Is it time for members to take responsibility for their own threads

[Jet Cash]

Post moderation and its problems seems to be taking over from merit as the hot topic of the week. I propose a radical new approach - Members take responsibility for their own posts, and they moderate the replies. So I'm going to try to do this, and that leads me to yet another Jet Cash invention - SMART threads. These threads will be moderated by me, and will need to conform to my standards, and I don't believe that these are contrary to the spirit of the forum rules. SMART stands for "Self-Moderated And Rewarded Threads", and the rewards will come from my stack of sMerits. If you look at my merit awarding history, you will see that I try to award merits to quality posts, and I am prepared to award merits to 'international' members, as long as they have made an effort to create a decent post.

I will write some rules for posting in these threads, and I'll add them here later for your comments. Threads in this initiative will have the prefix [SMART] in the title. The idea is not subject to copyright , but if any other members want to create such threads, please ensure that you keep them clean, and free of bounty and ICO spam, and also that you have sMerits to award to good posters.

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[friends1980]

Hear hear. All threads self-moderated.

I would like to add: no more replies (ergo bumps) to spam and nonsense threads, but (only) immediate reporting to moderator.

[hilariousetc]

It's a good idea at heart but there are workarounds. You or anyone else is free to self-moderate any thread you like in however way you like, but the trouble is is that shitposters will just learn to not post in those specific ones self-modded by you and there's thousands of other threads that aren't that they can freely do so in. They can also even just create a duplicate non-self-modded thread for them to be able to post in as per the rules, though how many spammers are aware of this or will do it is likely minimal.

[Jet Cash]

It's a good idea at heart but there are workarounds. You or anyone else is free to self-moderate any thread you like in however way you like, but the trouble is is that shitposters will just learn to not post in those specific ones self-modded by you and there's thousands of other threads that aren't that they can freely do so in. They can also even just create a duplicate non-self-modded thread for them to be able to post in as per the rules, though how many spammers are aware of this or will do it is likely minimal.

The duplicate thread concept was one of my concerns. Obviously a rubbish thread can be created with a [SMART] tag. Hopefully that will be seen as fraudulent if it is adopted, and maybe extreme abuses could be red tagged.

[qwk]

Obviously a rubbish thread can be created with a [SMART] tag. Hopefully that will be seen as fraudulent if it is adopted, and maybe extreme abuses could be red tagged.

Could even become forum policy. In that case, you could report such threads and they'd get deleted.
Obviously, that would only make sense if your concept were to catch on, which I personally doubt.

[Jet Cash]

Obviously, that would only make sense if your concept were to catch on, which I personally doubt.

Unfortunately, I have to agree with you.

I want to try it anyway, and that's why I included the possibility of merit rewards. It seems that nobody does anything in the forum unless there is the possibility of merits.

[vphasitha01]

I will write some rules for posting in these threads, and I'll add them here later for your comments. Threads in this initiative will have the prefix [SMART] in the title.

I also have some doubts as "qwk" ,whether it's a viable concept or not. I personally liked what you have suggested like always such as dMerits too. But it is better to publish your standards(no more billboard images, that will be surely a one of your standard) before we are going forward this conversation with other members. The biggest concern which I have  regarding your SMART thread concept is what will happened if so many redundend threads are going to post under this SMART concept by junior members(not everyone). Because your concept involves Merit. That means some of the members can seeing this is a shortcut or easy method for grabbing some Merits(but I know it's not ). That can be a new cause for clogging the forum too.

However there can be other side too. Members can be more creative and take some effort to their posters before posting. So at the end of the day it's a good idea,but still have my doubts when it comes to the action.

[Jet Cash]

Maybe there should be an approved list of SMART thread starters. This wouldn't require any forum changes, as the Title and thread starter are both listed on the index page.

The advantage of this is that I can just delete low value posts without having to put the poster on ignore.

An diadvantage is that it could lead to my being red tagged for deleting a post. I'm still waiting for a merit source to be red tagged by a bounty hunter because his post wasn't awarded any merits.

I wanted to start a SMART thread on the beginners board, but I haven't been able to think of a suitable topic. Contests and merit reward threads are not really suitable. I know that sounds like a contradiction,but the SMART merits should be a secondary consideration. I might have a go on the discussion board, and it would be interesdting to see how long it took to die, or get moved into the backwaters.

[DooMAD]

I'm not sure about the prefixing threads with a particular tag, but I think it would be an improvement to simply make all threads self-moderated by default.  There could also be a message displayed during thread creation along the lines of:

To ease the growing burden on forum staff, all users are openly encouraged to delete off topic, spam and low quality replies from their topics.  All topics are now self-moderated by default.  Help keep the forums clean and tidy!

It's a pretty big change, though.  Are there any downsides people can think of?  Any potential for abuse, etc?

[Jet Cash]

I don't think all threads should be self-moderated. This could lead to a bias in the thread opinion mix, and this would reduce the benefit of the thread. As an example, I started a SMART thread, and I don't agree with the first reply. Obviously I won't delete the post, because it represents a (possibly) reasonable opinion, and just because it is wrong, it doesn't mean I should delete it. Some thread starters may not take the same approach.

[stompix]

I'm not sure about the prefixing threads with a particular tag, but I think it would be an improvement to simply make all threads self-moderated by default.  There could also be a message displayed during thread creation along the lines of:

To ease the growing burden on forum staff, all users are openly encouraged to delete off topic, spam and low quality replies from their topics.  All topics are now self-moderated by default.  Help keep the forums clean and tidy!

It's a pretty big change, though.  Are there any downsides people can think of?  Any potential for abuse, etc?]?

Yeah, the OP will open the topic and just leave ...and nothing will change

If there is going to be a tagged for not doing the cleaning spammers will organize themselves and we are going to have an avalanche of newbies starting topics, just like we have newbies selling accounts and not caring about DT.
And theymos will never ban newbies from starting topics.

Actually, this got me thinking about...
Would it be possible to create a stats to see how many times (and if) the OP has responded in his own thread?
I'm seeing a lot of topics where the OP just drops two lines and he's gone!

[Welsh]

It's a pretty big change, though.  Are there any downsides people can think of?  Any potential for abuse, etc?

Not a downside per say, however instead of manually deleting it yourself you can just report it. Self moderation takes away from freedom of speech a lot of the time, and I would prefer if threads were kept the way they are now, and have an option to make it self moderated. At least you know what to expect in that thread then.

But, if its regarding spam, and other posts breaking the rules it doesn't take that much more time to report it.

[Jet Cash]

Well my first SMART thread is getting some replies. Even if nobody agrees with me about the topic.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4744506.0

[jointherevolution]

This is a weird odd idea to me, I am not sure what you hope to accomplish with this but maybe it will do good for members with difficulty getting merits.

[Jet Cash]

I want to create interesting discussion threads. There is such a diversity of skills, experiences and knowledge here that I would like to pull them together into some interesting threads. I want them to be readable, without them being filled with pollution and spam. It would be useful if it was possible to moderate posts as well. The first reply contains a stupid quote of the whole of the original post. You guys can't imagine how much self-control it took for me not to delete it.

[mdayonliner]

Self moderation takes away from freedom of speech a lot of the time, and I would prefer if threads were kept the way they are now, and have an option to make it self moderated.

In addition, theymos is not a big fan of restricting members besides, I do not see the difference between a self moderated topic and a SMART (proposed) topic except the reward things (which is merit of course). Creating a self-moderated topic and then awarding merits to the quality posts actually my interpretation of SMART topic, which we already have on the forum. What am I missing?

[stompix]

The first reply contains a stupid quote of the whole of the original post. You guys can't imagine how much self-control it took for me not to delete it.

I'm thinking more of a honeypot topic...
Opening a topic with something like "Bitcoin is now legal in Latveria" or "Leutonia" and see how long I will last before I get carpal tunnel syndrome.

Well my first SMART thread is getting some replies. Even if nobody agrees with me about the topic.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4744506.0

Well, just as Foxpup said, there are SMART threads...and Smart threads....

[Jet Cash]

To mdayonliner

In essence, there isn't any difference. What I hope is the the [SMART] tag will discourage low value posting. If they are just going to have their posts deleted, then hopefully the spammers won't even bother to open the thread. You say that Theymos is not a big fan of restricting members, but he is offering badges for people who suggest the imposition of specific restrictions.

The interesting stat to watch will be the views:posts ratio. Most threads run at about 10:1, and if it is possible to identify quality threads easily, then this ratio should improve. This will mean that any signature in a [SMART] thread will have a greater value than a signature in a standard thread.

[mdayonliner]

...hopefully the spammers won't even bother to open the thread...

Ok, so what you are asking is - on a topic list whenever anyone will see [SMART] (tag or title formatting) they will know that it's a self moderated topic and anything which is spammy will be deleted by the topic creator.

The idea is same way beneficial for both good and bad (spammers LOL) members. Good members can scan quickly to jump straight away to the [SMART] topic and bad members will straight away ignore the topic and will start spamming the non [SMART].

What perimeters will define a [SMART] topic? Anyone can create a topic with "bla bla" and on the title they can add [SMART].

You say that Theymos is not a big fan of restricting members, but he is offering badges for people who suggest the imposition of specific restrictions.

My understanding for the idea of badges is - it's for reporting the bad posts. A post is good or bad can be determined after the post has been made. By doing that you are actually not holding someone to do their things.

[r1s2g3]

It is good and bad idea at a same time.

Places where it act as "GOOD" idea.
 
I saw sometime people ask for information and create thread and in their created thread some people just write very vague sentences  that do not solve the OP Problem or sometime they just rephrase all the information from 2-3 replies without actually adding anything in discussion. SMART help me to remove all the low quality as well as redundant replies.(I am not sure "Report To Moderator" is effective against redundant replies as technically it is not a low quality post.)

Places where it act as "BAD" idea.
For discussion to be healthy , everybody should present his view and in the end we can get into the conclusion in the end. Using self Moderated thread did not guarantee that if some of the views are not deleted by OP and whole new stream of discussion is just killed.


As far "SMART" is concerned:
Self Moderated + Merit reward , I will like to see how your thread goes but I suspect "Merit" word attract more spammers to the discussion and more work for you.