Forum suggestion for countering low quality

[o_e_l_e_o]

for every good newbie there are probably 10 shitposters newbies posting in the same topic, it's mainly a matter of low-rank to high-rank ratio that gives this perspective.

I don't think anyone is denying that there are shitposters at higher ranks too, who got there before merit was introduced and would have close to zero chance of getting there now. I, for one, think we should change the requirement for a signature to 10 earned merits, which would therefore encompass all the legendary spammers as well as the newbie ones.

Having said that, the newbie spammers are the biggest problem, because as you say, they are the most numerous by far. I would put your ratio of shitposters to "good" newbies at 100:1 or even more, but I'm against any blanket restrictions on newbies posting or opening topics for the exact reason that it unfairly punishes the <1% who are here for the right reasons.

[suchmoon]

I don't think anyone is denying that there are shitposters at higher ranks too, who got there before merit was introduced and would have close to zero chance of getting there now. I, for one, think we should change the requirement for a signature to 10 earned merits, which would therefore encompass all the legendary spammers as well as the newbie ones.

Even 3 earned merits would be harsh enough... ~55% of Legendaries would lose signatures.

< 10 earned merits: ~70% of Legendaries.

[mikeywith]

exactly the point, we can't tell the exact number or ratio, which i would bet the house that in terms of shitpost to quality posts with be many:little. rank alone is not enough criteria to build restrictions on , if there is anything to be implemented it has to be rank-less based, it has to be quality-based, it also has to apply to everybody only then it will be fair.

i also think that shitposts are one of the main reasons the signature campaigns are still going. if every signature campaign focused only on members who post quality posts, then i am sure 2 or 3  campaigns will be able to utilize every qualified member.

but those signature campaigns focus mainly on VIEWS, someone who is promoting a shitcoin ico would rather have 100 shitposters wearing their signature than 5 quality members. and it seems like it's working for them ! .

[o_e_l_e_o]

but those signature campaigns focus mainly on VIEWS, someone who is promoting a shitcoin ico would rather have 100 shitposters wearing their signature than 5 quality members.

You've hit the nail on the head. But as with OP's post, this has been discussed several times before and we are no closer to a solution. Whether that's because we don't have a good solution yet, or because theymos doesn't want to implement anything yet, I don't know.

I would like to see harsher punishments for serial shitposters - at the moment, having one or two of their posts deleted is irrelevant when the can churn out a new one-liner in 2 minutes. Serial offenses should result in escalating lengths of ban. Similarly, there needs to be punishment for bounty managers who are paying these shitposters, again with serial offenders resulting in escalating bans, and the worst offending projects having their entire ANN threads removed.

[RussaX]

I would like to see harsher punishments for serial shitposters - at the moment, having one or two of their posts deleted is irrelevant when the can churn out a new one-liner in 2 minutes. Serial offenses should result in escalating lengths of ban. Similarly, there needs to be punishment for bounty managers who are paying these shitposters, again with serial offenders resulting in escalating bans, and the worst offending projects having their entire ANN threads removed.

Instead of moderators wasting their time on removing low quality content as someone has suggested It would be more convinient to either give them negative merit as I suggested or temp ban them, maybe perma ban use of signature.
But as you say bounty managers should be pressed to up their requirements for bounty and not reward spamming.

[r1s2g3]

I don't understand why many people relate poor quality / shitposts /spam posts to newbies or lower rank members. this is 100% wrong.

why would you limit a newbie who has a huge amount of knowledge just because he recently joined the forum?

look around the technical and series discussion, you will be amazed , many members who joined recently are top notch geeks.

allow everyone to post, let the members decide who is worthy and who is not,  by merting and commenting on quality posts.  

+1
Few of the discussion are so top notch that I am not even able to understand them. They just come, create a topic, Discuss/take suggestions and leave the forum.  Not allowing to newbie to create a topic in this case is loss for the forum.

I also noticed that very few people have any kind of signature in that board including moderators gmaxwell and achow101.

Actual problem of spam will be controlled by effectively using the "Report to Moderator" , temporary banning accounts creating spam and not allowing the rank below Member to bump up the topics.

[Veleor]

I saw that some of bounty managers using the incentive scheme for members which have additional merit points.

I think, when most of the managers will implement such scheme then it will have a positive effect on the forum.

Rates without merit
Member - .00125/week
Full Member - .0025/week
Sr Member - .004/week
Hero - .006/week
Legendary - .0075/week

With merit
This means merits above what you started with. You can only get this rate if you have the merits when applying
Member with at least 2 merit - .0025/week
Full Member with at least 5 merit - .005
Sr member with at least 5 merit - .007/week
Hero Member with at least 10 merit - .01/week
Legendary Member with at least 10 merit .0125/week

I want to make a post and make it clear how the tiers work here. All users depending on rank were given a Merit score. Newbie 0 Jr member 0 Member 10 Full member 100 Sr member 250 Hero member 500 Legendary 1000. Anyone who is in this campaign wanting the higher tier pay needed to have scores of Jr member 1 Member 12 Full member 105 sr member 255 Hero member 510 Legendary 1010.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

Checks this suggestions and tell me what you think

Rank  

Newbie	-    Should not be able to open their own topics, everyone should be free to open a topic but with limit. should not be able to post links, they should also have daily limit.
Jr.Member	-    Should not have signature or personal text free to wear personal text, 10 Merits required to rank up. No posting limit but limit will be on starting new topics .
Member	-    Should not have signature if you have achieved the member rank then you deserved to wear signatures.50 merit required to rank up

Full member

150 merit required to rank up.

[cryptohunter]

Low quality spam that is easily ignored by most is not as net negative as some semi plausible sounding (to those that don't understand fully the topic) semi well written (basic spelling grammar) junk that sways and diverts consensus away from proven sound opinion and logic based upon observable evidence. Usually backed up by some merits to enforce the opinion that it has value when it actually has negative value and is damaging.

Therefore fix the merit system before trying to use it as a useful tool to get rid of "low quality"

Low quality is damaging via dilution and reducing collisions between "good" posters and some limited number of capable minds.  

Negative quality posters are equally damaging if not worse if you are trying to reach optimal level of discussion and debate.

Merit has very little value right now so i see no point at this time trying to use it as a tool to solve a problem that needs an accurate and objective criteria to define "low quality" "negative worth" "high value"

Anyone suggesting merit be used as system that has some objective and fair value themselves are making posts that really have no value they are just compounding the issues the merit system brings.

You need to fix this system before those merit scores can be given any weight.

[o_e_l_e_o]

I saw that some of bounty managers using the incentive scheme for members which have additional merit points.

I think, when most of the managers will implement such scheme then it will have a positive effect on the forum.

This is a good first step, but ideally we should be reaching a stage where members with no earned merits aren't accepted at all. However, there are just too many bounty campaigns for trash projects that are more than happy to pay out their worthless token for any old barely-comprehensible spam, and short of making a forum-wide rule, this ideal situation will never happen.

It's also worth pointing out that the example you quoted comes from one of yahoo62278's campaigns. There is a handful of very good campaign managers on this forum that don't accept spammers regardless of merit earned, and he is one of them. Again, there is no way we can expect for all the trash managers to live up to this standard.

[RussaX]

I saw that some of bounty managers using the incentive scheme for members which have additional merit points.

I think, when most of the managers will implement such scheme then it will have a positive effect on the forum.

This is a good first step, but ideally we should be reaching a stage where members with no earned merits aren't accepted at all. However, there are just too many bounty campaigns for trash projects that are more than happy to pay out their worthless token for any old barely-comprehensible spam, and short of making a forum-wide rule, this ideal situation will never happen.

It's also worth pointing out that the example you quoted comes from one of yahoo62278's campaigns. There is a handful of very good campaign managers on this forum that don't accept spammers regardless of merit earned, and he is one of them. Again, there is no way we can expect for all the trash managers to live up to this standard.

I agree with you.
Quality managers will eventually accept members that have certain merit/post payout scheme. There will be always trash campaigns who will look for those low quality shitposters because they can do it for cheap and for campaign owner signature views are only thing that matter.
But there is another problem that could from by this type of campaign which is called merit gangs.

I would rather like to see moderated bounty campaigns where owners have to specify unified rules given by the forum staff. I think that would hurt shitposters.

[dogtana]

I don't think further restrictions would be a good move. I don't do signatures, so it is not that I feel targeted by OP's idea.

What we all must keep in mind is if we want crypto to grow, we need new people. You guys are forgetting how important this forum is. For many it is the first place to get information and learn.

Too severe newbie restrictions would be a bad favour to the entire community.

[cryptohunter]

You can not use merit as the basis for any quality control until merit itself has some objective quality control.

Any suggestions to use merit (as it stands) as a tool to control post quality are low quality suggestions if they do not include a system to make merit a useful/accurate and objective measurement. I would say any suggestions like that sink below low quality to negative value because you are wasting time building upon foundations that are already broken when the time needs to be spent making the foundations of this new screening system into something that is solid and reliable.


First you need to establish what even denotes low quality and high quality and make sure merit is a meaningful representation of those criteria. Then and only then can you start using merit scores to devise a higher level screening system.

It seems there are not even that many criteria to match posts against so it will not be all that difficult.

[dogtana]

I don't think anyone is denying that there are shitposters at higher ranks too, who got there before merit was introduced and would have close to zero chance of getting there now. I, for one, think we should change the requirement for a signature to 10 earned merits, which would therefore encompass all the legendary spammers as well as the newbie ones.

Even 3 earned merits would be harsh enough... ~55% of Legendaries would lose signatures.

< 10 earned merits: ~70% of Legendaries.

Now this is very sad.

[cryptohunter]

I don't think anyone is denying that there are shitposters at higher ranks too, who got there before merit was introduced and would have close to zero chance of getting there now. I, for one, think we should change the requirement for a signature to 10 earned merits, which would therefore encompass all the legendary spammers as well as the newbie ones.

Even 3 earned merits would be harsh enough... ~55% of Legendaries would lose signatures.

< 10 earned merits: ~70% of Legendaries.

Now this is very sad.

I don't think that it is sad to be honest.

1. merit is subjective and is not an accurate measure of net value at all(at this time) i could point you to quite a few legends that could blow away most of the top merit scorers in any debate that only have 50 merits or 60 or even less. Compared to ppl that have over 1000 earned merits. So user member value is nothing like merit. Partly because many legends are not posting too much these days anyway.

2. If a legend got 1000 merit for free but has never be of net value he should have 0 merit anyway (in a true merit system that only awards net positive posts with merit). Time joined plus negative or neutral value posts do not entitle you to get a score that is meant to demonstrate you are valuable.

However since it was impossible to retroactively assess legends past net positive input then the 1000 start is fair enough and is perhaps in some cases woefully under what they should have or much much more. HOwever it is hard to fix this because merit was not here for 9 yrs.

We need to work from now on and fix up merit then use it as a more reliable tool to encourage net positve and weed out net negative members.

[shield132]

To my mind everytime similar threads are opened, as I see non of suggestion is considered and a lot of replies (not in this thread) boosts spam instead of lowering it. I like idea of removing merit per post and 10 merit per thread once it gets deleted. But also to make everything fair, then every forum member must start from zero. At the same time I want to mention that spam is on every forum, on reddit and so on, you just can't prevent it but merit lowers it too.

[o_e_l_e_o]

What we all must keep in mind is if we want crypto to grow, we need new people. You guys are forgetting how important this forum is. For many it is the first place to get information and learn.

Too severe newbie restrictions would be a bad favour to the entire community.

I agree with you, to an extent. You can read my previous posts in this thread to see why I also think that a blanket restriction on all newbies from opening threads or posting in certain sections is the wrong way to go. However, forcing them to meet stricter criteria to earn the right to display a signature does not prevent them from reading, posting or discussing any topic they like - "getting information and learning", as you put it. A signature is not required to participate in the forum, and those who are here for the right reasons - to learn and contribute - will have no problems ranking up and earning their signature soon enough. Stricter criteria for displaying a signature, such as either 10 earned merit or minimum of member rank, would further help to reduce bounty spam, as the 1 merit rule is already doing.

We all want crypto to grow and new people to come in to this space, but we people who are genuinely interested - not hundreds more one-liner bounty spammers who are here only to try to make a quick buck from some scam ICO.

[Ispep]

OP's suggestions are simply just weird,in my opinion why remove signatures from newbies and not from all members of the forum
If we're to obliterate paid2post in here,then it should apply to every member and every rank
It'll be wrong to say"ok newbies you aren't allowed to earn via posting" but other ranks are

As for the issue of starting threads,you can use the report to the moderator button when you come across a bad thread,theymos is never gonna restrict anyone from sharing his or her views, and when it's done wrongly,such threads will be trashed
Edit:

Stricter criteria for displaying a signature, such as either 10 earned merit

If stricter measures are to be put in place will they also apply to high ranked members who only have air dropped merits and haven't earned any
And if not what measures are going to be taken against high ranked bounty spammers.

[o_e_l_e_o]

It'll be wrong to say"ok newbies you aren't allowed to earn via posting" but other ranks are

We already say that. Newbies are not able to display a signature since theymos introduced the "Enhanced newbie restrictions" back in September: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5030366.0. Newbies must now earn one merit to rank up to Junior Member prior to being able to display a signature. I think that's perfectly fair - why should someone be able to create an account and immediately start being paid to spam the forum with trash? If you want to earn money form your signature, then you should first have to earn the right to display a signature.

If stricter measures are to be put in place will they also apply to high ranked members who only have air dropped merits and haven't earned any

Newbie spammers far outnumber spammers at higher ranks, but I agree this should also be addressed. As I've said before, changing the requirement from 1 merit to 1 earned merit, or ideally 10 earned merit, would achieve this.

[cryptohunter]

It'll be wrong to say"ok newbies you aren't allowed to earn via posting" but other ranks are

I think that's perfectly fair - why should someone be able to create an account and immediately start being paid to spam the forum with trash? If you want to earn money form your signature, then you should first have to earn the right to display a signature.

Well, that's the problem isn't it.

Earning the right in a fair an objective way would be one thing. However you are not earning the right in that way. You are waiting for those whom get the highest rates of paid2post to

1. bother to look for your post in sections like the main discussion boards some merit sources have on ignore
2. dream that people with financial motivation for taking certain actions wont act selfishly
3. hope you opinions of even presentation of facts fit with the ideologies they want to push
4. hope that those merit sources even have the capacity to understand your posts are provably correct so they dont go meriting incorrect misleading posts that they just prefer the sound of or actually think are true.
5. Hope you have not offended them in the past so they hold a grudge because you presented previous facts they didn't appreciate being presented.

probably others too

So you see until you can make sure people all earn their right to paid2post on a fair and equal basis then your argument does not hold water.

The other points you make are built upon the  observable fact that merit is not some score you can present as a solid measure of value or achievement.

I agree something needs be done but it needs to be fair, transparent and provide a real meritocracy here.