Disable signatures/bounties til a user reaches full member status.

[yahoo62278]

I'm sure most of you have noticed the overwhelming amount of merit begging posts or posts about merit in general. Most of the reason these users are begging so hard for the merit is due to earnings in signature campaigns.

You can also look in the altcoins sections and see the thousands of accounts who are only making posts in bounty campaigns. Claiming facebook, twitter, telegram, etc. Quite  a few of those accounts are also being accused of being connected in the reputation section. ALT ALT ALT or whatnot.

The main reason I am adding bounties into this post is due to the overwhelming amount of users who apparently cannot read. I try to get users to use google forms in bounty campaigns when I decide to run 1, but users insist on not reading a bounty thread and just posting their tweets and shares in the bounty thread, creating a bunch of useless spam. Should there be penalties for this? My personal opinion is idk. It could go either way honestly.

Bounties IMO are mainly social media focused or at least should be. I won't allow a company to use a bounty for their signature campaign. That must be ran on a bitcoin paying basis only to prevent some of the useless spam that bounty campaigns create with running signature campaigns in them.

I'd like to see all bounty managers adopt this practice but of course I cannot make that happen.

I know this topic has been touched on and passed over a few times, but I feel like it's time to really take a serious look at the request.

There are obviously good and bad things that will come from this being put into place. Good things being eventually these shit posters and "bounty hunters" will lose interest and stop visiting the forum thinking they're gonna make billions from the many worthless tokens that are announced.

Bad things being of course the same issue. The forum will lose some users who cannot rank up and earn due to not getting merits for their shit posts. More how do I get merit threads will be made because users are too goddamn lazy to search and read the 5000 threads on merit that already exist.

Overall though we will get rid of a bunch of trashposters and maybe they will take down the signs in their internet cafes that read, "Go to bitcointalk.org to feed your family" My goal in this post is not to take away from bitcointalk traffic or harm the forum in any other way, but just take a look around and look at the shit that's posted mainly. The economy section is filled with spammers, the altcoin section is even worse.

At the very least, lets use this thread to have a healthy discussion on ways to improve the forum. I'm sure some of you have better ideas than this, so I'd like to hear them and maybe theymos can chime in with some of his thoughts.

I'm not against advertising or users earning money, but when that's their main focus , it does nothing to help the forum or community grow. If you have a useful suggestion, then by all means post it here and lets get the ball rolling on some ways to improve things around here.

[1714685593]

1714685593

[Welsh]

Something needs to be done about the issues regarding bounties, and the Altcoin section in general. Although, I'm not sure what the best solution is, and none of the effective ways are without restrictions. But, something does needs to happen.

These are just some of the solutions which have been brought up:

- Additional moderators
Taking into consideration of theymos' post he doesn't really know that many users that he would consider appropriate for the job, and trustworthy. Even, if he had a few in mind I don't that this would be that effective considering the amount of spam over there, and how many bounties there are.

- Prevent certain ranks bumping the topic
This could be a option to remove the bumping bots, and bumping services issues that we are currently having. Most of the bumping is done by Newbies, and Jr members. There's a few that have higher ranked accounts, but it would be severely limited if we did impose bumping restrictions on certain ranks. This could maybe be limited to certain sections, and wouldn't be site wide.

- Disable signatures
Whether this is for everyone, behind a paywall or certain members aren't allowed to wear one. This wouldn't get rid of merit beggars, and would actually make it worse. I'm not sure if this is the right approach, and whether it would solve anything. At the end of the day you'll still have people attempting to get merit, and spamming in order to do that. Putting it behind a paywall could work. But, if bounties are promising high returns then they'll likely be willing to invest in a one time fee for a signature.

There's several other ideas, but those are the ones that I can remember right now. All of them involve putting restrictions somewhere, and I'm normally against imposing restrictions until the very last resort. However, I don't believe there's any other option. Things need to start happening, because I'm personally sick of the spam now, and I'm sure the majority of the forum is. Another extreme measure which was suggested was to remove the altcoin/bounty section altogether. but I'm personally not a fan of that approach.

I think I've probably been pissing off mprep with sending reports their way, and any other moderator that has to deal with them. The reports normally get dealt within a few hours so I'm not sure if they are understaffed or whether there just needs to be more users reporting. But, what I do know is that it's currently not working.

[bitart]

...

This is still a much better suggestion compared to removing signatures for all of the users. There are some quality signature campaigns and hard working campaign managers still on site, so it's better to regulate it instead of banning it...
I usually don't belive that those jr. members and newbies posting in the alt section are not bots, simply, they post rubbish, I just can't belive they are humans and do this manually day by day...
So if they are bots (or people who don't speak English) and they leave, the forum won't lose anything but only traffic (which is still important, if we want to be the first and most active bitcoin related forum, prior to reddit, etc...)
I just feel sorry for the very few newbies, who come here to learn about bitcoin (really) because they will suffer because of the shitposter army... if we implement some strict regulation for the newbies, jr. members, etc...
If anyone had found a simple solution for this problem, it would have been implemented already, so there's no simple solution at all. If there will be a solution, that will hurt, the question is whom and how much...
You just can't report all of the spammers and get them banned, because if you get one banned, two or three new shitposter will register immediately... (unfortunately, even if you won't get one banned, the new shitposters would still register...)

[Welsh]

I usually don't belive that those jr. members and newbies posting in the alt section are not bots, simply, they post rubbish, I just can't belive they are humans and do this manually day by day...

It's a mixture of the two. There are some ICOs/alts that use bumping services which use bumping bots. Another, exploit is by offering an incentive to post on their thread, and then finally it's just users that are trying to earn money, and post something good about the project in order to gain some favour or something.

You just can't report all of the spammers and get them banned, because if you get one banned, two or three new shitposter will register immediately... (unfortunately, even if you won't get one banned, the new shitposters would still register...)

Yeah, but this is where we could go for softer restrictions, and try to make up for it via actively reporting. Judging by how long it takes for a report to be handled the moderators aren't completely swamped by reports. If we could increase the amount of users reporting then it could make a difference. It would be nice to have statistics to offer insight into this, and whether or not reporting is actually doing something. I'll continue to report regardless, but it does feel like a losing battle most of the time.

[LeGaulois]

Disable signatures-bounties until a user reaches full member rank is not a bad idea itself. It's like saying "you have been a good boy" it could be considered as a reward by allowing members to use their signature space. Sure at the beginning, we will see a lot of posts complaining about this. But basically you don't join a forum to make some bucks, you join it because you're interested to meet people with the same interests as yours.
So someone really interested in crypto will still use the forum no matter if he is able to use his signature space or not, while someone joining just to make some cash but nothing else will leave. The result will be getting targeted traffic/sign up but isn't what is better?

For sure it will hurt the "normal users" who will join the forum to promote their business in their signature (without shitposting/spamming) I am thinking about a blogger, a new coin, service related to crypto or anything else.

[LoyceMobile]

I'm using the maximum length for a Newbie signature, and I wouldn't want to lose it.
As much as I hate spam, restricting legit users isn't the right solution. I'd like to see spam banned faster, especially the army of useless "great project" posters in the altcoin section.

[coinlocket$]

I'd like to think that you have taken this idea from a comment you left long time ago on one thread of mine about people who used 100+ accounts to join social media bounty.
As I suggested at the time this is the best way to limit the multiaccount since now with the merit system is almost impossible for one guy has 100+ full members accounts, even if he will has 100 of those accounts we can easly hunt them with a little of effort and red trust them.
From my small experience here you are one of the best managers here not only for the high trusted payments campaign that you run but also because you actually do something against cheaters.

I really love this old suggestion and I hope othes managers will do the same.

[Makkara]

It could be a good idea if converted to: signatured disabled for everybody till you get 100 merits, a shitposter is a shitposter, no matter the rank. 

[Kvanko]

Bounties IMO are mainly social media focused or at least should be. I won't allow a company to use a bounty for their signature campaign. That must be ran on a bitcoin paying basis only to prevent some of the useless spam that bounty campaigns create with running signature campaigns in them.

Firstly, I don't get why would bitcoin-based campaign generate less meaningless spam. How does that work?
Secondly, if you don't like the idea of signature campaign and you believe that it'd be better to forbid wearing signatures up until Full Member rank, than why do you keep running all these campaigns and allow "members" to join in?

[Welsh]

I'd like to think that you have taken this idea from a comment you left long time ago on one thread of mine about people who used 100+ accounts to join social media bounty.
As I suggested at the time this is the best way to limit the multiaccount since now with the merit system is almost impossible for one guy has 100+ full members accounts, even if he will has 100 of those accounts we can easly hunt them with a little of effort and red trust them.

Limiting multi accounts is impossible. It's too easy to use a public open VPN, and open an account up. Yeah, the IP will eventually get banned but, they'll then just move onto another clean VPN. They'll then post under Tor Browser, and without some very in depth research it would be difficult to prove who's an alt of who.

Plus, alt accounts have their uses. I personally have an alt account that I access when using insecure connections. Same as Loyce above, and theymos also does the same.

Firstly, I don't get why would bitcoin-based campaign generate less meaningless spam. How does that work?
Secondly, if you don't like the idea of signature campaign and you believe that it'd be better to forbid wearing signatures up until Full Member rank, than why do you keep running all these campaigns and allow "members" to join in?

Requirements are generally higher because, they are run by users that actually care about the forum. Instead, of some random user that is in it for the money, and doesn't care for it at all. Plus, a lot of the bounties in the Altcoin section run campaigns with new accounts.

[coinlocket$]

~
Limiting multi accounts is impossible. It's too easy to use a public open VPN, and open an account up. Yeah, the IP will eventually get banned but, they'll then just move onto another clean VPN. They'll then post under Tor Browser, and without some very in depth research it would be difficult to prove who's an alt of who.

Plus, alt accounts have their uses. I personally have an alt account that I access when using insecure connections. Same as Loyce above, and theymos also does the same.

I'm not talking about to eliminate the multiaccount (you right is impossible) but to limit the multiaccount, since if managers will only accept full members+ people can't use 50-100+ multiaccounts to join social media bounties. (Yes someone has over 100 accounts THE SCAMMER Guinness world record on bitcointalk 1 man 1000 accounts 150k+ usd!, I can post more example but this is the biggest found so far)
Also, yes someone now has 10+ accounts for signature and bounty, and they use to join the campaings BUT if the limit of full members+ it will be real, the total number of users of the campaing it will be smaller and it will easier to check for abusers.
Also keep in mind it will be easier to find multiaccounts and to red trust them, for this reason the abuser will are not able to join new bounties with the same account.
I'm not an expert but I don't think it will a small expense for anyone to buy 50 new full merit accounts and even if they do so, it will be always easier to check. (compared to now where in some bounties we have 2000 newbie/jr with new virgin eth address with no transaction).


Also @yahoo a good idea can be to require to have some eth/btc, this it will help the multiaccount hunting for obvius reasons. (even a small amount around 100$ I think is ok)

[Welsh]

I'm not talking about to eliminate the multiaccount but to limit the multiaccount, since if managers will only accept full members+ people can't use 50-100+ multiaccounts to join social media bounties.
Yes someone has now 10+ accounts and they use to join the campaings But if the limit of full members+ is real, the total number of users of the campaing it will be smaller and easier to check for abusers.
Also keep in mind it will be easier to find multiaccounts and to red trust them, for this reason the abuser will are not able to join new bounties with the same account.
I'm not an expert but I don't think it will a small expense for anyone to buy 50 new full merit accounts.

Right, so you are referring to campaign managers not accepting multi accounts? Well, most of the Bitcointalk ones do, and I think some bounties specify that its against the rules to have more than one account enrolled owned by the same user. But, it's hard to enforce, and prove. I would wager there are several accounts that are owned by the same person in the same campaign, even the Bitcoin ones. In fact this has been proven to be right in the past.

Implementing restrictions on certain ranks not having signatures would tackle this issue, though. Simply restricting multiple accounts either through campaign managers or through the forum rules isn't going to be effective even if we throw out the perfectly legitimate reasons to have an alternate account. It's simply to hard to prove. At the moment the people with hundreds of accounts probably only use a VPN, and likely don't try, and hide their information all that well. But, if we were to impose hard limits they would soon find a way around it by using VPNs/Tor, and different addresses for their multiple accounts. They might even go so in depth that they look at timing analysis or changing the national spellings of certain words between their accounts.

Also @yahoo a good idea can be to require to have some eth/btc, this it will help the multiaccount hunting for obvius reasons. (even a small amount around 100$ I think is ok)

Could be an interesting solution to the issue. Although, this is something that would have to be adopted by bounty managers, and most of them don't actually care about the spam issue. All they care about is their advertisement, and hype around their project.

Theymos could potentially come out with a set of guidelines which bounty managers have to follow otherwise their thread will be removed. This could be an approach which would avoid too many official restrictions, but would deal with some of the issues. Whether, the forum has enough users reporting, and the manpower to enforce this though is another thing.

[vit05]

I believe a simple solution would be to charge a small fee for campaigns that do not use Bitcoin as a means of payment. The cost for campaigns promoting airdrops and other bounties using ERC-20 is minimal. So they do not have to worry at all about the quality of the post from their participants. They are most benefited by the spam that those users promote.

A fee would put a cost on those campaigns. The fee could even be partly refunded if everything went well with the campaign and it was considered spam-free.

[pugman]

I'm not sure if they are understaffed or whether there just needs to be more users reporting.

Altcoin section literally has only one mod appointed to it. Kudos to mrprep for moderating that board for years, but there won't be another mod in that board, unless one or more users start reporting aggressively. So the problem is both.About the full member status:

The restriction is a tad too much. For those who don't read the rules/terms of bounties, put them in SMAS/delete their replies and don't pay them. Enforce a new rule/term: If any post is made with twitter and facebook links, that user shall be banned from further bounties/campaigns and he shall not be paid.

A few lazy managers caused this spam, and now legitimate people shouldn't pay for this. And the likeliness of theymos implementing this is almost zero. He did say that this would be his last resort(banning signatures overall if merit system fails). But he is apparently swamped with things and is currently looking to start a company with the same intent as a forum,and to hire a CEO for that. About the alt account issue:

If there were a way for theymos to limit the number of alt accounts a person can have, that could solve a huge problem. Bots could be controlled and so could be shitposting. I don't see any legitimate reason for a person to have more than 3 alt accounts other than just to shitpost. Accessing hundreds of accounts using TOR would be almost impossible, for TOR takes a few minutes just to bypass recaptcha. So most shitposters won't likely use TOR. It'd take a lot of time.

So only the VPN issue exists, blacklist the most common VPN IPs? I have heard that there are numerous websites that have huge lists of common IPs.

Another issue:

Autoreply bot. There is a software that has been especially made for users to post in bitcointalk without logging in. This just made things much worse. I really can't think of a solution for this, but if somehow theymos stops the forum from using cloudfare and if he hires someone or if he himself does something to replace cloudfare, he could make a lot of custom restrictions. Allowing only specific type of bots to access the forum(scrappers/crawlers) and not allow posting bots.

If people want to clean the bounty section and the shitposters:

Limit any random person from starting bounties. Only like a few managers should host campaigns. This is a hard blow, but it might just work in the long run. And for anybody to be a campaign manager, he should be qualified for that. Qualified as in, he should have knowledge of this forum, know how to select participants, be a trustworthy individual et al.

Why I say only qualified personnel should manage campaigns is  because: Think like a real life person. People only get jobs after they are qualified for it. Campaign Management is becoming a big business and random kids shouldn't be managing campaigns, when they should be studying in school. Overall, I don't like above suggestions myself, but something needs to be done. A lot of legit users would be hurt by this, but that's what happens when you leave the fate of the forum at a few lazy ass managers.

[Welsh]

I'm quite passionate about the forum as you might of gathered, and I'm only nitpicking so that we can actually come up with a solution rather than proposing some, and not really going into depth about them, and then this type of thread resurfaces again in a few weeks, and we circle around the issue again.

Altcoin section literally has only one mod appointed to it. Kudos to mrprep for moderating that board for years, but there won't be another mod in that board, unless one or more users start reporting aggressively. So the problem is both.

I know that there's several people who are spending their time reporting in that section. You only have to take a look at the modlog to see that there are hundreds of posts every day getting removed.

I've recently considered making a Discord/Telegram account just so I can join their groups, and see if they are offering an incentive to post on their threads, because it seems to be the trend right now. Investigating the thread whether they are offering an incentive to post is time consuming enough, let alone if they aren't, and you have to report each post individually.

Yeah, mprep is the only moderator assigned, and he's a Global moderator too. But, it definitely spills over to other moderators from time to time. I received a personal message from cyrus about a specific report so I know that he deals with reports from time to time.

The restriction is a tad too much. For those who don't read the rules/terms of bounties, put them in SMAS/delete their replies and don't pay them. Enforce a new rule/term: If any post is made with twitter and facebook links, that user shall be banned from further bounties/campaigns and he shall not be paid.

Getting the bounty managers to enforce this would be difficult. Especially, because the list is subjective. I think it's a good movement personally, but it is subjective. Unless, theymos is willing to specify certain guidelines for campaign managers to follow, and actually enforce it we won't be able to get them to follow certain things that would make the campaign less spammy, because they simply don't care.

A few lazy managers caused this spam, and now legitimate people shouldn't pay for this. And the likeliness of theymos implementing this is almost zero. He did say that this would be his last resort(banning signatures overall if merit system fails). But he is apparently swamped with things and is currently looking to start a company with the same intent as a forum,and to hire a CEO for that.

I agree. I don't like restrictions either as it normally impacts on the legitimate users more than the malicious users.

If there were a way for theymos to limit the number of alt accounts a person can have, that could solve a huge problem. Bots could be controlled and so could be shitposting. I don't see any legitimate reason for a person to have more than 3 alt accounts other than just to shitpost. Accessing hundreds of accounts using TOR would be almost impossible, for TOR takes a few minutes just to bypass recaptcha. So most shitposters won't likely use TOR. It'd take a lot of time.

Right, even if we did try, and limit it. Several users use public wifi, and VPNs. Especially, in countries which the government isn't so friendly to Bitcoin. It would be incredibly difficult to find alternate accounts without them exposing themselves or by taking an in depth inestigations per account. Most of which would have to be done by an admin, and considering both theymos' words, and the account recovery issue right now I don't think they'll have the time too.

So only the VPN issue exists, blacklist the most common VPN IPs?

There's several pieces of software out there which hundreds of new VPNs are coming online, and being used. They could just use them. There would be no way to regulate this AFAIK. The users registering multiple accounts aren't likely using the most common VPNs because these have likely already accumulated too much evil points to make it feasible.

[Quickseller]

- Disable signatures
Whether this is for everyone, behind a paywall or certain members aren't allowed to wear one. This wouldn't get rid of merit beggars, and would actually make it worse. I'm not sure if this is the right approach, and whether it would solve anything. At the end of the day you'll still have people attempting to get merit, and spamming in order to do that. Putting it behind a paywall could work. But, if bounties are promising high returns then they'll likely be willing to invest in a one time fee for a signature.

Why do you think this would make things worse?

If signatures were outright disabled, the incentive to make low value posts would essentially disappear, and the value of a higher ranking account would be little because of the lack of earnings potential a higher ranking account would have, so I don't think the merit system would be necessary anymore.

If people were required to pay for signatures to be enabled, we could outright remove the merit system. We could even have a system in which users each time a user ranks up they will need to pay to have additional signature features enabled. I personally would prefer to use something like this because it gives users more of an incentive to not engage in behavior that will get them banned because doing so would result in them loosing their investment in their signature features. The payment for signatures would essentially be a bounty that users will not post low value posts.

One of the biggest flaws in the merit system is that everyone who was already ranked up was grandfathered into their rank. A good number of the people I have seen posting crap have a fairly high ranking account but have received exactly zero merit since the merit system was implemented.

Also @yahoo a good idea can be to require to have some eth/btc, this it will help the multiaccount hunting for obvius reasons. (even a small amount around 100$ I think is ok)

As a general rule, it is trivial to obtain bitcoin to two separate addresses that cannot be linked to eachother, even if they have transactions. It takes patience, but it is also not difficult to move bitcoin to an exchange in order to consolidate bitcoin inputs if the exchange allows for multiple deposit addresses.

I am also not a fan of forcing people to conduct business a certain way.

[nkampala]

I partially agree with the suggestion.

However, there's a difference between saying "all new users are shitposters" and saying "the majority of shitposters are new users". What you suggest would be a reasonable solution (in my opinion, at least) only if the the former were true, and obviously, it isn't:

For sure it will hurt the "normal users" who will join the forum to promote their business in their signature (without shitposting/spamming) I am thinking about a blogger, a new coin, service related to crypto or anything else.

I think that mods/admins should be able to take away the signature privilege if the user abuses it by spamming. Maybe tie it into the temporary bans as a sort of probation period (after your ban is over you can't use a signature for 2-3 weeks or something like that). But don't punish a whole group of people simply because there are some bad eggs.

Disable signatures until full member status? I don't think it's a great idea. Disable or prevent people from participating in signature campaigns until full member status? Sure. Right now it seems like that would be up to the managers on that one, but maybe in the future there will be a forum-wide rule or even a feature integrated into the forum to monitor/implement that.

The spam problem is obviously complex and in order to cut down on it without punishing those who have no part in it, a good solution will likely mean changes to many rules/parts of the forum, including signatures, bounties, ranks/merit, and potentially even the forum software itself.

[Welsh]

Why do you think this would make things worse?

In terms of users hunting for merit. The prospect to earn is still there, but it's just behind a rank restriction.  The users that are looking to earn through bounties, but aren't the required rank will definitely increase their posting habits in order to earn merit. As evidenced the last few months the users that are hunting for merit usually don't post high quality content.  

Paying for signatures is a little different. I wouldn't agree that the merit system could be removed if signatures would be put behind a paywall either. I think the merit system is a pretty good system, regardless if there's other limitations on signatures or not. Its not perfect by all means. However, those that haven't earned any merit since the introduction of the system are fairly easy to spot. I've also supported hilariousandco's suggestion of a pay for signature type system in the past. I think it would be mostly beneficial. Of course, the price of this would need to be carefully considered. Too low, and users won't care about spamming, and getting banned, because they'll likely earn their investment back before they get caught, and they'll just reinvest on another account. Too high, and your just pricing out legitimate users out of the usage of a signature. Several users like to link to their personal projects within their signature, and other interesting projects by others. We shouldn't be removing the ability of users to do this.  I'm not 100% for the idea of a paid signature, and don't see it as the best solution, but more of a compromise due to something needed done about the issues.

[cabalism13]

Maybe this would be really unfair to those who are still in the Member Rank just like me, I really dont intend to do some shitposts in this community just to earn my post counts needed in my bounty campaign, and as for the Merit Distribution it is now getting a little bit short.
Although I'm really aware of, on how it is done but still the fact that the users that are commonly known here are just the ones whose being given some Merits again and again.

As we can see it is not just the newbies, jr members who are causing this forum to be flooded by useless posts. Although you have the point that the majority of spammers are being done by those noobs.

Being stuck here ( Member Status with 34 Merits ) isn't a bad thing i suppose?, but now i think it is. How about enforcing the noobs to study first or making their limits from posting.

Newbies - only 1 post per day, can't post if its not more than a hundred words ( if the post is good  as shit then it would be deleted immediately )
Jr. Member - only 1-3 post per day ,can't post if its not more than a hundred words ( if the post is good  as shit then it would be deleted immediately ), 5 Merits Requirement Before joining campaigns, Only from this rank with Merit can put some signatures for the campaign
Members-1-5 post per day, 15 Merits Requirement Before joining campaigns
Full Member 1-5 post per day, 120 Merits (or depends if the 100 Merits is accumulated not by default ) Requirement Before joining campaigns

Just Make The Merits Be A Requirement For Joining Campaigns

And I think it is the CM's job to evaluate the campaign member's post whether it is a useless or not.

Many Threads should be locked up first before implementing such rules.

[Joel_Jantsen]

I'm using the maximum length for a Newbie signature, and I wouldn't want to lose it.
As much as I hate spam, restricting legit users isn't the right solution. I'd like to see spam banned faster, especially the army of useless "great project" posters in the altcoin section.

Right! Restricting users from doing stuff isn't always the right solution. For instance, I'm pretty sure in the coming years we will have massive traffic and restricting the sign up process on invite basis only wouldn't be the right solution.We have to go beyond that and harness the best of tech to figure out stuff.

If there were a way for theymos to limit the number of alt accounts a person can have, that could solve a huge problem. Bots could be controlled and so could be shitposting. I don't see any legitimate reason for a person to have more than 3 alt accounts other than just to shitpost. Accessing hundreds of accounts using TOR would be almost impossible, for TOR takes a few minutes just to bypass recaptcha. So most shitposters won't likely use TOR. It'd take a lot of time.

So only the VPN issue exists, blacklist the most common VPN IPs? I have heard that there are numerous websites that have huge lists of common IPs

Again, just like my point above, "Restriction doesn't always mean the best solution". Technology is way beyond VPN's and Tor exit nodes. You can never stop the attacks, you can only prevent them.

Limit any random person from starting bounties. Only like a few managers should host campaigns. This is a hard blow, but it might just work in the long run. And for anybody to be a campaign manager, he should be qualified for that. Qualified as in, he should have knowledge of this forum, know how to select participants, be a trustworthy individual et al.

So if I start my company and would want my employee to manage my campaign, do you think forum should force me to use one of their managers? Why would I?I don't like how every solution you have mentioned revolves around restrict this and restrict that when we are here to be free from the centralised world (speaking psychologically) in the first place.

To sum up this post : Ban Signature Campaigns, forum is sorted (and dead)

[Welsh]

Newbies - only 1 post per day, can't post if its not more than a hundred words ( if the post is good  as shit then it would be deleted immediately )
Jr. Member - only 1-3 post per day ,can't post if its not more than a hundred words ( if the post is good  as shit then it would be deleted immediately ), 5 Merits Requirement Before joining campaigns, Only from this rank with Merit can put some signatures for the campaign
Members-1-5 post per day, 15 Merits Requirement Before joining campaigns
Full Member 1-5 post per day, 120 Merits (or depends if the 100 Merits is accumulated not by default ) Requirement Before joining campaigns

Some of these suggestions are similar to what the newbie jail was. Instead, of restrictions on where they can post you are limiting how many times they can post. This harms the legitimate users, and 1 post per day is incredibly low. Also, requiring a certain character count is just pointless. Some replies just require a few words. In fact, I honestly think the character requirement for signature campaigns isn't needed. A constructive post can be said, and done within a couple of words, and not necessarily 100 characters. It just invites unnecessary padding of a post.

Just Make The Merits Be A Requirement For Joining Campaigns

And I think it is the CM's job to evaluate the campaign member's post whether it is a useless or not.

Many Threads should be locked up first before implementing such rules.

Yeah, it should be their responsibility, and they should already have some pretty strict guidelines for the best possible users joining. However, this isn't the case because there's no actual downside of them enrolling anyone, and everyone. The person who is hiring them is happy because they are getting crazy amount of traffic because their website is being spammed across the forums, and the campaign manager is happy because they are getting paid for minimal work.

There either needs to be punishments handed out to the campaign managers as well as the the members participating in the campaign or implementation of restrictions. I'm actually more inclined to try out punishing campaign managers, and see if the quality improves.

To sum up this post : Ban Signature Campaigns, forum is sorted (and dead)

Is banning signature campaigns not a sort of restriction in itself, though? This should be the last resort. Fundamentally, it isn't a problem that users can earn from posting. There is a problem in how this is affecting the forum, and how its currently being handled.

[cabalism13]

1 post per day is incredibly low.

Yes, indeed. But for the sake of these communtiy it should be limited just for the newbies.

Also, requiring a certain character count is just pointless. Some replies just require a few words. In fact, I honestly think the character requirement for signature campaigns isn't needed. A constructive post can be said, and done within a couple of words, and not necessarily 100 characters. It just invites unnecessary padding of a post.

You have a point, but still we can't deny that the majority of the single liner posts are irrelevant and unacceptable to some topics.
And if that will be the case, CMs are just the only ones who can take action to this.

There either needs to be punishments handed out to the campaign managers as well as the the members participating in the campaign or implementation of restrictions. I'm actually more inclined to try out punishing campaign managers, and see if the quality improves.

Easier said than done. Punishments can be handled easily but the improvements regarding the posts, I don't think it will be seen as quickly as possible. There would be more cry babies will pop out because they can't construct such posts and having problems with the english language.

[yahoo62278]

My thoughts on this subject were more towards rewarding users for reaching a certain level vs being able to come right in and join the campaigns. First of all, users need to learn about bitcoin and the forum before they pop in to come earn. The biggest thing is they need to learn how to read and prove they can read.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4505246.msg40559490#msg40559490 For example. It's clearly stated in this bounty thread on the twitter and facebook sections, that users need to fill out the form to get credit for their stakes. I don't know if users are just too lazy to read, cannot read English, or do not care about rules posted in bounties, but obviously 76 pages later you can see that quite a few do not follow the rules.

Maybe I need to be more of an asshole?

I am just thinking that users need a period when joining to where they need to l earn how the forum works. Must read certain stickies. Learn about bitcoin. Maybe even take a test before they're allowed to post in certain areas or earn a penny. The test itsself would need to be alot of different random questions about the forum, it's rules, and anything else in general whomever creates the test would wanna throw in. I would not suggest just using the same test for every single user because some dude will make a youtube video about the test and the answers and render the test worthless. It would need to be constantly changed up.

[coinlocket$]

~

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4505246.msg40559490#msg40559490 For example. It's clearly stated in this bounty thread on the twitter and facebook sections, that users need to fill out the form to get credit for their stakes. I don't know if users are just too lazy to read, cannot read English, or do not care about rules posted in bounties, but obviously 76 pages later you can see that quite a few do not follow the rules.
~

That's because many users uses bots to post and they are multiaccounts.
Page 66-67 of your bounty 20 of 40 post are from 1 abuser already redtrusted.
Also page 79-80 to many people use this when they report

WEEK #3 (05 july-11 july)  

I strongly suspect they are alts the odds, they all use the exatly same words WEEK #3 (05 july-11 july), with no capital letters, with no spaces with no numbers (is more logical for human brain write 07 istead july since is faster to type) are very low
Yes they are probably alts but is 4 AM here and it takes too much time now to check all of them

OR

Week 3 ( 05/07 - 11/07)

With exatly the space after the 1st (

Want some proofs?

They use diffent eth addresses collector but is quite obvious





I can do a deeper investigation but it will takes a lot of hours.

As you can see I've opened only 4 pages of 80 (the lasts 2 and 2 random) of your bounty and the majority of those post are from newbie/jr abuser/suspicius abusers that they probably use bots to posts on forum and to do social media activities.

[yahoo62278]

~

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4505246.msg40559490#msg40559490 For example. It's clearly stated in this bounty thread on the twitter and facebook sections, that users need to fill out the form to get credit for their stakes. I don't know if users are just too lazy to read, cannot read English, or do not care about rules posted in bounties, but obviously 76 pages later you can see that quite a few do not follow the rules.
~

That's because many users uses bots to post and they are multiaccounts.
Page 66-67 of your bounty 20 of 40 post are from 1 abuser already redtrusted.
Also page 79-80 to many people use this when they report

WEEK #3 (05 july-11 july)  

I strongly suspect they are alts the odds, they all use the exatly same words WEEK #3 (05 july-11 july), with no capital letters, with no spaces with no numbers (is more logical for human brain write 07 istead july since is faster to type) are very low
Yes they are probably alts but is 4 AM here and it takes too much time now to check all of them

OR

Week 3 ( 05/07 - 11/07)

With exatly the space after the 1st (

Want some proofs?

They use diffent eth addresses collector but is quite obvious





I can do a deeper investigation but it will takes a lot of hours.

As you can see I've opened only 4 pages of 80 (the lasts 2 and 2 random) of your bounty and the majority of those post are from newbie/jr abuser/suspicius abusers that they probably use bots to posts on forum and to do social media activities.

I wouldn't mind seeing you investigate further and posting all your proof here so that the whole forum may get a view of whats going on. Just so ya know, newbies and jrs will earn nothing on that bounty campaign. It's limited to member and above. Just more proof of the lack of reading skills by those users.

[Quickseller]

My thoughts on this subject were more towards rewarding users for reaching a certain level vs being able to come right in and join the campaigns. First of all, users need to learn about bitcoin and the forum before they pop in to come earn.

I don't think it is the administrations place to say who can and cannot earn money, especially if they are not doing anything on the forum except making a post in a specific section not designed for actual discussion.

There is a reason why the people behind ICOs want broad exposure on social media -- because they want many people to see posts (that are really advertisements) for their ICO, and hopefully have one of their #hashtags go trending for some people. I would not be surprised if some of the mass accounts are actually hired by the people behind the ICO to manipulate social media, and the other mass accounts are still providing social media exposure to the ICOs anyway, so those behind the ICOs usually wont care one "person" (more likely a bot) is claiming their bounty 100 times.

Regardless of the above, I don't see why someone who isn't very active on the forum but is active on other social media platforms shouldn't be able to participate in bounties. If someone wants to tweet about ICOs or talk about ICOs with their friends on Facebook, let them, and let them earn money doing so. If we force people to rank up to participate in bounties who have no real interest in posting here, they will only post crap they put little effort into, and will go around begging for merit so they can rank up. If they have no interest in posting here, let them post what they want on social media.

Paying for signatures is a little different. I wouldn't agree that the merit system could be removed if signatures would be put behind a paywall either. I think the merit system is a pretty good system, regardless if there's other limitations on signatures or not. Its not perfect by all means. However, those that haven't earned any merit since the introduction of the system are fairly easy to spot. I've also supported hilariousandco's suggestion of a pay for signature type system in the past. I think it would be mostly beneficial. Of course, the price of this would need to be carefully considered. Too low, and users won't care about spamming, and getting banned, because they'll likely earn their investment back before they get caught, and they'll just reinvest on another account. Too high, and your just pricing out legitimate users out of the usage of a signature. Several users like to link to their personal projects within their signature, and other interesting projects by others. We shouldn't be removing the ability of users to do this.  I'm not 100% for the idea of a paid signature, and don't see it as the best solution, but more of a compromise due to something needed done about the issues.

When you charge people to enable signatures, people will quickly learn they will lose their investment if they post nonsense. More effort could be put into banning multi-accounters when they are posting crap, and maybe even the threshold to ban them should be lower, so someone with 10 accounts might risk $200 instead of $20 if they post even a little bit of low quality posts.

Non paying users might be able to have very basic signature functionality. Maybe users could have some signature features enabled for free if they self-certify their signature is not being used for commercial purposes each time they change their signature, and if they are caught with a commercial signature after certifying their signature is not commercial, their signature privileges can be revoked for a year, or however long.   

[The Cryptovator]

I was share before some day almost your similar idea. Reduce spam and scam by accepting only Bitcoin for signature campaign. . I think it will be helpful for reduce spam.

Another thread was Disable sign. camp. officially to prevent spam & know true value of merit system . I was mention at least signeture should be disable for Jr. Member's below.  For mebers should be merit required 15 . So for existing member's should also qualified, initials member's can't participate. This is the strong reason for spam on forum. Theymos should consider some implements.

Edit:  Another idea to avoid more spam just disable signeture campaign for initials merit holder's even he is legendary. He should earn minimum merit like 10 or 20 to participate signeture campaign. If some one initially got 1000 merit it doesn't mean he is not spammer.  So that every one will try to make quality post. I think this way 80 % spam we can prevent

[Piggy]

Doing some rapid calculation and going straight to the point. At the moment between new, jr and member there are about ~10k users that ever received some merit, all togheter they  got something like ~60k merits, so is 6 merit each in average.

Without even considering the new and existing users in the mix, is going to be needed a major injection of merits for something like this to be sustainable.

[joniboini]

-snip-
Edit:  Another idea to avoid more spam just disable signeture campaign for initials merit holder's even he is legendary. He should earn minimum merit like 10 or 20 to participate signeture campaign. If some one initially got 1000 merit it doesn't mean he is not spammer.  So that every one will try to make quality post. I think this way 80 % spam we can prevent

I like this idea. In fact, I'm seeing a lot of spam posts from those users with initial merits (even after ~4 months since merit was introduced). Reporting is quite tiring as they can just post in another thread and still fulfill their minimum signature post to get paid.

[SuiMikira]

We discussed about this several times. It can reduce spam a little but the merit market outside this forum will become eventful than ever. Also, there are thousands of full member and above rank shitposters out there, they have been on this forum for years, not all of high rank members are quality posters.

[Talk merit]

Re: signatures - I don't post much in a forum which doesn't allow an active link in my signature. Whilst I don't push my signature for much commercial gain, I do use it for various person projects and promotions. I wouldn't pay for a signature, I think of a signature as a 'thank you' for participating in the forum. Your choice of signature is a reflection of your morality. If you promote a scam or fraudulent product, then you should receive a red tag for it. Members should take responsibility for all their interactions with the forum.

Re: necro-bumps. Some of the new spam fests are the results of necro-bumps. I think that any thread that hasn't received a post for 30 days should be locked. If new information appears, then start a new thread, and link to the old one.

Re: mega spam threads. These are going to happen, so why not have one designated thread in a few of the major boards, and allow members to post (fairly ) freely in a chit-chat thread. Newbie introductions could be one, the wall in stats is another. A hardware/software chat in technical could also be useful. Any thread that starts to degenerate outside the chit-chat ones could be locked when it stops having value.

Re: serious discussion. Restrict it to members and above.

Re: newbie restrictions. Don't allow them to start threads outside a couple of designated boards ( beginners for example)

Re: banned accounts - created a new sub-board under Meta for the removal of ban restrictions, red tags and other associated topics.  Thread starting on Meta could then be restricted to members and above.

Re; alt accounts - all alts should be disclosed, and the main account identified publicly.

Re: account sales - these completely negate the benefits from the trust and merit system. They should be banned.

[Naida_BR]

Disable signatures-bounties until a user reaches full member rank is not a bad idea itself.

IT IS a bad idea itself. A shitposter does not have to do with his rank. Of course "low ranks" post and spam in a bigger frequency but this does not mean that there are not Full Members- Sr. Members that are not posting shit.


In my opinion, we need more moderators in forum in order to keep the quality posts and get rid of the others.

[DdmrDdmr]

Campaigns are a business for the forum, and it looks like a necessary deal. That does not mean that they cannot be regulated to a certain extent, or at the very least "favour" some over other if they comply with a spam-free policy. If enforcement is not on the plate, then voluntary commitment to a spam-free policy with benefits could help. The question would then be what benefits to give to anti-spam committed campaigns, acting through their campaign managers, and how to control that they keep to their word. Some of these matters were discussed last month on a post by d5000 ( The core of Bitcointalk's spam problem ), so a few additional ideas can be rescued from that thread alone.

One often commented feature would be to include a gained merit pre-requisite for joining campaigns. A few already do, but this is not a general practice yet. The concept behind being that if you’ve earned “enough” merit, your posting habits should be better and your knowledge of how the forum works more so, with a higher likeliness to be committed to an anti-spamming policy not because the campaign enforces/controls it, but because of one’s own nature as a merited person. Not all campaign attendants will be of this nature, but the chances are logically better than if this requirement is not placed. Of course merit trading will rise and at higher prices, but that’s a different side matter for now.

If gained merit were to be introduced into the equation somehow (the 120 profile visibility limit may or may not be a an issue here, but there are options to get the full history from LoyceV, Piggy and myself at least), the first premise would be to consider whether there is enough user base for the campaigns to actually keep their publicity being deployed, regardless of how that is being done.
Currently (as of las Friday), there are 17.335 people that have been awarded at least 1 Merit. Now out of those, not all are willing to participate wearing a signature, and quite a few of the signatures are of a personal nature and not tied to a specific ICO. Last time I checked, about a month ago, around 75% of the merited user base was wearing a signature (re: Is it easier to earn Merit without a signature? ), so the potential max. user base for campaigns with at least 1 sMerit is in the 13K range currently.
Now let’s say that a conservative average for users per campaign is of 200 users (I don’t have the real number here, so I’m estimating a low average from looking at report sheets). That would allow, with the current numbers, for 13.000/200 = 65 concurrent campaigns max. Over time, the base should grow, but currently at a slow pace, since were getting an average of 250 newly merited users per week (never merited before), as can be seen on the Merit Dashboard.   
Is that enough base, considering the amount of campaigns in the Ann thread and bounty thread?  Not even close. There are roughly 30 pages of ICOs that have a last post placed between today and yesterday. That is 1.200 active bounty threads at least!

Now if the requirement is stepped up to requiring 10 sMerits as a prerequisite or 20 as I’ve seen on this thread, the numbers would look like this:

10 gained sMerits:
nUsers: 4.864 -> Number of simultaneous campaigns (avg.200; 75% merited interested): 18

20 gained sMerits:
nUsers: 1.778 -> Number of simultaneous campaigns (avg.200; 75% merited interested): 7

What my hypothesis tells us is that introducing gained merit in campaigns as a mandatory pre-requisite would, with the current numbers, result on insufficient user base for the campaigns (especially if the gained sMerits required was high(ish)). Many would crave for this to happen, but as mandatory feature I don’t think we’ll see it; not with the current gained merit numbers.

But where it may get interesting is by trying to set a trend. If forum benefits are given to campaigns that commit voluntarily and declaratively to a spam-free policy, then a trend could be started. Benefits should probably be in the line of a better visibility for their campaign:

<...>
I would rather prefer for them to compete for the space than to pay for it. We could bring Merit in to the equation here. For example, we could play with positioning based on three variables:
-   Accumulated pre-signature Merit of Campaign´s signatories (this could be gained Merit and not Airdropped Merit for the signatories instead).
-   Accumulated Merit of Campaign´s signatories during the actual campaign.
-   Natural bumps.

The algoritm would create a scoring based on those three variables, being the second and third more relevant. For example, whenever a signatory is merited, the score for the positioning would be incremented, and thus the ICO’s positioning thread within the Ann section. Gained merit would have more weight than a bump, and a longer time effect in the positioning algorithm.
The above would play on the lines of basing positioning both in terms of participation (natural organic bumping) and quality/interest based by the signatories posting capabilities. Good posters would draw more attention to their signature through their natural activity, whilst rising collaterally the ANN thread’s position. Crappy posters would benefit the Campaign on neither accounts.

[coinlocket$]

Disable signatures-bounties until a user reaches full member rank is not a bad idea itself.

IT IS a bad idea itself. A shitposter does not have to do with his rank. Of course "low ranks" post and spam in a bigger frequency but this does not mean that there are not Full Members- Sr. Members that are not posting shit.


In my opinion, we need more moderators in forum in order to keep the quality posts and get rid of the others.

This is partialy true BUT I think the main reason to limit the campaing is to AVOID scammers and not shitposters (they can be removed later when manager will review the posthistory), just think when people abusing with 100+ accounts like https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4415441.msg39323752#msg39323752.

[audaciousbeing]

In contributing to this, I think that the bounty section of the forum needs more attention because to a large extent since the beginning of the merit system, things have improved. It is not perfect but its has as people who are serious about the forum and like to see things get better invest more time in churning out quality posts to help the community while some others who decides that the best way is to cheat the system, they all have their days in the reputation section of the forum with various 'policing' activities being done by reputable members of the forum.

I think the main reason why we still battle with spam to a large extent is due to the managers managing bounties for signature campaigns as they are the ones only required to post. On the bitcoin section, we have seen quality managers that makes things happen but for alt, its just different people coming up as campaign managers while they themselves if they participate in campaign, they would be kicked out. I think there should be minimum rank and activity/merits for someone to manage a campaign. When we get that point right, more than half of the issue would have been solved.

[Jet Cash]

Maybe the promotion of all ICOs should be banned. They are getting a pretty bad press at the moment.

[The Cryptovator]

Maybe the promotion of all ICOs should be banned. They are getting a pretty bad press at the moment.

Exactly you are right. Problem is even I caught some scam ICO with fake team picture and report to moderator but they can't lock their thread or delete. I have also post with fake team details. Even though they post the thread self moderated. And they are bumping thread. But no action from admin or moderator. So how promotion will stop I have no idea. Recently many case find that ICO are using fake photo from stock image. If there is strong proof admin shouldn't delete or lock thread ?

[coinlocket$]

@yahoo this is exactly what I wrote about, I have the original links on my screenshot but I removed them for obvius reasons and this is why all managers needs to do what you are doing.

[ridertiger]

I'd like to see all bounty managers adopt this practice but of course I cannot make that happen.

Yeah, that is what I have been saying, the bounty managers should change their behavior. It is way harder to try and change thousands of people. If you bring a rule that says bounty managers should not ask for weekly reports for twitter, they will use a simple api and everyone will be happy.
Users will get used to the new system quickly.

[escalante28]

Your idea sir is really helpful to prevent spamming on this forum but this kind of restriction is too much. There are some way to minimize it and we have to find out and not in this way.

In my opinion maybe the BM should put more restriction when conducting a signature campaign.
Maybe admin of this forum should add a special  moderators in each section and strictly implement the rules of spamming.
How would you define spamming on this forum?  Obviously those nonsense post,reply and an off topic. I believe those violation has penalty and the answer is strictly implement and add task force anti spamming team.

[Strufmbae]

There are also full members who does not know what is like having a forum etiquette, most participants doesn't even read whitepaper when joining a sig camp, and what makes it worse is there are full members who post much worst than newbies,  i mean not being a racist but english is a second language why not just stick to their local boards. 

I think there should be a position which should be named as " shitposter moderator" specifically for shitposting problem.  Negative feedback is not enough i guess.

And the second option as a suggestion that i also want to voice out is lessen the page of a thread by 10 or 20.  I see threads which has 1000 to two thousand pages and up and the title is all about prediction.

[jointherevolution]

I would not support this. We new users are stuck at lower levels. It is unfair what you propose to new members.

[Jet Cash]

How about allowing affiliate links in signatures? This would allow bounty managers to reward affiliates based on the effectiveness of their signatures, and not just based on their skills as graffiti artists and polluters.

[Quickseller]

How about allowing affiliate links in signatures? This would allow bounty managers to reward affiliates based on the effectiveness of their signatures, and not just based on their skills as graffiti artists and polluters.

I don’t understand why so many people around here think it is okay to tell people how to conduct business and how they should be saying things.

This forum is an advocate for freedom and likes to give people as much freedom as possible.

[linesretweetG]

How about allowing affiliate links in signatures? This would allow bounty managers to reward affiliates based on the effectiveness of their signatures, and not just based on their skills as graffiti artists and polluters.

I don’t understand why so many people around here think it is okay to tell people how to conduct business and how they should be saying things.

This forum is an advocate for freedom and likes to give people as much freedom as possible.

I agree with you, but I think bitcointalk has to do something against this huge amount of spammers/bots.
They keep posting everywhere just for increase their rank (or they're trying to...) and this will penalize the entire community.
That's why maybe making strict rules for signatures would be great for the community.

[bitart]

Let's implement an ignore system (which is not mandatory to use) with different levels, like this:
- No ignore (freedom)
- Small ignore (ignoring only blatant spammers, scammers, etc...)
- Medium ignore (ignoring more spammers, scammers)
- Strong ignore (ignoring nearly every spammer, scammer)
- Reversed ignore (whitelist, everyone else is ignored automatically).

If it's not mandatory to use the ignore list, people fighting for freedom can't have any argument, because people will be free to choose if they want to ignore spammers or not...

This needs some (or a lot of) users to maintain the ignore lists.

But on the long run (when the merit system will be fine tuned) we can set up the ignore system like this:
- No ignore (can see everyone)
- Small ignore (ignoring users with default merit, who haven't gathered additional merits)
- Medium ignore (ignoring those who gathered less than 10% additional merits for their rank)
- Strong ignore (ignoring those who gathered less than 30% additional merits for their rank)

In this case, ignore lists are not needed, it can be automated (and still not mandatory to use, to let people choose if they really want to read shitposts...)
This needs the merit system to work as expected, so it needs time, but it can be a kind of automated solution.

EDIT:
I've changed my mind.
Why not to implement the second solution immediately, to test it? If it's not mandatory, people can not complain about it.
For newbies, who had no chance to gain merits, there will be the merit sources (with no ignore list activated of course) so they will have the chance to gather some merits to escape the ignore lists.

[Quickseller]

This forum is an advocate for freedom and likes to give people as much freedom as possible.

But it is being abused. And I guess freedom is the real issue here  , am i wrong?

The problem is that there are incentives to do bad things in the forum, such as paying people to advertise while making crap posts as said advertising creates exposure for what is being advertised and there are no real consequences to doing this. This is in addition to incentives for people to make low effort posts they are being paid for by the number of posts.

There is no easy solution because most solutions will affect those who are not causing harm.

[Welsh]

There are also full members who does not know what is like having a forum etiquette, most participants doesn't even read whitepaper when joining a sig camp, and what makes it worse is there are full members who post much worst than newbies,  i mean not being a racist but english is a second language why not just stick to their local boards.  

English is a second language to me. Although, it's a little different as I learned Welsh, and English at the same time growing up. Although, initially I predominately spoke Welsh. That isn't the case anymore, because of the amount of people speaking Welsh is dwindling, and thus my Welsh is becoming rusty/forgotten. Point being as long as they can string up a sentence which is comprehensible it isn't a problem if it's their 2nd or 10th language.

I think there should be a position which should be named as " shitposter moderator" specifically for shitposting problem.  Negative feedback is not enough i guess.

It's really not needed. I would say that the majority of the work the moderators do is dealing with spam.

[Mpamaegbu]

About the full member status:

The restriction is a tad too much. For those who don't read the rules/terms of bounties, put them in SMAS/delete their replies and don't pay them. Enforce a new rule/term: If any post is made with twitter and facebook links, that user shall be banned from further bounties/campaigns and he shall not be paid.

Honestly, I have often been in bewilderment as to why this hasn't been implemented. Posters dropping comments without even bothering to read the OP (this is more rampart in signature bounties/campaigns). I hope CM would start negging such stupid blind posters.

Maybe the promotion of all ICOs should be banned. They are getting a pretty bad press at the moment.

I don't think shitposting is ICO specific. It's just that those who manage the campaigns are too lazy to follow up what posters put out there on the threads. I sincerely wish those who manage bounties would sit up and do the needful.

a shitposter is a shitposter, no matter the rank.  

This is sadly true! I have seen legendary members make unbelievable shitposts.

[helmiadanie01]

Disable signatures-bounties until a user reaches full member rank is not a bad idea itself.

IT IS a bad idea itself. A shitposter does not have to do with his rank. Of course "low ranks" post and spam in a bigger frequency but this does not mean that there are not Full Members- Sr. Members that are not posting shit.


In my opinion, we need more moderators in forum in order to keep the quality posts and get rid of the others.

Yes, I think this is not a good thing for forums, because I also find members with Full Member rank and even hero accounts in this forum who become spammers, Maybe we can think of a better solution,

I was share before some day almost your similar idea. Reduce spam and scam by accepting only Bitcoin for signature campaign. . I think it will be helpful for reduce spam.

Another thread was Disable sign. camp. officially to prevent spam & know true value of merit system . I was mention at least signeture should be disable for Jr. Member's below.  For mebers should be merit required 15 . So for existing member's should also qualified, initials member's can't participate. This is the strong reason for spam on forum. Theymos should consider some implements.

Edit:  Another idea to avoid more spam just disable signeture campaign for initials merit holder's even he is legendary. He should earn minimum merit like 10 or 20 to participate signeture campaign. If some one initially got 1000 merit it doesn't mean he is not spammer.  So that every one will try to make quality post. I think this way 80 % spam we can prevent

I would rather agree with this, so if he is a member and having 15 merit that means he is a person who has quality in the post and although this is not entirely true but I think this way is much better than banning accounts under full member using signature,

[boltz]

I have a big problem also. Why do we need to have pages and pages with people posting their twitter/facebook reports instead of having a google sheet report when they can upload manually the reports ? Also in my opinion, bounties should be restricted to a certain number of people and I can agree with the fact that a full member status must be achieved in order to join in any bounties but the main problem is still the hundreds of accounts posting only twitter/facebook reports. I remember good old days of bounties, when you checked the bounty thread just to see others opinions about the project,bounty situation and many others but now all I can see is this spam of social media reports and today I saw a full page of just one post with twitter reports that simply made me sad.

[Mila52]

My thoughts on this subject were more towards rewarding users for reaching a certain level vs being able to come right in and join the campaigns. First of all, users need to learn about bitcoin and the forum before they pop in to come earn. The biggest thing is they need to learn how to read and prove they can read.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4505246.msg40559490#msg40559490 For example. It's clearly stated in this bounty thread on the twitter and facebook sections, that users need to fill out the form to get credit for their stakes. I don't know if users are just too lazy to read, cannot read English, or do not care about rules posted in bounties, but obviously 76 pages later you can see that quite a few do not follow the rules.

Maybe I need to be more of an asshole?

I am just thinking that users need a period when joining to where they need to l earn how the forum works. Must read certain stickies. Learn about bitcoin. Maybe even take a test before they're allowed to post in certain areas or earn a penny. The test itsself would need to be alot of different random questions about the forum, it's rules, and anything else in general whomever creates the test would wanna throw in. I would not suggest just using the same test for every single user because some dude will make a youtube video about the test and the answers and render the test worthless. It would need to be constantly changed up.

The forum can't refuse Campaigns-it's business. It's no secret that most of the forum users are people who have to earn their miserable cents in the advertised here  projects. Remove these components and the forum will turn into an elite club of crypto-currency lovers.
You can not impose any restrictions, people are enterprising, will find ways to circumvent the prohibitions.
Moreover, it is impossible to introduce a fee-this will cause a growth in negative feedback and negative attitudes towards the forum.
The most reasonable solution against spam is the organization of work following the example of Yahoo:
1.The publication of authentication in the teem  and the publication of reports in the form.
2. Means from bots is adding to the own post of authentication the  captcha-answer,
 for example:
link to the topic of the forum: the 1st word in the 5th sentence.
Thus, each user will learn to read articles about the crypto-currency).

[coinlocket$]

I have a big problem also. Why do we need to have pages and pages with people posting their twitter/facebook reports instead of having a google sheet report when they can upload manually the reports ? ~

Its simple.
Because most of newbie /jr can be bots.

@yahoo this is exactly what I wrote about, I have the original links on my screenshot but I removed them for obvius reasons and this is why all managers needs to do what you are doing.

[pugman]

I'm quite passionate about the forum as you might of gathered, and I'm only nitpicking so that we can actually come up with a solution rather than proposing some, and not really going into depth about them, and then this type of thread resurfaces again in a few weeks, and we circle around the issue again.

A handful of them are, and so am I. I am all down, for new changes, that might help this forum. Especially because I have learnt so much, the only way I can repay is by helping it out,in its desperate times.

Altcoin section literally has only one mod appointed to it. Kudos to mrprep for moderating that board for years, but there won't be another mod in that board, unless one or more users start reporting aggressively. So the problem is both.

I know that there's several people who are spending their time reporting in that section. You only have to take a look at the modlog to see that there are hundreds of posts every day getting removed.

I've recently considered making a Discord/Telegram account just so I can join their groups, and see if they are offering an incentive to post on their threads, because it seems to be the trend right now. Investigating the thread whether they are offering an incentive to post is time consuming enough, let alone if they aren't, and you have to report each post individually.

Yeah, mprep is the only moderator assigned, and he's a Global moderator too. But, it definitely spills over to other moderators from time to time. I received a personal message from cyrus about a specific report so I know that he deals with reports from time to time.

That wouldn't be of much use, I really want to know how good the autoreply bot is, tons of alt accounts can be operated from there, without logging in. People just might prefer that.

The restriction is a tad too much. For those who don't read the rules/terms of bounties, put them in SMAS/delete their replies and don't pay them. Enforce a new rule/term: If any post is made with twitter and facebook links, that user shall be banned from further bounties/campaigns and he shall not be paid.

Getting the bounty managers to enforce this would be difficult. Especially, because the list is subjective. I think it's a good movement personally, but it is subjective. Unless, theymos is willing to specify certain guidelines for campaign managers to follow, and actually enforce it we won't be able to get them to follow certain things that would make the campaign less spammy, because they simply don't care.

I have been saying this for months now, theymos should just make a guideline for signature campaigns and an official set of rules. There are just a few stickies here and there(by theymos) saying what is allowed and what isn't, but it would be really helpful, if he compiles one list, with new issues coming by everyday, that list could really help sorting things out.

A few lazy managers caused this spam, and now legitimate people shouldn't pay for this. And the likeliness of theymos implementing this is almost zero. He did say that this would be his last resort(banning signatures overall if merit system fails). But he is apparently swamped with things and is currently looking to start a company with the same intent as a forum,and to hire a CEO for that.

I agree. I don't like restrictions either as it normally impacts on the legitimate users more than the malicious users.

And literally, any suggestions that anyone is coming up is related to restrictions. There should be another possibility without having those restrictions.

If there were a way for theymos to limit the number of alt accounts a person can have, that could solve a huge problem. Bots could be controlled and so could be shitposting. I don't see any legitimate reason for a person to have more than 3 alt accounts other than just to shitpost. Accessing hundreds of accounts using TOR would be almost impossible, for TOR takes a few minutes just to bypass recaptcha. So most shitposters won't likely use TOR. It'd take a lot of time.

Right, even if we did try, and limit it. Several users use public wifi, and VPNs. Especially, in countries which the government isn't so friendly to Bitcoin. It would be incredibly difficult to find alternate accounts without them exposing themselves or by taking an in depth inestigations per account. Most of which would have to be done by an admin, and considering both theymos' words, and the account recovery issue right now I don't think they'll have the time too.

I don't see how governments being unfriendly towards bitcoin, is related to people using a VPN to access bitcointalk.

In a few countries where VPN is banned, I have heard stories that random officers started checking people's phones to see if they had VPN installed or not. I don't believe that story, but I can see them doing that.

So only the VPN issue exists, blacklist the most common VPN IPs?

There's several pieces of software out there which hundreds of new VPNs are coming online, and being used. They could just use them. There would be no way to regulate this AFAIK. The users registering multiple accounts aren't likely using the most common VPNs because these have likely already accumulated too much evil points to make it feasible.

The new softwares that come out don't work well, they mostly use the same blacklisted IPs the other VPNs do.

But on the long run (when the merit system will be fine tuned) we can set up the ignore system like this:
- No ignore (can see everyone)
- Small ignore (ignoring users with default merit, who haven't gathered additional merits)
- Medium ignore (ignoring those who gathered less than 10% additional merits for their rank)
- Strong ignore (ignoring those who gathered less than 30% additional merits for their rank)

In this case, ignore lists are not needed, it can be automated (and still not mandatory to use, to let people choose if they really want to read shitposts...)
This needs the merit system to work as expected, so it needs time, but it can be a kind of automated solution.

EDIT:
I've changed my mind.
Why not to implement the second solution immediately, to test it? If it's not mandatory, people can not complain about it.
For newbies, who had no chance to gain merits, there will be the merit sources (with no ignore list activated of course) so they will have the chance to gather some merits to escape the ignore lists.

How does this help with the Spam problem? Its just personal preference. And there are legit users who haven't earned little or any merits, who have more than average level of posts. I don't think this would be that great of an idea.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Overall though we will get rid of a bunch of trashposters and maybe they will take down the signs in their internet cafes that read, "Go to bitcointalk.org to feed your family"

I'm glad someone else has voiced the thought that I've had for some time now.  These shitposting bounty hunters have to get referred to bitcointalk from somewhere, and it's goddamn ridiculous.  I picture billboards along unpaved highways all over Asia & Africa advertising how much wealth can be achieved with little work, and I'm sure word of mouth must be huge as well.

I fully support this suggestion, as well as the one hilariousandco made that newbies should have to earn at least 1 merit in order to rank up to Jr. Member. 

The merit system has improved things in so far as people who are capable of making good posts have really started to make excellent ones, but I don't think it's cut down on the shitposting at all.  Bitcoin Discussion, Economics, and a handful of other sections are still full of awful, incoherent nonsense.  I do think that in order to combat this, there needs to be more restrictions put in place for noobs. 

And it's not like all of the suggestions would have to be implemented all at once.  Theymos could try something like what Yahoo62278 suggested here, or what hilariousandco and others have suggested--put in place one thing and see what happens.  If it has a minimal effect, try another suggestion.

[bitart]

...

But on the long run (when the merit system will be fine tuned) we can set up the ignore system like this:
- No ignore (can see everyone)
- Small ignore (ignoring users with default merit, who haven't gathered additional merits)
- Medium ignore (ignoring those who gathered less than 10% additional merits for their rank)
- Strong ignore (ignoring those who gathered less than 30% additional merits for their rank)

In this case, ignore lists are not needed, it can be automated (and still not mandatory to use, to let people choose if they really want to read shitposts...)
This needs the merit system to work as expected, so it needs time, but it can be a kind of automated solution.

EDIT:
I've changed my mind.
Why not to implement the second solution immediately, to test it? If it's not mandatory, people can not complain about it.
For newbies, who had no chance to gain merits, there will be the merit sources (with no ignore list activated of course) so they will have the chance to gather some merits to escape the ignore lists.

How does this help with the Spam problem? Its just personal preference. And there are legit users who haven't earned little or any merits, who have more than average level of posts. I don't think this would be that great of an idea.

This is why I wrote that it should not be mandatory to use this ignore function, and it will be useful when the merit system will work 100% as it was designed and every legit user gets the merit he deserves, in that case this would be an easy solution to let people avoid shitposts.
As soon as people start to use this ignore function, bounty managers would realize that the shitposters' posts won't show up at all in the forum, so they won't pay for them. This would stop a part of the spam, not all of them.
I know it's not the near future, it was just an idea

[Naida_BR]

How about allowing affiliate links in signatures? This would allow bounty managers to reward affiliates based on the effectiveness of their signatures, and not just based on their skills as graffiti artists and polluters.

I don’t understand why so many people around here think it is okay to tell people how to conduct business and how they should be saying things.

This forum is an advocate for freedom and likes to give people as much freedom as possible.

I agree with you, but I think bitcointalk has to do something against this huge amount of spammers/bots.
They keep posting everywhere just for increase their rank (or they're trying to...) and this will penalize the entire community.
That's why maybe making strict rules for signatures would be great for the community.

How does a signature avoid a low rank member spamming in bitcointalk? I really cannot understand that.

A low rank member will keep spamming and posting shit with or without a signature. I agree that stricter rules are necessary and this can be done by the forum side. Meaning more moderators that can keep the quality of the forum in a high level.

[DdmrDdmr]

<…>How does a signature avoid a low rank member spamming in bitcointalk? I really cannot understand that.
A low rank member will keep spamming and posting shit with or without a signature. <…>

A signature does not avoid spamming, it has the opposite effect seen from a global perspective. Signatures normally require you to post a certain minimum amount of posts per week in specific sections. In order to comply, spammers tend to post quick gibberish posts with disregard to the actual conversation going on. This, done on a large scale, becomes a spam fest. Obviously this attitude is not restricted to specific ranks on the whole, but it is present with larger representation on the lower ranks than on the higher rank.

The idea behind making it more difficult to bear a signature (be it by rank, merit, whatever other mechanism), is to lower the overall spam. The principal being that, by doing this, spammers will have more of a Haw attitude and move on elsewhere to find their cheese, than a Hem attitude that deems them to stay put spamming, even though the cheese is running out ('who moved my cheese' allegory in case someone’s not following here).

[xolxol]

Disable all the signatures,dont be biased,there is no one here in the right position to remove the ability to earn of anyone.
Being here first doesnt mean that you are in a good position to tell us what to do.If theymos really wanted this thing a long time ago why he didnt tried to? because its unfair to the newcomers.

[Jet Cash]

A signature does not avoid spamming, it has the opposite effect seen from a global perspective. Signatures normally require you to post a certain minimum amount of posts per week in specific sections. In order to comply, spammers tend to post quick gibberish posts with disregard to the actual conversation going on. This, done on a large scale, becomes a spam fest. Obviously this attitude is not restricted to specific ranks on the whole, but it is present with larger representation on the lower ranks than on the higher rank.

It's the global persective that makes it difficult to control signatures. Individual members ignoring posters or signatures don't really make much difference. The search ranking, and guest views are far more significant, and are the reason that scammy signatures and spammy posts are so damaging to Bitcoin Talk. If a guy hunting for crypto information clicks on a a link to a rubbish thread, as a result of good SE placement for his search phrase, he is likely to ignore BT in the future as a result of its apparent low grade content.

[yakovs]

If the signature needs to be disabled, that should be done for all the members. There were many high ranked members involved in merit abuses cases. Especially, the high ranked members who got the rank by default should be treated same as a newbie.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

If the signature needs to be disabled, that should be done for all the members. There were many high ranked members involved in merit abuses cases. Especially, the high ranked members who got the rank by default should be treated same as a newbie.

This completely ignores the fact that most high-ranking members didn't join bitcointalk to shitpost for bounties.  That's a relatively recent development, and by limiting or prohibiting signature advertising in the lower ranks, it discourages people from making new accounts and ruining the forum with shitposting. 

I don't see a lot of Heros and Legendaries making a living here by writing complete nonsense.  That's almost exclusively a noob issue.  It also sounds like you're extremely butthurt about the merit airdrop back in January.  That happened because I think Theymos realizes the higher ranks have earned their way to those ranks.  In addition, most of the merit abuse I've seen has been with the lower ranks, which is not surprising since they're the ones who want it the most.

[yakovs]

If the signature needs to be disabled, that should be done for all the members. There were many high ranked members involved in merit abuses cases. Especially, the high ranked members who got the rank by default should be treated same as a newbie.

This completely ignores the fact that most high-ranking members didn't join bitcointalk to shitpost for bounties.  That's a relatively recent development, and by limiting or prohibiting signature advertising in the lower ranks, it discourages people from making new accounts and ruining the forum with shitposting. 

I don't see a lot of Heros and Legendaries making a living here by writing complete nonsense.  That's almost exclusively a noob issue.  It also sounds like you're extremely butthurt about the merit airdrop back in January.  That happened because I think Theymos realizes the higher ranks have earned their way to those ranks.  In addition, most of the merit abuse I've seen has been with the lower ranks, which is not surprising since they're the ones who want it the most.

That strengthens my suggestion. If they are so rich and busy with their work, they do not need bounties at all.

[Mind Control]

And yet yahoo accept Members in joining his Signature Campaign. This is a very good approach in handling spam in the forum however, the suggestion will stay as a suggestion if no one starts implementing this. Considering that this is yahoo's idea, I expected that he's implementing this and yet he's not. Don't get me wrong, I am not against yahoo nor have any problem with him. Actually I idolize him for he is a reputable member here and also one of the great campaign managers. But his action contradicts with his words. Edited XD

[hilariousetc]

I haven't read through this thread yet, but I really think we should remove signatures from lower ranks completely and then signatures should be given as a reward for people who have earned enough merit and subsequently the right to earn here via signatures. The amount of people who are signing up here just to copy and paste other's posts is ridiculous. It's both very hard to spot and incredibly time consuming for people to report and for staff to handle. Crapcoin campaigns accept them every single time and often at all ranks and are none the wiser to their abuse, whilst staff are left to clean up their mess. It doesn't matter if you get your accounts banned because it costs nothing to create and bot accounts here which most of them are likely doing and who cares if your lose a Junior Member? Start again or use one of the others from your stockpile. I've probably banned over 50 users today alone all copying other's posts that krishnapramod has reported and the reports keep flooding in.

I mean, what other alternatives are there here? The longer we do nothing about this spam the worse it gets and there will likely be a breaking point where theymos just has enough of all the nonsense and hassle and removes signatures all together, but then everybody is penalised for the greed and desperation of others and the people who came here just to abuse bounties will leave as quickly as they came. Let people earn their right to earn from posting here, and let the chaff just collect their bounties in the bounty boards until they manage to earn some merit, but don't let them pollute the rest of the forum or be the cause of removal of all signatures completely.

Also, I still think we should include some paid donator ranks like Copper Member (Silver & Gold Member etc) that come with the benefits of higher ranks (ie bigger signatures like Senior and Hero). If people are complaining that it takes too long to get merit then let them pay to bypass those restrictions. Give the money to charity or something. It's win win in my opinion).

[krishnapramod]

if the merit system has to be really productive and all these reportings have to be effective, there definitely needs additional measures to make the merit system work for what it meant to be implemented.

1. Bounty managers, it's a tough task. Don't know how many of the managers got negged/nuked for handling scam projects, a few and with copper, silver, gold, don't think restricting managing is going to work.

2. Disabling sigs for all, going nuclear, somewhat logical option. Bluntly, the old members put their efforts to build up this forum before there was a spam fest of alts/bounties/tokens, and including the ones whining about mining being unfair in 2009. Given a chance to be deserving and if potential to be more meritorious than old members (have seen multiple accounts getting merited more than the hibernating old one's) is what the merit system is all about. It's not enforced upon, for decentralization, freedom is top/major criteria. If someone wants to get into mess and expects merit to be a straw, no helping straws here.

3. There have been some suggestions posted about, requiring some merits to level up being a JM. IMO, it's the perfect trial run/experimentation to gauge if the merit system is working and the forum at least needs a trial run with already implemented merit to see whether it's really working against spammers. Yeah the con, merit farming/begging. The merit sources deserved it, and putting some additional workload wouldn't be unfair considering what the GM's are going through. Suggestion, to be a junior, 5 merits, 1 out of 5 should be from a merit source. I had reported some users for copy/pasting, 5 merits is easy to get through unless there is a restriction. Merit sources can be expanded, not the 83 with around 200 limits, one's with something around 10 specific merits working on 1 merit to reward from newbie to a junior member.

4. 1 out of 5 would sound unfair to butthurts, there is a line between unfair and freedom, deserving gets it. If the forum is going to get all humpty dumpty (1. sitting on spamming), let's get rickrolled for Foxup's dance contest.

[Jet Cash]

At the moment, the only benefit members derive from merit awards is the removal of the progressive ranking barriers. The primary perceived benefit of an increased rank is the ability to earn more from signature spamming. Obviously this leads to the idea that increasing merits means an increase in earning ability, regardless of contributions to the forum or the community here. Somehow we need to change the idea that "merits mean money", and to introduce some other benefits for the receivers of merits for quality forum contributions.

[krishnapramod]

At the moment, the only benefit members derive from merit awards is the removal of the progressive ranking barriers. The primary perceived benefit of an increased rank is the ability to earn more from signature spamming. Obviously this leads to the idea that increasing merits means an increase in earning ability, regardless of contributions to the forum or the community here. Somehow we need to change the idea that "merits mean money", and to introduce some other benefits for the receivers of merits for quality forum contributions.

Absolutely, merit puts restrictions on ranking up, not on how much one can spam with one account and "earn money" or with the same restrictions and having multiple accounts without meriting up "earning monies" like a high a ranked member. No contributions whatsoever.


Yep, introducing some other benefits for the quality contributors is really a good idea. The forum really deserves some quality Bitcoin related posts and contributors to make it look like the dominant Bitcoin community it was for an outsider now at first glance.

[kobita333]

I don't think it will reduce the level of spamming. Jr members can be removed from signature campaigns, member should be accepted.
If we really care about this issue, why don't we start restriction while we manage campaign. As a bounty manager, you can put restriction. For example, if we do have a look on Service(Bitcoin), most of the campaign are limited to full member, in some cases, it's limited to sr member.
However, we also can limit with merits. For example, members can participate if he/she has 50+ merits, full member- 150 merits and thus. If we require only full member for participating in campaign, result will be same cause we have a huge amount of full member by default.

[krishnapramod]

I don't think it will reduce the level of spamming. Jr members can be removed from signature campaigns, member should be accepted.
If we really care about this issue, why don't we start restriction while we manage campaign. As a bounty manager, you can put restriction. For example, if we do have a look on Service(Bitcoin), most of the campaign are limited to full member, in some cases, it's limited to sr member.
However, we also can limit with merits. For example, members can participate if he/she has 50+ merits, full member- 150 merits and thus. If we require only full member for participating in campaign, result will be same cause we have a huge amount of full member by default.

Ignoring your first post was about airdropalert and username ending with numbers (85% out of 100 with numbers are alts, kobita*, kobita**, kobita***)


It's the bounty managers that have to act and put mutual restrictions for the betterment of the forum and participants. Be it accepting members from above certain ranks or merits. It could be implemented and enforced. What about someone being a part of a project doesn't want their project to be managed by an already "handled-a-few-projects" manager or don't have the budget for it? Don't you think not allowing them to manage their own campaign would be unfair?

As far as huge number of full members, quoted from, Truth about bitcointalk users 2.0

In this post I have done position analysis on Bitcointalk users in range from id=1'000'000 to id=2'000'000. Users with this range of id's were registered from 2017/05/11 to 2018/04/03.

Without further ado, Here is the distrubution of postions of second million bitcointalk users

• Brand New   733503   73,35%
• Newbie         212864   21,28%
• Jr. Member    33395     3,34%
• Member        13682     1,36%
• Full Member  6334       0,63%
• Sr.Member     222        0,02%
• Hero               0            0%
• Legendary      0            0%

How we can see there is no Hero and Legendary users, this is not surprising since these positions requires high level of activity .

P.s. If you have any ideas on what kind of information you would like to see, let me know.

Here is the link to first part: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3333773.msg34863787#msg34863787

Disabling sig till a member reaches a full member status is harsh, but with maybe around a hundred managers and half not caring about the forum against thousands of newbies and JM spamming, but restricting them to get merited to rank up seems like somewhat of a balance.

[kobita333]

your first post was about airdropalert

While someone asks about where people get updates of Airdrop, of course I will not redirect him/her to binance.com

username ending with numbers (85% out of 100 with numbers are alts, kobita*, kobita**, kobita***)

As per your theory, the possibility of being an alt account (OP- yahoo) is 85%?

[krishnapramod]

your first post was about airdropalert

While someone asks about where people get updates of Airdrop, of course I will not redirect him/her to binance.com

username ending with numbers (85% out of 100 with numbers are alts, kobita*, kobita**, kobita***)

As per your theory, the possibility of being an alt account (OP- yahoo) is 85%?

1. Acceptable.

2. Second post, after 2 hours, local to straight up meta to suggest how to reduce the level of spamming. That happens only, got burnt. No merits, account/s banned. My common sense doesn't come up with another reason.

3. Lol, told you 15%.

That's the problem actually. Newbie join and think of having merit. They give a try showing some concerns for forum as you did and then realize, it's not enough and they leave.

So, the limitation will not bring any value.

Why the f*uck join thinking of merit and show a month's concern through Facebook and Twitter ID's? Forum doesn't need these concerns, better they leave or we bust and end up with a couple of whining posts like this one.

2 activity, give it a try and show you're really concerned about the forum and then complain.

That's it, tired of entertaining a "concerned user."

[ridertiger]

This sounds like a better suggestion to me. In addition, there could be a spam filter, or a mandatory grammer checker by Grammarly or something.
A lot of the spammers simply write what I call "word salad".

Maybe this would be really unfair to those who are still in the Member Rank just like me, I really dont intend to do some shitposts in this community just to earn my post counts needed in my bounty campaign, and as for the Merit Distribution it is now getting a little bit short.
Although I'm really aware of, on how it is done but still the fact that the users that are commonly known here are just the ones whose being given some Merits again and again.

As we can see it is not just the newbies, jr members who are causing this forum to be flooded by useless posts. Although you have the point that the majority of spammers are being done by those noobs.

Being stuck here ( Member Status with 34 Merits ) isn't a bad thing i suppose?, but now i think it is. How about enforcing the noobs to study first or making their limits from posting.

Newbies - only 1 post per day, can't post if its not more than a hundred words ( if the post is good  as shit then it would be deleted immediately )
Jr. Member - only 1-3 post per day ,can't post if its not more than a hundred words ( if the post is good  as shit then it would be deleted immediately ), 5 Merits Requirement Before joining campaigns, Only from this rank with Merit can put some signatures for the campaign
Members-1-5 post per day, 15 Merits Requirement Before joining campaigns
Full Member 1-5 post per day, 120 Merits (or depends if the 100 Merits is accumulated not by default ) Requirement Before joining campaigns

Just Make The Merits Be A Requirement For Joining Campaigns

And I think it is the CM's job to evaluate the campaign member's post whether it is a useless or not.

Many Threads should be locked up first before implementing such rules.

[BestSSS]

I'm sure most of you have noticed the overwhelming amount of merit begging posts or posts about merit in general. Most of the reason these users are begging so hard for the merit is due to earnings in signature campaigns.

You can also look in the altcoins sections and see the thousands of accounts who are only making posts in bounty campaigns. Claiming facebook, twitter, telegram, etc. Quite  a few of those accounts are also being accused of being connected in the reputation section. ALT ALT ALT or whatnot.

The main reason I am adding bounties into this post is due to the overwhelming amount of users who apparently cannot read. I try to get users to use google forms in bounty campaigns when I decide to run 1, but users insist on not reading a bounty thread and just posting their tweets and shares in the bounty thread, creating a bunch of useless spam. Should there be penalties for this? My personal opinion is idk. It could go either way honestly.

Bounties IMO are mainly social media focused or at least should be. I won't allow a company to use a bounty for their signature campaign. That must be ran on a bitcoin paying basis only to prevent some of the useless spam that bounty campaigns create with running signature campaigns in them.

I'd like to see all bounty managers adopt this practice but of course I cannot make that happen.

I know this topic has been touched on and passed over a few times, but I feel like it's time to really take a serious look at the request.

There are obviously good and bad things that will come from this being put into place. Good things being eventually these shit posters and "bounty hunters" will lose interest and stop visiting the forum thinking they're gonna make billions from the many worthless tokens that are announced.

Bad things being of course the same issue. The forum will lose some users who cannot rank up and earn due to not getting merits for their shit posts. More how do I get merit threads will be made because users are too goddamn lazy to search and read the 5000 threads on merit that already exist.

Overall though we will get rid of a bunch of trashposters and maybe they will take down the signs in their internet cafes that read, "Go to bitcointalk.org to feed your family" My goal in this post is not to take away from bitcointalk traffic or harm the forum in any other way, but just take a look around and look at the shit that's posted mainly. The economy section is filled with spammers, the altcoin section is even worse.

At the very least, lets use this thread to have a healthy discussion on ways to improve the forum. I'm sure some of you have better ideas than this, so I'd like to hear them and maybe theymos can chime in with some of his thoughts.

I'm not against advertising or users earning money, but when that's their main focus , it does nothing to help the forum or community grow. If you have a useful suggestion, then by all means post it here and lets get the ball rolling on some ways to improve things around here.

The problem that you are voicing-very relevant and how to deal with it while I think no one knows.
Because of the flood of generosity of this forum turns to the dump and a bunch of garbage that simply nobody wants to read. Cancellation of the signature company seems to me too not the decision, but it is necessary as that to fight against it.
As an option I want to offer all the same kind of moderation messages and emerging themes. Differently after the user wrote a message it will not be published immediately in the main thread and is sent to the moderator to assess its relevance and need. I understand that it is very difficult because users are a lot but maybe it will reduce the number bessmyslennyi messages at least 3 times. If will not be published message of 2-3-4 words, the forum has transformed and zdenci such messages half.
Well, as of this writing new topics - new topic must be moderatio. since users never use the search to find something, they just write a new message.
All of this of course very difficult and needs a huge number of moderators, but if create such rules the soon people realize that not worth write garbage and work, too, will become less.

[jointherevolution]

Disable all the signatures,dont be biased,there is no one here in the right position to remove the ability to earn of anyone.
Being here first doesnt mean that you are in a good position to tell us what to do.If theymos really wanted this thing a long time ago why he didnt tried to? because its unfair to the newcomers.

I agree with this. It only had to do with timing that some here are members before some others. Why get punished for this? Or rewarded?

[coinlocket$]

Disable all the signatures,dont be biased,there is no one here in the right position to remove the ability to earn of anyone.
Being here first doesnt mean that you are in a good position to tell us what to do.If theymos really wanted this thing a long time ago why he didnt tried to? because its unfair to the newcomers.

Agree and not agree.
If you are a good member you will earn the merit, and you will can join the signature campaings in few months.

[mobilazy]

...And it will improve the design of this forum, no more boring one-color signatures and profiles without avatars!  It can be the biased opinion but I think it's too harsh. Becoming Full Member is the hardest part, going beyond would be easier as the person already has the skills to progress further and recognizable nickname.

[hilariousetc]

Disable all the signatures,dont be biased,there is no one here in the right position to remove the ability to earn of anyone.
Being here first doesnt mean that you are in a good position to tell us what to do.If theymos really wanted this thing a long time ago why he didnt tried to? because its unfair to the newcomers.

Theymos has made several changes to signatures here. A long time ago everyone had the same Hero-sized signature upon signup, but then they were changed to get larger with ranks due to the huge amount of abuse that was happening, but the forum doesn't owe you a signature nor a right to earn money. The forum could remove signatures at any point and they likely will be removed at some point in the future if the spam situation isn't solved or curbed because things can't continue like they are and are only going to get exponentially worse the more people that sign up here to just earn from them. Lets be honest, the only reason you are likely here is to earn and if signatures did get removed then you sorts of people would leave the very same day and never return (or maybe you'd wait around for a few days complaining and hoping in vain that they would be reinstated). We could just as easily argue that why is it fair that old timers are punished by the influx of spamming newbies who don't give a shit about bitcoin or the technology other than they heard they can earn here? Punish everyone because of the people who would instantly leave the moment signatures are disabled? That doesn't sound right either. I wouldn't even be against removing signatures for everybody until you've earned the merit to get the signature in the first place. Make everyone start from zero merit. I and other posters who actually contribute something worthwhile here would have no issue in getting the required merit, but the legions of spammers who sign up here with their half a dozen to hundreds of accounts in their farm certainly would and that is the crux of the whole issue here in the first place.

[bisdak40]

The primary perceived benefit of an increased rank is the ability to earn more from signature spamming. Obviously this leads to the idea that increasing merits means an increase in earning ability, regardless of contributions to the forum or the community here.

Exactly, a lot of new comers here in the forum have the perception that if you are here you will earn and contributing for the improvement of the forum is out of their mind. The merit system is really working to it's purpose that low rank members are desperate to acquire one.

Lets be honest, the only reason you are likely here is to earn and if signatures did get removed then you sorts of people would leave the very same day and never return

Definitely. Why stay when you get nothing in return.
I have seen just recently an initiative by one of the trusted member here in this forum. A very good initiative to help members here in Bitcointalk to improve their communication skills in talking English but sad to say that traffic there is not so busy. The reason is obvious, why stay when you get nothing in return (financially).

[olumyd]

...

This is still a much better suggestion compared to removing signatures for all of the users. There are some quality signature campaigns and hard working campaign managers still on site, so it's better to regulate it instead of banning it...
I usually don't belive that those jr. members and newbies posting in the alt section are not bots, simply, they post rubbish, I just can't belive they are humans and do this manually day by day...
So if they are bots (or people who don't speak English) and they leave, the forum won't lose anything but only traffic (which is still important, if we want to be the first and most active bitcoin related forum, prior to reddit, etc...)
I just feel sorry for the very few newbies, who come here to learn about bitcoin (really) because they will suffer because of the shitposter army... if we implement some strict regulation for the newbies, jr. members, etc...
If anyone had found a simple solution for this problem, it would have been implemented already, so there's no simple solution at all. If there will be a solution, that will hurt, the question is whom and how much...
You just can't report all of the spammers and get them banned, because if you get one banned, two or three new shitposter will register immediately... (unfortunately, even if you won't get one banned, the new shitposters would still register...)

The simple solution is to apply a 'karma-like' feature that helps to monitor user's activity, stats, and quality of posts. If a user has been rewarded with low/-ve karma during a signature campaign by the campaign manager, then that should be noted. This should be different from the negative trust.

But, sadly most campaign managers aren't competent. Even they have their own flaws and that becomes a huge responsibility on the mods to tidy up after them. But ideally, shitposters are to be handled by the campaign manager since the bounty is the reason they exist in the first place.

[MrDongyy]

I haven't read through this thread yet, but I really think we should remove signatures from lower ranks completely and then signatures should be given as a reward for people who have earned enough merit and subsequently the right to earn here via signatures. The amount of people who are signing up here just to copy and paste other's posts is ridiculous. It's both very hard to spot and incredibly time consuming for people to report and for staff to handle. Crapcoin campaigns accept them every single time and often at all ranks and are none the wiser to their abuse, whilst staff are left to clean up their mess. It doesn't matter if you get your accounts banned because it costs nothing to create and bot accounts here which most of them are likely doing and who cares if your lose a Junior Member? Start again or use one of the others from your stockpile. I've probably banned over 50 users today alone all copying other's posts that krishnapramod has reported and the reports keep flooding in.

I mean, what other alternatives are there here? The longer we do nothing about this spam the worse it gets and there will likely be a breaking point where theymos just has enough of all the nonsense and hassle and removes signatures all together, but then everybody is penalised for the greed and desperation of others and the people who came here just to abuse bounties will leave as quickly as they came. Let people earn their right to earn from posting here, and let the chaff just collect their bounties in the bounty boards until they manage to earn some merit, but don't let them pollute the rest of the forum or be the cause of removal of all signatures completely.

Also, I still think we should include some paid donator ranks like Copper Member (Silver & Gold Member etc) that come with the benefits of higher ranks (ie bigger signatures like Senior and Hero). If people are complaining that it takes too long to get merit then let them pay to bypass those restrictions. Give the money to charity or something. It's win win in my opinion).

In my opinion, this will not be a victory! Since a person who has bought himself a rank, will continue to do what he did when he was lower!

[hilariousetc]

In my opinion, this will not be a victory! Since a person who has bought himself a rank, will continue to do what he did when he was lower!

No, but it stops all the new spammers signing up just to shitpost immediately and there are desperate crapcoin campaigns that will even accept newbies. This shouldn't be allowed. If you wanted to solve your issue though you could just make the merit requirements be retroactive. All users start from zero merit and you don't get a signature until you've earned the required merit for that rank. That would solve the issue of shitposting account farming.

[LiluSG]

There is one more problem here. I've already seen algorithms that do posts in social networks, collect links to a file and publish the report to the forum! All you need to do is to monitor its correct operation, hundreds of campaigns or farm accounts. The application to which I watched the video, even allowed to connect dozens of different accounts of the same twitter or fb. This unfortunate tendency, because everything is already there on this forum and is actively sold Often posts that go after the end of the campaign or with violations of conditions are likely to be made by such systems

[domnablo]

Somewhere admin mentioned that he wanted to keep merits required for member level to be 1 but thought that it would be easy. I guess that applies to jr member as well.

[LoyceV]

As soon as people start to use this ignore function, bounty managers would realize that the shitposters' posts won't show up at all in the forum, so they won't pay for them.

I don't think that matters much: as long as Google picks up on the links in their signatures, they earn from it.

[matvee]

Op, you should do a minor correction in title, it should be till and not til.

Coming back to your suggestion, I am in support of  this. But it should be disabled for members who failed to earn any merit or sufficient merits. Obviously admin could not start that initially because we need members in different ranks to let the forum function properly.

[Golubkov1988]

In many forums, spammers will simply be banned. For 1 hour first time, for 1 day second time, for 1 week third time etc.

Why it can not be done here?

[Zalaster]

There is one more problem here. I've already seen algorithms that do posts in social networks, collect links to a file and publish the report to the forum! All you need to do is to monitor its correct operation, hundreds of campaigns or farm accounts. The application to which I watched the video, even allowed to connect dozens of different accounts of the same twitter or fb. This unfortunate tendency, because everything is already there on this forum and is actively sold Often posts that go after the end of the campaign or with violations of conditions are likely to be made by such systems

Why not enter account binding to a phone number and add a captcha as a bonus to reduce the amount of spam? Of course, this will not get rid of the problem, but still, I think, will reduce the number of bots.

[hilariousetc]

There is one more problem here. I've already seen algorithms that do posts in social networks, collect links to a file and publish the report to the forum! All you need to do is to monitor its correct operation, hundreds of campaigns or farm accounts. The application to which I watched the video, even allowed to connect dozens of different accounts of the same twitter or fb. This unfortunate tendency, because everything is already there on this forum and is actively sold Often posts that go after the end of the campaign or with violations of conditions are likely to be made by such systems

Why not enter account binding to a phone number and add a captcha as a bonus to reduce the amount of spam? Of course, this will not get rid of the problem, but still, I think, will reduce the number of bots.

As theymos once said, "there's more chance of hell freezing over". Does requiring a phone number stop all the fake g-mail/facebook/twitter bots/accounts being made? Nope. There are people who's business it is to sell phone numbers just for this purpose, but the people who are going to abuse accounts here will just keep abusing them still by buying multiple sim cards or using such spam services I already mentioned, so all you're doing is just annoying all the other genuine users who don't want to give out their telephone number to be able to use a web forum. Also, there is already a captcha here but it's not very good. I wouldn't be against new users having to fill out a captcha for their first couple of posts though but again, they can easily be bypassed and are annoying for genuine users.

[MrDongyy]

I think after a while there will be no such spam! Since some bounty managers create their own platforms and even forums for their campaigns! And there will already be other rules! The only question is, will the followers of managers go to their forums?

There is another option! Remove multi-accounts! My opinion, it is because of them that many shitposts are created! Because with 5-10 accounts it is impossible to write different constructive posts! with 1 account, yes, but the rest is to write posts like: A good project, Join airdrop, Good luck with you it.d

[arhipova]

All signatures should be disabled irrespective of the rank. Let us have some meaningful discussions here then.

[cheezcarls]

Instead of disabling signatures, you just have to set your own rules such as only Members and above can join, or vice versa. Considering that those Junior Members are generating income coming from Services section, in which those campaigns pay them Bitcoin. It's all about control on which ones are eligible to join signature bounties to assure quality posting. Just my two sats.

[bisdak40]

i suggest to reset everthing in zero.even legendary accounts.not all legenadary accsr.are.helpful many of them arw garbeage aeticle

It would take some time for you to become a Legendary ranked member and with that amount of time i think a person can learn about something unless you are a bot. If they were throwing garbage into this forum for sure they were now tagged and given sanctions by the DTs. They were here early and that is some sort of a bonus for them.

[hilariousetc]

What about changing the paying mode for signature campaigns, why should you pay a legendary or a hero shit poster more and pay a jr or member with a quality posts less amount? Why not making it based on the quality of the posts? and for the spam, unconstructive posts just pay nothing and ban the shitty poster from your future campaigns if he keeps posting shit for 2 or 3 weeks

Because the pay scales are based on the size of the signature you have and those get larger then higher the rank you have. Shitposters shouldn't be getting paid at all, but lazy campaigns don't care about anything other than their advert being spammed everywhere. Besides, what campaigns pay is out of the hands of the forum and up to the individual campaigns. If they want to pay all ranks the same they can, but this probably won't happen for obvious reasons.

[cryptohunter]

Let's do this before the board is beyond help.
I think even better to bring back a form of decentralised noob jail.
100 merit to post on the main boards at all and junior boards for all the rest.
Instead of wasting time reporting the never ending ocean of spam and shilling and bots... it would be better to visit the junior boards now and then and do something positive like merit any good new posters and read what they have to say.
I don't feel good reporting negative shit that will do no good anyway but it does feel good to give some merit to good posts or those making an effort to help others on the board.

The old noob jail was okay but it was too restrictive and it was a lot of hassle for the mods. This way is just like a decentralised noob jail which would encourage a higher level of posting.

stopping them having sigs is good but it will not stop bots spamming and shilling icos all over the main board. Some of these ico shilling threads are just full of zero merit accounts that just repeat what the first reply says over and over.

[MrDongyy]

i suggest to reset everthing in zero.even legendary accounts.not all legenadary accsr.are.helpful many of them arw garbeage aeticle

It would take some time for you to become a Legendary ranked member and with that amount of time i think a person can learn about something unless you are a bot. If they were throwing garbage into this forum for sure they were now tagged and given sanctions by the DTs. They were here early and that is some sort of a bonus for them.

The bonus is not a bonus, but I could become a legend by talking in a MISCELLANEOUS! And I would not have learned anything new!

[MrDongyy]

What about changing the paying mode for signature campaigns, why should you pay a legendary or a hero shit poster more and pay a jr or member with a quality posts less amount? Why not making it based on the quality of the posts? and for the spam, unconstructive posts just pay nothing and ban the shitty poster from your future campaigns if he keeps posting shit for 2 or 3 weeks

Because the pay scales are based on the size of the signature you have and those get larger then higher the rank you have. Shitposters shouldn't be getting paid at all, but lazy campaigns don't care about anything other than their advert being spammed everywhere. Besides, what campaigns pay is out of the hands of the forum and up to the individual campaigns. If they want to pay all ranks the same they can, but this probably won't happen for obvious reasons.

There is 1 moment! Have you ever heard the saying: "Call a man 100 times a pig, he will start grunting"! The fact is, whatever message the person has published, whether it is spam or a normal post, advertising will still work! I caught my eye once, then the second, the third! And you will surely follow the link! And it works really!

[mikejack]

Hello brothers,

It seems this forum is getting more strict with new measures which does not favor most of us.
Bitcointalk forum is for all of us and i think everybody must have their freedom,

If this will be implemented it will affect to all jr members. Just like me, that all i want is to help others and earn money as well.

Thank you for posting this because i feel relieved and say what i want to say.

[upotami]

Hello brothers,

It seems this forum is getting more strict with new measures which does not favor most of us.
Bitcointalk forum is for all of us and i think everybody must have their freedom,

If this will be implemented it will affect to all jr members. Just like me, that all i want is to help others and earn money as well.

Thank you for posting this because i feel relieved and say what i want to say.

I agree, if it has to be disabled, it has to be for all members. Let us see how many are here for some real discussion.

[hilariousetc]

Hello brothers,

It seems this forum is getting more strict with new measures which does not favor most of us.
Bitcointalk forum is for all of us and i think everybody must have their freedom,

If this will be implemented it will affect to all jr members. Just like me, that all i want is to help others and earn money as well.

Thank you for posting this because i feel relieved and say what i want to say.

It should be getting more strict. It's because of the Laissez-faire attitude that the forum has adopted that it has continued to decline in quality. This is a discussion forum and your freedom to post would not be effected, we're only suggesting that people should have to earn their right to be able to earn here, not just sign up with multiple accounts each just to take advantage of lazy ICO campaigns. The forum has been ruined by people who don't care at all about bitcoin other than they heard you can earn by alt coin bounties and people are flocking here in droves which gets worse as every month passes. Mix a lack of knowledge of bitcoin and crypto with a lack of English literacy and that's a recipe for disaster.

[Jet Cash]

Hello brothers,

It seems this forum is getting more strict with new measures which does not favor most of us.
Bitcointalk forum is for all of us and i think everybody must have their freedom,

If this will be implemented it will affect to all jr members. Just like me, that all i want is to help others and earn money as well.

Thank you for posting this because i feel relieved and say what i want to say.

Let us run through this post.

- I'm not your brother. We haven't met or had any interaction, so I'm not even your friend.

- Bitcoin Talk is becoming more strict and does not favour most new members because they are taking the piss ( to use the vernacular).

- Bitcoin Talk is not for all, it is for Bitcoin and crypto enthusiasts

- Freedom is for people who don't abuse society. If you breach the accepted standards, you get locked up or worse in most societies.

- If you want to help others, then stop posting. Destroying established structures is not 'earning' money.

- Please could you relieve yourself elsewhere.

[caotringhia]

The deterrent to the Jr. Member in bounty campaigns will greatly affect those who actually follow the rules.

[bitart]

The deterrent to the Jr. Member in bounty campaigns will greatly affect those who actually follow the rules.

If we restrict newbies and jr. members to wear signatures, the forum will lose a lot of traffic, which could downgrade it's rank e.g. in a google search, so there's no 100% good solution, unfortunately...

[caotringhia]

If we restrict newbies and jr. members to wear signatures, the forum will lose a lot of traffic, which could downgrade it's rank e.g. in a google search, so there's no 100% good solution, unfortunately...

I think the forum should strictly manage the use of multiple accounts to participate in the campaign, not to prevent the Jr.Member involved. That will affect many aspects.

[olumyd]

Hello brothers,

It seems this forum is getting more strict with new measures which does not favor most of us.
Bitcointalk forum is for all of us and i think everybody must have their freedom,

If this will be implemented it will affect to all jr members. Just like me, that all i want is to help others and earn money as well.

Thank you for posting this because i feel relieved and say what i want to say.

Let us run through this post.

- I'm not your brother. We haven't met or had any interaction, so I'm not even your friend.

- Bitcoin Talk is becoming more strict and does not favour most new members because they are taking the piss ( to use the vernacular).

- Bitcoin Talk is not for all, it is for Bitcoin and crypto enthusiasts

- Freedom is for people who don't abuse society. If you breach the accepted standards, you get locked up or worse in most societies.

- If you want to help others, then stop posting. Destroying established structures is not 'earning' money.

- Please could you relieve yourself elsewhere.

Spoken like a true brother (OK..., wait..., you're not my brother either... Lol).

BTW, I agree with everything Jet Cash has said, however, dissing the little guy (by rank), is no way to help him walk. And yeah I know, tough love, right? (if any).

But the fact of the matter is that the forum has become a dumpster for shitposters and they've been trooping in their numbers of late, simply because they can earn with signatures.

If we take out signature campaign it could solve that problem. But then again, orienting campaign managers on requesting their bounty hunters to do their reports outside BTT, especially that of social media campaigns, is also important.

What's left is people who have something genuine to say. While not everyone is articulate, eloquent or 'elegant' in speech or writing, we should all be given an equal amount of opportunity to grow - and that shouldn't be abused by either party (by the learned and the 'learning').

We talk about the future of crypto, this doesn't just apply to mass adoption by merchants and tech giants or even the government. It also covers how we (crypto enthusiasts - both old and new)  learn about this vast and disruptive technology.

To wrap it up, it's high time BTT has an AI module to filter posts before they are posted. Especially redundant commentaries such as 'good project'...  and the likes.

[mazdafunsun]

The main reason I am adding bounties into this post is due to the overwhelming amount of users who apparently cannot read. I try to get users to use google forms in bounty campaigns when I decide to run 1, but users insist on not reading a bounty thread and just posting their tweets and shares in the bounty thread, creating a bunch of useless spam. Should there be penalties for this? My personal opinion is idk. It could go either way honestly.

I think that it is a no brainer, just ban them from the campaign. I have seen that some bounty managers are doing the same, the usage of google forms is a good way to keeping the thread clean otherwise it just becomes a sea of reports. And forces bounty threads up for no reason.

Regarding the " full Member rule" , dont you think that it could force another type to spam to start growing - bounties can tell users to iclude their ICo in the post?

[Welsh]

Regarding the " full Member rule" , dont you think that it could force another type to spam to start growing - bounties can tell users to iclude their ICo in the post?

As in advertising within the post? Yeah, that wouldn't be allowed, and the posts would be at the very least removed. Advertisements on threads are only accepted in rare circumstances on particularly substantial threads, and I believe it requires theymos' approval too.

[mikejack]

The deterrent to the Jr. Member in bounty campaigns will greatly affect those who actually follow the rules.

If we restrict newbies and jr. members to wear signatures, the forum will lose a lot of traffic, which could downgrade it's rank e.g. in a google search, so there's no 100% good solution, unfortunately...

I am glad that at least someone over here has seen the reality of what is going to happen.

[mazdafunsun]

Regarding the " full Member rule" , dont you think that it could force another type to spam to start growing - bounties can tell users to iclude their ICo in the post?

As in advertising within the post? Yeah, that wouldn't be allowed, and the posts would be at the very least removed. Advertisements on threads are only accepted in rare circumstances on particularly substantial threads, and I believe it requires theymos' approval too.

Yes, I understand that it would not be allowed but as in case of low quality posts, could the mods keep up with it? This is just a speculations since we would know only if this kind of restrictions would be implemented.

[mr.creampie]

Post history should be check before accepting participants because if this dumb idea will be implemented only those people which have been here for years would benefit and that wont happen because  theymos wont allow it to happen.Forum which is centralized would be contradicting to what the real purpose of bitcoin and other cryptorcurrencies in the first place.

edit : merit is fine as long as these merit souces wont hoard their smerits.

[coinlocket$]

Post history should be check before accepting participants ~

Some managers don't look at the trust and you think they should look at the post history? It will never happen, they want (some managers or ICO managers) only more spam possible on the forum to advertises their product.

[MrDongyy]

Leave the ICO Announcements in this forum, for the bounty to create another forum (for example: bountytalk), where you will receive reports on the work done! By signature use bitcointalk!

[hilariousetc]

Post history should be check before accepting participants because if this dumb idea will be implemented

Well the trouble is they don't do this. If they did this then we wouldn't have a sig spam problem in the first place.

Forum which is centralized would be contradicting to what the real purpose of bitcoin and other cryptorcurrencies in the first place.

This forum is centralised. It is a private forum owned by individuals and there are moderators here who enforce rules and ban people who break them. If you want a decentralised forum then you're in the wrong place. I really wish someone would create one though and see what a mess it would be when everyone is responsible for moderating what they can see.

edit : merit is fine as long as these merit souces wont hoard their smerits.

Merit sources have no need to hoard it. And speaking of merit abuse hoarding, is your wife Ms.cumshot?

Mr and Mrs Creampie Cumshot.

[MrGGates]

I have a tips for this forum, the problem many shitposter and many people also farming, account is that this conference can upgrade their security?Right now only detect 1 ip address , 1account  it is now tighter in every 1 device, account 1  like you detect any account of device which, login possibly it could reduce shitposter, farmers and accounts because now is found account. connected to one another.

Maybe it is still difficult, but hopefully this can reduce, problems in this forum because i see too many spamer, shitposter and it is all because every person has more than 1, account that is why i recommend to detect device that uses the account.

[Don Pedro Dinero]

If we restrict newbies and jr. members to wear signatures, the forum will lose a lot of traffic, which could downgrade it's rank e.g. in a google search, so there's no 100% good solution, unfortunately...

Hi mate, I don’t know on what forum you have been recently but newbies and jr members signatures have been disabled since january and the forum hasn’t lost a lot of traffic. They can buy a copper membership but most of them don’t do.

I have to say though, that I’ve always defended that too drastic measures would affect the traffic, this is not a matter of opinion but of empirical evidence.

We are talking about going further, maybe disabling signatures until full member would be a big step but if they were disabled until member status I’m sure a lot of traffic wouldn’t be lost.

[hilariousetc]

If we restrict newbies and jr. members to wear signatures, the forum will lose a lot of traffic, which could downgrade it's rank e.g. in a google search, so there's no 100% good solution, unfortunately...

Hi mate, I don’t know on what forum you have been recently but newbies and jr members signatures have been disabled since january and the forum hasn’t lost a lot of traffic. They can buy a copper membership but most of them don’t do.

I have to say though, that I’ve always defended that too drastic measures would affect the traffic, this is not a matter of opinion but of empirical evidence.

We are talking about going further, maybe disabling signatures until full member would be a big step but if they were disabled until member status I’m sure a lot of traffic wouldn’t be lost.

You know what, I didn't even realise Juniors couldn't have a clickable signature since then. I swear I've still seen Juniors with them. I'm a strong proponent of removing signatures completely from lower ranks and also requiring at least one merit to become a Junior, but I don't think it would effect traffic one bit. People come here en mass to join signatures and bounties and something tells me they're not going to give up just because they can't have a signature straight away or need to earn one merit. People have to put in the time and effort to rise through the ranks anyway and you can only do this with activity and merit so users have to wait and stick with it in order to get anywhere, but this is how it should be to stop the colossal amount of abuse that is going on and I don't think people should be able to come here and join a signature campaign straight away, especially if they're a shitposter with little to no interest or knowledge of bitcoin.

[Don Pedro Dinero]

You know what, I didn't even realise Juniors couldn't have a clickable signature since then. I swear I've still seen Juniors with them.

I think most likely they were either copper members as well junior members or there was/is a bug.

By the way, can you look at this?

If we have people getting paid without clickable signatures, we are going to keep getting lots of spam.

[btcsmlcmnr]

I think most likely they were either copper members as well junior members or there was/is a bug.

By the way, can you look at this?

If we have people getting paid without clickable signatures, we are going to keep getting lots of spam.

Copper members can not join bounties before ranking up to Junior members, right?
I guess they often has not get the same payment rates as of Junior rank by simply spending small amount of bitcoin to buy Copper Member rank.

[hilariousetc]

I think most likely they were either copper members as well junior members or there was/is a bug.

By the way, can you look at this?

If we have people getting paid without clickable signatures, we are going to keep getting lots of spam.

Copper members can not join bounties before ranking up to Junior members, right?
I guess they often has not get the same payment rates as of Junior rank by simply spending small amount of bitcoin to buy Copper Member rank.

Many people can join bounties even at Newbie and Junior level, and all that takes is 30 activity which can be achieved in as little as two weeks, but it's the signature campaigns that they'll want and there are some that pay specifically for Copper rank and usually at the same rate as Members as Copper membership gives you the benefits of being a Member (which I'm assuming means their signature size):

Available paid memberships:

    Copper - 0.00208333 BTC: Allows you to post images even if you are a newbie, reduces the time-between-actions limit, and provides some of the same benefits as being of natural Member rank.

[TheQuin]

You know what, I didn't even realise Juniors couldn't have a clickable signature since then. I swear I've still seen Juniors with them. I'm a strong proponent of removing signatures completely from lower ranks and also requiring at least one merit to become a Junior, but I don't think it would effect traffic one bit.

It was implemented right before the Merit system was.

Jr Members can no longer have signature links.

At the time I assumed with the objective of excluding them from signature campaigns but that didn't work as they just use text versions of the URL. I think Google's crawler must still see it as a backlink so it is still worthwhile to advertisers.

[hilariousetc]

You know what, I didn't even realise Juniors couldn't have a clickable signature since then. I swear I've still seen Juniors with them. I'm a strong proponent of removing signatures completely from lower ranks and also requiring at least one merit to become a Junior, but I don't think it would effect traffic one bit.

It was implemented right before the Merit system was.

Jr Members can no longer have signature links.

At the time I assumed with the objective of excluding them from signature campaigns but that didn't work as they just use text versions of the URL. I think Google's crawler must still see it as a backlink so it is still worthwhile to advertisers.

Regardless of backlinks it's still a very good advertisement here. A public billboard doesn't have a clickable links but it still gets their message/product out there and people will just do their own research (or googling) if/when they see it and it's something they're interested in. ICOs have absolutely nothing to lose by paying Juniors in tokens they've pre-mined for free and they will pay them for whatever crap they post so that's why I think we'll have to force their hand into not accepting them. 

[Klaud07]

......

If you want a cleaner forum, then you need to start just with yourselfs ( the managers of the bounty ), perhaps it is time to act administration forum, you can make the recommended form of holding the Bounty, which must be observed by all managers, that reports should be sent only to the form and not in the topic.

All topics that are opened by managers should be with self moderation and all reports that are not sent to the form will be simply deleted. I think the idea is clear...

Perhaps enough to blame only the participants? Each Manager has different conditions, why is it necessary?

Make the same conditions for all managers, it will reduce the load on the forum and reduce the number of senseless messages.