I want a way to demerit posts.

[Welsh]

Being able to put a warning at the top of those threads saying "This post is complete nonsense" would not necessarily be a bad thing. Having said that, given how petty some of the endless squabbles on the reputation board are, even among some of the most senior members on the forum, there is absolutely zero chance that such a feature wouldn't be misused.

That's almost censorship via influencing users opinions before they've even read the thread though. I hate the idea of a demerit button also, but I can understand why users would want one. Even if this was implemented perfectly it would cause a lot of hassle, but I don't think  because it would cause a lot of arguments between users that it should be a deterrent of adding something to the forum. Usually, not always you try to do something for the greater benefit of the forum, but how much value would a demerit button provide to the community as a whole? Honestly, we would likely only be providing a little satisfaction towards the person who wants it de-merited rather than providing something of use to the community.  As for the candidates that wouldn't misuse a demerit, I actually personally think a lot of merit sources would be unsuitable for the job, and for those that are suggesting DefaultTrust have a say in it, then I would completely disagree with that. Merit sources have been selected for their ability to reward posts which have been deemed high enough quality by themselves, and their merit behaviour has been deemed at least satisfactory by theymos on review.To expand on the unsuitability of merit sources for demeriting, I actually think there's only a select few on this forum that wouldn't intentionally misuse it, and then might accidentally from time to time.  Its one thing meriting posts that you like, but we are human, and no matter how much there will always be bias among users, and no one is perfect that's for sure. We've seen the arguments between DefaultTrust, and we've seen the disagreements of certain merit source behaviour. The unfortunate truth is demerit could be a powerful tool.

Here's an example of demerit misuse, lets say that demerit was allowed to be used by anyone that has earned x amount of merit. Well, lets say that user wants to be in a signature campaign, and there's a minimum merit requirement, and the campaign is currently full. The malicious user could prawl through the participants, and go through their entire history, and find low quality posts, because lets admit we've all got low quality posts at some point in time. They could demerit these posts, and then lower that users merit enough for them to be potentially removed from the signature campaign. I understand this is a extreme example, and is unlikely to be done without being caught, but this can be applied to almost anything. The thing is, people are competitive by nature, and there's several statistics out there documenting users merit gain, and I can guarantee you competitiveness will influence certain users judgement, and cause them to demerit try to "beat" that users merit score.

These are just examples, and I'm probably missing another 100 things demerit could be used for with malicious intent. Its a can of worms, and if this was to ever be implemented those that can demerit need to be selected carefully, and there should probably only be a handful of them rather than the amount of merit sources we have.

I like merit. You find a post that you subjectively think is good quality, and you reward it which has some benefits possibly to the user that posted it. If you don't like it, you don't merit it, and it has no negative effect on the user that posted. If demerit was a thing, users could subjectively view these statistic threads (as an example) that are posted fairly regularly now as bad posts, and demerit it into oblivion. Although, some of the statistic threads may be a little tedious, they are usually of good quality.

Having said all of this, I do share Gmaxwell's, and others discontent about users getting away with such bad quality posts, and sometimes just purposely spreading misinformation, but I think its better to counter that within a post of your own, than potentially implement a system which could be misused outside of these poor quality posts that have been specifically mentioned.

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[DooMAD]

From a moderation perspective, what are the guidelines when reporting a post for being "technobabble"?  Those posts where it might appear to inexperienced users that the post is perhaps just beyond their understanding because it sounds quite technical, but to experienced users they can see it has absolutely no basis in fact.

Are such posts generally perceived by moderators as merely a difference of opinion?  Or are the posts removed if the reporter is recognised as being astute enough to be able to tell what the facts really are?

[20kevin20]

~

This. I feel threatened, my posts from 2013-2015 would be golden buttons for the demerit function.

While I do also happen to find lots of completely crappy posts made by newbies, a demerit button does more bad than good in my opinion. One more misuse case for this button is if someone simply does not agree with my idea and beliefs thinking they're utter bullshit and uses the demerit button as a replacement of expressing his own thoughts opposing mine.

Sometimes silence and ignorance does more good than punishments. When I started being considered a shitposter & spammer on the forum and most of the higher-ranked members were ignoring my posts, that alone made me understand something must be wrong. I still feel the guilt over my first few spammy & crappy years on the forum, but the ignorance from members, signature campaign managers and basically everyone besides those contradicting my posts & calling out my bullshit made me change my attitude and behavior.

Nowadays, whenever I see a Newbie (or Full Member) posting crap I just skip their posts until I find a better one. If it's good enough, I'll merit it and after a while they'll understand what "quality" and "shit" posting is. The following might not be the best comparison (sorry but I really can't find a better one), but it works the same way we teach dogs to stop barking or sit. Once you give it treats for having a good behavior, it'll understand it's not okay to bark randomly so its attitude improves. If you start shouting or hitting a dog when their behavior is not the best, they'll only become more aggressive - in consequence, your violent actions become counterproductive.

Demeriting users could become counterproductive the same way. If I demerit 10 of your posts, you may start believing I have a problem with you and we may start a beef on the forum as if we don't have enough already between some of the users.

One idea I have is that we could have a "mark as nonsense" button which, after X amount of interactions from members with >1k merits, would automatically hide the post in threads. But this is turning, like you say, into censorship and I don't think it's the best path we can go for. I don't know if there is any way we can "punish" users for low posting quality without it turning into at least a semi-censorship button.

[LoyceV]

If something like this was ever implemented, I'd say definitely keep it separate to merit.  Maybe call it a "bullshit button".

That would apply to millions of posts, especially on the altcoin boards. It will be impossible to mark all BS, giving a false state of "not BS" to many unmarked BS posts.

I never got my deMerit button, but if gmaxwell gets one, I couldn't be happier!
I'm not even sure if I'd really want such a button, it comes with far too much power and will no doubt lead to heavy discussion. I currently can't think of many posts I'd like to deMerit. It's good to discuss the subject again though.

One idea I have is that we could have a "mark as nonsense" button which, after X amount of interactions from members with >1k merits, would automatically hide the post in threads.

The Ignore button could get brighter when more users have the user on ignore. To avoid abuse, the "ignore power" could be linked to earned Merit (like bump power). It saves time reading if you can quickly determine which posts are probably not worth it.

[Welsh]

From a moderation perspective, what are the guidelines when reporting a post for being "technobabble"?  Those posts where it might appear to inexperienced users that the post is perhaps just beyond their understanding because it sounds quite technical, but to experienced users they can see it has absolutely no basis in fact.

Are such posts generally perceived by moderators as merely a difference of opinion?  Or are the posts removed if the reporter is recognised as being astute enough to be able to tell what the facts really are?

From a moderation perspective; we are not going to remove a post simply because its wrong, no matter how wrong a post is, removing it would be censorship, and just because the original thread is wrong, doesn't mean that there isn't going to be quality discussion in the thread. Of course, this will differ slightly from moderator to moderator, as some have more patience, and others simply think misinformation is does with intent, and therefore trolling.

However, moderators will generally remove anything which is complete garbage, but more from a low quality perspective than actually being factually incorrect. Therefore we aren't going to remove a post for spreading misinformation or being factually incorrect. The downside, and the beauty of freedom of speech is that a lot of people will have incomprehensible opinions about whatever subject that's being discussed. Sometimes this is so far gone, that its quite entertaining to think there's people as delusional as this. For example, someone makes a post talking about how Bitcoin is the same as Bitcoin cash, or even more bullshit that Satoshi is theymos' nan. We aren't necessarily going to remove it if they actually talk about why they think that is, I'll admit the theymos' nan scenario would likely be a little trollish, but if they gave some reasons why they think that it may not be removed for trolling.

Instead, what I would advise is to refute every single point of theirs that is incorrect, so your combating the large amount of misinformation being spread. I know most of this community does this, and there's only a small fraction of users that have these outlandish posts. If we were a WIKI dedicateed to Bitcoin, I'd probably expect it to adhere more alongside of being factually correct, but we are a forum, and a forum has varying degrees of factually correct discussions. I think some discussions which are factually incorrect can actually lead to good discussions. I've seen this a numerous amount of times within the technical support, and development sections of the forum.

[o_e_l_e_o]

That's almost censorship via influencing users opinions before they've even read the thread though.

We already have newbie warning flags, which only need support from a single DT2 user (of which there are plenty), to display a similar such warning at the top of threads. I don't think a "bullshit warning" would necessarily be that different.

Not that I'm arguing for a demerit option (I'm not), just playing devil's advocate. A demerit button, despite all your caveats about carefully selecting a small number of users, would invariably be used at some point for differences of opinion. Just as I have never agreed with red tagging trolls or altcoin shills, using a demerit option for this reason would be inappropriate in my view. While I wouldn't necessarily object to it being used against posts which are flat out factually wrong (I mean, read the second post I linked to above - it is utterly meaningless), just like with scams, it would be impossible to enforce this fairly and impartially.

From a moderation perspective, what are the guidelines when reporting a post for being "technobabble"?

I actually reported the post I referred to above, not because it is wrong (now that would be censorship), but since the code is largely plagiarized (for example: https://www.c-sharpcorner.com/article/compute-sha256-hash-in-c-sharp/), and there is exactly zero chance a user with such a complete lack of understanding of what a hash even is could have written it, but the report has been left unhandled.

I don't know if there is any way we can "punish" users for low posting quality without it turning into at least a semi-censorship button.

There isn't, other than to do what has already been said - correct their nonsense and don't merit them.

[DdmrDdmr]

Merit already has a rather multifaceted appearance, being used in all sorts of ways, although I still believe that the general principle of interest/quality is the main (certainly not unique) case of usage. Opening up to counter merits by demeriting cannot escape being wrongly used and abused, likely surpassing in effect the abuse that may happen on the positive side of the reflection in the mirror (namely merit).

Really, the case scenario type in the OP calls for a separate unit of measure in any case, closer to a technical dislike feature that could be displayed in multiple ways (bullshit graphical image, thumbs down, caganer, or whatever). Since any post can be refuted further along the thread, that should probably be the first approach to follow. After all, it allows to convey the counterarguments, which constitute a natural approach.
 
There are though cases where the misinformation could lead to consequences, and refuting 2 pages down the thread seems far from optimal to warn the shallow reader. Here the technical dislike feature could play a role, but somehow allowing to jump to the counterarguments.

Obviously any similar feature would need to be very limited in terms of people entitled to use it, and perhaps would require a (controversial) cherry-picked delimited set members per board that could use it, based on technical knowledge on that specific board. This should perhaps have technicality fallacies at heart, and not subject to opinion based scoped which are part of a forum’s freedom of speech.

[DooMAD]

moderators will generally remove anything which is complete garbage, but more from a low quality perspective than actually being factually incorrect. Therefore we aren't going to remove a post for spreading misinformation or being factually incorrect. The downside, and the beauty of freedom of speech is that a lot of people will have incomprehensible opinions about whatever subject that's being discussed. Sometimes this is so far gone, that its quite entertaining to think there's people as delusional as this. For example, someone makes a post talking about how Bitcoin is the same as Bitcoin cash, or even more bullshit that Satoshi is theymos' nan. We aren't necessarily going to remove it if they actually talk about why they think that is, I'll admit the theymos' nan scenario would likely be a little trollish, but if they gave some reasons why they think that it may not be removed for trolling.

Instead, what I would advise is to refute every single point of theirs that is incorrect, so your combating the large amount of misinformation being spread.

Okay, thanks for the clarification.  I had a feeling that was the case, so it's pretty much what I've been doing.  While I sometimes wish certain posts could be swept under the rug, it's probably not the best solution over the long term.  Much better to confront it head on and provide justification for why it's wrong so that other users can learn from it.

//EDIT:  Oh, and let's not forget ridicule.  Also an acceptable alternative to "demerits" or a "bullshit button".  Looks like we already have all the tools we need.  Just be sure to make good use of them.  

[20kevin20]

~
The Ignore button could get brighter when more users have the user on ignore. To avoid abuse, the "ignore power" could be linked to earned Merit (like bump power). It saves time reading if you can quickly determine which posts are probably not worth it.

That is a feature that isn't available yet (so just an idea), right? I have never seen a brighter Ignore button here so I was wondering if it's a thing or just a suggestion.

~
There isn't, other than to do what has already been said - correct their nonsense and don't merit them.

Well, then I personally think this is the best solution rather than an easy-to-abuse demerit button. Even if we had some rules for it, they could only be subjective just like the term "burstposting" or "constructive posting" is - leading to more unnecessary arguments.

It just seems to me like it'd be an unnecessary additional stress on the mods and members of BTCTalk having to solve disputes about the upcoming demerit issues and abuses. As you say, it brings additional power to higher-ranked members and that isn't fair nor is it okay.

[Welsh]

That is a feature that isn't available yet (so just an idea), right? I have never seen a brighter Ignore button here so I was wondering if it's a thing or just a suggestion.

There used to be a feature where if a user was ignored by multiple users it would have a shading of yellow/orange depending on the amount of users ignoring them. It was removed.

//EDIT:  Oh, and let's not forget ridicule.  Also an acceptable alternative to "demerits" or a "bullshit button".  Looks like we already have all the tools we need.  Just be sure to make good use of them.  

I've seen public ridicule change the behaviour of certain people over the years. However, that takes a certain type of person to own up to what they're been doing, and have some emotional intelligence to change which unfortunately is quite rare.

There are though cases where the misinformation could lead to consequences, and refuting 2 pages down the thread seems far from optimal to warn the shallow reader. Here the technical dislike feature could play a role, but somehow allowing to jump to the counterarguments.

Obviously any similar feature would need to be very limited in terms of people entitled to use it, and perhaps would require a (controversial) cherry-picked delimited set members per board that could use it, based on technical knowledge on that specific board. This should perhaps have technicality fallacies at heart, and not subject to opinion based scoped which are part of a forum’s freedom of speech.

Hence the reason I'd prefer to actually push for a optional feature of sorting posts by merit, instead of having a demerit option. A well thought out post refuting false claims, and incorrect facts will likely receive a bit of merit for calling out their bullshit. If we had the option to filter threads via merit earned within that thread I think that could be a solution we are looking for without adding in a demerit option. Abuse via this feature would be limited, and wouldn't have the consequences of a demerit feature.

By default, the thread should be displayed as chronological order, perhaps in certain sections such as the technical support section we could opt to sorting by merited posts as the default option, and think in these certain circumstances could be a more beneficial way of going about things. Its sort of like a solved button, but instead of relying on the OP to issue that, its a community wide effort to reward those that are combating misinformation on the forum, as well as providing worthy posts.

[LoyceV]

That is a feature that isn't available yet (so just an idea), right? I have never seen a brighter Ignore button here so I was wondering if it's a thing or just a suggestion.

There used to be a feature where if a user was ignored by multiple users it would have a shading of yellow/orange depending on the amount of users ignoring them. It was removed.

That must have been before I joined. If it was removed because it can easily be abused to target specific users, it might be possible again if the "ignore power" depends on earned Merit.

I'd prefer to actually push for a optional feature of sorting posts by merit

Although I'd like to see this implemented, I can think of several reasons why this is a bad idea. Merit sources for instance would overlook newly made good posts.

[suchmoon]

Although I'd like to see this implemented, I can think of several reasons why this is a bad idea. Merit sources for instance would overlook newly made good posts.

If it's optional/opt-in then it could still work. Merit sources can switch to regular sort order if they want to see all posts.

That must have been before I joined. If it was removed because it can easily be abused to target specific users, it might be possible again if the "ignore power" depends on earned Merit.

Same with this. It could work just fine if it's opt-in. It would still display all the garbage to Google and whatnot, but users who are tired of the useless noise could save time by skipping it over.

Maybe even a demerit/bullshit feature could work this way: not shown publicly (somewhat like bump scores) but if a post accumulates a certain amount of that hidden demerit/bullshit score then opted-in users could see a warning that it is likely bullshit.

[KaratX]

Every good posts deserves a merit but it still depends if readers like the post or love it enough to give it a merit or more but demerit a post just because you don't like what the person wrote sounds unfair, just leave things as it is, make that person realize what you feel about his or her post then move on

[Jawhead999]

-snip-

You're misunderstanding here, it's not about the "persons" but it clear the "post". Even if this demerited system will been implemented in the future, only a few qualified user can use it and most of them know how to use it properly. I could agree with @gmaxwell about demerited system about that's case you provide, it's really make people confuse about it... Especially people who didn't expert on technical things.

[Lafu]

The " demerit posts " thing is maybe a good idea and on the other side not.
Guess it can be happened that this would be abused from some Users also .
To avoid this abuse a merit is deducted exactly as if you gave a good post a merit .

Before there comes a demerit button or option i would say just report the post to the moderators or just ignore the post and dont give a merit!
But i dont like " demerit post " idea and guess this makes it for new Users more complicated .
Just my 2 cents

[teeGUMES]

Everyone is getting too caught up on the idea that this would remove merit. I would consider it more like a newbie flag, but rather than being placed on a person it would be on a post. If the post was filled with false/misleading information then it should show up as tinted/slightly red if whomever(s) can activate this button/option use it. I'm just throwing ideas out there but this is why this is being discussed.
Drop the idea that this removes merit from someone's post/account and lets discuss a way to stop misleading comments from parting newbies and their money. A LOT of people don't read whole threads or do any of their own research, those that do should be able to protect a little better.

[philipma1957]

  I was going to reply yesterday and decided to wait until today.
I would like to say all posts given merit prior to 2019 should be off limits for a year.

Also if you do give demerit power just how much power to demerit is given
 5 points 10 points 25 points?

Do we allow an entire drop to the next level?

In my case 1309 merits would be needed to drop me to Hero.

[gmaxwell]

I've seen public ridicule change the behaviour of certain people over the years. However, that takes a certain type of person to own up to what they're been doing, and have some emotional intelligence to change which unfortunately is quite rare.

They have to both care and have the intelligence to understand the source of it.  If the motivation behind the stupid posts is that they're intentionally trying to manipulate people, troll, or because they're just dumb as a box of rocks... it's not likely to work.

And, of course, other posters know this-- so in a lot of cases people just don't bother to issue the well deserved ridicule even where the source might be responsive to it.  Instead they get responses with more confused people.

I think if we could always reliably and consistently tell who was irredeemably stupid, manipulating, or trolling then it wouldn't be a big deal-- removing their posts would be sufficient. But there is a huge grey area where we can't tell.

I've been seeing quite a lot of "guide" and "summary" threads recently that this could be applied to. Not quite the same "maliciously dishonest" threads that gmaxwell is referring to, but just as incorrect. The users obviously have absolutely no idea what they are writing about,

I've wondered if some of these are machine generated. GP2-Large tweaked for a particular subject can do some impressive writing, especially with a bit of manual fixups. If they're not yet-- they probably will be soon.

The idea that online communities can deal with junk content by just letting all readers figure it out on their own has been a bad idea for a long time, but it's on the verge of getting significantly worse.  It isn't that readers can't be trusted to sort out junk from not junk without help, by in large they can-- but it is a massive waste of their time. Unless you want to optimize for a community of spammers, idiots, and other persons whos time is utterly worthless you need to do something.

Merit is an example of something. But it's one-sided.

Everyone is getting too caught up on the idea that this would remove merit. I would consider it more like a newbie flag, but rather than being placed on a person it would be on a post.

Right. Apparently I screwed up by using the word "demerit" in my post. Removing merits is not something I consider particularly useful.

[2112]

What we really need is a button that stabs someone in their motherfucking face over the internet.

This isn't going to work the way you think it will.

Right. Apparently I screwed up by using the word "demerit" in my post. Removing merits is not something I consider particularly useful.

This is actually good thinking.

And if "Euro Chems" is saying otherwise, then perhaps they've been using some of their own "chems".

So you were on a right track earlier in the thread that you'd linked to, and which made you angry.

Oh, and let's not forget ridicule.

This guy is on the right track to the solution.

Basically, any one-dimensional solution isn't going to work in the social practice; it doesn't matter whether you call it merit, karma, reputation or something similar. It will always be vulnerable to the abuse, whether you call it "merit cycling", "karma farming", "circle jerking", "mutual admiration society" or something similar.

What could work is adding another dimension to the "merit value". It is hard for me to come up with a good name in English, but for sake of this thread lets use the word "funniness". The funniness can be both intentional and unintentional. It really won't matter in the grand scheme of things. Even now some people do give merit while posting a disclaimer that it made them laugh.

I've seen such systems working quite well on other forums that do support plugin architectures. I know this one theoretically does, but it wasn't kept up to date with the official code base, so they won't simplify implementation. I will not post links to those forums because of they aren't in English and to avoid doxing myself.

For the people like gmaxwell with mathematical mind the argument is simple: avoid attempting to order people linearly like the Real numbers. For each two real X & Y numbers exactly one is true X < Y , X = Y or X > Y. At least switch to the Complex numbers, where there are only two choices: either X = Y or it doesn't.

For the people preferring more humanistic approach I recommend familiarizing themselves with the philosophical thinking of Herbert Marcuse that he published in his https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-Dimensional_Man . This book is from 1964 so it will not contain anything related to the modern social media. But it does contain lots of very useful thought about the things that are discussed in this thread. Even where Marcuse is wrong, the passage of time and social experience gained until now will make those places obvious.

[TECSHARE]

This is a HORRRIBLE idea. I can not overstate this enough. Merit and the trust system are already heavily abused to the point of their being almost totally counterproductive. Adding negative merits will turn this place into just another retarded fucking echo chamber like every other site. All that will happen is people will only say what is popular, and everything else will either be punished, or silenced. This place will then proceed to completely turn into a cesspool instead of just mostly a cesspool. This MUST NOT happen under any circumstances.