Merit for approved reports to moderator

[mikelsmith2020]

Well I was just thinking that to be able to get a merit your topic should have a sense or let's say it should be on topic whether you agree or doesn't agree to a statement it can be worth receiving merits right? it was implemented to avoid unnecessary off topics or spam messages isn't or let's say spam free forum.

It just came to my mind what if a user helps the moderators to clean the forum and in return the user will be grant a 1 merit per approved reports or maybe 10 or 20 or any number of reports. I didn't say that the moderators can't handle things on their own but we all know that there's a time that the moderators might miss some unnecessary topics from the forum.

Just want to know your thoughts. Is it good idea or not?

[TryNinja]

1. Create a shit ton of fake accounts.
2. Spam!
3. Report with your main account.
4. ????
5. Profit.

[Lafu]

This would be abused from a lot of newbies and they just doing it then for the merits and not for helping the Forum !

In my opinion a not so good idea !

[joeperry]

I like the idea of the user helping the moderators to maintain the forum clean and spam free however the idea of reports exchanged to merits I think it's not gonna work out bud, knowing this forum for years...most of the users here will abuse this kind of implementation to the forum. How?

Creating an account is free and can be easily be used by anyone which means they can create multiple new accounts just to post trash topics and be reported by the main/real account of that user so he/she can easily earn merit maybe a special badge/title badge on the profile would work? (you know just a recognition badge that will changed every 100 approved reports, 200 reports, etc. for helping the forum clean but doesn't have anything special just a plain title badge that you might wear to let other see or not.)

[xtraelv]

Was already done in the Russian forum.

Worked well for a while and then became a problem.

Now no longer done.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4330297.0

[yahoo62278]

I like the idea of the user helping the moderators to maintain the forum clean and spam free however the idea of reports exchanged to merits I think it's not gonna work out bud, knowing this forum for years...most of the users here will abuse this kind of implementation to the forum. How?

Creating an account is free and can be easily be used by anyone which means they can create multiple new accounts just to post trash topics and be reported by the main/real account of that user so he/she can easily earn merit maybe a special badge/title badge on the profile would work? (you know just a recognition badge that will changed every 100 approved reports, 200 reports, etc. for helping the forum clean but doesn't have anything special just a plain title badge that you might wear to let other see or not.)

There have been talks of possible reporter badges for those who have 300 or more reports, Maybe they will be implemented soon.

Far as merits go, it's not really hard to earn them guys. I graded a small campaign of 16 users earlier this evening and 13 of the 16 participants earned merits this week. Some earned a lot, some only a few but they all did well as far as merits go.

[o_e_l_e_o]

1. Create a shit ton of fake accounts.
2. Spam!
3. Report with your main account.
4. ?
5. Profit.

Steps 1 and 2 are not even necessary. Just pick a random altcoin bounty or ANN thread and you can report every post for being low value or spam and still be marked "good" >95% of the time. Combine that with an automated tool such as suchmoon's, and you could be top of the merit leaderboard in a single day. Doing so doesn't really help the forum, though, as no one is reading those spam threads anyway.

But yes, it is far too easy to game, just like all the previous suggestions of the same thing, or of reporting competitions or financial rewards.

Still holding out for badges, but I remember theymos saying there was some problem with implementing them?

Edit: Found the quote.

Sorry for the wait, when I went to implement this it ended up being quite a bit more of a can of worms than I originally thought because of opting out, preventing certain report-count-padding strategies, etc. It's still on my to-do list, but there are several things above it.

[Stalker22]

In my opinion, giving merits for reports to moderator would only make things worse. Many people would try to abuse that.
That's right, moderators can't keep track of everything and be online 24/7, which is why it's important that all forum members participate. We should all be responsible for cleaning up this forum and reporting spammers and shitposters without the need for additional incentives.

But, is resistance futile? That's the real question.

[hilariousetc]

As others have said, this would just be abused. I do think there should be some sort of rewards for reporting posts though as it's a thankless task and a waste of time for most people so most users probably don't bother. In the past the very high reporters have been made made mods but that rarely happens these days and there's users with tens of thousands accurate reports so there's not really anything in terms of a reward for reporting and you notice it sometimes as a lot of spam threads or threads that are blatantly in the wrong section don't get reported for a very long time if at all. As yahoo said though, there has been talk of reporter badges but I'm not sure if that'll ever happen. I think they should happen though and should come with a few perks as a reward. Maybe there could be some sort of special rank included. I think if there were badges/rewards people probably would start reporting more and everyone benefits.

[Pmalek]

it was implemented to avoid unnecessary off topics or spam messages isn't or let's say spam free forum.

No, the merit system was implemented to award quality posts and members who participate in healthy community discussions.
It was also introduced to prevent users from creating accounts, spamming the forum and ranking up based on activity only.

[Rikafip]

Well I was just thinking that to be able to get a merit your topic should have a sense or let's say it should be on topic whether you agree or doesn't agree to a statement it can be worth receiving merits right? it was implemented to avoid unnecessary off topics or spam messages isn't or let's say spam free forum.

It just came to my mind what if a user helps the moderators to clean the forum and in return the user will be grant a 1 merit per approved reports or maybe 10 or 20 or any number of reports. I didn't say that the moderators can't handle things on their own but we all know that there's a time that the moderators might miss some unnecessary topics from the forum.

Just want to know your thoughts. Is it good idea or not?

Bad idea.

It is pretty simple: be active, report wrongdoings on the forum(scammers, spammers, plagiarizers etc) , and you will get merit from other members. No need for some automated merit dispenser. If there is a chance for something to be abused, rest assure it will be.

[Steamtyme]

Sorry just a no from me. Reporting should only be done because you want to help in cleaning up the forum, or at least helping point out violations in the forums policy. This isn't something a lot of people do... I've been really slacking off myself, but it should be done as a thankless task imo. This way even if all you do is report something you come across that's great, no need to be rewarded for every little good dead done in life. If you have more time and feel like spending hours to comb through threads great; consider the reward the time passed if you were bored. That's when I used to get most of my reporting done.

Let's just leave merit out of a lot of things. It has one purpose and it works.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

<snip>

Yep, that's exactly what would happen without a doubt.  Anything that can be abused on the forum will be abused to the max by shitposters, scammers, account farmers, and all the other seedy elements we have lurking about.  The only thing merits should be used for is to reward good posts, not as any other kind of reward.

If any recognition needs to be given to members who make a lot of good reports, maybe Theymos could create that reporter badge thing that was suggested a while back.  I don't see a need for it myself, but I certainly wouldn't involve the merit system in something like that.

Reporting should only be done because you want to help in cleaning up the forum, or at least helping point out violations in the forums policy.

I agree, and just speaking for myself I'm not looking for any sort of recognition as far as my reports go.  I'm happy if mods act on them.  That's a reward in and of itself.

[tranthidung]

Reporting bad-/ spam-/ shit-posts is a good thing and help to clean the forum up but as always all things can be compromised. Reporting can be abused to achieve report points too.

On the other hand, reporting can not increase your quality here (somewhat) because your quality or your contributions here for the community include lots of different activities:

• Reporting: Yes but it is only part of it.
• Making good threads: Yes. Helpful threads are always helpful and make lives of the others (newbies in particular) much more easier. Threads can not be burried under mud.
• Making good posts to help answering questions of the others: Yes
• Finding and fighting against scammers: Yes but it requires specific skills to do that.
• Reporting bugs of the forum (by normal using or testing the new forum software - Epochtalk): Yes
• Maybe more stuffs

I believe the picture has become clearer, from that you can see reporting does not deserve automatically rewarded-merits.

[skarais]

I know you have a good desire to keep forums from various types of spam, junk, and low quality posts. But this time your idea cannot be well received and many people will consider it a loophole that people can use to benefit.
There are quite a number of quality posters that have contributed and done well so far and rid this forum of most spam, junk, and low quality posts but they don't expect to merit from what they have done.

In my opinion, keeping forums from spam, junk and low quality posts is a must which is certainly one of the conditions why you are in this forum. I don't think that reporting this type of post will improve someone is quality, but that work is part of our active contribution during the forum.

If you want to get merit, then you have to consistently do something like:

• Always post quality, constructive, informative and useful for others
• Create thread [guides or tutorials] that are useful for other members
• Report user scam, scam projects, and plagiarism
• Etc

tranthidung have mentioned it more fully and if you do then you appear to be entitled to get merit from other users for your work. Dont let merit prevent you from doing something more useful, you must try and continue to be consistent in doing something.

[masulum]

@op this is not good idea, reporting post is a part of all member and don't need to ask merit to make any report. Merit can be get easyly from your post, so forget merit for any approved report, TryNinja also giving you simple answer but it will very potential happen if member who make a reports get merit.

[InvoKing]

@op this is not good idea

The idea of recognising the effort of members reporting spammers is good but for sure not with merit points, which could be abused. I remember theymos is planning a badge award. I don't know if this idea is still available or not?

[masulum]

The idea of recognising the effort of members reporting spammers is good but for sure not with merit points, which could be abused. I remember theymos is planning a badge award. I don't know if this idea is still available or not?

Yeah I remember about badge for reporters. Maybe this is not a main issue so theymos hold this plan. Of course this is easy for theymos to create some additional codes, but, since this is not an priority target, so no badge until today. Maybe in 2020 this plan come true.