The Reality of this forum

[hilariousetc]

Why only see a Newbie account as a spammer?

We don't and I'm not sure why you would think we are just picking on Newbies. You now merely need one merit to become a Junior Member. You need ONE HUNDRED to become a Full Member, and ONE THOUSAND to become a Legendary. Why are you not complaining about us attacking them? The problem is people are coming here in droves to farm thousands of accounts just by spamming and we need to stop that and the best way to do that is to make sure they're making quality posts and once rewarded for them via merit they get to move up ranks. If they spam or make low quality contributions then they will forever remain a low rank as they should.

Then what would you or forum developer do to overcome them, spammer or multiple accounts that already have a high rank, the large amount of merit can divide into other cloning accounts only to join Signature Campaign. Then whether the post with high quality still applies to them, I don't think so. Similar to the government system, high ranking officials will be more flexible even though what they do is wrong, and the people will get punishment even though they are innocent.

The merit system was implemented to prevent people just signing up here with multiple accounts just to milk campaigns for all they're worth and that's what it curbs. Why are you people so concerned with others and something that doesn't effect you? You're acting like the kids who want to take their own ball home because if they can't play then nobody else can. This 'rich get richer' bullshit is tiring.  Concentrate on yourself rather than others and either deal with it or go away because whining isn't going to do you any good at all.

As for people who abuse the merit system, they are dealt with by the community with negative feedback and that's the best we can do, but I'd concern yourself with your own posts and merits rather than anyone else.

[1715026798]

1715026798

[wedosgibas]

Why are you people so concerned with others and something that doesn't effect you? You're acting like the kids who want to take their own ball home because if they can't play then nobody else can. This 'rich get richer' bullshit is tiring.  Concentrate on yourself rather than others and either deal with it or go away because whining isn't going to do you any good at all.

As for people who abuse the merit system, they are dealt with by the community with negative feedback and that's the best we can do, but I'd concern yourself with your own posts and merits rather than anyone else.

Why do I care? Because I am part of this forum, even though with a low rank.
And if there are rules of forum members that are changed, surely everyone will feel it, even though it is very difficult for one side. And if there is no concern here, even though it does not benefit yourself, then I consider the purpose of this forum to be a failure. Because if everyone is selfish, everything will be messed up.

And thank you very much for praising me. Your final answer has explained everything. Hopefully this forum can improve itself and benefit all people.

Thank you, nice to meet you

[Cøbra]

The bigger a forum gets, and the more niche and limited the topic, the less there is to actually discuss. Aside from the usual "who is Satoshi Nakamoto?" type posts, and the day-to-day price movements and happenings, there's not a lot of things to talk about. There's more people on here than possible discussion material. You get people who care a lot about their rank and making money just posting nonsense, but if you banned all of these people, there wouldn't be more quality discussion, there would be about the same as before, but you would just notice it more because all the crap is gone. When you lurk for a while though you quickly develop a sense of which topics and sections are good parts of the site.

It's a little crazy how a lot of users on here care about magic internet points though. Maybe there is some psychological thing about a fascination with points, because it seems to be a thing on every social platform. I remember how even decades old forum software had those reputation points, Reddit has karma, Facebook has likes, etc. It's like nobody builds anything social without some sort of point system attached so users can compare the length of their virtual dicks. Maybe this explains how Bitcoin caught on so well when it was unknown, because it was pretty nice and somehow satisfying to own a lot of useless internet currency, but the more people thought that way the less useless and more valuable it eventually became.

[MoonCrypt]

the reality of the forum is that it has grown and become bigger than expected i guess!! when satoshi was creating this forum am sure he did not think of having much traffic as it is now!! what do you expect from a large community? let me ask how many of you have tried to be active in any group with lots of folks as a leader!! how easy has it been to manage!! trust me you can only control a certain number of spamming but you can take it out!! the forum needs traffic... i still learn good stuff from the forum and that is the good i can hodl on too...

[angel55]

The bigger a forum gets, and the more niche and limited the topic, the less there is to actually discuss. Aside from the usual "who is Satoshi Nakamoto?" type posts, and the day-to-day price movements and happenings, there's not a lot of things to talk about. There's more people on here than possible discussion material. You get people who care a lot about their rank and making money just posting nonsense, but if you banned all of these people, there wouldn't be more quality discussion, there would be about the same as before, but you would just notice it more because all the crap is gone. When you lurk for a while though you quickly develop a sense of which topics and sections are good parts of the site.

It's a little crazy how a lot of users on here care about magic internet points though. Maybe there is some psychological thing about a fascination with points, because it seems to be a thing on every social platform. I remember how even decades old forum software had those reputation points, Reddit has karma, Facebook has likes, etc. It's like nobody builds anything social without some sort of point system attached so users can compare the length of their virtual dicks. Maybe this explains how Bitcoin caught on so well when it was unknown, because it was pretty nice and somehow satisfying to own a lot of useless internet currency, but the more people thought that way the less useless and more valuable it eventually became.

Some of the boards are completely gone but there is still a lot of good discussions in Ivory Tower, Technical Discussion, Mining Speculation , etc.

We are living in a digital age.  People are willing to spend a lot of money on digital costumes in video games and other similar nonsense.  I think it gives people a feeling of superiority that they lack in their everyday lives.

[Crypto Girl]

Why do I care? Because I am part of this forum, even though with a low rank.
And if there are rules of forum members that are changed, surely everyone will feel it, even though it is very difficult for one side. And if there is no concern here, even though it does not benefit yourself, then I consider the purpose of this forum to be a failure. Because if everyone is selfish, everything will be messed up.

Yeah, obviously you're a part and all of a sudden you came up here from your local section and start posting something different aside from your endless bounty reports. I know you feel deprive for your rank and feel emphaty to your fellow ranks, and actually you can get yourself out of that. And guess what, those who doesn't complain or throwing blame to others, smoothly rank up since they more often use their time in creating useful thread or post rather than ranting here. Try it sometime, it wouldn't hurt.

[wedosgibas]

And guess what, those who doesn't complain or throwing blame to others, smoothly rank up since they more often use their time in creating useful thread or post rather than ranting here. Try it sometime, it wouldn't hurt.

I speak here, because I have a different opinion, and believe me it's more painful to be silent than to express it

[darklus123]

The bigger a forum gets, and the more niche and limited the topic, the less there is to actually discuss. Aside from the usual "who is Satoshi Nakamoto?" type posts, and the day-to-day price movements and happenings, there's not a lot of things to talk about. There's more people on here than possible discussion material. You get people who care a lot about their rank and making money just posting nonsense, but if you banned all of these people, there wouldn't be more quality discussion, there would be about the same as before, but you would just notice it more because all the crap is gone. When you lurk for a while though you quickly develop a sense of which topics and sections are good parts of the site.

It's a little crazy how a lot of users on here care about magic internet points though. Maybe there is some psychological thing about a fascination with points, because it seems to be a thing on every social platform. I remember how even decades old forum software had those reputation points, Reddit has karma, Facebook has likes, etc. It's like nobody builds anything social without some sort of point system attached so users can compare the length of their virtual dicks. Maybe this explains how Bitcoin caught on so well when it was unknown, because it was pretty nice and somehow satisfying to own a lot of useless internet currency, but the more people thought that way the less useless and more valuable it eventually became.

There are actually a lot of things to discuss about cryptocurrency. Specially the development area and the technical support. I got your point that the more users here and the lesser to talk about causes spamming. That is right, however most of the people here who do spamming doesn't actually contribute at all. Mind that there are actually a lot of good topics here that were swarmed up by those spammers cause no matter how good the topic is, if  those certain users doesn't plan to contribute at all then that is where the real problem starts.

On the other hand, why this forum actually creates a point system. Here we only have 2 point systems (based on my perspective) and that is the trust and merit system. Unlike facebook's like which is just a complete nonsense merit and trust system plays a very important rule on this forum.


Trust system was created(if i am not mistaken) for the obvious reason of eliminating or at least to lessen the (scammers). Tho we all know that it has a lot of holes the purpose is still meaningful.

Now one of the biggest problem is the bounty and signature campaign. For some reason it causes a lot of damage in this community that is why theymos should act and try to solove this problem by handing out the merit system.  Good thing is that there were a lot of users right now who are trying to cooperate aside from the fact that still this system has a lot of holes.

[sheynlee18]

This is really a big concern and a harsh reality in this forum. Even I admit that one of my biggest reason in joining here is to gain money ! Yeah you are right that this is one of the best alternative way to gain money than working 12h a day like here us in Philippines which is one of the poorest country and has a economy but upon using this forum for almost a year now (this is a new account because I have been banned before thats why I am afraid to post comment in the forum because I might be able to get banned again so I comment only seldom but this topic is interested me thats why I am making my comment)  I learned so many things about blockchain and cryptos and so many ways to apply this is a real world I have been joining seminars and meetings with crypto experts to gain more knowledge so maybe I myself will maybe start my own ideas to apply with blockchains too. Yes ! I see in this forum that there where may 80 to 90% of useless topics in this forum but still there are few topics that really is helpful and not only to gain merits, popularity or something but its the intentions of the authors to help and not asking for any returns. Especially when I was just a beginner I rely everything that questions in my head on all of the topics in this forum and it helped me a lot to gain more knowledge but in the end the harsh reality is that we gain knowledge to gain money . ! Money Runs The World That's The Bad Reality ! Have a Great day Everyone !

[green547]

This is really a big concern and a harsh reality in this forum. Even I admit that one of my biggest reason in joining here is to gain money ! Yeah you are right that this is one of the best alternative way to gain money than working 12h a day like here us in Philippines which is one of the poorest country and has a economy but upon using this forum for almost a year now (this is a new account because I have been banned before thats why I am afraid to post comment in the forum because I might be able to get banned again so I comment only seldom but this topic is interested me thats why I am making my comment)  I learned so many things about blockchain and cryptos and so many ways to apply this is a real world I have been joining seminars and meetings with crypto experts to gain more knowledge so maybe I myself will maybe start my own ideas to apply with blockchains too. Yes ! I see in this forum that there where may 80 to 90% of useless topics in this forum but still there are few topics that really is helpful and not only to gain merits, popularity or something but its the intentions of the authors to help and not asking for any returns. Especially when I was just a beginner I rely everything that questions in my head on all of the topics in this forum and it helped me a lot to gain more knowledge but in the end the harsh reality is that we gain knowledge to gain money . ! Money Runs The World That's The Bad Reality ! Have a Great day Everyone !

At least you admit your here for money, your not trying to make other excuses.  I don't blame you considering wages for jobs in your country are quite low. 

[Crypto Girl]

this is a new account because I have been banned before thats why I am afraid to post comment in the forum because I might be able to get banned again so I comment only seldom but this topic is interested me thats why I am making my comment

Seriously? Maybe you plagiarized something that's why you got banned. Posting something that you want to express isn't a crime, I believe there's a democracy here. And they won't ban you if you follow the rules, so stop saying that you didn't want to post because you're afraid to get ban. Don't create such drama.

Not to mention your long bounty reports. It sucks.

[tranthidung]

In my stance, the most impressive reality of the forum is the latest waves of wipen-out Spambies, who have toxidized the forum for a long period of time with their massively shitshows around many different boards, from Altcoins boards to Meta.
With the latest rank requirement implemented around 2 weeks ago, the forum has been much cleaner because all those guy are not able to wear signatures before they get at least one merit to rank up to Junior Member rank.

[tranthidung]

~
You have a lot of holes for your idea. Another disadvantage is that there are some users here who are actually just providing their services and will only reply to those and take note that most of them are not getting merits as they are not that active. Therefore no watter what will you do for me theymos will also has the same reasoning for that and will not consider demoting certain users.

I agree!

By the way, I would like to contribute my dieas on two points:
(1) As we all can see that over months (around 9 months after the launch day of merit system), there are many higher ranked users who have not received any merit, even some Ledgendary users. How to explain those cases? Is it really ridiculous?
The fact has actually happened.
Someone actually made a good initiative on this issue:
[Merit Analysis] Users ranked Sr. Member & up that have not earned any merit
Moreover, there are lots of Hero and Ledgendary have not earned any merit.

The percentage of users at Member, Full Member, Senior Member, Hero, and Ledgendary have not earned any merits till October of 2018 are 83%, 82.6%, 79.8%, 73.3%, and 47.2%, respectively. Amongst all ranks, Ledgendary is a outstanding one with nearly 47% of them have not received any merit. Ranks from Member to Senior Member (even with Hero Member) are almost the same.
Detailed statistics given below.

Rank	number of users	number of users       received at least 1 merit	number of users       with who didn’t earn any merit
Member	27 918	4 744 (17%)	23 174  (83%)
Full Member	18 181	3 173 (17,45%)	15 008  (82,55%)
Sr. Member	9 016	1 818 (20,16%)	7 198  (79,84%)
Hero Member	4 143	1 105 (26,67%)	3 038  (73,33%)
Legendary	2 145	1 133 (52,82%)	1 012  (47,18%)

(2) Furthermore, sometimes I have a feeling that threads published by higher ranked forum users have less odds to be deleted. I have seen many higher ranked users posted one-line (less than 10 words) threads, and don't follow to see whether those threads will be deleted later or not, but I guess those threads rarely deleted than same sort of threads published by lower ranked users.

I don't have suitable skills to get those statistics, but if someone can do it. I think we all can have a really interestingly clear picture on what's going on in the forum 9 months after the start day of merit system. A very clearer general picture on forum users on all ranks.

I don't want to fall into arguments there, but it's something like unfair system, even for lower-ranks, of course above Junior Member rank.
Do you agree at this point?
How fair the forum and merit system, rank system are if someone started as a Newbie and get 100 merits to rank up to Full Member rank. In another case, someone who is a Full Member and will not get any merit over the next one year, will be able to stay at Full member, forever.
It will become more clearly unfair for higher ranks, such as Senior, Hero and Ledgendary ranks.

Outside the forum, in real life, in some nations, there are strict requirements on professors, associate professors that they have to satisfy strict criteria, which require them to have new contribution, new project, new published scientific articles during speficic period in order to be as Professors / Associate professors. If they can satisfy those criteria, they will be demoted (as Junior Member rank witnessed weeks ago in the forum).

[hilariousetc]

It's a little crazy how a lot of users on here care about magic internet points though. Maybe there is some psychological thing about a fascination with points, because it seems to be a thing on every social platform. I remember how even decades old forum software had those reputation points, Reddit has karma, Facebook has likes, etc. It's like nobody builds anything social without some sort of point system attached so users can compare the length of their virtual dicks. Maybe this explains how Bitcoin caught on so well when it was unknown, because it was pretty nice and somehow satisfying to own a lot of useless internet currency, but the more people thought that way the less useless and more valuable it eventually became.

By magical internet points you mean merit? People only care about merit because that's the thing stopping them from earning here (or earning more).

People always like to be rewarded with things though, especially for effort, and even more so when there's financial benefit to them. This sort of thing goes back to my very early schooldays. How many people used to get some sort of points as a reward? We had a thing called 'gems' in high school which teachers awarded for good work or behaviour. Once you got x amount you actually got things like Bronze/Silver/Gold/Platinum certificates once you achieved like 100/500/1000 gems over the year or whatever. Some of them came with actual rewards like McDonalds vouchers and book tokens and shit like that. Merits (and ranks) are now like the adult version of that and have significant consequences on how much you can earn here from bounties and signature campaigns so that's why people are so desperate for them or even irate about the whole system when it prevents them from earning.   

[darklus123]

~

It seems that you haven't understood what i was trying to say based on your perspective you find merit system unfair? Because i was talking about how unfair demoting can be.


Actually receiving no merits since it have started is not a problem for me as long as you were not spamming. As i have said there are few users here who only provide services who is also muchlikely has a lower chance of receiving atleast one merit.


To that jr.member who got demoted that you were talking about has a clear explanations. There post got deleted therefore their activities aswell but the 10 merit still remains

[sweetrose1968]

i think there should be a section in the forum for bounty campaigns only this would eliminate the spam and all the one liners everyone keeps talking about. Then everyone who complains about these bounty treads wouldn't have to go to that section at all so they would not see it and stop complaining so much.

[Direwolve735]

... using this forum for almost a year now (this is a new account because I have been banned before thats why I am afraid to post comment in the forum because I might be able to get banned again so I comment only seldom but this topic is interested me thats why I am making my comment)  I learned so many things about blockchain and cryptos and so many ways to apply this is a real world I have been joining seminars and meetings with crypto experts to gain more knowledge so maybe I myself will maybe start my own ideas to apply with blockchains too.

If you really learned a lot during the year you spent on the forum, besides you visited various cryptocurrency events, then why were you banned? There must be a reason. For the year you can get a great experience and learn to understand the features of this site. It`s very weird that you don`t write posts, because you`re afraid of being banned again. Do you have a reason to fear this? If yes, then you aren`t sure about your comments and knowledge about the cryptocurrency sphere. If you question yourself the quality of your own posts, how should other forum members treat them?

[aoluain]

Based on the fact that I now felt that the driving force behind theymos' decisions was not $

Right, I don't care about making money from the forum personally. (I've actually thought about getting rid of the forum ads, since it's often a big headache and the forum has enough reserves for a long time, but operating at a significant loss while there's money basically just sitting on the table feels wrong, even if the level of loss is sustainable for quite a while.)

The things on the forum which encourage spam are allowed mainly because it's part of the forum's mission to be as free as possible. Eg. banning bounties would undoubtedly reduce spam, but that'd be destroying an entire economy/population/culture which has been able to develop due to the forum's freedom. I am willing to take this sort of action, but only as an absolute last resort. It's always preferable to handle these problems by reshaping the environment to make them non-problems, rather than removing some freedom.

It's wonderful when someone is able to constructively do something on the forum instead of continuing with whatever they were expected to do under the status quo. Enabling that sort of thing is exactly why Bitcoin and this forum were created. Though bitcointalk.org is not a worldwide welfare organization, and people are not entitled to make money.

Limiting newbie participation is very harmful for a community. Newbie jail will never return: I consider the newbie-jail period to have been extremely damaging to the forum. When barriers to participation are too high, then the best people often just won't go to the trouble of joining, and the people who are willing to jump through the hoops are often people who aren't good for the community: people with nothing better to do, scammers, get-rick-quickers, etc. Having a permanent newbie jail policy would improve things a lot in the short-term, but would end up being a fatal poison to the community.

The low signal-to-noise is a real issue which seriously annoys me and is often on my mind. But as you mention, fixing it non-destructively is difficult.

We have to commend the Admins for creating the truly democratic platform in the world. All shades of opinion and full expression are accommodated, yet regulated.

I totally agree, bitcointalk.org is a FORUM, its free to join and its monitored
by both board moderators and signature campaign administrators.

The forum is here to be used by all and anyone who wants to be involved
in crypto. There is no restriction to getting involved by a persons technical
or linguistical abilities. bitcointalk.org provides a platform for educating,
learning, expressing opinions and as a source revenue which we are all
entitled to under the rules of the forum.

It is refreshing to read theymos' post after reading the OP's which to me
seem a bit elitist

[tranthidung]

The forum has already had those specific sections/ boards/ child boards for bounties.
So, what did you want, something more than that, such as a new board/ childboard in which posts can be counted by campaign managers.
And, this section if implemented, will be a perfect place for spammers and bounty hunters because they will have a specifically legal place to show their shitshows. By saying 'legal', I meant threads posted there will be accepted by campaigns' managers.
Personally, I don't see any probability to see @Theymos create a new place like your suggestion.

i think there should be a section in the forum for bounty campaigns

In contrast, it is a perfect place (reasons mentioned above) for spammers, and spamming endemic will not be wipen out with this 'solution'.

only this would eliminate the spam and all the one liners everyone keeps talking about.

Of course, they will reduce, I meant only reduce, their complaints because they will have better place to spam.
Nevertheless, as we all known that merit system has still been one of a hardest things spammers have to pass through in order to rank up, so they will keep complaining about merit system.

Then everyone who complains about these bounty treads wouldn't have to go to that section at all so they would not see it and stop complaining so much.

In a word, I don't see any reason for potential successful scenarios with your proposal, which should not be implemented in the future.

[MainIbem]

The forum was created with a purpose. And the owners have consistently told us that the forum is intended for a democratic model. I agree with you that the influx of new members is tending to derail to original ideas but the mods are on top of the game. I am sure you too will be affected if every suggestion of members is implemented.