Enhanced newbie restrictions & requirements

[tranthidung]

It is strange to know @LoyceV, whom is one of the most merited users in the forum, just ranked at the 6th position in the list of Most generous merit senders, all time. Check more, I found that LoyceV has likely more actively sent his sMerits recently (for the last 30 days), from Most generous recent merit senders. From those evidence, I guess @suchmoon was a merit source very soon after merit system started, or exactly at the start of merit system. @Lutpin is another early merit source, as I knew.

Update:

CLUB OF ABOVE 2000 MERITS-EARNED

Rank	User name	BPIP profile	Total Earned-Merits	Trust
Administrator	theymos	theymos	5030	Trust: +26 / =0 / -0
Legendary	LoyceV	LoyceV	3365	Trust: +20 / =2 / -0
Legendary	suchmoon	suchmoon	2791	Trust: +14 / =0 / -0
Heror	DdmrDdmr	DdmrDdmr	2495	Trust: +3 / =1 / -0
Hero	o_e_l_e_o	o_e_l_e_o	2374	Trust: +4 / =0 / -0
Hero	micgoossens	micgoossens	2322	Trust: +17 / =1 / -0
Legendary	The Pharmacist	The Pharmacist	2032	Trust: +23 / =0 / -0

Notes:
- Hero: Hero Member


Source:
https://loyce.club/Merit/tranthidung/2019-08-10_Sat_10.39h.txt

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[LoyceV]

For Merit levels, see Merit stats.

Jeez, I can't believe I'm still on the recent most generous merit-senders list, since I've been slacking off as of late.

Comparing the Most generous merit senders, all time with the Most generous recent merit senders, you can just see who's on vacation

You should try to empty your source. Have you read this?

If they complain about amounts, tell them to complain to me. It's best if sources try to exhaust their source allocations, even if it means giving posts higher amounts than is typical. If you have 150 source merit and you only see 3 merit-worthy posts in a month, then I'd rather you over-give each of them 50 merit than let the merit expire. That way there are more people capable of sending merit, and the "merit economy" is less top-down.

I wouldn't just drop 50 Merit on any good post though, but I do try to give more Merit per post if my source amount inreases.

It is strange to know @LoyceV, whom is one of the most merited users in the forum, just ranked at the 6th position in the list of Most generous merit senders, all time.

I became a Merit source in May last year, and my source amount was doubled to 400 in January this year.
I am the #2 "most different profiles Merited to or from" though And only 4 transactions to go to be #1

Check more, I found that LoyceV has likely more actively sent his sMerits recently (for the last 30 days), from Most generous recent merit senders.

Actually, I've been sending less the last month, due to a one week family road trip. Normally, I try to keep my source as low as possible, so I can use some of "my own" sMerits, but currently my source still has 50 left. I need to Merit a few more to beat bones261 (who has a bigger source than mine)

From those evidence, I guess @suchmoon was a merit source very soon after merit system started

I'd say suchmoon is on vacation, usually the monthly total was much higher.

[tranthidung]

If you don't know it, I think you should take a glance at an enhanced merit UI's userscript, that help merit sources easier and faster check how many sendable merits left from their allocated source, and how many sendable merits left from their own earned merits. I am not a merit source, but the screenshot image presents the userscript is likely helpful, and convenient for merit sources.

< ... >
Edit : screenshot if you're merit source. If you're not, it's exactly same with version 1.1

[dkbit98]

SPAM Killer Suggestions

After recent attacks  Bitcointalk and Theymos are facing
from self-proclaimed convicted criminal, religious fanatic and human hater humanrightsfoundation
with all his known and unkown accounts: humanrightsfoundation-MrPhisher-LuadaIsMyFather-JesusFuck-ALittleBitRichBitch-TheyDrinkFromThermos-JusticeForAll

I am proposing new rules for all Brand new and Newbie Bitcointalk forum members:

1. Disable Creating and opening New Topics for Brand New and Newbie members

2. Newbies can make Posts, BUT they need to solve math and enter captcha before that

3. Prolong time limit when Newbies can create new Posts

4. Disable Newbies to add any external links in posts


I saw something similar on other forum , and I think it is great and effective way to make forum cleaner,
and keep scammers and spammers under control.

Genuine new users that have real activity will after some time return to normal forum usage and reduced restrictions
if they had no moderator reports or flags from other forum members

[LoyceV]

Genuine new users that have real activity will after some time return to normal forum usage and reduced restrictions
if they had no moderator reports or flags from other forum members

This won't happen. What about the many real users who have a problem, and open a topic to find a solution? Those are the real users this forum needs, and those are the ones you'll be blocking.

Or as theymos puts it:

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.

It's wonderful when someone is able to constructively do something on the forum instead of continuing with whatever they were expected to do under the status quo. Enabling that sort of thing is exactly why Bitcoin and this forum were created. Though bitcointalk.org is not a worldwide welfare organization, and people are not entitled to make money.

Limiting newbie participation is very harmful for a community. Newbie jail will never return: I consider the newbie-jail period to have been extremely damaging to the forum. When barriers to participation are too high, then the best people often just won't go to the trouble of joining, and the people who are willing to jump through the hoops are often people who aren't good for the community: people with nothing better to do, scammers, get-rick-quickers, etc. Having a permanent newbie jail policy would improve things a lot in the short-term, but would end up being a fatal poison to the community.

[dkbit98]

I created list of 5 suggestions, and I don't think all of them can be added,
BUT disabling external links and captcha/math solving can be added for sure.

As I said...
Genuine new users that have real activity will after some time return to normal forum usage and reduced restrictions
if they had no moderator reports or flags from other forum members

As for creating New Topics... they can still create Posts instead, and use search function,
or they can be allowed Topics creation BUT only in certain parts of the forum

[hd49728]

Theymos explained more about freedom for users on Reddit

Primarily, it's just that freedom + size = mess, and with bitcointalk.org I've chosen to keep freedom about as high as possible, for example allowing paid signature ads, poor English, micro-earning services which often attract a spammy crowd, etc. Banning these things (and other noise-generating factors) would be easily possible, and would immediately lead to a cleaner environment, but it'd also be a less free environment. IMO there are enough highly-controlled platforms around, and I'd prefer to try maximizing the freedom axis. (Maximizing freedom on the forum was a policy started by Satoshi when he was an admin, BTW, though it was years after he left before the forum became large enough for freedom to actually come in conflict with signal much.)

Bitcointalk.org is under active development on two parallel paths:

First, although the outward appearance hasn't changed much at all since 2010, I have made tons of changes to the code, including many features. About a year ago for example I added the Merit system, which has improved signal-to-noise quite a bit, by means of changing incentives.

Second, a completely new software platform has long been in development. This software is open source, can be run now, and an instance of it is available for example at https://www.cryptos-currencies.com/ . But I don't think that it's quite complete enough to migrate bitcointalk.org to it yet.

On both development paths, we try to tackle signal-vs-noise by methods such as categorizing posts better, improving incentives, trying to create smaller sub-communities, etc., but not via restriction, if at all possible.

While I don't claim to have nearly maximized the signal-to-noise which might be possible even given a high degree of freedom, bitcointalk.org is pretty anarchic, and it will always be so. (Though note that some sections are much better than others.) If that doesn't appeal to you, then you should use a different site. Smaller communities, like IRC channels and similar, can be both free and have a high signal-to-noise ratio. This was bitcointalk.org in 2010-2013, but it's now too large. You can also have large communities that are more strictly moderated, like /r/Bitcoin.

[dkbit98]

This is all great and all,
but I see no reason why newbies should create a bunch of new Topics,
when they can simply ask same questions in any existing topics and use a search function.

I don't see restricting users to post external links is a big liberty restriction,
as well as implementing captcha solvers for newbies.

[tranthidung]

Newbie jail won't be brought back (impossible), but Whitelisting procedure might be considered and applied, with new staffs hired and allocated only Whitelist jobs to do. I quoted a post from a global moderator, hilariousandco, whom discussed about user first post's whitelisting, that likely is a best alternative for Newbie jail.
Due to huge size of bitcointalk.org forum, Whitelisting first post or posts is a very complicated task. If whitelisting goes active, there are some questions need to think of:
- Will we whitelist only first post or expanding it to few first posts, such as first 14 posts?
- Will we whitelist users' posts till they earn at least 1 merit?
- How many new staffs need to whitelist user's first post(s)?

I've suggested it before. It's one way for sure to stop all the messy bot spam.

This wouldn't be bringing back newbie jail. They can post. They just need to be whitelisted before it goes 'live' and most will be none the wiser to it.

Nice idea. Impossible to implement in reality. There's too many to handle.

It's not impossible to implement. Many forums have this sort of thing. I signed up to one yesterday which had it. I don't know how long it took to verify me as I got no notification just an alert that my account needed to be verified, but the irony is my account was instantly permabanned automatically when I made my first post as being suspected of being a bot. Had someone actually verified my post that probably wouldn't have happened.

Newbie jail was a reality when I joined. I think it should absolutely definitely make a comeback. It's automated, easy to understand and erases most problems. Lots of other forums have a similar system, but if it's not the owner's will then it won't happen.

This is more impossible as theymos said he won't be bringing it back. There are much better ways than newbie jail to curb spam and I think this suggestion is one of them.

That's the reason why such a feature won't ever be implemented.  I've seen forums that do exactly what OP is suggesting, but they have far fewer members to deal with.  I forget the figure, but bitcointalk has multiple millions of registered users with thousands of new ones registering every month.  There's no way in hell mods would be able to approve posts.

In the past four months staff have been handling between 18-20k reports a month. White-listing a users first post probably wouldn't be a big deal. You could even do a trial run. Ie, the system is put in place but nothing actually changes on the user front and we see how long and how much time it would take to handle them and if a backlog quickly built up. As I already said, more staff could be added to meet demand as well. You could even have one or two staff who's sole job was to handle them. I'm not saying it's perfect and there are pros and cons to any spam measure, but at least this pretty much stops the bots nearly 100% from being an eyesore and infecting the forum.

Your idea completely destroys what a forum should be. Can you just imagine how could you practice free speech in a forum when all of your posts will be subject for approval? You simply can't! all your replies will be subject to the moderators reviewing it and it would really depend on whether or not its “relevant” for them. We don't really need to adjust to spammers and plagiarizers and affect everyone in the forum, they are the ones who need to adjust for us that's why we have a report button and bans in placed for them.

This isn't what is being suggested. A users first post only needs to be approved just to ensure they're not a spambot. Accounts wouldn't be banned or effected just for posting something a mod didn't like and staff could already remove it if they wanted but if they did they wouldn't be a mod for long.

[dkbit98]

What about restricting for external links in posts?

[tranthidung]

1. Disable Creating and opening New Topics for Brand New and Newbie members

I will do harm good newbies. There are already some boards restrict them, ie.   , but they do have rights (as forum allows) and should do have such rights to create posts and ask for help from users.
Two new no-signature boards
Rules for Serious Discussion and Ivory Tower

2. Newbies can make Posts, BUT they need to solve math and enter captcha before that

It already discussed in the past, and admin decided not to do this because people will compile answer keys very fast.

What do the people who operate these bounties think of the newbie invasion? Also, people should not be required to post in order to get paid; that's already against the rules.

An idea I had in this vein was that upon registration you'd have to pick one of two paths:
 - "I want to discuss things"
     = Banned from all money-making/spam-hotbed sections until Jr Member
 - "I want to make money"
     = Banned from the more serious sections until Jr Member
     = You have to pass a quiz before posting which tries to inform you about basic forum rules, how not to get banned, maybe some basic English knowledge, etc. (Quizzes are pointless to stop dedicated spammers, since an answer key will quickly be compiled, but it may help in cases where clueless people are ending up here.)

Forum already asked for captcha to log in.

3. Prolong time limit when Newbies can create new Posts

Spammers mostly spam with bot supports, so what they do to adapt with prolonged-time limit is reset their bots.

4. Disable Newbies to add any external links in posts

It will do seriously harm good newbies. If they doubt a site is a phishing one, and they don't have rights to post external link to that site, to ask for users ideas, how the forum can help them?

[dkbit98]

4. Disable Newbies to add any external links in posts

It will do seriously harm good newbies. If they doubt a site is a phising one, and they don't have rights to post external link to that site, to ask for users ideas, how the forum can help them?

They can always post website without HTTP or WWW
that can't be clicked.


And how many newbies have you seen reporting phishing websites?
I have seen none so far.

[tranthidung]

They can always post website without HTTP or WWW
that can't be clicked

I don't think there should be such restriction because it will force users to search for mentioned sites, and they in turn will be under risks of phishing sites. I only think of negative effects of newbies are not allow to post external links.

Additionally, forum has report button, and anyone can use it to report suspicious links You can see that suspicious links will be removed like that

I don't know which link you gave in OP, but forum corrected as

"why is bit[Suspicious link removed]d")

[dkbit98]

Please allow me to disagree,
as I never saw any newbie reporting phishing websites...
even if some exceptions can be found.

[tranthidung]

Please allow me to disagree,
as I never saw any newbie reporting phishing websites...
even if some exceptions can be found.

Who knows they (newbies) report bad posts, phishing sites or not? They don't have to create a thread and publicly report phishing sites that way. They can do it by using report button.
It seems I misunderstood your idea, but I guess I understood it right, because you proposed to restrict newbies to add external links in their posts. Posts can be used to discuss, to provide information or to report. Restrict external links will stop good newbies doing all those things.

4. Disable Newbies to add any external links in posts

[dkbit98]

'Good' newbies could still report any phishing websites, talk, discuss and share information without posting external links,
because some other newbies can click on that same phishing links without reading a warning and became a victims.

I am not talking theory, but things that are actually happening.

That is why whenever I report phishing or scam website I report it as CODE or without HTTPS/WWW  

Code:

[tranthidung]

'Good' newbies could still report any phishing websites, talk, discuss and share information without posting external links,
because some other newbies can click on that same phishing links without reading a warning and became a victims.

I am not talking theory, but things that are actually happening.

That is why whenever I report phishing or scam website I report it as CODE or without HTTPS/WWW  

Code:

It does not make sense, people whom are curious, careless, and dumb will do copying and pasting links provided in code blocks. I know now I understand your ideas with the fourth point. You proposed that point not only to prevent bad newbies to post external (phishing) links to scam users, but also for good newbies to do this with their posts (due to their carefulness).
It leads to another points, there are higher ranked users whom still post external harzadous links (with their posts or reports), intentionally or unintentionally. Do you really think of it?

[dkbit98]

It makes perfect sense as I myself seen people do it.

Higher ranked members can post that links, and they are reported as you said previously.

[Mak0lBag0l]

You don't strike me as a spammer, if you keep up writing decent posts, Merit will find you. And if not, feel free to post in the above thread.
Once you're a Newbie-with-Merit, that highlights your posts above all the spammers. That's a good thing!

- Agreed. I'm not out for the merits. I meant if it wasn't for these spammers, I would still be enjoying some features of the previous default profile setup for newbies/new members that had to be discarded.

- Just some additional thoughts. Like making the option for wearing a signature a privilege and upgraded based on membership status/rank, what's a signature basically anyway but simply just a mark pointing to one's identity? Why go with the online forum/blogging culture's general distortion of the meaning of wearing a signature and make it worse like how I see it in this forum, a form of hierarchical privilege for one to promote something/post an ad?

In the real world, anyone can have that claim to singular identity like marking work/doc/etc with a signature. It's kind of comical to reinterpret this online that some can't mark that 'identity' or can't have a 'signature' even if they want to. Is this the modern way? It's even funnier that the bounty trend and seemingly everyone else supports or just goes along with this technological mishap, if technological development is to be considered as this grand progress towards humanity's advancement. Why consider 'signature' as an official promotion/participation to a campaign? Can't anyone just promote, post an ad, leave a digital signature just by using the text editing features in drafting a post?

'Signature' may be one of those jargon that got stuck along, no offense but still kind of stupid...LMHO! Why not just relabel 'signature' as 'Official Promotional/Marketing Tail'? ...wagging in anticipation of a treat (bounty)... The longer or fancier the tail, the bigger the treat... LMHO! ... Just noticed now before posting this, fortunately it's optional in the 'Look and Layout Preferences' to view other users' 'signatures'.

Some suggestions that may have been suggested before... First off, leave the option on wearing a signature a default option to every member and let everyone stay true to the essence of leaving one. Second, restore some freedom and get rid of 'signatures' as a fancy status symbol equivalent to membership rank. Weren't or aren't the combination of length of membership or member ranking, trust rating, merit system, moderation, flagging, etc. not enough? Third but definitely not the least since I could think of more, as implied in last paragraph, privilege or not, hell, probably the alternatives have been staring right in front of the face of forum dev for the longest time. Some alternatives could be to rename or remove the field for adding 'signature' codes/design and just have the option in post text editing. I don't know much about how bounty managers here come to be but they could somehow be advised, left with the responsibility of maintaining promotional link campaigns, PM codes/design to users maybe not just based on rank (since forum acct is not really equivalent to 1 owner/same owner since sign-up), but also on bounty qualification/participation and be allowed to flag or disqualify participation in current/future project campaigns.

[LTU_btc]

I noticed just now that new rank requirements were released one year ago. Release of merit system was big thing, but I think that these rank requirements (1 merit to become Jr. Member) have real effect. It changed forum a lot into positive side.
Happy anniversary merit system! Long live!