Newbies, Bounties & spam.

[Retty]

Even though i haven't been here long, i've seen an influx of crappy/irrelevant posts and the same topic being repeated day after day- god only knows how some of you must feel who have seen the same thing hundreds or possibly several thousand times. 

Obviously i can see due to the amount of posts in Meta, that a lot of people are fed up of seeing the same crap posted day in day out. The real shame is that you have to practically hunt for something decent these days in amongst the sea of spam that plagues the site. Everyone has a say and can put forward an idea so i thought i'd give it a shot too!

I know that the bounties here are more than likely making up a large portion of website traffic. I totally understand that to stay at the top of the alexa rankings, you need website traffic and by eliminating newbies entirely- you also get rid of a shitload of traffic.

So is it not a possibility that in future we could have new bounties initially posted here as per usual in the ANN section, then any 'work' i.e. reporting of what the member done that week and contact details posted, social media links, telegram names etc etc, hosted somewhere else on a sister website a Bountybtctalk for example? Would this not rid the forum of a good chunk of piss poor posts?

Another thing i wonder is, why do bounty campaigns have posting requirements if the stuff that is posted is utter crap?

Is it not prudent to eliminate excessive posting requirements and in doing so eradicating a lot of needless comments and hopefully a better standard of posting within the forum could naturally bring people here, those who actually want to come and read organic posts instead of bounty requirement posts?

Obviously i know what i mentioned has its possible drawbacks in terms of website traffic, the rest is just general wondering why this actually goes on here when we all know the issues it creates? 

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[The Sceptical Chymist]

Another thing i wonder is, why do bounty campaigns have posting requirements if the stuff that is posted is utter crap?

Because they don't care what's posted as long as it advertises the ICO or whatever is being promoted.  That's the problem, which I'm sure you're now aware of.  The projects don't care about bitcointalk, FB, Twitter, or any other website that they're using to hype their stuff.  Basically they're just recruiting spammers, and they're cool with that.

the rest is just general wondering why this actually goes on here when we all know the issues it creates? 

You answered this question here:

I know that the bounties here are more than likely making up a large portion of website traffic.

And it pretty much sums up why spam is tolerated on bitcointalk.  I've never been able to come up with a better reason.  Any other forum would have put the kabosh on it long ago, along with the scammers and whatnot.  I don't know how much Theymos et al make just having bitcointalk operating as it is, but I think it's a substantial sum of money.  If Theymos did away with bounties and campaigns, this forum would be a ghost town, and it wouldn't be earning anywhere near as much.

[Retty]

Good answers there Pharmacist! 

Like yourself i thought it was tolerated that spamming went on but frowned upon at the same time! Can only assume its for the reasons we mentioned

Its a genuine Catch22 scenario where you need the traffic to maintain the forum ranking but you have to put up with the crap that comes with it i guess.

I just think its a real pity that you have some wonderful content and posters on here, buy you really have to dig through the mud to find it. It shouldn't be that way on a forum with a specific niche(s), just a pity there isn't a solution to keep everyone happy.

[Grayy]

Theymos  brought the merit system obviously to check spam. But have you pondered  over why newbies didn't have to earn merit(s) to rank up junior members? The forum somewhat allows members irrespective of their ranks to contribute to discussions  and learn too. But in liberal societies you can't always have everything in the garden being rosy. Sometimes some of these spammers make me laugh out loud.

[mu_enrico]

I don't think theymos' Laissez-faire policy is related to his pocket.

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

With this kind of approach, the community needs to act for themselves, for example reporting spam, joining spam report club, creating good tutorials for beginner, and with the help of merit system, this spam problem will eventually contained.

We just need one little nudge on the stricter rules for bounty managers.

[zenrol28]

So is it not a possibility that in future we could have new bounties initially posted here as per usual in the ANN section, then any 'work' i.e. reporting of what the member done that week and contact details posted, social media links, telegram names etc etc, hosted somewhere else on a sister website a Bountybtctalk for example? Would this not rid the forum of a good chunk of piss poor posts?

Some Bounty Managers already made a solution like issuing a weekly report form via google forms

But the problem is with the participants who doesn't read (or actually don't care with) the rules and still posting their reports. These kinds of participants should be disqualified immediately so they'll (if they're not a bot) learn to follow rules.

[athanz88]

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Some Bounty Managers already made a solution like issuing a weekly report form via google forms

But the problem is with the participants who doesn't read (or actually don't care with) the rules and still posting their reports. These kinds of participants should be disqualified immediately so they'll (if they're not a bot) learn to follow rules.

Wow this is a great solution by now. Which manager made this innovation? It should be appreciated by all of us especially all of the bounty managers, because it is their job to control their "workers".

That is not a problem at all in my opinion. If you are the manager, then you are the one who made the rules, and the rules should be followed by all of your workers. No money for workers who do not follow the rules. Simple as that.

[Retty]

Well the Google forms is definitely a step in the right direction, it means the member still has to come to the forum to fill the form, but bitcointalk dosen't have to host a bunch of pointless information as its essentially been outsourced to google forms. Plus the forum still keeps its web traffic using this method so seems like a win-win.

This should be mandatory across all bounties really, in an effort to tidy-up the forum.

[Insanerman]

Wow this is a great solution by now. Which manager made this innovation? It should be appreciated by all of us especially all of the bounty managers, because it is their job to control their "workers".

btcltcdigger is the only bounty manager I have seen so far when it comes Google form type of reporting in Social Media and Publishing Articles. I think in order to reduce the amount of spamming in bounties section, the use of Google Form when submitting bounty reports should be included in forum rules. Their report will be invalid if they do not report using google forms.

the problem is, what will be the punishment when they do not follow the rules?

[coinlocket$]

~

Wow this is a great solution by now. Which manager made this innovation? It should be appreciated by all of us especially all of the bounty managers, because it is their job to control their "workers".

That is not a problem at all in my opinion. If you are the manager, then you are the one who made the rules, and the rules should be followed by all of your workers. No money for workers who do not follow the rules. Simple as that.

Some mangers already does this, they accept only reports submited from google modules BUT if you look at their bounty threads you will find a lot of people who will spam the thread regardless.
Maybe you're wondering: why do these people write their work despite not being accepted by managers?
The answer to this question has two possibilities:
1- they do not read the instructions, in my opinion someone unfortunately does not read and we can not do anything about this, they will not paid and they will learn the lesson.
2- Many of these people are BOTs, if you read carefully the answers with the reports in these threads you will notice the suspicious patterns between the various posts which indicates the clear use of alt accounts and more specifically bots for the various social activities (for example, more messages at exactly the same time on consecutive days, statistically very improbable) and to posts on the forum through the use of identical and unsolicited forms.

[athanz88]

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the problem is, what will be the punishment when they do not follow the rules?

I believe i already stated that on my post before, but i think i will repeat it again here. The punishment from managers side can be a denial on their payment because they do not follow the rules and it is crucial. The rules are clear and they can not protest to it. The power is not on their hands

While from forum side, it is easier to spot bots. Members and moderator can do faster in work like reporting, deleting, even up to permaban because sometimes alt-accounts or bot do some plagiarism job.

[TheUltraElite]

Theymos  brought the merit system obviously to check spam.

It controlled the spammers and so called "bounty hunters" from ranking up. But it does not do much for spam. It is expected that these people who get blocked at the lower rank with zero merits would get frustrated or not being able to rank up and then leave the forum. That does make the forum clean but its better controlled if the number of mods working would be increased.

But have you pondered  over why newbies didn't have to earn merit(s) to rank up junior members? The forum somewhat allows members irrespective of their ranks to contribute to discussions  and learn too. But in liberal societies you can't always have everything in the garden being rosy. Sometimes some of these spammers make me laugh out loud.

Its called Freedom of speech. But without regulation it ends up in a spamfest. While there are some good topics posted even on "Bitcoin Discussion" at times which are worth talking about, it get ruined in a few days with a hoard of newbie "Great, Project Sir" members vomiting out half-English posts to get their post count done.

[ridhataqo]

So is it not a possibility that in future we could have new bounties initially posted here as per usual in the ANN section, then any 'work' i.e. reporting of what the member done that week and contact details posted, social media links, telegram names etc etc, hosted somewhere else on a sister website a Bountybtctalk for example? Would this not rid the forum of a good chunk of piss poor posts?

Some Bounty Managers already made a solution like issuing a weekly report form via google forms

But the problem is with the participants who doesn't read (or actually don't care with) the rules and still posting their reports. These kinds of participants should be disqualified immediately so they'll (if they're not a bot) learn to follow rules.

This is sad.
I've seen a lot of bounties that requiring their participants to report through google form weekly instead of on the thread yet people still report on the thread.
I don't know if they're too lazy to read or just blindly following another person's post on that thread.

And no, they won't learn their lesson.
Some people won't get paid because they didn't follow bounty rules and when it's over they'll complaint about why they didn't get paid, then they'll do the same mistake in another bounties.
(I've seen several accounts that keep on doing the same mistake).

The saddest thing is that stupid mistake isn't only done by newbie (or bot) but by some full member as well.
Maybe they just bought that full member account so basically they're newbie, I don't know.

Edit:
Great project!
More power to the team.
I believe this project will succeed!
Good.

Lolololololol

[Avengers360]

So is it not a possibility that in future we could have new bounties initially posted here as per usual in the ANN section, then any 'work' i.e. reporting of what the member done that week and contact details posted, social media links, telegram names etc etc, hosted somewhere else on a sister website a Bountybtctalk for example? Would this not rid the forum of a good chunk of piss poor posts?
Why ban all three? Multiple accounts is not exactly against the rules, although it's frowned upon.
Only the account caught should be banned, IMO have posting requirements if the stuff that is posted is utter crap?
 

Why would the debate want their product advertised to strictly bounty hunters?
This forum presents it to real potential investors.
Although some hunters contribute to ICOs, it's just a mere handful.

And the idea that only newbies post crap, is absolutely wrong, it's the higher majority but some high ranking members also display limited knowledge on cryptocurrency.

[hilariousetc]

I know that the bounties here are more than likely making up a large portion of website traffic. I totally understand that to stay at the top of the alexa rankings, you need website traffic and by eliminating newbies entirely- you also get rid of a shitload of traffic.

Obviously i know what i mentioned has its possible drawbacks in terms of website traffic, the rest is just general wondering why this actually goes on here when we all know the issues it creates?  

What makes you think theymos cares much about traffic? Theymos recently said he thought about removing the ad slot here completely because it's too much of a hassle for him (which I think would be ridiculous to do), so I'm not sure if theymos cares too much about traffic or the Alexia rank because traffic is only really good for monetising the site. I always assumed that sig campaigns and bounties were only allowed to remain here because to get rid of them would probably kill off at least 80% of traffic. What he should care about though is the spam and usability of the forum, and I know that bothers him too, but he's the only one that can do anything about that and he needs to start implementing certain things and listening to the community on ways to combat it. We can still find a compromise without having to ban them or removing signatures completely but it's not going to happen without some help from him or permission to start dishing out punishments for the worst of campaigns.

I don't know how much Theymos et al make just having bitcointalk operating as it is, but I think it's a substantial sum of money.  If Theymos did away with bounties and campaigns, this forum would be a ghost town, and it wouldn't be earning anywhere near as much.

As I said above, theymos recently mentioned getting rid of the only ad slot we have here so I'm not sure how much the forum being monetised efficiently or not is a concern to him. Theymos makes very little directly from this forum and an active mod makes more than him per month. Most ad revenue probably goes into the pot to pay mods (and we might actually be losing money on a monthly basis), but if theymos wanted to enrich himself personally or just the forum he could do so in a multitude of ways and many I have suggested myself (more ad slots, pay himself a reasonable wage and do admin duties full time, more donator ranks amongst other things). Regardless of whether theymos cares about ad revenue or traffic we should work together to make sure the forum is fit for purpose and he himself said this board shouldn't be a 'welfare system' for people but that's what it is right now so we need to find a compromise between people getting paid and what is and isn't acceptable to be paid for and punishments for people who do it the unacceptable way. If we let people get away with paying and being paid for spamming then they will continue to do it.

[davey76]

I was a bounty hunter too and was happy to see the reports went to google forms, that cut done on the spam.
The merit system did the rest.

Now we only have to find a solution for the random spammers. What is their incentive to still spam random threads? Getting more posts and get paid for bounties?
Then make sure newbies are never paid for signatures anymore, problem solved! Because of the merit system they never rank up. It takes away the incentive to spam imho.

[zenrol28]

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[img]

Which manager made this innovation? It should be appreciated by all of us especially all of the bounty managers, because it is their job to control their "workers".

btcltcdigger is the only bounty manager I have seen so far when it comes Google form type of reporting in Social Media and Publishing Articles.

yahoo62278 and also Lauda are also using google forms in their campaigns.

the problem is, what will be the punishment when they do not follow the rules?

for the participants? Well blacklisting their BTCT usernames together with their social media accounts and crypto address will hurt these kind of violators. It's like their totally banned.

And no, they won't learn their lesson.
Some people won't get paid because they didn't follow bounty rules and when it's over they'll complaint about why they didn't get paid, then they'll do the same mistake in another bounties.
(I've seen several accounts that keep on doing the same mistake).

How can you say? I can't think of a person making efforts and will not learn the lesson of following rules when not paid. Let's say they won't get it in the first time but eventually they will.

[Harlot]

Eliminating posting requirements is not a good solution as it has a bad effect on the bounty campaign promotion itself, they might even be less bounty campaigns if that happens. What I see is to have a more disciplined bounty manager as not all managers are capable of moderating all the people that are accepted in their campaign, they act like once they are in all their job now is to see if their post count has met the requirements for that week. If we want to see less spam this managers must boot out the spammers in their campaign and they can do it by actively seeing who is posting well or not.

[examplens]

So is it not a possibility that in future we could have new bounties initially posted here as per usual in the ANN section, then any 'work' i.e. reporting of what the member done that week and contact details posted, social media links, telegram names etc etc, hosted somewhere else on a sister website a Bountybtctalk for example? Would this not rid the forum of a good chunk of piss poor posts?

Some Bounty Managers already made a solution like issuing a weekly report form via google forms

But the problem is with the participants who doesn't read (or actually don't care with) the rules and still posting their reports. These kinds of participants should be disqualified immediately so they'll (if they're not a bot) learn to follow rules.

Today I am reported few accounts who's posted weekly report even if the campaign manager did not ask for it from participants. I am waiting to see how it will be solved.

[coinlocket$]

~

Today I am reported few accounts who's posted weekly report even if the campaign manager did not ask for it from participants. I am waiting to see how it will be solved.

Remember that if the messages you will find are posted in a limited period of time and that if they even have the same form (obviously not required by the bounty manager who only asks for reports via spreadsheet), most probably are bot and they are abusing with also multiaccount.
If you want post here accounts, if you find this pattern or even for DM and I will help you with the hunt.