, but maybe both these things can be combined?

Ban signatures. Problem solved.

It would the most radical and the most effective solution.

[Schirer]

Ban signatures. Problem solved.

This could be true.

But possibly there are some other solutions before going radical.

I see that one of the problems is that people do not give their merits away because for some reason they think that they will gain something in some point of time from their Smerits, i believe that we need  something that motivates poeple to give their Smerits than just keeping them.

Also i think that the amount of Smerits out there is way too small in respect to gaps between members.

Aand one simple thing that could help the forum, 2FA. It would help to reduce  Jr.member farming because i believe it wont be rational for them to have ton of mobile devices to keep registering new acc s.

[BTCeminjas]

Ban signatures. Problem solved.

Surely if this happens the forum will be quiet and all spammers and shitposting will be lessened because they think that they never have profit on this forum if a signature will be a ban. If I was not mistaken also forum have profit on that bounty/signature campaign I am right?

Good solution but hard to implement I think.

[hilariousetc]

Ban signatures. Problem solved.

If I was not mistaken also forum have profit on that bounty/signature campaign I am right?

Good solution but hard to implement I think.

No. The only thing this forum gains from signature campaigns is traffic. It will survive without them. The forum probablky loses money because money that would be spent on forum ad slots isn't and is instead paid to users. And it wouldn't be hard to implement a ban at all. Signatures would just be disabled and the problem of sig spammers will be solved instantly. Alternatively, and like I have suggested before, I think all signatures should be removed and people have to pay a substantial fee to get them. If everyone had to pay $500 for one or something then it would severely restrict how many accounts somebody could have whilst pretty much eliminating account farming in the process.

[Talk merit]

So nobody liked my idea that bad campaigns should be banned, rather than a complete block on signatures ( which would kill the forum ).

[hilariousetc]

So nobody liked my idea that bad campaigns should be banned, rather than a complete block on signatures ( which would kill the forum ).

Banning or punishing poorly run campaigns has been suggested numerous times but the only person who can sanction that is theymos. If we'd started punishing badly run campaigns long ago the forum wouldn't be in such a mess as it is and we probably wouldn't have needed the merit system. It's because they can get away with doing nothing that they do. Why would anyone do work that they don't need to do if there's no repercussions for them? Of course people will just sit back and do nothing whilst they count their money, but this shouldn't be acceptable.

[TheQuin]

No. The only thing this forum gains from signature campaigns is traffic. It will survive without them. The forum probablky loses money because money that would be spent on forum ad slots isn't and is instead paid to users.

theymos could start a signature space auction to supplement the ad banner space auction.

So nobody liked my idea that bad campaigns should be banned, rather than a complete block on signatures ( which would kill the forum ).

It's a good idea but how do you do it. You can ban the signature campaign managers from the forum but there's nothing to stop them organising a campaign off-forum. You should tell that friend of yours to register btctalksigcamp.com ASAP.

[hilariousetc]

So nobody liked my idea that bad campaigns should be banned, rather than a complete block on signatures ( which would kill the forum ).

It's a good idea but how do you do it. You can ban the signature campaign managers from the forum but there's nothing to stop them organising a campaign off-forum. You should tell that friend of yours to register btctalksigcamp.com ASAP.

Poorly run campaigns were meant to have their signatures blacklisted/blocked from the forum by theymos to stop this from happening. Several poorly run campaigns were suggested but it never happened.

[TheQuin]

Poorly run campaigns were meant to have their signatures blacklisted/blocked from the forum by theymos to stop this from happening. Several poorly run campaigns were suggested but it never happened.

If that is technically feasible then I think it's a good idea. Getting someone like you to monitor campaigns and zap their signatures sounds like a great way to go.