Cleaning up Market

[snedie]

Over the past week there has been a rather large influx of Chinese "Students" trying to hawk their crap in Market, with 90% of the posts now consisting of "Want perfect figure - We show you" or "Sucky sucky five dollar". Okay maybe that was a little racist right there but how are us genuine users supposed to sell/buy things amidst all these bull crap posts?

I'll make a poll at some point to get people's opinions. I think at a minimum we need to enforce some kind of "rule" that limits people posting things like "Please donate us money for me to explain what I ate this morning".


This thread has created some valuable discussion towards the "Moderation"/"Management" of the Market section. Please feel free to give your two cents towards if and how Market should be changed, or why it should remain as it is. As it stands the poll is quite limiting, so please expand your opinion in the comments if you think more than one option applies (Is there a way to allow multi-choice in the poll?).

If it turns out that there is a demand for change, then it may be good to move this onto a higher power in the forums to see what they have to say (If your reading this, let us know what you think to restructuring Market).

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[Nefario]

Perhaps adding a temporary sub-forum, just for the Chinese students to post in, I understand that their posts might be....spamish, in the way they are written, or with what they offer, this is primarily to do with their poor English.

They are trying to offer real goods and services for bitcoin though so they have just as much a right to be here as anyone else.

It should also be noted that this is not a single person or account doing this, but multiple ones, which I can tell you are different people.

I think it should also be taken into account that this will not be continuing for much longer (I think 2-3 weeks at most).

I'm open to suggestions, really I'm the best one to deal with this as they do what I say, rather than giving the moderators more work.

Ideas?

[snedie]

Perhaps adding a temporary sub-forum, just for the Chinese students to post in, I understand that their posts might be....spamish, in the way they are written, or with what they offer, this is primarily to do with their poor English.

They are trying to offer real goods and services for bitcoin though so they have just as much a right to be here as anyone else.

It should also be noted that this is not a single person or account doing this, but multiple ones, which I can tell you are different people.

I think it should also be taken into account that this will not be continuing for much longer (I think 2-3 weeks at most).

I'm open to suggestions, really I'm the best one to deal with this as they do what I say, rather than giving the moderators more work.

Ideas?

Hey Nefario, was hoping you might join this discussion. I don't think it needs the extent of an entire forum section or anything as such as that, just more of a set of guidelines as to what is permitted as spam and was it not. To me, it just seems that your students are quite literally "Begging" for money: Do I understand correctly that they must achieve a certain amount of BTC within a time period?

What if they where to try provide an actual service, such as translations for instance. I know that some of the students already provide services such as this, but when they all try to do it it really clutters the forum. I'm not sure if this is one of your students, but this is a good example of a bad post "http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4654.0". It doesn't really make any sense, is he selling silk garments or is he offering advice on identifying silk products?

I realise that there is quite a large language barrier that needs to be addresses by your students, and many of them are doing it quite well. But the point of providing useful services that people are interested in (And can make your students money) needs to be addresses. I think that the BTC network is a great place for your students to get some good experience with dealing with English speaking clients, but it should also provide them with a facility to expand their business ideas.

[snedie]

I just had a great idea, selling traditional Chinese recipes that might otherwise remain unknown here in Europe and the USA. I personally like spicy Tai and Chinese dishes, as well as herbal teas and I could happily see myself donating some bitcoins towards some excellent recipes and cooking tips.

[LMGTFY]

Where's the option for "I want to learn about Chinese breakfasts because it makes my nipples all tingly? :-)

Seriously though, I think this will resolve itself of it's own accord. The students are going to quickly work out what gets results (supplying a demand) and what doesn't (spam). If people are prepared to pay for jokes and recipes, more power to both buyer and seller. I'm prepared to pay for certain things (bitcoin-promotion things), and I'm enjoying some of the *cough* humour, and the recipes have been interesting.

If nothing else, it's the weekend! Time to let our hair down!

[AllYourBase]

I like less rules 

[dust]

I think a temporary sub forum would be a good compromise.  For those of you that care about Bitcoin's image, the marketplace currently looks super sketchy...

[Nefario]

I've already talked to a few of the posters. Mods, please wait to move the posts for another day or so, I need to get screenshots to use as examples of good, bad and shameful.

I think by Monday the posts could be moved to a subforum temporarily, and then after a few months can be pretty much forgotten.

[MDKing]

I think a temporary sub forum would be a good compromise.  For those of you that care about Bitcoin's image, the marketplace currently looks super sketchy...

Completely agree, it's a mess.

[Jered Kenna (TradeHill)]

I'm a real free market "no rules" type of person but for me it's hard to decide where to draw the line.
I think no matter how you feel about it "spam sucks" and we can all agree on that.
I'd be all for sub dividing the marketplace, I don't see any downside to that.
We could always add or take away subforums but I would at the very least divide it in to:

 "want to sell"
 "want to buy"
 "other"

We could further divide them in to
"Services"
"real goods"
"money changing"
"black / grey market / illegal"

Or whatever else.

 

[Mahkul]

I think a temporary sub forum would be a good compromise.  For those of you that care about Bitcoin's image, the marketplace currently looks super sketchy...

Completely agree, it's a mess.

+1

[Cryptoman]

I think we're long overdue for dividing Marketplace into separate sub-forums.  Even before the Chinese onslaught, it was becoming difficult to find things of interest.  The suggestions by stonetz seem like a reasonable starting point.  This would force anyone posting there to think a bit about the nature of what it is they want to buy or sell.

[Anonymous]

Tragedy of the commons .

 

It costs nothing to post ie you dont think twice about posting. It might be free to the poster but for the user of the forum it costs them extra time to search.

 
<blatant plug
http://marketplace.witcoin.com/ >end blatant plug

[Jered Kenna (TradeHill)]

I'd say a minimum of posts (10 20 50?) wouldn't be a bad thing and automatic.
I'd add a reputation / feedback subforum too.

I'd be happy to moderate it if no one else wants to do it.

[AllYourBase]

I'd be cautious about having a min. post limit.  I think that could tend to make market-related posts show up in other forum categories.

[Jered Kenna (TradeHill)]

I'd be cautious about having a min. post limit.  I think that could tend to make market-related posts show up in other forum categories.

Yeah I suppose so, if we have mods then they could take care of that. Seems like a lot of peole want to keep it as lightly moderated as possible though. I'm somewhat torn between free for all and something appealing to the masses. I think lightly moderated and a few rules works best but it might be hard to decide where to draw the line.

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

If the forum rules are very liberal, the having mods won't hurt your freedom so much.

I don't like rules because i have my own ruleset and I can behave without any additional rules, but the mess is annoying.

[snedie]

It seems that many people are agreeing on a few key points:

 - There is a need for some form of light moderation
 - There is a requirement for subdivision of the market section to make it easier for users to locate items that are for sale and items wanted (Etc)
 - There shouldn't be to many rules, if any. But we need to try keep posts relevant to maintain ease of use (Moderators to decide if a post is spam? Should they be governed by polices such as "Lock thread first, contact via PM to clarify the intentions of the thread")

I am going to create a new pole to cover these three points (Please PM me to add more options as I often miss posts). The results of the previous posts are here for reference:

Yes!I can't see a legitimate sale    6 (30%)
No! I like these posts and want to learn about Chinese breakfast    12 (60%)
Who Cares! I don't use market anyway    1 (5%)
I just want to vote because it makes my nipples get all tingly    1 (5%)
Total Voters: 20

(Thread title changed to "Cleaning up market". Post 1 updated)

[theymos]

Adding "buying" and "selling" forums would be nice, but we still need a "general market" forum to discuss BTC-accepting sites.

The current moderation is fine. Spam is deleted quickly. I read every post in the marketplace forum, and I've seen no serious problems. The Chinese posts are coherent enough to understand. I will delete them if this is not the case.

[snedie]

Adding "buying" and "selling" forums would be nice, but we still need a "general market" forum to discuss BTC-accepting sites.

The current moderation is fine. Spam is deleted quickly. I read every post in the marketplace forum, and I've seen no serious problems. The Chinese posts are coherent enough to understand. I will delete them if this is not the case.

Is it much work to create new sections on the forum?