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

[Jet Cash]

Merit system i dont know what is the reason why it have been created. To suffer the users?to find a merit? Or to make it in the same rank forever? It is hard to ger some merit if you are hard to speak in English and hard on the grammar. It is possible to remove this merit system?

I've started several projects to try to help people to improve their English, and I have had minimal to no success with them. It seems that all you and your peers are interested in is to scratch a few dollars by polluting this forum. and you are not prepared to put any effort into improving yourself. The merit system was introduced in the hope that it will stem the influx of beggars, and that most of the existing ones will leave. It does seem to be working, and that is a relief to those of us who are interested in Bitcoin.

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[Karisma Black]

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.

And of course, you are ...a full member lol.
Ok then but let's all start from zero then buddy.
We'll see how many centuries it takes you to get to that rank. 

[Nuky1289]

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.

I don´t see a way, a forum will survive a "fee per post" payment. The easiest solution in my opinion, is just to forbid every signature campaign in this forum, maybe even delete signatures at all. No one would care this much anymore about activity, post count or merit. Spammers would leave, because there is nothing to earn anymore.

But please consider, you will get rid of all the unpleasant visitors here, but i´m very certain that some valueable member will leave as well because of that. If we are honest, a big % signed up to this forum to earn something and not to contribute to this forum.

Maybe the Merit thing was intended to solve this issues, but the way it was implemented, is realy disappointing. Yes i know, im just a member and only registered since late last year and i only have to produce high quality content to earn some merits... (you don´t believe that yourself) I´m seeing so many "good" posts by lower rank members, which are getting no merit at all. Then i see some stupid one-liner by some hero members, who get 10 merits for that. The newer members, who came this or last year, dont have any more motivation to write "good" posts, because it won´t be rewarded with this new merit concept and therefore signature campaigns.

One of the more "popular" ways to earn merit nowadays is to earn it by reporting alts, spammers, ICO´s or to beg in some "giveaway" campaigns from higher members, that they give you some merit for your post. Do you want that as the direction for the forum?

Another issue i saw often is some arrogance by higher members, which is realy concerning... (maybe i would have the same position, if i were them). Some of them promote merit as the holy grail, because it just strengthens their position in this forum (who know, maybe they just spammed 3 years earlier and are now hero members for that). And then i see even worse people, which are for a "fee per post", of course with a lower fee for higher ranks... (PROTIP: LEGENDARY OP).

IF you really only want to get more quality content for this forum, just remove signatures at all.  But I guess, many of the higher members wouldnt be okay with that, because they want to keep their priviliges and want to earn with them.  But please stop promoting even more benefits  for higher members after introduction of a Merit-System, which is so much in favor of them.

[Jet Cash]

 But please stop promoting even more benefits  for higher members after introduction of a Merit-System, which is so much in favor of them.

The merit system is really only of financial benefit to somebody above member rank if they are part of a bounty programme. Apart from that, it is a way for the community to encourage good posting, and to indicate their approval of various posting practices.

[o_e_l_e_o]

-snip-

I registered my account the same month that you did. I'm not a hero or legendary member, I don't personally know anyone on the forum, and I had the same starting disadvantage that you did. I continue to privately report scammers and spammers, and have never asked for or earned any merit by doing this, or by using giveaway threads. I have earned 150 merit, you have earned 2.

What's my point here? Two things. Firstly, your argument that merit penalises lower members is nonsense, as I was a "lower member" like you when it was introduced. Merit penalises shitposters. Which leads us on to my second point - the difference between you and me. The vast majority of your posts are shitposts in [ANN] Or [Bounty] threads. The reason you aren't being merited is because you don't deserve to be merited. You see merit as your right, and this forum as nothing more than a tool to earn money.

[claudiotiego]

The spamming and faking accounts still working on this forum, but we cannot blame Merits system for this.
While there are bounty campaigns accepting these accounts, they will multiply.
Instead trying to punish regulars and respectful users, we need some kind of control system over managers and campaigns.

[Nuky1289]

What's my point here? Two things. Firstly, your argument that merit penalises lower members is nonsense, as I was a "lower member" like you when it was introduced. Merit penalises shitposters. Which leads us on to my second point - the difference between you and me. The vast majority of your posts are shitposts in [ANN] Or [Bounty] threads. The reason you aren't being merited is because you don't deserve to be merited. You see merit as your right, and this forum as nothing more than a tool to earn money.

I didn´t claim, that i deserve more merit than i have today. Neither i see merit as my right. I just don´t like the attitude of some, who behave like god, because they have an old account with many smerits.

I just wanted to point out, that in my experience in this forum since the merit introduction, i saw many posts of people (i DONT talk about mine), who didn´t got a merit for a realy hq post. I´m happy for you, that u made it somehow to a higher rank, but maybe you are one of some exceptions.

[o_e_l_e_o]

but maybe you are one of some exceptions.

I am an exception only that I don't spam ANN, Bounty and megathreads with the same old vacuous nonsense, like the vast majority of lower-level accounts. My individual posts are by no means exceptional - I simply add to the discussion by posting original thoughts in coherent English.

[LoyceV]

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

And 3 straight Members with relatively high merit (Magic Smoke, nebuch & bitperson) were kind of positive. Interesting  

I'm not short on merit and I hate spam, but I'm not in favour of paying per post.
As discussed here, I wouldn't have joined this forum 3 years ago, if that would have meant paying for it. I agree paying per post would stop many spammers, but it would probably stop at least a few knowledgeable people from joining the forum too.
However, it pay-per-post would be introduced now, I'd pay, as long as it can be covered by the earnings from my signature. As much as I like this forum, I'm not willing to shill out my own money to post here.

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

I agree this should eventually happen though. I get that theymos can't just turn everybody into a Newbie instantly, but long-term, the "free" merit should be taken away again. Something like half the amount needed to level up naturally (=1 merit per day) will do.
I value someone's posts much more if he earned 100 merit by himself, than if he's Legendary but barely received anything.
Meanwhile, it becomes increasingly more difficult to see if someone earned his merit, or got it for free. Decaying free merit would solve that in the long term, and puts high ranking people with bad post quality back where they would have been if they didn't rank up before the merit system was introduced.

Well, it depends how high the fee per post was set. Would you pay 0.0001 satoshis for 1 post as a Legendary member? See how this works? The price mechanism is powerful, if the price was just high enough to erase all spammers aside from the richest trolls, it would be a price worth paying IMO.

I've read a few claims that some people are paying $20 per merit. If they're willing to pay that much for a small fraction of their next rank, they'll pay a lot to keep posting too. 0.0001 satoshis per post isn't going to stop spammers, and a million times more won't stop it either.
The forum has 8513 posts per day. It would be interesting to know how much is earned from those posts to know how much people are willing to pay for it. About half the posts on the forum are in bounty threads now, I have no idea what that's worth per post. High ranking signature campaigns pay up to several dollars per post.

Maybe another way to reward quality members would be universal tipping, everyone is given a tipping address (Lightning again) whether they like it or not (or every account is forced to supply a Lightning address). I don't publish a tipping address, but if I was forced to, I'd take any tips if I was given any.

Tips could easily help to offset the cost of posting, even if Legendary members were paying 0.0001 satoshis per post.

I've collected pros and cons of tipping micropayments last year, but there isn't much interest. I prefer the merit system now.

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

That's not why I'm against it. I'm pretty sure nobody would post here if a post would cost anything close to what my signature pays.
I'm glad to say the one in my sig also advertises on the forum, so it's not only taking advertising that doesn't earn the forum anything.

I still dont get a lot about your idea. If, i use if, if i have a valuable information about technology of bitcoin or anything valuable about bitcoin price analytics, why would i share to other people while i must pay? Doesnt it works the other way, people pay you when you have something valuable?

Or even worse: a Newbie has a problem with his wallet, and is happy to pay some dust to get help. But the people helping him, have to pay for that?

So, any money you lose while ranking up gets paid back to you in future by any trolls that just refuse to leave

Sounds like a ponzi

DarkStar, Lauda and Yahoo are doing a pretty good job in accepting only the best candidates according to their opinion and judgement, and thus far the campaign participants managed by these managers, per ratio mostly deliver one of the highest quality posts on this forum. I wouldn't be against an 'unofficial' rule that signature campaigns and other related roots should only be managed by a select group of managers with a proven track record.

Quality comes at a price: the ones now accepting bad quality posts don't have the budget to be more picky. I've only shortly managed a signature campaign, and it's a lot of work. Without merit, I had to check many spammers' posts, and some of the good participants were quickly snatched up by a better paying campaign.
Giving a small group of managers a monopoly to run signature campaigns would probably end most of the spam, but I don't think theymos would want to limit freedom by creating a monopoly.

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.

This actually makes it easier on the manager, as he has much less accounts to check. But only high paying campaigns can be this picky.
FYI: Just 14,000 out of 2 million accounts have earned at least 1 merit.


I'm not done reading yet, but my day is up

[change7]

This would not work. If users are asked to pay before making posts, some persons who have been impacting positively on the forum might feel otherwise and stop contributing to the forums growth. If memory serves me well, not everyone here does signature bounty campaign as signature campaign presently is bringing  all this chaos to the forum. Maybe there should be another means to stabilise and filter the forum not this fee approach.

[djadmika]

The merit system was created to curb people signing up here with multiple to unlimited amounts of accounts just to make low quality contributions to earn from sig campaigns. Now no matter how many posts you make over the months/years you will not rank up unless your posts are deemed worthy to be meritable. Sure, merit could be removed but I don't think it should. The alternative if it doesn't work will likely just to remove signatures.

[/quote]

The merit system has proved to eliminate multiple accounts and encouraged members to create quality posts. I agree it should not be removed but still need to be reviewed periodically for improvement. And paid system is not part of improvement though it is very cheap.
I suggest we involve members if they find unqualified post which is merited and report to moderator. If moderator think the same, they could cancel merit given. And yes, I mean merit can be reduced. This would make  distribution of merit are more transparent and I believe it would encourage member to make quality posts. But that’s just my personal opinion.

[wwzsocki]

... we need some kind of control system over managers and campaigns.

Stop here and just think for a second. All these problems with account farming and spam are because of bounty campaigns. Bitcointalk should have special rules and implement a system to control bounties. I mean rules for everything from moderators to posts quality check. Only moderators approved by BTT, only quality posts checked manually on weekly basis, only higher ranks, etc.

I think if BTT has the power to control this campaigns, spam and account farming problems could be finally resolved. This will be in favor for Bitcointalk and their members but also for ICO's because the quality of their bounty campaigns will be much higher and there will be no abuse which means no money lost on scammers. That is why an interested project should be willing to cooperate.

This maybe looks simple but simple solutions are usually the best.

[claudiotiego]

... we need some kind of control system over managers and campaigns.

Stop here and just think for a second. All these problems with account farming and spam are because of bounty campaigns. Bitcointalk should have special rules and implement a system to control bounties. I mean rules for everything from moderators to posts quality check. Only moderators approved by BTT, only quality posts checked manually on weekly basis, only higher ranks, etc.

I think if BTT has the power to control this campaigns, spam and account farming problems could be finally resolved. This will be in favor for Bitcointalk and their members but also for ICO's because the quality of their bounty campaigns will be much higher and there will be no abuse which means no money lost on scammers. That is why an interested project should be willing to cooperate.

This maybe looks simple but simple solutions are usually the best.

I agree pretty much with everything you wrote, except the part about a simple solution. I think it would be very difficult to have an efficient control over all bounty' campaigns, but I hope we can do it in the future.

[premiumproductss]

Copper member? You said what? Pay some small money to have a big signature.

[mdayonliner]

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

And 3 straight Members with relatively high merit (Magic Smoke, nebuch & bitperson) were kind of positive. Interesting  

I'm not short on merit and I hate spam, but I'm not in favour of paying per post......

Carlton Banks why not create a poll and see the result. I said it before and again saying it now, it's not a membership service site it's a forum for open discussion. I not joining a membership site to learn about Bitcoin and stuffs where I can have information available using search engine (FREE).

If BitcoinTalk would offer a paid membership then Bitcoin would not become what these days it now. BitcoinTalk playing vital role to market Bitcoin (did and will do IMO)

[LoyceV]

Say,

• Newbies - 100 satoshi per post
• Juniors - 5 satoshi per post, + 1% returned
• Members - 2 satoshi per post, + 2% returned
• Full Members - 1 satoshi per post, + 4% returned
• Seniors - 0.1 satoshi per post, + 8% returned
• Heroes - 0.001 satoshi per post, + 16% returned
• Legendaries - 0.0001 satoshi per post, + 39% returned

That's $9 for 1000 spamposts as a Newbie, and dust for any higher ranking account. A Legendary would pay less than $0.01 per million posts. At those rates, it can just as well be for free, using my computer costs more.

Could trolls afford it? Most couldn't. And those that could would end up paying for the Seniors (and above) to post.

People pay much more to buy an account. Asking dust payments isn't going to stop them. The obvious next solution would be to increase the price, but that will kill off legitimate users too.

Price is a very effective mechanism. Most people are saying "I won't pay", but they won't specify how much. We can do micro-transactions now, very effectively. We can pay the equivalent of a tiny fraction of 1 cent to make a post, like 0.0000001. Is that too much, if it cleans the forum up?

Opening a LN channel will cost several orders of magnitude more than a fraction of 1 cent.

Who are these trolls that this thread is talking about? I would say that trolls are less of an issue than spam that originates from signature campaigns.

Trolls are a totally different problem than spam. In my previous post, I more or less assumed the main goal of pay-per-post would be to reduce spam. And while it may help reduce low-quality posts, I don't think it will do anything against trolls. Trolls are trying to damage Bitcoin and benefit whatever they're shilling for. While spam is easily recognized, many users could still believe trolls, especially the ones who are spamming the serious technical boards with thousands of posts.
The spam attack on Bitcoin transactions must have cost many millions of dollars in fees, I have no doubt trolls can find funding to trashtalk Bitcoin here.

I think he probably means accounts like freightjoe and Anti-Cen who spend a lot of time posting about how much they hate Bitcoin and why it's doomed to failure.

Those where the names that came to mind indeed. And the fact that I recognize their names, means they've accomplished at least something.
Trolling is against the rules, I don't get why they aren't permbanned. I remember freightjoe spamming and bumping hundreds of old threads, and I think Anti-Cen has had his third (and hopefully last) temporary ban already.

[Pecunia non olet]

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.

I do not understand why people should want to pay for posting?
And also for bounty hunters, this doesn´t solve any problem, they will pay fee and then they will post like before.