Hidden boards as a reward for high merited users and reporters

[seoincorporation]

When I first became a merit source, I felt that I needed some guidance from senior members. I know I can be a bit dogmatic at times. I created a chat room using free blab software, and I am grateful to those members who helped me in that room. The room is still active, but there are only 3 or 4 of us who chat regularly there - all legendaries btw. I would welcome any other merit sources or DTs to join the chat.

I've got as closed mod board on fit to talk, but that is only for that site. What may be more interesting are the closed boards for members to sanitise posts before submitting them to Bitcoin Talk. We are aware that some governments monitor forum sites looking for political dissenters, and we would like to help members to avoid this unwanted attention.

The beginners board is now completely useless, and I am considering creating an index of decent threads to scan for meritable posts. I no longer have the time to hunt through 4 or 5 pages of off-topic threads looking for the odd gem.

I am installing Teamspeak on a VPS, and I hope that this can be used to discuss posts with foreign language students as they make the posts. Comments about this would be welcome.

I totally agree. Ones of the most interested members on the forum`s health are already creating some awesome projects to help others to understand how to become a good asset in here.  The Fit To Talk project is seeking to increment their users in order to make good quality posts in here, as well as the chat room, in where I participate and every day we discuss the forum and how to improve some people behave in here.
A hidden board only will be an allicient for those really concerned about the forum, something hard to see in these days, the Ivory Tower is a great example of how few are participating and I also have come to believe that even the discussions in there are not as succulent as they should.

So maybe this is a futile effort.
From my perspective, hidden boards can be interesting only if they have some kind of amazing content or a worthy discussion. If they are dead, as the donators one, well, the people is not going to feel attracted by them...

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[Thekool1s]

I think a chatroom would be more effective than this.

I kinda disagree. Imagine a thread like SpamBuster in a chat session. The things would get messy quite quickly. What I can agree on is your second idea, Along with a separate board for high merit users, introduce a chatbox for that specific section. This way it will become an effective tool to fight spam.

This rank would have perks like getting access to hidden boards(read only or read/write both), ability to have custom Titles, bigger Personal Text,avatar, signature space and obviously different shiny coins, and a chatroom/ message groups(like a mini telegram/whatsapp but not requiring any phone numbers).

THIS!!! A new rank isn't required tho.

[suchmoon]

I'd agree with a public sub board restricted to posting only from users with a certain level of merit. I'd agree with a hidden sub-board of meta for active reporters, although, I do still feel like there are reasons large account farmers would want to make it in that meta sub board and would just use bots to do it. Given how much spam they seem capable of generating, it doesn't seem like much effort to create a 2nd fleet of bots that report the same posts and they could rank up with reports pretty quickly, while creating additional overhead to mods.

Then perhaps there should be an additional merit requirement for the reporter board. Something low like 20 merits so as to not inconvenience legitimate users but it would be a significant hurdle for bot farmers.

Another option (if SMF allows) would be to make it invite-only and manually approve participants.

[pugman]

When people say the board is dead, they mean it's dead.  There have been (if my math is correct) 5 posts in 2018 so far in the Donators board.  One post was a happy new year with one reply saying thank you.  Another post was yet another thank you.  That means there was 2 post's in 2018 worth reading, one of the threads/post, was a cross post from another section and I believe the last post was also a cross post (not 100% sure on the last one).  In reality, anyone without access to the Donator board has missed exactly 0 post from that board in 2018.

Don't think anyone is getting pissed about other high quality users accessing the board, because no one is there to get pissed LOL!  I mean if they want a boys club no one uses meh OK fine!

Fair enough, but still think that the Donator board be how it is, because after reading ibminer's post, I think the board should be rather public than hidden,if its going to be used for normal discussions between the high merited posters.

I kinda disagree. Imagine a thread like SpamBuster in a chat session. The things would get messy quite quickly. What I can agree on is your second idea, Along with a separate board for high merit users, introduce a chatbox for that specific section. This way it will become an effective tool to fight spam.

Not many people would get access to the boards, so chatroom getting messy shouldn't be a problem. But I think group chat(like the ones used in telegram/whatsapp) are much better.

THIS!!! A new rank isn't required tho.

A new rank makes it much harder to achieve because of activity.

Then perhaps there should be an additional merit requirement for the reporter board. Something low like 20 merits so as to not inconvenience legitimate users but it would be a significant hurdle for bot farmers.

Another option (if SMF allows) would be to make it invite-only and manually approve participants.

It would only be a link, so SMF shouldn't be a problem, but the board should be public(read only access to everyone other than the top merited posters) if there's gonna be one.

[cissrawk]

I voted yes, agree if we need private board for high merited user and i little bit nteresting with chatroom. It kinda looks like a features for high merited user.

But well, lets see how this vote going.

[r1s2g3]

My vote is "No" (I do not believe Merit ruin lives but here are my reasons).

Forum already have so much spam and if we remove these good poster also and divert them to a hidden board,  then what will be left for us ?
These good post made us think and I believe they should be available to everybody.

I suggest to create a open board (same like Ivory Tower or Serious Discussion ) but only those user will be able to create and quote there who has earned more than 50 merits and at least got merited by 10+ user. (10+ user is also important as some  ANN topics got 50 merits by a single and I do not think  that ANN topic author should be eligible.)

This board will serve us with some good reading and spare everyone to weed out spam.

[TryNinja]

Forum already have so much spam and if we remove these good poster also and divert them to a hidden board,  then what will be left for us ?
These good post made us think and I believe they should be available to everybody.

So, you're ok with the idea if the board is visible to everyone but only the eligible members can post?

I'm pretty sure the good posters won't stop posting outside the exclusive board just like they didn't even after the Serious Discussions Board. It's just that there are a few things that need to be discussed without all the generic shitposts that are created as an attempt to get a merit.

[Lafu]

The board for reports could be used for discussion about the forum or collaborative efforts on potential abuses that need to be investigated but you may not want to post them publicly yet as to alert the people you're instigating (which would be far more efficient that just PM-ing users en masse).  

Would be nice and love the Idea ,  at the moment all users can read the threads about at what for we looking at for report and bots and spam shit!  So they can hide at other posts and spam there!

Sounds like maybe a sneaky reporting, yeah!

[hilariousetc]

This is a great idea, just wonder how long it will take to be implemented if accepted /which we will never know as theymos keep silence on such things/

It probably won't. We probably won't ever know whether theymos thinks it a good idea or not either, but it's worth discussing and to see what the community thinks and hopeful one day he will start taking note of the suggestions we make to improve the forum in various ways.

Maybe just make the Donators board the, "Donators & Meritorious Users" board?  It's not like anyone posts in the Donators board so maybe this way it will get some use?

Probably best just creating a new sub for it to be honest, but I guess it could be used.

My vote is "No" (I do not believe Merit ruin lives but here are my reasons).

Forum already have so much spam and if we remove these good poster also and divert them to a hidden board,  then what will be left for us ?
These good post made us think and I believe they should be available to everybody.

There isn't going to be a mass exodus of users from here to there. It's just an additional board to post in, one where the highest merited users can post about things they wish to have a decent discussion about like what used to happen here. As I said, the board doesn't have to be hidden and maybe it will be best being publicly shown, you just can't post in it until you've hit the high merit quota. Maybe that would be best. The reporter board should probably remain hidden though for obvious reasons. You could just change the requirements of Ivory Tower I guess.

I think a chatroom would be more effective than this. Plus, some donators might argue that they spent their money on something that could sort of be achieved  through other non monetary means. I think people would like getting read only access to the staff board than the Donator board, for I have heard that the donator board is way too silent.

I don't, but anyone can create a chatroom. Chatrooms have their place but they're not that useful for decent discussion. The donator board is separate. They never donated to have exclusive access to the only hidden board. And nobody is getting access to the staff board other than staff, so if you want to view that board then get reporting.

Another proposal, instead of allowing only high merited users and reporters, why not make a new rank after Legendary, which requires high number of merit, a certain number of reports, a fixed activity (2000 for example). Trust could also be a requirement, but I don't want that to be a requirement.

There should be another rank. Legendary doesn't mean that much these days and is becoming much more common with every month that passes. I think the next rank should require a very large amount of merit in addition to activity so only quality contributors will achieve it. I've suggested in the past that Legendary is fixed to 960 activity and the newer rank is 1920 activity (or Legendary could remain the highest rank and there's a new rank to replace it).

Hilarious, I think you mentioned that the donators board is like a ghost town.  Somehow I suspect your proposed boards would become much the same thing--but I do think it's worth trying.

It's a ghost town because there isn't many donators to start with and of those that are even fewer are still active. I imagine this place will be much more active and constructive.

[Jet Cash]

There is a lot of talk about improving the forum, but withoutr the active participation of senior members nothing will happen. I've started a number of initiatives, and it is really hard work to get any traction or support. The things I have started at my expense of time and money are -

A private chat room for merit sources and DTs
A blog about my activities
A merit history of my posts ( thanks to Loyce for this )
An English tutorial forum
A learning accademy
I'm just setting up a voice chat facility to help members with their posting in real time

There are probably some others as well that I've forgotten. I'm getting close to the end with these ideas, as I feel that I'm just banging my head against a brick wall. Maybe I misunderstand the purpose of the forum, and I should just sell my signature and take the money like so many others.

[The Cryptovator]

Great idea. As you say there should be sign free and exclude post count too, I am strongly agree with it. If this idea is implement that there will be fair discussion without spam. Because board will be visible only by potential member's, not by spammer.

[krishnapramod]

Merit-based boards is definitely a good idea. I think just restricting one sub board to a particular non-main board where general users don't go through would be good for merited users to have all the spam-free discussions regarding Bitcoin, technicality, altcoins, economics, off-topic; read only. For perks/rewarding, it's good, but still would lack the visibility main boards get.

But for overall forum, as the main sections are overflowing with misinformation/low quality posts, maybe also having merit-based sub boards for each main board (Bitcoin discussion, beginners, technical, altcoin discussion, politics/society, economics) would be good to engage quality contributors to post their opinion without it getting drowned in spam and keeping the information accurate for legit users.

A single merit-based board would have all the discussions (Bitcoin discussion, beginners, technical, altcoin discussion, politics/society, economics) at one place, bots crawl, but user visibility matters and having meritorious sub boards in main sections, I doubt it's going to encourage spammers to earn merit and be a part of it, but would still keep the discussions going, not in quantity, but quality for the one's who need it (until the main boards get a bit more free of spam).

Posting everything related to "report to moderator" on meta, definitely reporter-based board is the solution. Having all the reporters at one place without disclosing what the spammers want to know, but for not getting easy entry, the number of reports should be high where the pattern of spam reporting could be detected.

[Jet Cash]

We already have merit based boards - they are called ANN boards.

[Heisenberg_Hunter]

I kinda disagree. Imagine a thread like SpamBuster in a chat session. The things would get messy quite quickly. What I can agree on is your second idea, Along with a separate board for high merit users, introduce a chatbox for that specific section. This way it will become an effective tool to fight spam.

I don't think it would become a mess if the entry threshold was kept quite high.
Reporters only board seems to be a good idea along with the merit receivers board. In addition, to the above boards how about having a chat platform integrated along with these additional boards as pugman has suggested? These chat platforms and boards can be used and seen only if the user reaches a certain threshold of minimum merit and minimum reports something around like 300-350 for merits and 1000+ for reports. The boards can be placed somewhere in the Others section and the access of chat platform can be kept nearer to the search button. There is only a minimum possibility of a user who has received 300-350 merits or one who has reported 1000+ reports spamming the chats. There can be atleast one dedicated mod for chats to take place fairly. I don't think it's necessary to place a separate mod for merits and report board as I assume that there would be only good discussions regarding the improvement of the quality in posts and the defending of the newbies and bump bots.

An accessible chat platform can be something like this...



Actually I used inspect element feature to check that how one could look in real time scenario. Moreover, Donate section is no longer useful, as none would donate 70000$ for the forum with the current btc prices. Hence removing the Donate button and page completely and replacing them with chats would be a good idea.

Inside the chat section may look something like this...



And in order to differentiate the ranks, we can use certain colors for each rank like
Admin - Red , Legendary - Blue and so on... These types of chat sections can bring unity among the like minded members of the forum and may be helpful in patrolling, reporting and quality posting.

[pugman]

I don't, but anyone can create a chatroom. Chatrooms have their place but they're not that useful for decent discussion. The donator board is separate. They never donated to have exclusive access to the only hidden board. And nobody is getting access to the staff board other than staff, so if you want to view that board then get reporting.

Guess the staff board would be under the curtain forever then. Great!

 But yeah, chatroom in its general definition isn't the best thing for bitcointalk and its users.

There should be another rank. Legendary doesn't mean that much these days and is becoming much more common with every month that passes. I think the next rank should require a very large amount of merit in addition to activity so only quality contributors will achieve it. I've suggested in the past that Legendary is fixed to 960 activity and the newer rank is 1920 activity (or Legendary could remain the highest rank and there's a new rank to replace it).

A certain amount of reports can be an additional barrier too, real question is to get theymos to implement it. You can begin with annoying him everyday. 

[suchmoon]

Maybe all this will be implemented in the NEW FORUM SOFTWARE!

Ok, I'm going, no need to yell at me. Happy Friday!

[PnP]

Instead of cryptoanarchy, we received all the signs of a concentration camp. Overseers, informers, carrot and stick. Gulag. This is pizdec tovarischi...

[suchmoon]

Instead of cryptoanarchy, we received all the signs of a concentration camp. Overseers, informers, carrot and stick. Gulag. This is pizdec tovarischi...

Except you can walk out at any time and choose to spam elsewhere.

Stupid analogy is stupid.

[Lafu]

Instead of cryptoanarchy, we received all the signs of a concentration camp. Overseers, informers, carrot and stick. Gulag. This is pizdec tovarischi...

Except you can walk out at any time and choose to spam elsewhere.

Stupid analogy is stupid.

You can't cure stupidity  !     

[PnP]

Instead of cryptoanarchy, we received all the signs of a concentration camp. Overseers, informers, carrot and stick. Gulag. This is pizdec tovarischi...

Except you can walk out at any time and choose to spam elsewhere.

Stupid analogy is stupid.

It's silly to give stupid advice, especially when they were not asked from you.