I'm thinking of running a topic starting contest for non-english speakers.

[Jet Cash]

I'm having real problems in discovering meritable posts, and I'd like to run a discussion starting contest for members who don't have English as their first language. Participants would need to create a good discussion topic in their own language,  and I/We will help them to translate this into English for them to post in the Bitcoin Talk forum. I will guarantee at least 5 merits if the post is accepted and taken through to final posting. Once 5 threads have been started, then I will open a poll for the community to decide which one is the best, and the winner will receive an additional 25 merits.

Topics should be suitable for posting on one of the following boards -

Beginners
Political
Serious Discussion
I may also consider Bitcoin discussion and Technical.

Topics will need to be fairly serious and of good quality, and examples would be

El Petro and its impact on Venezuela and the world economy
The use of crypto currencies in countries suffering from hyperinflation
Your early experiences with Bitcoin
Crypto currency as an alternative to bonds as the stock market collapses.
Everyday living in a country with a failed fiat currency.
Crypto-currencies as a means of wealth transfer durng migration.
and many other similar topics that I am sure you can use as a basis for discussion.

What do BT members think of the idea, and would you change any of the suggestions?

[Lucius]

I'm having real problems in discovering meritable posts, and I'd like to run a discussion starting contest for members who don't have English as their first language. Participants would need to create a good discussion topic in their own language,  and I/We will help them to translate this into English for them to post in the Bitcoin Talk forum. I will guarantee at least 5 merits if the post is accepted and taken through to final posting. Once 5 threads have been started, then I will open a poll for the community to decide which one is the best, and the winner will receive an additional 25 merits.

Topics should be suitable for posting on one of the following boards -

Beginners
Political
Serious Discussion
I may also consider Bitcoin discussion and Technical.

Topics will need to be fairly serious and of good quality, and examples would be

El Petro and its impact on Venezuela and the world economy
The use of crypto currencies in countries suffering from hyperinflation
Your early experiences with Bitcoin
Crypto currency as an alternative to bonds as the stock market collapses.
Everyday living in a country with a failed fiat currency.
Crypto-currencies as a means of wealth transfer durng migration.
and many other similar topics that I am sure you can use as a basis for discussion.

What do BT members think of the idea, and would you change any of the suggestions?

The idea is not bad, but I think problems can occur when translating from original language to English. In order to translate such post you need to know user language very good, otherwise the translation may look as if it was used Google Translate. The only way this really works in terms of translation is to have one or more users from every local board who know English very good or excellent.

What I'm still interested in how many posts would be allowed per user? Someone who is in the signature campaign could use this to write posts in his local language and others translate that to excellent English posts. Maybe solution for this problem would be to allow only boards which are generally not counted in most signature campaigns.

Regarding your problem with meritable posts, I notice that most of your posts are in Meta board and some in Politics/Beginners - I am sure there is some post worthy of merit, but it takes time to look at every board.

[Helana]

What do BT members think of the idea, and would you change any of the suggestions?

I think you should say that it is going to be done through the Fit to Talk project, or it isn't??
Besides, the languages we have in the FTT project, for now, are Filipino, Spanish and Japanese? Or there are other ones in the FTT project I am not aware of?

Also, the rules are not clear to me. Are we going to ask the users to try to make their own translation and then help them to improve them, as usual?

Anyway, the topics are interesting and it looks nice to me, just maybe we are taking for granted some information that should be included in the initial post!!! Let's see what happens!!!!

[Veleor]

Once 5 threads have been started, then I will open a poll for the community to decide which one is the best, and the winner will receive an additional 25 merits.

Poll can be spoil by bots that's why I think that the winner should be chosen by trusted members.

[actmyname]

Lots of your topics seem to require a degree of depth in the knowledge of a language to properly discuss (without dumbing it down too much). If this is not a problem, I would recommend discussion about Bitcoin regarding its technology (perhaps something with scalability).

Far too many individuals have an uninformed perspective on how the system functions/should function (i.e. free transactions, larger block size, how mining works, etc.) and I believe that it is critical to make some of the knowledge more widespread. I have seen far too many people ask how signing a message works, what a node is, etc. (on this forum, no less)

Once 5 threads have been started, then I will open a poll for the community to decide which one is the best, and the winner will receive an additional 25 merits.

Poll can be spoil by bots that's why I think that the winner should be chosen by trusted members.

That, or replies to a central thread would work. Have it self-modded to disincentivize spam.

[Jet Cash]

The plan is to work on the translation in the Fit to Talk project - rather like the post created by Dr Gomez. You only need English language speakers to work with the original topic creator. Google translate can work for an initial translation, and then the results can be improved where they are inaccurate or misleading.

I realise that most of my merit awarding is no longer general, and this was the motivation for starting this project. I'm particularly interested in helping Flying Hellfish in his efforts to turn the political board into a "mature" discussion arena.

The manipulation of the poll was one of my concerns, and I must check to see if voting can be attributed to member names.

[actmyname]

If this is not a problem, I would recommend discussion about Bitcoin regarding its technology (perhaps something with scalability).

Scalability isn't easy topic and heated discussion/ideology clash will happen because there are many different perspective. Something easier such as multi-signature and seed/mnemonic would be better.

Heated discussion? Conflicting perspectives? Perfect! Isn't that the purpose of discussion? I don't see a problem with showing others different reasons when it comes to something this important in the crypto-space.

By divulging ideas to one another, we in turn change the way we think. There shouldn't be a fear of politick.

[Jet Cash]

Far too many individuals have an uninformed perspective on how the system functions/should function (i.e. free transactions, larger block size, how mining works, etc.) and I believe that it is critical to make some of the knowledge more widespread. I have seen far too many people ask how signing a message works, what a node is, etc. (on this forum, no less)

I have tried running a few threads on such topics with mixed results. The idea behind this initiative is to bring new members on local boards into the main Bitcoin Talk community. I would hope that legendaries and heroes could start such topics, and in fact many of them have done so, and they have created tutorials. The problem seems to be the unwillingness of many members to read the topcs.

There is also a personal interest in this project. I would like to read comments about life in politically unstable countries. I would also like to hear comments about other economic problems - for example, how people are handling the situation in Greece after the rape and theft of their national assets by the European Union.

Scalability discussons can be a bit difficult. One has to consider the reason for the creation of Bitcoin, and its possible place in a future world economy. I believe that received wisdom is not accurate, and this distorts the views on many people. Informed heated discussion about this would be good, but it may be difficult to find informed posters.

[hakka]

I'm having real problems in discovering meritable posts, and I'd like to run a discussion starting contest for members who don't have English as their first language. Participants would need to create a good discussion topic in their own language,  and I/We will help them to translate this into English for them to post in the Bitcoin Talk forum. I will guarantee at least 5 merits if the post is accepted and taken through to final posting. Once 5 threads have been started, then I will open a poll for the community to decide which one is the best, and the winner will receive an additional 25 merits.

This idea can be good opportunity for members who don't have English as their first language.
Particularly in some local boards, it seems merit sources haven't worked after recession of crypto market.
I think this trend should be improved not only by relying on merit sources but by broading potentials of members in local boards.

Actually, I will participate in this contest if it will be held in the future because I want to improve my English skill and activate Bitcointalk.
I have just registered Fit to talk.

Topics should be suitable for posting on one of the following boards -

Beginners
Political
Serious Discussion
I may also consider Bitcoin discussion and Technical.

I want to suggest that Economy be included as a topic because an economical information of each country can be useful and interesting for us.
For example, Jet Cash exemplified "El Petro and its impact on Venezuela and the world economy"  and this theme is deeply related with economy.

[Jet Cash]

I want to suggest that Economy be included as a topic because an economical information of each country can be useful and interesting for us.

I've just approved you, and I bypassed activation, so you shoud be good to go.

The 5 merit thread starter is a long running project, and it is still active, so you are welcome to join that. The 25 merit bonus is a new idea, and I wanted to get the opinion of other members about it. 25 merits is more than I have ever awarded.

I agree with you suggestion about the Economy board, but economy and political are pretty close, and I wanted to support Flying Hellfish with the work he has done to clean up the political board. I haven't looked at economy for quite a while. and the last time I looked it was full of low value spam.

[mu_enrico]

I think the motivation behind this contest is good, but it wouldn't work. Reason:
- Usually, a person who is capable of writing a good (or at least decent) quality topic, has a decent English writing skill.
- Not enough incentive to do merit contest. I did it before with no-brainer question and yet they still find it difficult.
- A discussion should occur naturally, not tailored by some contest.
- I'm having the same problem, i.e., difficult to find meritable posts. But I think newbies should make their posts noticeable, instead of merit source constantly reaching to them. I was a newbie a few months ago, and I have no problem attracting merit source.

Wish you all the best!

[Jet Cash]

I'd like to restart this project fairly soon, and I'm not sure if beginners or political is the best place to make the thread.

What do you guys think about the 25 merit bonus for the best thread starter? Do you think it is too high?

[Steamtyme]

I think it is high.

Perhaps you would consider something like 10. This would boost them to member status, as it seems you really want to provide a nice reward for their effort.

[Jet Cash]

I think it is high.

That was my first thought, especially as the post will have already gained 5 merits for being accepted. Also, as was shown by the Dr Gomez post, other members award merits as well, so the highlighted thread becomes a bit of a merit honey pot.

Another option I considered was to guarantee a minimum of 25 for the winner. That would mean adding 20 if no other member awards a merit. That seemed counter productive though, as a really good thread starter shoud receive more merits, and the bonus would be less in that case. Don't forget that 10 merits may be a lot for a newbie for ranking, but it's only 1% of the legendary requirement.

[manfredmann]

Do you consider old post as an entry for the contest? If not then it is better to open a single topic for all the contestant and then you will be the judge and select the best entry to be awarded with merit. This is to limit the contestant's power to pick a good topic for there are many resources to consider in creating a good post. Thus, we could see on who among the contestants will shine without the help of google or internet.  

If they do research in google and steal the idea of the authors then clearly it is a plagiarism. Members with the same idea would be excluded unless if the contestant has posted the post ahead of the other.

You can start a thread for it and I guess it is better to select the newbie and jr. member in rank category, member and full member category, senior and hero member category and legendary category.

This is only suggestion. I hope one will not get offended and the contest will push through. I will be more than happy to join. I have tried creating a thread for a good discussions on crypto currency trading here.

[Steamtyme]

That was my first thought, especially as the post will have already gained 5 merits for being accepted. Also, as was shown by the Dr Gomez post, other members award merits as well, so the highlighted thread becomes a bit of a merit honey pot.

Another option I considered was to guarantee a minimum of 25 for the winner. That would mean adding 20 if no other member awards a merit. That seemed counter productive though, as a really good thread starter shoud receive more merits, and the bonus would be less in that case. Don't forget that 10 merits may be a lot for a newbie for ranking, but it's only 1% of the legendary requirement.

I know 1% of legendary, for a single post in which they are receiving some great guidance. Seems a pretty sweet deal to me. You could say it's 1000% of Jr. Member, 100% of Member and 10% of Full.

10 is definitely nothing to sneeze at. Like you said the odds are that this post will receive extra attention and may pick up the odd merit from others. I would probably launch the post and project in secret if you plan to award 10 or more merits to it. Then allow the public to take over see how the post does in the wild, and then after a week or 2 award your merits accordingly.

There is nothing preventing you from monitoring these people in the future to watch their progress, and continue awarding them merit if they maintain that level of quality moving forward. I feel you are more inclined to go with a higher reward because you have been having a hard time finding lower ranked members to reward, and this could sort of be seen as an example to those ranks.

[Jet Cash]

I wonder if it would be better to open things up for all ranks, and to include English speakers.  At a personal level, I'm interested in the political actions that receive little publicity, and have opinions or facts added by Bitcoin Talk members.

Here is an example.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnZZixKl584

That video describes a giant mosquito that was developed by a company started by Oxford University in 2002, and these mosquitos have been released in north Carolina following the devestation resulting from the recent hurricane. Discussing items like this helps us to understand the dramatic social and economic changes that are going on at the moment.

I'll PM Flying Hellfish a bit later today or tomorrow, and see what he feels about such a contest on the political board.

[pugman]

Those who have enough knowledge on these kind of stuff already have merits, and besides you're trying too hard to reach out to people who don't even bother. People might make an effort(or just plagiarize,rephrase it) to complete the said task, but after that they'll just go back to spamming, thus ruining the point of this whole thing.

The community here is small,~1% of the entire user base is active. And of that 1%, 99.9% are spammers. So we have like what 1000 good posters or less, realistically. Others are just bots, or spammers. I don't really understand what you're trying to accomplish here, but you could be spending your time in much important things.

[Thebabybillionaire]

This is the reason why I loved jet cash, he always gives a chance to other members.
Especially for those deserving members that never receive a merit for their quality posts. (Sorry for the off topic)

[Daboy_Lyle]

I'd like to run a discussion starting contest for members who don't have English as their first language.

I would like to joined this amazing contest. I just ranked up to Full Member and I'm lacking of topics to share/post. This one will help us and to the forum because it will lessen spammers or they will be encouraged to join this contest. Count me in Jet Cash!

This is the reason why I loved jet cash, he always gives a chance to other members.
Especially for those deserving members that never receive a merit for their quality posts. (Sorry for the off topic)

Everyone here has a chance of getting merit but their posts are not enough to be merited rather not useful.