The new rule (1 Merit for Jr. Member) is already reducing spam

[Johnnygroomq]

and so thank you for such a change. And so half of the forum in a panic because of the lowering of rank) They do not know where to go))))thanks for the new changes.

[criz2fer]

<...>
From 6922-merit sent 23/09/2018

Now, we could just filter those merited newbies and check them which are legit and alt accounts. It would minimize the job of the mods to catch the account farmers and the spambies in the forum.

I shared the complete list a few days ago, with all newly up-ranked newbies:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KmBvi21XZn6Oxh8c6Vsuax6wxSAhsQWsAzDYfsYOU2E/edit#gid=0

Nevertheless, Mods will not likely follow-up potential cases. It’s up to whoever wishes to investigate the cases and bring them up in Reputation or threads dedicated to Merit Abuse. 

Lets get started  . Although I'm not a full time here, i'll just give a shot on those abusers. Small actions may have a big effect if all members are contributing to clean the forum.

[stompix]

<...>
From 6922-merit sent 23/09/2018

Now, we could just filter those merited newbies and check them which are legit and alt accounts. It would minimize the job of the mods to catch the account farmers and the spambies in the forum.

I shared the complete list a few days ago, with all newly up-ranked newbies:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KmBvi21XZn6Oxh8c6Vsuax6wxSAhsQWsAzDYfsYOU2E/edit#gid=0

Nevertheless, Mods will not likely follow-up potential cases. It’s up to whoever wishes to investigate the cases and bring them up in Reputation or threads dedicated to Merit Abuse. 

That list is so demoralizing

Volpcoin has received 1 merit for an ann
savitardty is a weird case as he has received a merit for a post for June but he hasn;t logged in for 40 days
Jhonkar has 5 merits for 5 deleted posts
morata21 is tagged as an alt of a plagiarist.
enzo24 received a merit on a June post that is pure crap
asensio22 (woken up after 1 year of hibernation) got 1 merit for posts number #1047 in a mega thread

stompix sad 
 

[slocker]

This is really helpful and must say interesting in many way. First i have almost a day in time spend here, but i try to spend as much time reading and not asking same question twice (my only concern is that search is not sorted by date). So far that I read this merit system is good call and its reduced not just spam and junk as well. Hopefully some new improvement will bring even better for this forum, this is my humble saying cuz im not that big rank or skilled in many skill here.

[DdmrDdmr]

<...>

Which goes to prove that the 1 merit rule is up to some extent easy to bypass by farmers, but even so, many will not be able to even achieve it (not enough merits to cover all the Alts from the father account). A step-up in the criteria could, at a later stage, be obviously requiring more merit but from x distinct people (i.e. 5 merits from 5 different people). Not impassable, but certainly tougher to overcome. Anyway, we’ve just changed the rule, so that is going to stay for a while. At best, people can work on the diverse lists for suspicious clear cases, and farmers know that they are being watched …

[Piggy]

<...>

Which goes to prove that the 1 merit rule is up to some extent easy to bypass by farmers, but even so, many will not be able to even achieve it (not enough merits to cover all the Alts from the father account). A step-up in the criteria could, at a later stage, be obviously requiring more merit but from x distinct people (i.e. 5 merits from 5 different people). Not impassable, but certainly tougher to overcome. Anyway, we’ve just changed the rule, so that is going to stay for a while. At best, people can work on the diverse lists for suspicious clear cases, and farmers know that they are being watched …

In the end what ever method somebody could come with, there are always going to be smart ass with enough merits or strategies to bypass them. It would make life just harder for legit people.

As somebody as already proposed, there could be people with the power to reverse the merit given, if the case is a clear abuse.

[criz2fer]

<...>

Which goes to prove that the 1 merit rule is up to some extent easy to bypass by farmers, but even so, many will not be able to even achieve it (not enough merits to cover all the Alts from the father account). A step-up in the criteria could, at a later stage, be obviously requiring more merit but from x distinct people (i.e. 5 merits from 5 different people). Not impassable, but certainly tougher to overcome. Anyway, we’ve just changed the rule, so that is going to stay for a while. At best, people can work on the diverse lists for suspicious clear cases, and farmers know that they are being watched …

In the end what ever method somebody could come with, there are always going to be smart ass with enough merits or strategies to bypass them. It would make life just harder for legit people.

As somebody as already proposed, there could be people with the power to reverse the merit given, if the case is a clear abuse.

That would make's life unfair. But for a better forum, its worth a shot for everyone to benefit from learning crypto. Spammers are inevitable for every forum, we should live with it but if there are to much, we should control it.

[Rtalk]

Sorry, but for every action there is a reaction.Who is spamming here earlier and is going to continue to do so-will always find a way to get merit.It is important that innovations had a positive impact on those participants who are here for the sake of knowledge.

[mazdafunsun]

The thing that i have spotted in last few days is that i see more new topics in sections which usually are populated exsluisvely only by mega threads, it seems that they are not burried instantly as before. This is a good sign and it means that we are on the right path atleast.

[MagicSmoker]

What the hell is this gibberish*? The only members that have been hired here are the staff and some (all?) moderators; the rest of us are here voluntarily.

It is clear that those who work are staff, monderator ...
(all?) is (local?).
What do I mean to say? about new Members, if this is uncontrolled in (one) day if it continues to grow by around 100 people throughout the country, newbie members, do not expect spam to disappear?
"So every newbie member who registers must go through a selection of staff, Monderator, and local forums. If necessary, create a profile photo for newbie members, then all spam issues are resolved .... Not nonsense ... after all the requirements are complete, all decisions are received or not in hand @Theymos
...

Don't edit or strikeout what people have written when you quote their post; if you don't like what was written or it is irrelevant to the discussion then just don't include it in the quote. I use the ellipsis (...) to indicate words were omitted, but "~snip" is also popular here.

That said, your reply is also nonsensical because you clearly don't understand English that well, but it seems you are saying that every new user should submit an application - including a picture - for review by staff/moderators/theymos before being allowed to join the forum. If this is a correct interpretation of what you wrote then I can assure you, despite not having any inside information whatsoever, that this will never fly here.

[LoyceV]

In 24 hours, that's 23.3% less posts.
In 48 hours, that's 18.6% less posts.
In 1 week, that's 15.9% less posts.
In 2 weeks, that's 18.6% less posts.

OP updated.
I'm happily surprised to see the reduction go up again.

If I ignore the one week before and after theymos' changes, and only look at the number of posts made a week earlier and later (so posts made from September 3 to September 10, and from September 24 to October 1), it went down from 355933 to 280633 posts. That's a 21.2% reduction.

[DooMAD]

That list is so demoralizing

(...)

stompix sad 

Really?  The fact that people such as yourself care enough to take time out of their day to check this stuff is highly uplifting for me.  Yes, this new requirement is causing some to attempt to cheat, but at the same time, many of them are going to get caught because there are some incredibly diligent people around here who are doing their best to make this forum a better place.  The ones abusing the system will effectively weed themselves out.  I'd say all is working as intended, so don't let it get you down.

[hilariousetc]

<...>

Which goes to prove that the 1 merit rule is up to some extent easy to bypass by farmers, but even so, many will not be able to even achieve it (not enough merits to cover all the Alts from the father account). A step-up in the criteria could, at a later stage, be obviously requiring more merit but from x distinct people (i.e. 5 merits from 5 different people). Not impassable, but certainly tougher to overcome. Anyway, we’ve just changed the rule, so that is going to stay for a while. At best, people can work on the diverse lists for suspicious clear cases, and farmers know that they are being watched …

It's sadly too easy to bypass especially for those who are abusing it the most. The biggest abusers of the forum aren't just going to give up because of this requirement, but we're already seeing how they're dishing merit between alts their dozens of alts: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5037225.msg46135292#msg46135292

That's why I think it should be more than one. One is fine for moving from Newbie to Junior but it shouldn't get you a signature. Remove signatures from Juniors and then you have to get ten Merit and become a Member to get one. Getting ten merit is ten times more difficult and costly and also much easier to spot abuse. Anyone can get one merit just for bothering to make one decent post that they could have copied from anywhere. Ten merit is much harder to get and that would at least be some sort of competency test for whether you should be allowed to earn via signatures here (and not everyone should be).

[o_e_l_e_o]

-snip-

That's certainly an encouraging start. My worry is as hilarious pointed out - gaining 1 merit is easy. Even if they can't trade between alts, they can easily beg, buy, or plagiarize for a single merit. A 20% reduction is great, but only if it continues. As the system stands, that 20% will slowly fall as more and more of the spambies start to level up again. Not only would a 10 merit requirement reduce that rate of fall significantly, it would likely result in a further reduction of spam as many of the newbies still spamming in the hope of gaining 1 random merit would just give up entirely if they knew they had to reach 10, as well as knocking out many multiple account users who would not have enough merit to level up all their alts.

[LoyceV]

In 24 hours, that's 23.3% less posts.
In 48 hours, that's 18.6% less posts.
In 1 week, that's 15.9% less posts.
In 2 weeks, that's 18.6% less posts.
In 3 weeks, that's 22.2% less posts.

OP updated.
The reduction in total posts went up again!

If I ignore the one week before and after theymos' changes, and only look at the number of posts made a week earlier and later (so posts made from September 3 to September 10, and from September 24 to October 1), it went down from 355933 to 280633 posts. That's a 21.2% reduction.

If I ignore the two weeks before and after theymos' changes, and only look at the number of posts made two weeks earlier and later (so posts made from August 27 to September 3, and from October 1 to October 8), it went down from 367037 to 260330 posts. That's a 29.1% reduction.

[stompix]

Checking the patrol seems like the link posting is not affected at all and paid bumping continues, the bounties section is almost 12% of the entire forum in one year, so most of the posts probably go there.
So in the end, those 20%-30% are where it really matters,and if a few (hundred) mega threads would be trashed it would probably still be some hope to save the bitcoin discussion section.

Oh, and there are a few dozen higher rank member that get banned for plagiarism each week, cutting down useless posting  

I wonder how new registrations stats looks like...

[slocker]

Checking the patrol seems like the link posting is not affected at all and paid bumping continues, the bounties section is almost 12% of the entire forum in one year, so most of the posts probably go there.
So in the end, those 20%-30% are where it really matters,and if a few mega (hundred) mega threads would be trashed it would probably still be hope save the bitcoin discussion section.

Oh, and there are a few dozen higher rank member that get banned for plagiarism each week, cutting down useless posting 

I wonder how new registrations stats looks like...

This is totally true and I personally agree with you. I cannot follow tokens and bounties anymore. Look one thing after few second this is already on page five. This should be reduced by bounty manager. They should create some spreadsheet with google easily and this could reduce everything by at least 30%. Almost every topic have post in this form you twit and facebook post. This can be reduced with google form. It should be like bitcoin signature campaign post until its full then campaign manager post bounties are send or payment is send. Nothing more.

[DdmrDdmr]

<...>
I wonder how new registrations stats looks like...

I’ve taken a quick look, using the forum official stats and WayBackMachine to get different snapshots (*). This is what it looks like recently:

Code:

Date         nRegistered         nDays      nRegPerDay
12/10/2018    2.417.202           7           1.293
05/10/2018    2.408.148           10          1.797
25/09/2018    2.390.175           9           1.171
16/09/2018    2.379.633           14          1.423
02/09/2018    2.359.700           7           1.500
26/08/2018    2.349.200           6           1.589
20/08/2018    2.339.665           11          1.705

 
It seems we’re getting between 1.2K and 1.8K new registered users per day (not the 439.36 that we see on the stats which must be taking into account all history). The date range between the 16/09/2018 and the 25/09/2018 seemed to decrease the registration process a bit (change of Jr.Member rule) , but it spiked up again during the ten days after that, to decrease again over the last 7 days. It’s a bit of a roller coaster really.

(*) Snapshots are not taken at the same time, so some dates have more hours accounted for than others have, but still it’s the best we can do from the outside.

[LoyceV]

I wonder how new registrations stats looks like...

I’ve taken a quick look, using the forum official stats and WayBackMachine to get different snapshots (*).

You can easily get very accurate registration data by just looking at the registration dates in the profiles
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2400000 for instance was registered September 20, 2018, 02:28:47 PM, and on September 28, 2018, 07:49:28 PM there were 10000 more accounts.

[stompix]

I wonder how new registrations stats looks like...

I’ve taken a quick look, using the forum official stats and WayBackMachine to get different snapshots (*).

You can easily get very accurate registration data by just looking at the registration dates in the profiles
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2400000 for instance was registered September 20, 2018, 02:28:47 PM, and on September 28, 2018, 07:49:28 PM there were 10000 more accounts.

Nice one...
So the interval between 10 000 accounts registration has been indeed fluctuating quite a lot..

September 20, 2018, 12:28:47 PM
September 28, 2018, 05:49:28 PM
October 01, 2018, 05:43:00 PM
October 10, 2018, 05:37:46 AM

and we've got, 710.501 , 258.812 and 777.286 seconds.

Now this made me curious  , before that the interval between 10k accounts was also 699.208 seconds.
So somewhere between Sep 28 and October 01 we witnessed a new spike in users interested in bitcoin some ICO bumpers got new clients.