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

[o_e_l_e_o]

How many of you have actually tried posting meaning content in these sections even after shitposting became widespread and/or the thread becomes a SMT? Or would you not participate there to talk to others even if a genuine discussion starts?

My time is valuable - especially my free time, which is when I am a able to browse Bitcointalk. I refuse to waste hours of that time searching through pages and pages of spam for the one or two comments that include an original or well-articulated though. As I mentioned before, finding threads early can sometimes lead to a good discussion over a couple of posts, but as soon as the spammers take over, I usually give up and remove the topic from my watchlist.

[1714767511]

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[1714767511]

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[bitart]

How many of you have actually tried posting meaning content in these sections even after shitposting became widespread and/or the thread becomes a SMT? Or would you not participate there to talk to others even if a genuine discussion starts?

My time is valuable - especially my free time, which is when I am a able to browse Bitcointalk. I refuse to waste hours of that time searching through pages and pages of spam for the one or two comments that include an original or well-articulated though. As I mentioned before, finding threads early can sometimes lead to a good discussion over a couple of posts, but as soon as the spammers take over, I usually give up and remove the topic from my watchlist.

This is the same for me... New topics contains valuable information on the first page but after there's no use to read all the oneliner comments, there's nothing they add, they just fill the empty space on the page...
My watchlist is also shrinking day by day...

[Welsh]

My time is valuable - especially my free time, which is when I am a able to browse Bitcointalk. I refuse to waste hours of that time searching through pages and pages of spam for the one or two comments that include an original or well-articulated though. As I mentioned before, finding threads early can sometimes lead to a good discussion over a couple of posts, but as soon as the spammers take over, I usually give up and remove the topic from my watchlist.

Unfortunately, its not going to get better without people reporting it. It doesn't mean that we are relying on you to report alone. More people in general need to be reporting. I'm a patroller, and I don't seem to get that many reports in the Bitcoin Discussion section. Maybe, there's not that many newbie spammers there, but I would think they are a big portion of it.

[bitart]

My time is valuable - especially my free time, which is when I am a able to browse Bitcointalk. I refuse to waste hours of that time searching through pages and pages of spam for the one or two comments that include an original or well-articulated though. As I mentioned before, finding threads early can sometimes lead to a good discussion over a couple of posts, but as soon as the spammers take over, I usually give up and remove the topic from my watchlist.

Unfortunately, its not going to get better without people reporting it. It doesn't mean that we are relying on you to report alone. More people in general need to be reporting. I'm a patroller, and I don't seem to get that many reports in the Bitcoin Discussion section. Maybe, there's not that many newbie spammers there, but I would think they are a big portion of it.

Unfortunately, reporting is not developed enough yet to be efficient.
It lacks one little but really important feature:
To check if a post has already been reported and it's waiting for the mods to decide.
If the forum could get this feature, we ( ) could check much more posts, because there would be no parallel work for the reporters.
There's no need to report a post 2-3-5-10 times by different members, because a decent mod can act based on the post itself, even if the reportes is not describing the problem properly...

[Steamtyme]

^^

I can't say for sure but as long as the report was filed with enough information, worst case scenario it would go down as unhandled if it were a duplicate. I'm sure someone can shed some light on that. I do agree this feature would be nice as it would trim the log that Mods need to look through.

This did make me wonder though if say a post or thread had been reported 3 times and when the first one is handled do the other 2 reports stay in the log? Seeing as the posts are linked, I would think this could be a small tweak that might reduce the reports Mods need to look through.


As for regaining "Bitcoin Discussion", If Theymos does ad a new Mod, there should a fresh start. All current topics could be locked, and then we begin fresh. Anyone who thinks their thread has legitimate value or conversation taking place,  could request it be reopened. Then at least moving forward you are not starting with a daunting cesspool to clean up, you have a clean slate to maintain.

Personally there I have shifted from reporting single posts, and am more reporting topics for "lock". Unless I come across a post while the topic is still having a legitimate conversation that is.

[bitart]

...
As for regaining "Bitcoin Discussion", If Theymos does ad a new Mod, there should a fresh start. All current topics could be locked, and then we begin fresh. Anyone who thinks their thread has legitimate value or conversation taking place,  could request it be reopened. Then at least moving forward you are not starting with a daunting cesspool to clean up, you have a clean slate to maintain.
...

I would suggest to continue to report posts after the above mentioned 'big lock' in the locked topics too, because this is the only way how we can make spammers lose activity and post count, which means they lose money and hopefully they will stop (except if they are a bots...)

[o_e_l_e_o]

Personally there I have shifted from reporting single posts, and am more reporting topics for "lock". Unless I come across a post while the topic is still having a legitimate conversation that is.

I obviously agree with Welsh's point that we need more people reporting spammers, but I don't think we should need to report entire topics. In Technical Discussion, Technical Support or even Meta, the vast majority of threads are less than 3-4 pages. Do we really need reports to say that a 60 page thread entitled "most bitcoin holders now is frustrated!" needs locked?

There should be a dedicated mod or two that can monitor these threads and lock them when they've run their course.

[Steamtyme]

I would suggest to continue to report posts after the above mentioned 'big lock' in the locked topics too, because this is the only way how we can make spammers lose activity and post count, which means they lose money and hopefully they will stop (except if they are a bots...)

Not a bad idea, should something like "The Big Lock" happen. Although with the Merit system in place the loss of posts counting towards activity would have a minimal effect. With posts that are more than a week old, unfortunately they will have already been paid. The benefit of something like that is anyone who went back to read those topics might have a nice clean read, they would probably also go from 20 pages to 2.

I obviously agree with Welsh's point that we need more people reporting spammers, but I don't think we should need to report entire topics. *Snip*

There should be a dedicated mod or two that can monitor these threads and lock them when they've run their course.

I agree that we shouldn't need to, but the writing is literally on the wall....well board. There are tons of topics and threads that just continue to grow in length while at the same time declining in quality.

What I recently learned about the report log is that it's not only the local board Mod who can act on some reports. So if say in this instance hilariousandco is unable to keep up with this board and the numerous others they are moderator for. My now reported topics can be locked by whoever gets to it first.

I like the idea of a couple dedicated Mods for this.

[Welsh]

I can't say for sure but as long as the report was filed with enough information, worst case scenario it would go down as unhandled if it were a duplicate. I'm sure someone can shed some light on that. I do agree this feature would be nice as it would trim the log that Mods need to look through.

This did make me wonder though if say a post or thread had been reported 3 times and when the first one is handled do the other 2 reports stay in the log? Seeing as the posts are linked, I would think this could be a small tweak that might reduce the reports Mods need to look through.

Generally, duplicate reports aren't too bad to deal with. Sometimes when reporting a topic which needs to be moved to a different section is can take a bit more time, but with reporting spam it doesn't really matter. When the spam post is deleted all the reports are automatically dealt with, and marked as good.

As for your last point. I don't think that's what happens. I can't test it right now, and my memory fails me. But, if this did happen we might be rewarding a good report when in fact it was wrong. Two of them might of reported the topic to be moved, and be correct, But, the other one could be saying something like "Vulgar language" or "scam" which would be wrong.

[Steamtyme]

^^
You're right about that Welsh. That was an oversight, if that feature were implemented, I would think the first report would be marked as good , and the other 2 may remain as unhandled. This would eliminate false positives for a "good" report.

In the end people shouldn't acre to much about the difference between a good/unhandled report. Apart from the potential badges that may come, reporting should always be seen as a service to the community.

[pugman]

We haven't lost bitcoin discussion, not yet.

I see a lot of good posters(my chipmixer alts obviously, no one else) and franky1, anonymint posting there.

I would love posting there, but here's the thing, I don't want to fuck my brain up. We could have some strict moderation there, but that's not gonna happen. So cool...just let spammers shit post, let the good posters leave one by one...and yeah..wait for satoshi to hit the nuke button that destroys the stupid thing that's called bitcoin, and let the true bitcoin aka Bitcoin cash take the lead,rename the forum to rogerverisgreatsatoshisucks.org ..

</sarcasm>

[d5000]

Some weeks ago, I got the impression the spam problem in "Bitcoin Discussion" had improved. Now it seems to have been worsened again, so I would fully support some changes to improve the situation.

I read some good ideas in this thread. I would like to categorize and collect them, and add also some own ideas:

Easy actions which can be followed by every poster:
- Start more self-moderated threads.
- Report spam!

Feature requests:
- Make the character limit of signature space, for Junior Members, depend on the received merit points. An idea to not overly punish "honest" Juniors: give them automatically a minimal space, enough to post a Bitcoin address or a simple link without any advertisement slogan.
- (own idea): Signature space "on probation" for Juniors/Newbies. Juniors who are legitimately reported for spam can lose their signature space until they rank up.
- (own idea, I have already suggested it several times): Allow users to ignore entire threads, so megathreads can be "hidden".
- (own idea) Allow to reatroactively change threads to self-moderated, if they're "taken over" by spammers.

Staff/Rule-change requests:
- Enforce signature campaign quality rules by Staff - e.g. delete threads of campaigns with abusive behavior.

[o_e_l_e_o]

I think part of the problem with reporting posts and getting them deleted is that it isn't really a punishment. A spammer can easily churn out a one line shitpost in under a minute. Even if 50% of their posts are getting deleted, they can still max out their bounty campaign easily enough.

How would people feel about some form of punishment? If you had 10 posts deleted in a week (for example), you are either banned or lose your signature for a week, with escalating punishments for repeat offenders.

Knowing there is a punishment might serve to get more people reporting, as well as serving as education for the spammers who are currently having their posts deleted and retaliating simply by posting more.

[vphasitha01]

I read some good ideas in this thread. I would like to categorize and collect them, and add also some own ideas:

Easy actions which can be followed by every poster:
- Start more self-moderated threads.
- Report spam!

- Lock the threads if you get the answers without allowing spammers to spam fest in your thread.

Feature requests:
- Make the character limit of signature space, for Junior Members, depend on the received merit points. An idea to not overly punish "honest" Juniors: give them automatically a minimal space, enough to post a Bitcoin address or a simple link without any advertisement slogan.
- (own idea): Signature space "on probation" for Juniors/Newbies. Juniors who are legitimately reported for spam can lose their signature space until they rank up.
- (own idea, I have already suggested it several times): Allow users to ignore entire threads, so megathreads can be "hidden".
- (own idea) Allow to reatroactively change threads to self-moderated, if they're "taken over" by spammers.

- (hilariousetc idea) Require one Merit to rank up Jr. Member

Staff/Rule-change requests:
- Enforce signature campaign quality rules by Staff - e.g. delete threads of campaigns with abusive behavior.

- Require "earned merits" for participate signature campaigns as already done by @Zapo and @LoyceV

[KR$N]

I think part of the problem with reporting posts and getting them deleted is that it isn't really a punishment. A spammer can easily churn out a one line shitpost in under a minute. Even if 50% of their posts are getting deleted, they can still max out their bounty campaign easily enough.

Agree with this! If we're to try fighting against shitposting and spammers - there must be a REAL punishment for villains action. Merit is good and everything, but the fact is it doesn't help in this particular case due to no mechanism of lowering it as punishment. It serves its role in highlighting quality posts most of the time, but does no good in preventing or eliminating the shittiest ones.
IMO, there should be a 'bad' bMerit either as a separate stat, or interchangeable with merit. Interchangeable is the hard thing though, the control at the beginning would be in high merit accounts hands, which, unfortunately, seems as a bad option given the merit abuse going on since its inception, as well as the fact that nothing prevents them in using it in a self-serving scenarios. Separate stat, for example red 'Shit Post" button near every post , appears to be much more reliable and decentralized in concept as well. Provide all the bitcointalk users with button charges depending on rank(i.e. 1 daily charge for newbies, 3 for Jr.Member, 10 for Member, then 50, 200, etc...), limit the amount of charges available for use by single user on a single post by 1(this could be rank dependent as well, but not necessary, as the more flat it is among users, the more decentralized the whole concept is) and  all you have to do is add "Shit Post" counter rules automatically applied for users. Rules could be something like 20 charges on a single post - user gets warned and asked to modify/delete the post, while at 30 post is auto deleted and user gets 2-3 days ban from that particular subboard, 120 total charges on  all your posts across the forum in last 7 days - you get banned for 1 week. 300 in a month...?  Month ban is provided for free! This way the more important/popular/high-level the discussion is, the higher the risks are for the shitposting villain, while newbies can still post trashy comments/questions in their own boards, where the daily charges limit would make it very unlikely to be banned for minor stupidity(1 daily charge among most participants would lead to users awarding only the most retarded posts with their precious charge).
This change would lead to a more self-regulated forum, freeing existing moderators time for more relevant issues, giving individual users a non-abusable moderating role and cleanse the forums of most filth.  

[darklus123]

Bitcoin Discussion Board  -  ( A city without a police authority). Ask theymos why there is still no one handling that area.

but for me the  Economics board and speculation board are much worse.

I will be sighting a little example to why this 2 boards are much worse than bitcoin discussion board.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=44206;sa=showPosts

This user posted x4 on economic section  within just 35 seconds.


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=121472;sa=showPosts

This user posted x4 on economic section on (september 5)  within just 35 seconds.

[SaeedKhan996]

Agree, Maybe increasing the mods there would help, The mods usually deletes lots of comments of people, So i guess the Bitcoin discussion board should have more strict rules, Same asked questions, useless questions and other posts should be frequently removed.
Anyway, everyone is enjoying it there tbh, The more useless posts, the more posts people get.

[d5000]

How would people feel about some form of punishment? If you had 10 posts deleted in a week (for example), you are either banned or lose your signature for a week, with escalating punishments for repeat offenders.

I would be against automatic bannings. There are lots of reasons why a post can be deleted. I got deleted, for example, some posts because I discussed with a member declared persona non grata in this forum (some may know who he is ). Some may want to get posts deleted because they wrote personal information in posts, etc.

What could be done instead is to give moderators an automatic "hint": if (e.g.) 10 posts of a single user were deleted, a checkbox could appear which would ban the user (or delete his signature), but the final decision belongs to the mod.

@vphasitha01: Good additions, thanks!

[o_e_l_e_o]

What could be done instead is to give moderators an automatic "hint": if (e.g.) 10 posts of a single user were deleted, a checkbox could appear which would ban the user (or delete his signature), but the final decision belongs to the mod.

That's a nice modification. I had figured 10 (or maybe more) posts would be a good minimum - everyone has had posts delete for a variety of reasons, but it would be fairly unlikely that you would have 10 deleted in a short space of time unless you were a serial spammer - but I agree there might still be some false positives.

I do think there needs to be some form of punishment though. Deleting a hundred posts makes no difference when three hundred more spring up in their place.

[Jet Cash]

I think part of the problem with reporting posts and getting them deleted is that it isn't really a punishment. A spammer can easily churn out a one line shitpost in under a minute. Even if 50% of their posts are getting deleted, they can still max out their bounty campaign easily enough.

One easy solution would be to remove any merits associated with a deleted post. I'm not sure what the "knock-on" effect of that would be though. What would happen if the postder had awarded the sMerits associated with the deleted post?