A Newbies Perspective on BitcoinTalk

[topshelfcrypto]

I've been on the forum since only a month or two ago, and this is my 30th post. I thought I would offer some pros and cons I see from my limited perspective here.

There is a chief criticism I want to offer, but I feel that I should balance it by first citing some positive features about the forum that make it worthwhile being here.

The forum is a great resource with lots of archived knowledge to help guide people new to the world of crypto in how to better understand the technology and terminology, buying, selling, and trading, and how to conduct safe transactions and avoid common pitfalls and scams. There are many very knowledgeable users who take time to answer questions and some have written great threads that have become stickies or are otherwise comprehensive guides to ins-and-outs of different subdomains of the industry and niche topics.  It also provides a needed marketplace for the offer of related goods and services and I feel there are many looking out for each other, holding each other to integrity.

However there is one thing I seem to notice about the content of the forum that in my opinion lowers the overall quality of experience. I believe this thing is probably a function of the forum being so big and becoming a victim of it's own success, so I'm not sure whether there is truly anything that can be done about it, or if anything even needs to be done. So here it is ...

I see a lot of low-quality posts, that I suspect people are posting not because they necessarily have an important contribution to make, but moreso because they are trying to achieve a better standing in the forum or some higher level to unlock certain features that come with having more posts, more merit, etc.  From what I have read and pieced together, it looks like there were issues in the past with spam, scams, fake accounts, and gaming, which caused moderators to implement some systems of reward to limit newbies from accessing certain benefits until they were more established.  I can totally see the reasoning behind this. For example in my case as a newbie, I saw I was not allowed to post images or some other things until I reached 30 posts. I tried my best to contribute quality content the whole while, which is why it's taken me over a month or more to reach this number, when I could see that if I had wanted to I could have easily done it in a few days, which is what I feel some others are doing.  How this manifests, in one example, is how I see there are posts that are many years old, some stickies, that people still reply to just to say something like "thanks for that info!" or "yes I agree this is a problem", etc. that really add nothing of value but increasing their post count.  I also notice in some cases that when folks who do try to post a legitimate question or add something of value to the discussion, then sometimes those posts are quickly swallowed up and passed over or left in the dust by these other types of comments so that no one really sees or engages with them.  Maybe in other cases I think people are finding a reason to post about things that, even though they look like detailed responses, are really just a rehash of what's already been said before, and just making conversation for the sake of conversation.

Like I said, there IS a lot of great content here, but I also see a lot of what seems to me like very frivolous posting, that no one is really paying attention to, but is just made as a token, and is understood by others to be just that, of adding to a mill that eventually grinds out some kind of benefit or privilege to the user.  

Perhaps I'm wrong and I'm open to hearing if others disagree. Also I think the mods and those setting the rules are still doing a great job regardless, and that maybe there is just a happy medium or compromise in how to maintain the quality and integrity of the forum but there is never going to be a perfect system or way to prevent gamers from gaming whatever system or rules are implemented. This is crypto after all which, let's face it, some portion of folks are attracted to for the promise of chasing easy money. Overall still seems to a be a valuable place to be, just wanted to offer this one criticism that seems apparent to me.

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[BIT-BENDER]

Knowing the Right place where to drop a type of post should also be on your perspective.

[rhomelmabini]

No, you're totally correct besides that is really apparent to those boards that are bombarded by spams even they know those are mega threads and posts will really passed up they still wanted to post for the sake of a required posts if they are payed for it. Nevertheless, those are the mindset of user here that I really don't like too and even just saying thank you they'll made it for over a two sentences just for the sake of the characters needed. Anyways the admin had slowly combat those by implementing such rules like the new bumping sytem and well, to this low quality posts and the blah blah sake for posting the way to counter it is the "Report to moderator" button if you think they are just to spam the thread or if they are off-topic, the mods could handle those.

Knowing the Right place where to drop a type of post should also be on your perspective.

I believe he posted it in the right board, just correct me if this has just been moved here by the OP or by a mod.

[CucakRowo]

- This is crypto after all which, let's face it, -

The way you draw conclusions that bitcointalk forum is identical to crypto is not quite right. Place to find knowledge, do discussions and socialize are what i get in here.

You do not need to give a sh*t about other comments or posts that you think are low. Not all forum members have the same quality tbh. Forums, as general, is a meeting place between good person and ugly bad b**ch not good person ( why every time i said this quotes, i always thinking about joker).

btw, from the way you wrote, I suggest you visit this board https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=83.0 more often. Try to make a thread on that board. I am sure, that board will suite with your personal character.

[LoyceV]

The reason for almost all of this is quite simple: posting pays! It can be someone (or a bot) using many new accounts to spam links to a website, for promoting a thread, for scamming, or an older account advertising something in their signature. If it's a signature campaign, it mainly depends on the campaign manager who they select for the "job".
This forum's tries to be as free as possible, and that means it's not possible to stop all spam. It also means people are allowed to earn money here, and that's something not many forums allow.

The best you can do is click "Report to moderator" on any post that breaks the rules or is low quality in general.

Also: Welcome to Bitcointalk! I highly appreciate new users who aren't spammers, that's what this forum and Bitcoin need to grow.

[Lafu]

So for my experience and start into the forum it was back nearly in 2014 with just an a guest Account,
i have readed without doing a Single Post 2 years.
In this time i has learned very much about all crypto related and the basics of the forum.

Welcome to the forum by the way!

[Loganota]

I also realize what you see. Especially in the local board that I participate (Portuguese). But you'll find that anyone who enters the forum just for the money, not the cryptocurrencies, will leave just as they arrived. Who stays is who wants to contribute with knowledge. Features such as reporting to the moderator are a great way to prevent such people from proliferating through the forum.

[UserU]

So for my experience and start into the forum it was back nearly in 2014 with just an a guest Account,
i have readed without doing a Single Post 2 years.
In this time i has learned very much about all crypto related and the basics of the forum.

Welcome to the forum by the way!

Bitcointalk had Guest accounts back then? Oohhh

[tranthidung]

Welcome to the forum, OP.

I would like to congratulate you by joining the forum recent months because if you joined it back in the year of 2017, you would have seen more shitposts than now. The merit system changed the forum, to become better and have general higher post quality. That is what you have seen now and what you experienced after creating your account recently.

You should feel happy about that, fella.

As LoyceV guided, you can help the forum by reporting bad posts every day. I have more guides for you to have better experience with bad-posts reporting. You can do your reports when you see bad posts or you can customize your patrol page to target at specific boards to fight against bad posts (read it in my topic).
[Guide] Reporting effectively, written by @Welsh who is a forum moderator.
Do you often use report button? There are guides to more effectively report (My topic)

[rhomelmabini]

Bitcointalk had Guest accounts back then? Oohhh

Guests can only read stuff, back in the day, they were allowed to post as Anonymous. Guests can't see trust ratings/history or merit history, and can't see Investigations board.

This is a particular example of Guest post way back then https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=12156.0;topicseen, but I guess it's better that you've signup here rather than just posting anonymously and grow your account how you wanted it to be. The feature I guess is still enabled in the forum AFAIK.

[UserU]

This is a particular example of Guest post way back then https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=12156.0;topicseen, but I guess it's better that you've signup here rather than just posting anonymously and grow your account how you wanted it to be. The feature I guess is still enabled in the forum AFAIK.

Yup. I can imagine the level of abuses which could stem more than the benefits. Plagiarism, spam, phishing and trolls.

The feature is prevalent in many forum software, but I feel its best to leave it disabled for its own good.

[Findingnemo]

This forum offers freedom to a certain level because this is forum based bitcoin and cryptos which is to bring freedom to the payment.This forum has rules and also merit to reduce spammer not to survive too long.It is not completely possible to have this forum spam free but community members helping as much as they can in the moderation by clicking report to moderator whenever they see useless comments.You also welcomed to join spam-fight club.

[topshelfcrypto]

- This is crypto after all which, let's face it, -

The way you draw conclusions that bitcointalk forum is identical to crypto is not quite right. Place to find knowledge, do discussions and socialize are what i get in here.

You do not need to give a sh*t about other comments or posts that you think are low. Not all forum members have the same quality tbh. Forums, as general, is a meeting place between good person and ugly bad b**ch not good person ( why every time i said this quotes, i always thinking about joker).

btw, from the way you wrote, I suggest you visit this board https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=83.0 more often. Try to make a thread on that board. I am sure, that board will suite with your personal character.

Wow, looks like you got offended. Too bad you didn't quote my complete sentence there and probably misread what I actually said.

This is crypto after all which, let's face it, some portion of folks are attracted to for the promise of chasing easy money.

I did not insinuate that everyone is like this, I was very careful to say that some are, and if you deny this then you're denying reality.

I believe the perspective I shared is more objective than biased, and I simply described what I perceive. I didn't make a judgement about anyone, except that the posts add little to no value.  Note that is not me saying the people themselves are of low value. You really need to read and think more carefully about what I said.

[topshelfcrypto]

Knowing the Right place where to drop a type of post should also be on your perspective.

I believe he posted it in the right board, just correct me if this has just been moved here by the OP or by a mod.

No, it was originally placed here, and it seemed the most correct place. It's the meta board and this is feedback about the forum.