Enhanced newbie restrictions & requirements

[WhaleHunter]

Due to excessive garbage-posting, you now need 1 merit to be a Jr Member. All existing Jr Members who didn't meet the requirement were demoted.

One reason that I was hesitant to do this before is that there are an awful lot of newbie restrictions, and I don't want the forum to be unwelcoming to good newbies.

Sometimes, it becomes obvious that some persons don't just want to grow up. The new rule notwithstanding, those good ones will still prove their mettle. It will not stop both the good and the bad from joining, but certainly, it was a deserving rule. What needed to be done has been done.

I like very much how theymos cares about good users and new users. In other occasions I've appreciated how he has shown deep empathy and concern for "poor" users - those who live in poor countries and taking part to Bitcointalk (and bounty campaigns) helps them to survive and to feed families. In short, I've realized what a nice person theymos likely is.
This being said, introducing 1 Merit requirement to become Junior Member was absolutely necessary for trying to protect the forum. The garbage posting by Newbies and Juniors has recently reached unprecedented levels - some of them probably even use bots to create entire discussions which are close to meaningless. When I'll  have more time I'm planning to start to report then all whenever I stumble in them.

[1714670996]

1714670996

[Jannyh]

The upsurge of posts in the bitcointalk forum that does not measure up to the guiding principles and the laid down tenets of the system has become a recurring decimal that does not portend well for the sustained integrity of the forum.
Quoting from the custodians themselves, “ We are hoping that this system will increase post quality by forcing people to post high-quality stuff in order to rank up. If you just post garbage, you will never get even 1 merit point, and you will therefore never be able to put links in your signature, etc.”
Hence I am particularly glad that this has attracted the attention of custodians of the forum consequently leading to this strict measure geared towards bringing sanity to the system.
With particular reference to the recent incident of 18th September 2018 where junior ranking members of the forum were expressly downgraded to the newbies status, this of course was not only shocking and devastating to those affected, I believe it was not just apt, but a step in the right direction even as a measure to sustain the hard earned reputation of the Bitcointalk forum.
The MERIT system is like a result sheet that highlights your meaningful contribution to the forum, this is in addition to the fact that the bitcointalk forum community also rewards participants for meaningfully and qualitatively contributing to the forum, which ultimately brings VALUE to participants and the forum alike.
It is possible now to get merit from other users that think our posts are of high quality or really helpful to the community, in this way spammers/low quality posters will not be able to rank up.
I wish to use this medium to deeply plea to managers of the Bitcointalk community to award merit to those of us adhering to the rules and posting healthy and valuable things that will improve the community. My warmest gratitude for this new initiative and kudos to the team we are all proud of as we continue to hope for the best.

[jun yamamo]

I think that this effort is a very good effort to improve the quality of postings.
However, I think that the number of merit sauces is necessary a lot.

[eddie13]

I read 29 on the list about 13000 plus  posts are bounty twitter and facebook
100 are content
and maybe a dozen to 20 have some value.

I gave merits 2 two guys and may give 1 more .

Have to rest my eyes for now.

That is an awful lot of work trying hard to give away merit to have found so few meritable posts..

Theymos wants you to go through this list?

Miners would probably move on from such low grade ore..

[tung06081989]

I see that bitcointalk has changed the rules to be able to rank in the forum, newbie have to try on quality posts to be able to rank jr member, this is great to rank jr member has more value, merit very The important thing on the forum is for people to increase their rank higher, I see people can buy / sell merit from high rank people and it makes unfair to other people, it can cause scam on the forum when people will want to buy merit to get higher rank especially with our newbie when it is difficult to get merit.  I hope bitcointalk recheck merit when someone receives merit from another member that is not from the admin of the forum, because merit is to reward those quality posts not for trading, buying/selling,I think bitcointalk should build merit / post or merit / actives ratio as an index to rank on bitcointalk, this ratio show the quality of post/ all posts

[philipma1957]

I read 29 on the list about 13000 plus  posts are bounty twitter and facebook
100 are content
and maybe a dozen to 20 have some value.

I gave merits 2 two guys and may give 1 more .

Have to rest my eyes for now.

That is an awful lot of work trying hard to give away merit to have found so few meritable posts..

Theymos wants you to go through this list?

Miners would probably move on from such low grade ore..

no I asked him  I did find a few people but yeah it is a lot of work.

I am now a source the best way for me to be neutral is to look at a list of names of jr to newbie and read posts.

I now have a list and have decided to pass on the first 2 people on the list.

   I do have a concern about people selling merits.  0.0010 is cheaper then 0.0020  for copper purchase.  I am not selling merits I am reading posts on the list I have been given.


But My concern would be other sources will sell that 1 merit  for 0.0010 btc.

They'd be risking red trust if they do that. More likely some old/hacked accounts could engage in such sales.

good point.

I looked at the first part of the list sent to me from thermyos

| id      | name                      | loginDay | activity |
+---------+---------------------------+----------+----------+
| 1197204 | ZUTEN12000...........|    17792 |      364 |
| 1183714 | rakkhusi.................|    17792 |      336 |
|  985565 | abdu_hz..................|    17792 |      324 |
| 1192004 | cobs27...................|    17792 |      322 |
| 1130372 | Anhdienhg .............|    17792 |      308 |

| 1240244 | scolcoin                  |    17792 |      308 | He may get a merit

| 1298826 | wandogim................|    17792 |      308 |
| 1333241 | dendenseptember.....|    17792 |      308 |
| 1341161 | suzychan.................|    17792 |      308 |
| 1382518 | D4smin....................|    17792 |      308 |

I do not want to  get these people marked up with red trust  but I do want to continue do this tomorrow.

I have hundreds more to check these have the most posts.

My assumption is posting this list is okay but I will stop if thermyos says not to post it.

One caveat is there are some posts in other languages which I don't know.

about 475 names  on the list sent to me.

did these today

| 1269904 | arbl0422                  |    17792 |      294 |
| 1411783 | Vika12345                 |    17792 |      294 |
| 1428814 | rizabek123                |    17792 |      294 |
| 1430930 | Valhalaa                  |    17792 |      294 |
| 1445790 | Ramadhoni060616           |    17792 |      294 |

| 1450751 | siena23                   |    17792 |      294 |
|  979603 | duncaneastlance           |    17792 |      283 |

the two in bold made some effort to post stuff other then facebook or twitter campaigns

| 1104048 | jdgranfiel                |    17792 |      280 |
| 1215835 | Jrfranco                  |    17792 |      280 |  these 2 also did some post other then the bounty garbage

first 19 on the list 18 are hunting for bounty money  4 of them bothered to try to write some other posts  1 is a coin or ico guy and may get a merit from me.

Have to rest my eyes for now.

I will review 17 more on my list today

| 1364460 | dedeipangm                |    17792 |      280 | over 20 pages 99% bounty and some in foreign language  

| 1423222 | h0nganh90                 |    17792 |      280 | 20 pages 5 with some posts then 15 pages all bounty

| 1453967 | success007                |    17792 |      280 |this post is pretty good

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3294368.msg35171674#msg35171674

many bounty posts but the one above is well thought out.



| 1454421 | bijoy12                   |    17792 |      280 | bounty hunter no real content
| 1468673 | s4l1wu                    |    17792 |      280 | bounty hunter almost no real content
| 1488954 | Thanhjonhan               |    17792 |      280 |bounty hunter with some content here and there

| 1522816 | Ikingpain                 |    17792 |      280 |he does hunt bounty but made good posts in russian I googled translated quite a few and I will give him merits


| 1056527 | lafter                    |    17792 |      266 | 800 + posts about 50 content rest bounty not much value to content

| 1345107 | badranaya                 |    17792 |      266 | 1200 for bounty 10 or so with weak content
| 1389208 | nitin8263                 |    17792 |      266 | 995 posts sprinkles in short content posts

| 1467308 | jalaludin96               |    17792 |      266 |400 plus post  purchased a copper some content mostly all bounty



| 1497449 | KriptoFull                |    17792 |      266 | 319 posts  not sure no twitter or facebook bs maybe some one could look at him seems to do some russian posts


| 1577999 | marcus13                  |    17792 |      266 | 915 post tons of twitter and facebook

this post is insightful
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2981921.msg30649714#msg30649714

I gave him a pair of merits for it.


| 1633411 | zangleerb                 |    17792 |      266 | 420 posts he offers translation services
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4787174.msg43200567#msg43200567  I would like to merit him for this but don't know if he did good work  any help  would be  nice.



| 1650479 | garybyerz                 |    17792 |      266 |36 pages very little content mostly all bounty
| 1680274 | edisopian                 |    17792 |      266 | bounty hunter no real content


| 1681678 | omfg.xekcep               |    17792 |      266

 he has some long thoughtful posts
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2829339.msg31504422#msg31504422
I gave him 2 points for this post made months ago.

I read 29 on the list about 13000 plus  posts are bounty twitter and facebook
100 are content
and maybe a dozen to 20 have some value.

I gave merits 2 two guys and may give 1 more .

Have to rest my eyes for now.

So Today at 11:36:40 PM: 2 to marcus13 for can merit reduce account duplicate?
Today at 06:10:16 PM: 2 to Ikingpain for Re: Книги пo Биткoйн / Блoкчeйн нa pyccкoм языl
Today at 04:38:01 PM: 2 to omfg.xekcep for Re: Legalization of drugs?


and need to check on a few more 

that is out of 39 on the list of 475

and those 39 did more then 16000 posts of which  at least 14000 were bounty based

1500 + one  or two liners of so so content

and under 50  with some real info.

I google translated more then 50 posts  of which a few were good.

One was worth merits.

I am done for tonight.

39 of 475 done.

[harith@813]

Due to excessive garbage-posting, you now need 1 merit to be a Jr Member. All existing Jr Members who didn't meet the requirement were demoted. Also, newbies can no longer set any signature or personal text.

Note that this does not affect:
 - PM rate-limiting, which is based purely on activity & whitelisted status.
 - "You must wait ___ seconds...", which is based purely on activity & whitelisted status.
 
But it does affect:
 - Voting in polls
 - Patroller jurisdiction
 - The "ignore newbie PMs" option.
 - "The body is omitted from this email because the sender is a newbie."
 - BBCode limits
 - Reduced-accuracy link filtering
 - Board restrictions

Many of these limitations can be eliminated with a copper membership. In particular, you can set a signature at Member level if you wear a copper membership.

One reason that I was hesitant to do this before is that there are an awful lot of newbie restrictions, and I don't want the forum to be unwelcoming to good newbies. I'll think about tying some of those to activity instead of rank in the future.
 
With help from DdmrDdmr, I just added 36 new merit sources, which should help newbies achieve the requirement. But if you're incapable of posting anything worthwhile, then you will never rank up, and you shouldn't: this isn't the forum for you.

I am a newbie.But I know this is good decision.But as I can see there is a problem also.When someone comes and register in bitcointalk he wants to rank up always,But when he see some people have more than 200 activity but they are newbies yet, that guy can give up & can move to another site.So I wolud Like to give new idea.You can offer jr member for some acticity(More than 30.It can be 100 or 150 or something).Don't use merit for jr member.If you consider this suggestion It can be an encourage for everyone who comes as newbie and It can be reduce scammer because activity 100 isn't very easy.

[kochua]

This new rule is certainly good for the forum to prevent garbage- posting but those who are source need to be very much helpful to us. We have become really frustrated by being demoted to newbie. We should try more constructive post If we do, we will certainly get merit and get our jr member rank back.

[Mishnagan22]

You ask a question for what this innovation was made? A good example of what it is a branch of "Beginners". Virtually every new topic have a stupid copypasted content, like: "Which coin will give a profit?", "Tell me what to take to buy Lambo?""When to the moon?", "I believe that the Bitcoin  in October/December/January will cost 20000/30000/50000 dollars", and such posts percent 95% of the total mass of messages. Naturally, to limit shitposting, such restrictions will be necessary. In fact, all Newbee’s just write useless phrases in a random topic to increase until Junior, as I understand it, for signature campaigns. But here's the point: the conditions of the signature camp also in the bulk suggest a minimum number of messages per day, and in most campaigns there are no requirements for the content of the post, but only to the number of characters. And what do we have at the end? Yes, all the same shitposting, with the only difference that the messages are writted  to get more stakes in the campaign.

My opinion is that to improve the quality of the information field of the BTT forum as a whole, first off all, you need to start from signature campaigns, so that stakes are not given for the number of characters in post, but for really useful information that would really benefits.


P.S. Sorry if so so, English isn't my native, but I improve it))

[True Vozer]

I am a newbie.But I know this is good decision.But as I can see there is a problem also.When someone comes and register in bitcointalk he wants to rank up always,But when he see some people have more than 200 activity but they are newbies yet, that guy can give up & can move to another site.So I wolud Like to give new idea.You can offer jr member for some acticity(More than 30.It can be 100 or 150 or something).Don't use merit for jr member.If you consider this suggestion It can be an encourage for everyone who comes as newbie and It can be reduce scammer because activity 100 isn't very easy.

It's not about how long you can be here or how many posts you can make. It's about what you can post, wee need quality posts. 100 activity is easy, you only need some months of spamming to reach it. Activity is not an important thing now since you can spam and wait for it, merit required quality posts that deserve for it.
I show you some cases:
2792 posts, 294 Activity and 0 merit: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1463210
890 posts, 280 Activity , 0 merit: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1496760

[aonfons]

I understand the reason Theymos made the decision on the new rank and merit system, maybe the forum was overloaded and deviated from their original goal. The main reason is due to the regulations of bounty program managers on the number of post (From 10-20) .. and people find ways to spam the article to meet that requirement.
Merit is a way in which parallel forums should have rules with bounty managers and strict rules to control and deal with offending members, for example:
- limit the length of the article (maybe 200 words) or more
- Area limits for articles may be calculated (Mining, Announcements ..).
- The bounty campaign manager must check and report the offending individual.

[kochua]

This new rule is certainly good for the forum to prevent garbage- posting but those who are source need to be very much helpful to us. We have become really frustrated by being demoted to newbie. We should try more constructive post If we do, we will certainly get merit and get our jr member rank back.

Although I was demoted from jr member to newbie, but now I understand why these new restrictions and requirements are important. Because when I was brand new, my first target was at least jr member. That is why I would post such a post in the thread to increase the activity. "Great project" "Nice project" "Happy to join this project" etc. But now i realize that there is no value of this post. So if there is only need of "activity" for rank upgrade, then such post will not stop. So I think this new Rules must be required The meaning of a merit is not just a merit but it will represent the quality of one post, its thinking consciousness and its value at the bitcoin forum. So I think we should be more careful, delicate and constructive.

[Nurfi]

The issue about bitcointalk rank down is so depressing but it is the way to more cautious to our goal. As Ive experience i am persuing may project to be done but the new rule I have been disqualified because of my rank from being jr. Member to newbie again.. we must excert more effort to our bounty campaign for us to gain merits. And for us to excel and excel..

[Romeoetin]

I was greatly affected by this new restrictions. Not when I thought I was so close to ranking up. Ooh well,  back to been a newbie. Guess it time to beef up my post quality.

[Kertmu]

Due to excessive garbage-posting, you now need 1 merit to be a Jr Member. All existing Jr Members who didn't meet the requirement were demoted. Also, newbies can no longer set any signature or personal text.

Note that this does not affect:
 - PM rate-limiting, which is based purely on activity & whitelisted status.
 - "You must wait ___ seconds...", which is based purely on activity & whitelisted status.
 
But it does affect:
 - Voting in polls
 - Patroller jurisdiction
 - The "ignore newbie PMs" option.
 - "The body is omitted from this email because the sender is a newbie."
 - BBCode limits
 - Reduced-accuracy link filtering
 - Board restrictions

Many of these limitations can be eliminated with a copper membership. In particular, you can set a signature at Member level if you wear a copper membership.

One reason that I was hesitant to do this before is that there are an awful lot of newbie restrictions, and I don't want the forum to be unwelcoming to good newbies. I'll think about tying some of those to activity instead of rank in the future.
 
With help from DdmrDdmr, I just added 36 new merit sources, which should help newbies achieve the requirement. But if you're incapable of posting anything worthwhile, then you will never rank up, and you shouldn't: this isn't the forum for you.

How about the cancellation of Merit, which were accrued upon its introduction?

I've met a lot of members who spread spam.

The user must receive Merit !!!

[nutildah]

How about the cancellation of Merit, which were accrued upon its introduction?

[Uesly_Future]

How about the cancellation of Merit, which were accrued upon its introduction?

total 61 merits. not a very good prospect, right?

[JayJuanGee]

How about the cancellation of Merit, which were accrued upon its introduction?

total 61 merits. not a very good prospect, right?

I read 1,061 for nutildah, and 2 for you.  That's about 530.5 to 1, but who's counting?

Of course, you feel disinclined to support such a system in which you hardly have established any stake or to bash others for their merit status when you hardly have established any of such yourself either, for that matter.

[nutildah]

total 61 merits. not a very good prospect, right?

I'll admit its harder for Newbs to get merits than higher ranking ones, but 95% of all Newbs just post senseless trash, which ruins its for the actual 5% who might actually have something interesting to say. Sorry but we're sick of the forum's quality being watered down by opportunistic spam artists.

[bitcoinote]

BitcoiNote team fully support anything that contributes to improving the quality of the forum and helps fight spam.

We have, however, been affected, being reduced to Newbie . Through this forum and our ANN thread we have been communicating with our community, providing links, placing photos etc - now we're not able to do that anymore.

Obviously, we have other social media channels to share info but we have always treated Bitcointalk forum as one of the most important ones, as the one to give the fullest information on all changes and updates regarding our coin. (except for our website). We have treated this way of sharing information as natural and didn't expect (or ask) for any merit. Having received none, we went from Jr. Member to Newbie, despite almost 9 months of activity and 249 posts.

We haven't spammed or scammed yet now, we will have to find a new way to communicate with our Bitcointalk community.

We would assume that our BitcoiNote's account isn't the only altcoin's account that has been affected by the new rules. Seems like perhaps targeting the ANN thread and rising coins threads wasn't necessarily the aim of the admins though...