@Admins: Merit not working as configured, trolls just don't care (no surprise)

[Jet Cash]

Whereas JetCash, who has much more earned merit than me (or anyone else in the thread) was kind of neutral.

I'm not really neutral, maybe just diplomatic.

I've been on a lot of boards over the years, and I've started some and moderated others.

I was a member on a paid to post forum, and managed to make over 1,000 posts in a day in a posting contest with another member ( what a way to waste a day, but it was fun to do once ). You have a lot of problems with moderation on these boards. I'm a member of a small private webmaster forum with no public viewing, and it gets about 10 posts a day, but it's very friendly and helpful. I was a member of the DN forum, but left when it converted to paid membership. I'm a member of a casino forum, and that is split - there are a number of boards for new members, and a much more interesting private section, which you have to apply to join after you have been a member for a while, and if they think you are OK, you get promoted. All of those allow signatures with various restrictions. I don't like forums that don't allow signatures, they are a type of payment for posting, but they shouldn't be abused. I use my signature to promote services that I use and trust, and to link to some of my sites. I experiment with the messages to see which ones get clicks, and this is useful for me.

Two things are guaranteed to generate a lot of spam. The ability to create multiple accounts, and a system that rewards posting volume. It's easy to generate discussions with yourself to boost threads and post counts, and it is usually not of great benefit to the forum.

[Aikidoka]

Theymos said all people have the right to use this forum to make money. The problem lies within shitposters who only post either to get paid or to rank up their accounts. That is why the merit system was implemented. You will not rank up unless you have the required merits and activity. Also, the problem is within the managers who accept these kind of people. They are the ones to blame. Let alone Theymos do what must be done.

[digaran]

Theymos said all people have the right to use this forum to make money. The problem lies within shitposters who only post either to get paid or to rank up their accounts. That is why the merit system was implemented. You will not rank up unless you have the required merits and activity. Also, the problem is within the managers who accept these kind of people. They are the ones to blame. Let alone Theymos do what must be done.

How is it going so far? do you think you could rank up anytime soon?

[r1s2g3]

Merit is acting like medicine in this forum but when tooth is decayed too much then dentist extract the decayed tooth instead of giving medicine.

So I donot think Merit can control spam but it will be able contain the spammers in their ranks.

[TheQuin]

Well the results are interesting.

Most of the people who dislike the idea are -

1. sig campaigners
2. not picking up many merit points
3. high ranks as a result of the activity based ranking system

I find that interesting but probably in a different way than you do. In effect imposing a fee to post would be a form of regressive taxation. Those with the highest income from their signatures would be paying the lowest tax rate and those with the lowest income from their signatures would be paying the highest tax rate. Then those with no paid signature, if they couldn't afford the tax, would be forced to join a signature campaign or leave.
So it is those in the best position to pay the tax that are most against it.

• Nuke the old rank status for all members, re-adjust according to merit only

That's not a bad idea in my opinion but when it was suggested here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2823134 theymos said:

I seriously considered this, but I decided that it'd be just too disruptive. The desire to minimize carrying over flaws of the activity system are why I gave everyone the minimum merit to avoid being demoted, though.

That was part of what got me to thinking of other ways to tackle the signature spam from accounts that are already of high rank and I came up with Merit Phase 2 - Drain the Swamp.

tl;dr Hide the signatures of anyone who doesn't get any merit over a certain timeframe.

[Heisenberg_Hunter]

If those bounty participants earn a lot from posting in this forum, why should they not pay a fee for each post. Hero, Sr, Full members who has not even received 10 merits in the span of 3 months must not be allowed to wear signatures. If such a system is implemented, we would be free of shitposting Sr and Full members. Most probably, Hero and Legendary guys are the one who joined the forum in the timeframe of 2014-15, so most of them would have signed up for learning something and earning. But 2017 era was the worst part were all those Third World shits created an account, spammed and became Sr and Full members.

Why a low rank member should pay higher fees than a High ranked one?
There are some shitposters in Legendary too.

Not in favour of this at all to be honest, I learnt a lot from this forum & people like achow saved my ass from losing dozens of bitcoin with personal help. I don’t think paying to post here is a good idea, sorry.

I requested for a   Altcoin Technical Discussion board for saving Alt holders to retrieve their money back. I am not a dev to help those guys who are seeking for help out their in the Alt board. It could help those guys from the insane amount of spams generated in the Alt Discussion board. But I didn't get a positive reply and bumping the thread. 

[IsuruMaduranga]

It's not the posters who should have to pay - fine the sig campaign managers for allowing spam posting.

They just want to increase the marketing not the quality of the forum.

There are two kind of user here.

1. Post just because they have to post
2. Post just because they need to post

However both kinds do sig campigns. The first kind should be eliminated.
Introducing merit based sig campaigns is the best option in my opinion.

[hilariousetc]

Nobody is going to pay for every post they make

I would. You're not reading these posts, are you?

Ok, let me rephrase that: everybody except for you... and possibly a few others. This really isn't the best way to solve the spam issue here. A much easier solution would just to be ban signature campaigns/remove signatures.

I was going to suggest that various features of the forum be unlocked through payment - a freemium model in which you can join/read for free, and maybe post to a newbie section (which I understand the forum used to have); pay a small fee to unlock posting anywhere; pay another small fee to unlock the avatar; pay a higher fee to unlock a Jr. Member sig, more to unlock a sig with links, even more to have more than 3 lines/colors/whatever.

I think something like that could work also. I don't think it would deter the outright trolls though.

Nothing will get rid of a detemiend troll, but why don't you do what trolls fear most and ignore them? Trolls only post to annoy and get a rise out of people but if you just give them the silent treatment they usually get bored.

If pay-to-post was implemented this would likely be one of the first major forums to do so and would itself make an interesting social experiment.

Yep. And this is probably one of the most trolled forums on the internet, I should imagine.

I doubt it. I don't think there's that many trolls here or at the very least they're drowned out by all the sig spammers.  There will be far worse forums for trolls out there but it's probably the biggest for shitposting seeing as people actually get paid to do it here.

Bitcointalk works because of the bounty campaigns and that will never change whatever system (merit or else) you put in place.

I wouldn't be so sure of that. Theymos has already said that if the merit system doesn't work then signatures will likely be the next thing to go. They only people that would leave are the thousands of shitposters and nobody will be sad to see them leave.

Not in favour of this at all to be honest, I learnt a lot from this forum & people like achow saved my ass from losing dozens of bitcoin with personal help. I don’t think paying to post here is a good idea, sorry.

You're happy getting paid to post though, right?


Interesting that the people with advertising in the sigs or avatars are 100% against the idea (thus far anyway).

It's a silly idea regardless of whether someone has a signature or not. I would rather signatures just be removed than having to pay to post here.

[fxstrike]

Those who have lots of BTC will quickly dominate the forum and we don't have recourse to prevent them from posting any spammy things they want because they 'pay' for it, this forum will quickly become ads medium by people with lots of BTC

Have to pay to share ideas, thats probably the most ridiculous rules for a community based open source projects, will turn the BTC into centralized development project only rich people can participate

More like burn your house to get rid of mosquito

[KingScorpio]

Those who have lots of BTC will quickly dominate the forum and we don't have recourse to prevent them from posting any spammy things they want because they 'pay' for it, this forum will quickly become ads medium by people with lots of BTC

Have to pay to share ideas, thats probably the most ridiculous rules for a community based open source projects, will turn the BTC into centralized development project only rich people can participate

More like burn your house to get rid of mosquito

bitcoin has a begininng and therefore also a centre

if you dont like it best way would be to leave and join start new project

you cant escape pyramid systems except you run your own one...

[fxstrike]

Those who have lots of BTC will quickly dominate the forum and we don't have recourse to prevent them from posting any spammy things they want because they 'pay' for it, this forum will quickly become ads medium by people with lots of BTC

Have to pay to share ideas, thats probably the most ridiculous rules for a community based open source projects, will turn the BTC into centralized development project only rich people can participate

More like burn your house to get rid of mosquito

bitcoin has a begininng and therefore also a centre

if you dont like it best way would be to leave and join start new project

you cant escape pyramid systems except you run your own one...

bitcoin has a begininng and therefore also a centre

I don't understand what are you talking about

if you dont like it best way would be to leave and join start new project

When discussion is limited to a group of people it will be same like closed source software where those who have huge amount of financial backing control the projects goals and futures, BTCtalk is place for everyone to discuss freely about BTC, should you put any fees to post anything you start to limit the discussion, there is no more freedom to have any says about BTC development anymore.

There is nothing to do with me or anyone liking it, that is how open source project run everywhere.

[KingScorpio]

Those who have lots of BTC will quickly dominate the forum and we don't have recourse to prevent them from posting any spammy things they want because they 'pay' for it, this forum will quickly become ads medium by people with lots of BTC

Have to pay to share ideas, thats probably the most ridiculous rules for a community based open source projects, will turn the BTC into centralized development project only rich people can participate

More like burn your house to get rid of mosquito

bitcoin has a begininng and therefore also a centre

if you dont like it best way would be to leave and join start new project

you cant escape pyramid systems except you run your own one...

bitcoin has a begininng and therefore also a centre

I don't understand what are you talking about

if you dont like it best way would be to leave and join start new project

When discussion is limited to a group of people it will be same like closed source software where those who have huge amount of financial backing control the projects goals and futures, BTCtalk is place for everyone to discuss freely about BTC, should you put any fees to post anything you start to limit the discussion, there is no more freedom to have any says about BTC development anymore.

There is nothing to do with me or anyone liking it, that is how open source project run everywhere.

i am not scaring you away, i am just explaining you the systematic behind pyramid systems, you cant avoid them they are everywhere, if they claim not to be those they still are. like the banks and financial system in the west.

[mdayonliner]

This might be somewhat unpopular, but is popularity the goal? A good resource should be the goal IMO, I exclusively read this forum for about 1 year before I felt knowledgeable enough to post at all.


Getting the signal:noise ratio up can probably only be achieved using real resources. I'd be very happy if a BTC cost was introduced for posting:

• Nuke the old rank status for all members, re-adjust according to merit only
• Charge BTC for every post, low rank = highest fee
• Set the charges incredibly low to begin with, slowly increase to tweak the quality level

Lightning payments would be necessary, of course. Maybe I'm taking too hard a line, but if I have to pay even 500 satoshis per post, that would be a small price to pay to improve quality again.

Look at the inverse situation: 1000's of accounts are posting meaningless, obvious, copy-pasta or troll content, only in order to get paid per post by sig campaigns or trolls-in-chief.

Price discovery can solve this problem, it's a geniune "tragedy of the commons" issue after all.

Normally I read a lot of comments before posting a reply in a topic that already have few pages of replies however for this one I lost my patience after reading few replies on the first page.

This is what I am having in mind after reading the original post...
Are we talking about a forum here or a membership club for any service?

We are living in a free world (Look around).
The best media of all: Facebook
The best search engine of all: Google

You are talking about paying bitcoin. How about if I say I am paying more valuable asset than bitcoin to leave this comment?
- It's my time.

Anyway take it easy fella. Every idea has pros and cons. The adopters will thrive.

[Thekool1s]

I kinda agree with Carlton Banks.. I believe bitcointalk has reached a stage where everything has been answered... most of these posts by newbies are repeats.. Like how to export wallet key etc.. They keep on repeating the same stuff.. They need to learn how to use the search function.. Plus the general discussion section gets spammed with shit posts which are repetitive and are in broken English, which ruins the reading experience for other users.. Like if you believe you have something super important to add to the discussion which has been missed by other users then happily pay a 500 Satoshi fee... Also i kinda like the repayment idea.. Like if your reply gets merited you get back your 500 satoshi.. This can work and can do wonders for this community.. But on the other hand i believe the merit introduction has been working wonderfully.. So far the posts i have read have been less shitty.. So by giving it more time it will eventually give us the same result..

[Kim Ji Won]

An alternative way of banning signature campaigns/remove signature is to have a merit requirement for participating in one. This should be imposed by all campaign managers out there especially in altcoins. Also, it may be better if only Full Members or Senior members and up are the ones allowed to participate in campaigns. Let's see how lower ranks thrive to make their way up to the forum.

[klavuhn]

I kinda agree with Carlton Banks.. I believe bitcointalk has reached a stage where everything has been answered... most of post by these newbies are repeats.. Like how to export wallet key etc.. They keep on repeating the same stuff.. They need to learn how to use the search function.. Plus the general discussion section gets spammed with shit posts which are repetitive and are in broken English, which ruins the reading experience for other users..

I agree with you, but with a pay-to-post system will not help anything. To be honest, I got into this Forum because I heard there's an easy job that can make a lot of money, and that's a Signature Campaign. I think that pay-to-post or delete signatures will not help reduce spam. In fact will make this forum more lonely because if just talking about Bitcoin, we do not need in this forum. We can discuss on Facebook or Twitter that has features more easily and more sophisticated.

[D3F4L7 RAT]

Do you think that requiring a payment for posting can really satisfy your demand? I don't think so, why do they bother to make a payment if some of the serious members here are contributing good replies or comments inside the forum?
Spammer/Account Farmers/Merit Farmers/ Scammers are being handled by the administrators. If you don't want to encounter such low posts, then stop using BCT. Do not implicate us.

[Thekool1s]

To be honest, I got into this Forum because I heard there's an easy job that can make a lot of money, and that's a Signature Campaign.

This is the real problem.. This perspective needs to go away.. Do you expect to get paid when you use facebook? The short answer is no! so you shouldn't have a mindset like this here at bitcointalk.. If you want to discuss technology then its fine.. But why do you need to be that desperate for some extra cash? Also i feel sad for people who think that they can live their life off through signature campaign earnings.. you guys need help.. Do something better for yourself... There are far better things and ways to make a living than spamming a forum.

[D3F4L7 RAT]

They need to learn how to use the search function..

With thousands of posts, the search function does not guarantee the specific question of a newbie.

Like if you believe you have something super important to add to the discussion which has been missed by other users then happily pay a 500 Satoshi fee... Also i kinda like the repayment idea.. Like if your reply gets merited you get back your 500 satoshi.. This can work and can do wonders for this community.. But on the other hand i believe the merit introduction has been working wonderfully.. So far the posts i have read have been less shitty.. So by giving it more time it will eventually give us the same result..

Not all good posts can have merits, that is the problem of the community.

[bitart]

I kinda agree with Carlton Banks.. I believe bitcointalk has reached a stage where everything has been answered... most of these posts by newbies are repeats.. Like how to export wallet key etc.. They keep on repeating the same stuff.. They need to learn how to use the search function.. Plus the general discussion section gets spammed with shit posts which are repetitive and are in broken English, which ruins the reading experience for other users.. Like if you believe you have something super important to add to the discussion which has been missed by other users then happily pay a 500 Satoshi fee... Also i kinda like the repayment idea.. Like if your reply gets merited you get back your 500 satoshi.. This can work and can do wonders for this community.. But on the other hand i believe the merit introduction has been working wonderfully.. So far the posts i have read have been less shitty.. So by giving it more time it will eventually give us the same result..

What if we don't allow newbies and jr. members to open a new topic everywhere, just let them to open a new topic in the off-topic section? (this is not my own idea, I have read this somewhere, but I like this idea).
(Newbies can buy copper membership, if they really want to "grow up" earlier...)
They will have to use the search function, if they have a question, not randomly open a new thread for every type of headache... and if they don't like the forum's own search function, they still can use the google one, like searching for "bitcoin price increase /site:bitcointalk.org" and voilá....
If they find the proper topic (because as you have mentioned, 99% of the newbie questions has already been answered, most of them several times in several topics), they can still ask a question there, and it would be on-topic post, so it would improve their posting habits as well...