Have we left "Bitcoin Discussion" board for spammers, forever??

[Alone055]

It really breaks my heart when I visit 'Bitcoin Discussion' board and see the amount of spam there. And believe me, I'm not saying this only to show that I care for the forum, though I do, but I really mean what I'm saying right now and it is really saddening to see this, honestly.

The amount of spam and spammers are increasing all over the forum, but it seems like that board has become their ultimate destination to spit their shit and increase their activities or meet their post thresholds for their campaigns or whatever their reason is behind this. The situation hasn't been this bad before maybe, but now, you cannot find a single thread/topic that hasn't turned into a SMT (Spam Mega Thread), and it takes only a few hours for that to happen. That is how much spam they generate in that board.

I know that almost every single person knows all the things that I just said, but what compelled me to start this discussion is that I wanted to ask everyone that why have we left that board just for them? I know they are way more in quantity than us, but that doesn't justify leaving them all alone, so that they do whatever they want and we won't even touch that board at all.

The forum is named "Bitcointalk" which technically means "Talking about Bitcoin" or something like that. And the place to do that (Bitcoin Discussion board) is covered totally with useless discussions that we don't even want to see. I know that we can't just get them out of there, but at least we can discuss our own things, separately, in that board. That is what Moderated Threads are all about.

I just wonder how nice it would be to have some nice and qualitative Bitcoin discussions with the people that I see and read in Meta or other sections of the forum. What if all of them come together, discussing something regarding Bitcoin? A topic, totally free of spammers, with only quality posters. We can achieve that by creating Moderated Threads in Bitcoin Discussion board where we have the power to delete unsubstantial posts and only leave the ones that contribute something to the discussion.

We should not leave that board only to them. It deserves way more attention from the ones who care for the forum than what it is getting right now.

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[LFC_Bitcoin]

The quality of posting in the main section of the forum has dropped dramatically since I joined. Nothing’s going to change unless paid signatures are stopped though (and yes I’m aware that I’m wearing one but I don’t post like the spammers present there).

[Alone055]

The quality of posting in the main section of the forum has dropped dramatically since I joined. Nothing’s going to change unless paid signatures are stopped though (and yes I’m aware that I’m wearing one but I don’t post like the spammers present there).

The quality is dropped because we have stopped trying to get our hands in there anymore. Starting useful and constructive discussions in moderated mode can still show up some quality discussions in that board but only if we try.
And, of course, not every single person, wearing a paid signature, is a spammer. I'm wearing one too, and I can totally speak out about me not being a spammer.

After reading this - I just decided to devote some of my time on the Bitcoin Discussion board. I hope soon I will end up reporting a bunches of trash.

Appreciate that! We need more people doing the same, and along with reporting, you should also think of initiating some discussions that can catch attention of some of the good posters and hopefully we will see some quality in that board again, soon. Just make the threads moderated to not let spammers get in.

[mdayonliner]

~

After reading this - I just decided to devote some of my time on the Bitcoin Discussion board. I hope soon I will end up reporting a bunches of trash.

[o_e_l_e_o]

I venture in to Bitcoin Discussion fairly regularly. I find that sorting by newly created topics (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=1.0;sort=first_post;desc) can help to find some actual discussion - it effectively filters out all the spam mega-threads.

The problem is every thread gets taken over eventually. I might get a couple of good back-and-forth discussion points going within a few hours, but within a day or two there will be a page or two of spam posts appearing between thoughtful posts. At this point I usually unwatch the thread and never return - I have no desire to filter through pages of trash to find the next original thought worth responding to.

I guess my point is that there is still some genuine discussion happening, it is just being drowned out by the crowd. I guess self-moderated topics might be the way to go? I might create a couple sometime.

[Joel_Jantsen]

The quality of posting in the main section of the forum has dropped dramatically since I joined. Nothing’s going to change unless paid signatures are stopped though (and yes I’m aware that I’m wearing one but I don’t post like the spammers present there).

Well that means you're okay with the paid signature campaigns but just wanted them to be spam free. It's not as same as you saying they should be stopped completely. If you were any serious, you'd not be wearing a signature at all. That's a good first initiative.

[Don Pedro Dinero]

The quality of posting in the main section of the forum has dropped dramatically since I joined. Nothing’s going to change unless paid signatures are stopped though (and yes I’m aware that I’m wearing one but I don’t post like the spammers present there).

Well that means you're okay with the paid signature campaigns but just wanted them to be spam free. It's not as same as you saying they should be stopped completely. If you were any serious, you'd not be wearing a signature at all. That's a good first initiative.

The problem is not paid signatures in general. When the merit system was implemented, juniors were removed of clickable signatures. But they can still have (non-clickable) signatures, and many bounties pay them for posting crap with those. So the spam didn't decrease (much?).

Signatures up to junior member of even to member have to be removed completely, and there have been other many good proposals that they will never be implemented or will take ages until they do.

[Joel_Jantsen]

The problem is not paid signatures in general. When the merit system was implemented, juniors were removed of clickable signatures. But they can still have (non-clickable) signatures, and many bounties pay them for posting crap with those. So the spam didn't decrease (much?).

It is, according to the guy I quoted above. We don't want to punish the entire community by letting them participate in signature campaigns just because some bounty whores are getting paid to spam with Junior Member accounts. Maybe we can ban signatures for junior members or find another workaround.

Signatures up to junior member of even to member have to be removed completely, and there have been other many good proposals that they will never be implemented or will take ages until they do.

Most of those suggestions are honestly very biased and would only work in the favor of the high ranked accounts.

[Alone055]

The problem is every thread gets taken over eventually. I might get a couple of good back-and-forth discussion points going within a few hours, but within a day or two there will be a page or two of spam posts appearing between thoughtful posts.
...
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I guess my point is that there is still some genuine discussion happening, it is just being drowned out by the crowd.

That's exactly what happens there. A day before, I visited that board and posted on a topic that was almost newly started and didn't have a lot of replies, and I thought it kind of deserves to post something on it and I did it, but what I found today is that topic has grown to 5 to 6 pages already, in a single day, and all you can find there are useless replies from extremely useless spammers. Now, who would open every single page of such a thread to see if there is a post worth reading?

I guess self-moderated topics might be the way to go? I might create a couple sometime.

That's what I suggested. Self-moderated threads can have a very big effect on the quality of that board. People starting useful discussions making the threads self-moderated to clean the incoming spam can give us some hope.

Signatures up to junior member of even to member have to be removed completely,

I don't completely agree with that since I'm a Member, and I believe I deserve to wear a signature because I have earned my position. I was a Newbie when Merit system was introduced, and I reached this rank because, I think, I have been contributing something to every discussion that I have been a part of. Removing signatures for Jr. members can do the work because they cannot reach Member rank without earning Merits, and if someone can manage to earn at least 10 Merits, I believe they deserve to have the right to wear a signature.

[Silent26]

Honestly, I often visit Bitcoin Discussion before as there are still some good discussions in there "before" and I also used to make some topics there. Yeah there are already some spammers that time but it's not the same enormous spammers we were having right now and I also think so that Bitcoin Discussion has been fully invaded by shitposters. I used to spent most of my time reading discussions there that time but now you won't be able to find a good discussion, you won't even be able to find a unique topic that is not posted multiple times.

The main reason I can see why there are too many spammers posting there is to increase their posts counts and to reach their bounty posts quotas. I really want the idea to remove signatures from Jr. Member and Newbies as those two ranks are the ranks of members who usually posts in there. I'm sure that it will lessen spammers posting shits not only in Bitcoin Discussion but to some other boards/sections.
Don't worry, we can still recover that board. All we need is action from Admin, Mods and of course to us fellow members who cares to this Bitcoin Forum.

[TeQuiero]

Signatures up to junior member of even to member have to be removed completely, and there have been other many good proposals that they will never be implemented or will take ages until they do.

Nothing’s going to change unless paid signatures are stopped though (and yes I’m aware that I’m wearing one but I don’t post like the spammers present there).

All you can see are bounty and restrict the bounty. But bounty is not the root of the problem. Assume that theymos will remove all bounties for member and lower ranks, what's then? Bitcoin Discussion will become a dead zone? I was expecting the OP could end up with some solution for this question

I don't completely agree with that since I'm a Member, and I believe I deserve to wear a signature because I have earned my position <...> if someone can manage to earn at least 10 Merits, I believe they deserve to have the right to wear a signature.

Though I agree with your bolded words but your first sentence makes me less respect you. Why don't you just ask against him: "Hey, what about remove all the bounties for full member and lower ranks?". LOL

[o_e_l_e_o]

Removing signatures for Jr. members can do the work because they cannot reach Member rank without earning Merits, and if someone can manage to earn at least 10 Merits, I believe they deserve to have the right to wear a signature.

It doesn't even need to be 10. If you set a 1 merit requirement to reach Junior Member, that would probably stop >95% of the spammers. I don't think that's an unreasonable requirement.

Or, how about this: You gain 5 characters of signature space for every earned merit.

[hilariousetc]

The quality of posting in the main section of the forum has dropped dramatically since I joined. Nothing’s going to change unless paid signatures are stopped though (and yes I’m aware that I’m wearing one but I don’t post like the spammers present there).

A better solution would be to crack down on the ICOs campaigns that are paying them to post rubbish in there. I've also been saying for years that that board needs at least one dedicated mod. I've messaged theymos about this probably 3-5 times over the past month or two alone. I managed to get a list of the top reporters in there from him about two months or so ago, but no action has been taken so far to implement one. In fact, I even messaged him about it yesterday. The longer theymos doesn't act on these things the worse it gets. Assigning a mod probably takes a few clicks from him and the benefits would be self-evident with no further action required from him. You can even just promote an existing mod to there if there's an issue with adding new people (though we should probably do both).

Three things can be done to help this situation which don't require much effort from theymos:

Assign some dedicated mods to trash spam threads on sight and help clean up the place.

Punishments for campaigns that are consistently paying spammers to churn out junk in there.

Remove signatures from lower ranks completely and/or make a merit requirement to become a Junior. Ideally you wouldn't be able to have a signature until you've become a Member which requires ten merit. The forum is being over-populated with clueless kids who have little to no knowledge about bitcoin but are churning out nonsense just to get paid. This can't be acceptable. If you can't acquire ten merit then you shouldn't be able to earn here and these people should stick to claiming bounties until they can earn the merit.

Signatures up to junior member of even to member have to be removed completely, and there have been other many good proposals that they will never be implemented or will take ages until they do.

Most of those suggestions are honestly very biased and would only work in the favor of the high ranked accounts.

I don't think they're biased; they're logical. Newbies and Juniors who can barely speak English and know little to nothing about bitcoin shouldn't be able to get paid to post here. This is the campaign's fault for not doing their job properly so we need to force them to do this and removing signatures from lower ranks is the only way to do this. They barely have a signature anyway and it's pretty much useless to pay them for it, but ICOs don't care. They pay people in tokens they've created for free so they might as well pay as many people as they can because they still get their name out there even if it is minimal. The ICOs and the spammers they pay have ruined this forum and that needs to change. Remove signatures from lower ranks so bots and the worst of the worst can't get paid for writing crap or copy and pasting. Either prove your worth here by getting ten merit or purchase a Copper Membership if you want to be able to earn.

Theymos has said that this forum isn't a welfare system for people but that's what it has sadly become. We need to find a compromise here and removing signatures from lower ranks and punishing ICOs that pay for rubbish are one of the only two ways I can think of that will tackle this effectively. This doesn't effect anybodies ability to post here - just earn, and that shouldn't be a right for everyone, especially those who aren't qualified to do so and also do it at the detriment of the forum.

[Theb]

Usually when I visit the Bitcoin Discussion Section, I don't come there to post in threads anymore but I am there to report members that are contributing to spam, my help might not be effective but if we band together the spam in that section will be wiped out clean in no time. But before the problem of spam in the section even starts I wish there was a some kind of screening process or a thread approval in the section first, before it gets shown in the section. By doing so we can filter out threads that are easy to answer or threads with misleading titles that are often answered by newbies right away. The moderators can easily reject them in the screening process and this leads to newbies only finding topics that can't be easily answered by generic crap.

[Silent26]

Punishments for campaigns that are consistently paying spammers to churn out junk in there.

I like this one. We can easily spot campaigns that are paying spammers for their project by just visiting Alt Section and I'm sure that we can catch a lot of campaign that were doing such activities. If this one were only applied, I think I'm hunting shit campaigns right now.

The main root of the problem comes from those shit Bounties and irresponsible bounty managers. Shitposters are not the only one we should blame and punished, those very irresponsible managers should receive enough consequences too because they are the one who were encouraging spam for the first place.

[mu_enrico]

I have tried to report spam posts on that board, but I found it difficult to draw the line between a genuine short post and a shit post. Moreover, rank cannot act as a determiner. Honestly, even a Legendary creates severe broken English posts with no value.

As a former shitposter when I first came to this forum, I directly went to bitcoin and altcoin boards and saw how people behave. And five minutes later... a brand new shitposter appear.

I think we don't have to worry if theymos implements:

<...>

• A newbie welcome message or link to a welcome thread upon sign-up explaining the basic rules and links to everything they need to know including the full forum rules, helpful guides and FAQs etc. No excuses for not knowing the rules then.
• More patrollers/mods who just handle sig spam or farmers.
• Enforce the sig campaign guidelines. If a campaign is spotted that is doing little to nothing and is abused en mass by spammers, farmers, bots and copy and pasters they are warned. If nothing changes then they are punished with such things as bans, threads trashed, signatures blacklisted site-wide etc.

OK in principle, would require thought/adjustment/implementation. Many of these things are more complex than they look at first glance.
<...>

But only God knows when these suggestions will be implemented. In the meantime, maybe more spambusters is the only feasible thing to do.

[Hexah]

Not only for Bitcoin Discussion but if we base it on statistics, Bitcoin Discussion is just below to Altcoin Discussion. Speculation and Economics section too is sort to be the spot where they hone their shitty posts to increase their post counts.

[Marcel666]

There is nothing that can be done, as freedom of speech is upheld, and every thread would end up having multiple, repetitive answers, which goes on and on.
But there are some quire useful information available  there, and I think it's best of an OP would lock his/her thread, once they are satisfied with the discussion, or their questions has been answered. This would limit the boards available for posting, and also the amount of spam.

[Pinkprint]

These days, there are so many threads complaining about the level of spam in most threads.
And frankly, it's becoming a repetitive topic, similar to the spam being complained about.

It's obvious, bounties, and multiple account users limit the amount of quality post as users have a post target.
If the more experienced users contribute more in these threads, it would go a long way in raising it from the mud.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

The problem is not paid signatures in general.
<snip>
Signatures up to junior member of even to member have to be removed completely, and there have been other many good proposals that they will never be implemented or will take ages until they do.

Agreed and agreed.  There are a lot of members here who advertise in their signatures and who aren't shitposters.  Chipmixer participants are a good example of that, and I really wish all campaigns had DarkStar_'s standards.  He only accepts Sr. Members and above, and in general the output of its members is above average. 

Unfortunately you see the exact opposite when you look at bounty participants.  They're mostly Jr. Members and they write one-line garbage.

All of this has been said many times before, and I'm not sure if it's even worth discussing anymore.  I'm sure Theymos is well aware of the problem and of the solution.  He's just choosing not to act.

I also agree with OP that it's a damn shame that what should be the best section of bitcointalk is actually the worst.  Anyone coming here genuinely wanting to discuss bitcoin issues will be sadly disappointed when they post in a thread there and their post never gets read or responded to.  It's a discussion forum after all, but it's morphed into a posting forum.

Most of those suggestions are honestly very biased and would only work in the favor of the high ranked accounts.

But it's not the high-ranked accounts that are doing the spamming.  It's very clearly people who come here just to spam and who create new accounts at will and who have no barriers preventing them from achieving Jr. Member rank.