Meaningless and Redundant Topics

[meandmrjones]

Hello,
Before starting, My account is newbie but I've been around here for a long time. I haven't ranked up because I haven't written much, I preferred reading instead.

I don't know if you agree but personally, when I go into the forum and open the "Bitcoin Discussion" thread(I do this nearly every day), I want to see useful, quality things that would benefit me. These may be discussions about recent news concerning cryptocurrencies (Media, Ban, legal issues, fud sources etc.), tech updates, or something that will broaden my views on cryptocurrencies, something interesting, something I DON'T know.

So the thing that's been bugging me lately is, every now and then, people -mostly newbie accounts- open topics that are ineffectual and of poor quality. For instance: "What you do if a rich people gives you money to spend on cryptocurrency?" (Sentence structure exactly like this), "How much have you invested?", "Crypto is the greatest online business to invest on? (Online business?), "So you all want to get rich? All of you?", etc.

There are many others that I find useless not because they are low quality, but because they have been discussed quadrillion times before. eg. "Best wallet for bitcoin?", "Bitcoin safety", "What is a blockchain?" (a blockchain?), "Crypto vs Fiat" etc.

So what should be done? How do we solve this? Well I don't have a certain answer but I have ideas. Please share your ideas also, I'm opening this thread for brainstorming. First of all, merit system is apparently not enough to provoke people into opening quality threads. Before opening a thread, people should be incited into researching, and checking if the question in their mind has been discussed before. And after researching, if they can't find the answer to their specific question anywhere, then they should open new threads.

I think the ranking system is also faulty because people are inclined to post bullcrap just to increase their post count, they don't care about the content. Maybe restricting newbies from opening new threads would be a good idea. I actually know successful forum sites (they translate as "dictionary" in my language) where a particular seniority is required to open new threads (junior members only get to reply and contribute to existing threads until they reach a certain primacy) and one topic can only be discussed in one thread, no redundancy. This way the quality considerably increases.

Please also share your views and tell me if there are points you agree or disagree on.

[1714031968]

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[mdayonliner]

Before opening a thread, people should be incited into researching, and checking if the question in their mind has been discussed before. And after researching, if they can't find the answer to their specific question anywhere, then they should open new threads.

What makes you different, we have already talked about this before if my memory do not lie 
Assuming you have already searched for this kind of discussions and did not find any?

[bitmover]

I agree with most of what you have said.

However I disagree about forbidding newbies to open new topics.

Many people are not newbies in bitcoin, but they have some doubt or they are having an issue with something bitcoin related, such as wallets, private keys...
These people can open a new topic about their issue and community helps them. This is how i discovered this forum.

Maybe this restriction could apply to some boards only.
Bitcoin technical support and beginners & help are very helpful for newbies.

[Raiden0729]

I think the ranking system is also faulty because people are inclined to post bullcrap just to increase their post count, they don't care about the content. Maybe not allowing newbies to open new threads would be a good idea. I actually know successful forum sites (they translate as "dictionary" in my language) where a particular seniority is required to open new threads (junior members only get to reply and contribute to existing threads until they reach a certain primacy) and one topic can only be discussed in one thread, no redundancy. This way the quality considerably increases.

Please also share your views and tell me if there are points you agree or disagree on.

I agree with you, lots of topic here posted in every board of the forum makes nonsense for me, only few of the members here are actually contributing nicely in the community, few of them has something new knowledge to learn on. Same and repeated topics are always hottest topics I guess. That's why I also read various cryptocurrency books to educate myself until the forum will eradicate those shitposter just to make some money.

[meandmrjones]

I agree with most of what you have said.

However I disagree about forbidding newbies to open new topics.

Many people are not newbies in bitcoin, but they have some doubt or they are having an issue with something bitcoin related, such as wallets, private keys...
These people can open a new topic about their issue and community helps them. This is how i discovered this forum.

Maybe this restriction could apply to some boards only.
Bitcoin technical support and beginners & help are very helpful for newbies.

maybe allow them only on Beginners & Help ?

[Don Pedro Dinero]

maybe allow them only on Beginners & Help ?

That used to exist and it disappeared for some reason, although I think it would be a good idea as well. Let’s see if some of the seniors can enlighten us as to why the newbie jail doesn’t exist today.

[meandmrjones]

Before opening a thread, people should be incited into researching, and checking if the question in their mind has been discussed before. And after researching, if they can't find the answer to their specific question anywhere, then they should open new threads.

What makes you different, we have already talked about this before if my memory do not lie  
Assuming you have already searched for this kind of discussions and did not find any?

You are right though! There were two-three other threads mentioning "Boring Topics" and "Redundant and Spamming Users".  I could have replied underneath them however I didn't find them relating to my specific point which is a solution about changing the system(merits, forbidding thread openings, etc.) all over. They were talking about reporting and banning users. I thought my idea deserved a new thread.


This one is really close to my thoughts:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3017506.0
Other topics:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3060656.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3138850.0

All of these people got at least one reply from someone like you sir    "You are actually doing the same game." But unfortunately that doesn't contribute to solving the problem.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

maybe allow them only on Beginners & Help ?

That won't help, believe me.  Do you understand why people make all these threads with stupid questions and why so many people give idiotic answers?  It has little to do with real knowledge-seeking.  It has everything to do with post count.  I guarantee you that 99% of members in threads with titles like you mentioned have some sort of advertisement in their signature, and these people need a lot of weekly posts, and that means they need a lot of different topics.

Since they don't really care much about bitcointalk, they'll just create another stupid, duplicate, thread after the old one burns itself out.  The most popular threads are ones where the title asks for a comparison between two different things that shouldn't be compared, like "trading vs. invest" or "gambling or trading".  Shitposters already have answers to shit like this, just like telemarketers have a book of comebacks for people who don't want to buy.  It's ridiculous, I agree.

There isn't much that can be done other than the merit system and tagging these morons when they screw up and get caught cheating or breaking forum rules.  OP, please report stuff when you see it.

[Sony.UK]

Before opening a thread, people should be incited into researching, and checking if the question in their mind has been discussed before. And after researching, if they can't find the answer to their specific question anywhere, then they should open new threads.

What makes you different, we have already talked about this before if my memory do not lie 
Assuming you have already searched for this kind of discussions and did not find any?

There are thread spoke about this same issue on this section itself. mate even also confirms the same in the last post. Redundant threads are periodically trashcanned by the moderators. Actually we do not do anything for it.

@op I do not think even discussion is needed or not. If you find the spam the thread just report to moderator mate.

[meandmrjones]

Update: The forum site I talked about in my article is actually using a "Rookie Confirmation List" system where newly created accounts are able to reply to threads, maybe even create their own threads but no one can see their replies except administrators. When they reach at least ten post count, they are appended to the waiting list and they are gradually admitted to the forum by administrators checking their content and making sure they aren't trolls, shitposters, etc. Some users report to have waited > 3 years, but it's worth it! It's a quality forum with no shitty content after all.

This may be also a good system for this forum. Altough it would require some reading labor for the administrators.  

[meandmrjones]

[Redundant threads are periodically trashcanned by the moderators. Actually we do not do anything for it.

It's apparently ineffective.

[stompix]

Update: The forum site I talked about in my article is actually using a "Rookie Confirmation List" system where newly created accounts are able to reply to threads, maybe even create their own threads but no one can see their reply except administrators. When they reach at least ten post count, they are appended to the waiting list and they are gradually admitted to the forum by administrators checking their content and making sure they aren't trolls, shitposters, etc. Some users report to have waited > 3 years, but it's worth it! It's a quality forum with no shitty content after all.

This may be also a good system for this forum. Altough it would require some reading labor for the administrators.  

There are around 400 users making a new account each day.Trimming the numbers a little you would still need to check around ~ 2000 posts a day. It would be an insane amount of work.

Second is that you can't really expect much from even a genuine newbie. Let's assume you have no clue what bitcoin is how it works and your English is pretty bad, you're going to be denied for certain.
And at this point it's account farmers who are going to pass this filters faster than newbies as they do have the knowledge to make a few posts that don't look like spam. And once they're clear, guess what they are going to do?

Third, what are you going to do with the local boards and people that don't speak English? There are sub forums with no mods at all and we're going to find the people and the resources for additional filtering?

The merit system is making a little dent in the mess, spammers, shitposters and merit traders getting tagged is also helping a bit. But disabling signature for jr members would be a thousand times more effective.

[Aikidoka]

I utterly agree with what you said. Added to that, many people were posting useless posts about the slight drop of the bitcoin price. Believe me, the bitcoin price dropped by $100 and people were creating threads about "This is the end of bitcoin." What do you expect to be done? This forum was made to discuss about cryptocurrency. Some people can find any answer they seek on Google. I just do not get them yet. I hope Theymos finds another solution.

[Joel_Jantsen]

There isn't much that can be done other than the merit system and tagging these morons when they screw up and get caught cheating or breaking forum rules.  OP, please report stuff when you see it.

I think the most easiest way to deal with that problem is by not paying for the posts in the redundant threads.Of course,the campaign they're in should be managed by a responsible manager who would put in efforts to make sure the participant doesn't post in such senseless threads and even if they do,they don't get paid.

[AdolfinWolf]

There isn't much that can be done other than the merit system and tagging these morons when they screw up and get caught cheating or breaking forum rules.  OP, please report stuff when you see it.

I think the most easiest way to deal with that problem is by not paying for the posts in the redundant threads.Of course,the campaign they're in should be managed by a responsible manager who would put in efforts to make sure the participant doesn't post in such senseless threads and even if they do,they don't get paid.

Which is not really in their self-interest, so it is unlikely to happen. More users posting garbage = more shortterm exposure for their scammy ICO..

Unless moderators actually somehow create/enforce a rule that managers need to check the post quality of their applicants. (Which probably won't happen since theymos et al don't want that.) for reasons which i can partially understand. ( How do you really determine what spam is etc..)

Therefore we're basically stuck in this loop where nothing will really change, and spam will just continue, even with the merit system.

[hilariousetc]

Well removing signatures would put a stop to it for sure. That's the only reason we have all these terrible topics being posted everyday and the shitposters who are all too happy to post in them. You can report any unsubstantial or duplicate/similar thread and they'll likely be removed but the sad thing is most people don't bother reporting them so they just get filled with spam pretty quickly.

I also wouldn't be against setting some restrictions on who can post what where. Maybe new or lower ranked members should be limited to Beginners until they hit a higher rank. That way new users can still get answers to their questions but can't just come here to spam the same old rubbish that has been posted dozens of times before as fast as they can. I really think we should prohibit new/lower ranked members from posting in Off Topic and Politics. There's really no good reason why Newbies would need to post in those two boards and some of them post exclusively in there (and they're really not here for their Politics).

[d5000]

In another thread I already proposed a possible solution: making it possible for users to ignore entire threads.

That would not "clean" the forum instantly, because these "spam megathreads" could be opened and answered to without any restriction. But first, it would simply be an usability-boosting feature as users simply wouldn't see the ignored threads anymore.

Still more important perhaps, it would create incentives for managers to not pay out posts in these threads. As threads that are ignored by many users wouldn't have many page-views, companies wouldn't want to pay users for signature campaigns where most posts are accumulated in these sections.

I know that signature campaigns with ICO tokens are very cheap for companies, so in these cases the incentives to control quality are weak. So maybe another part of a solution is to require signature campaigns to pay out at least a part in Bitcoin (or another established cryptocurrency) - this was already proposed somewhere.

Restricting Newbies to create threads only in Beginners & Help could maybe also be part of a solution. While it wouldn't stop the spammers to rank up to Jr. Member, like The Pharmacist wrote, it could simply make the rest of the forum a bit cleaner, as a spammer would risk to get banned with an account where (s)he already invested some time in if he wants to open pointless threads in other sections.

I think the most easiest way to deal with that problem is by not paying for the posts in the redundant threads.

Quality control is already done by some managers. The problem are those (mostly altcoin/ICO campaigns) that don't do it. In my opinion, some restrictions are necessary, as I wrote above.

[bitart]

Well removing signatures would put a stop to it for sure. That's the only reason we have all these terrible topics being posted everyday and the shitposters who are all too happy to post in them. You can report any unsubstantial or duplicate/similar thread and they'll likely be removed but the sad thing is most people don't bother reporting them so they just get filled with spam pretty quickly.

I also wouldn't be against setting some restrictions on who can post what where. Maybe new or lower ranked members should be limited to Beginners until they hit a higher rank. That way new users can still get answers to their questions but can't just come here to spam the same old rubbish that has been posted dozens of times before as fast as they can. I really think we should prohibit new/lower ranked members from posting in Off Topic and Politics. There's really no good reason why Newbies would need to post in those two boards and some of them post exclusively in there (and they're really not here for their Politics).

I fully agree with all of these, as I just can't stand the current situation on the Bitcoin Discussion board...
I don't know what would be better, to restrict users (from rank member and up) to wear signatures (this would increase the account sales and also the prices, so account farmer would win in the end...) or to let newbie, jr. members to post in beginners only (they would spam the hell out of that poor board...)

 meandmrjones, you can have a look at this thread, it's not old, and has nearly the same subject, if you need further ideas:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3407447.0

[lobcmt2]

Which kind of threads/ topics are really annoying.

There are many others that I find useless not because they are low quality, but because they have been discussed quadrillion times before. eg. "Best wallet for bitcoin?", "Bitcoin safety", "What is a blockchain?" (a blockchain?), "Crypto vs Fiat" etc.

We have already had solutions for the endemic. It is merit system, which was launched in January of 2018 to solve the issue.

So what should be done? How do we solve this?

For some newbies who don't know how to use the forum search feature. Please spend a couple of minutes to read the topic carefully. It might help you to save your time and use the forum more efficiently.
[Tips] Guide for forum search

Before opening a thread, people should be incited into researching, and checking if the question in their mind has been discussed before. And after researching, if they can't find the answer to their specific question anywhere, then they should open new threads.

The ranking system is not faulty, it has been simply abused masssively by spammers, account farmers.

I think the ranking system is also faulty

[Vod]

Theymos needs to recruit moderators that don't have financial conflicts on the forum.  :/