Suggestion: disable Press board & lock topics unattended by OPs in past months

[GazetaBitcoin]

I reached to this idea after seeing a recent post of hilariousandco:

I still think the Press section should be locked/archived... or at the very least we clarify that only notable sources are allowed which should mean no crytpo-based sites.

The fact is that the Press board is spammed a lot by various users for various reasons: farming accounts, building notoriety, shilling, hoping to obtain visitors for a specific website and, lastly (and unfortunately), for sharing news with the forum members. I said unfortunately as that although this should be the main reason for posting in Press board, it became the last reason.

Even so, thinking that some users are trying to follow the rules and post in Press board just for sharing news, they usually don't share "notable press hits" (this being the board's description), but usual, regular news. Of course, here comes another debatable subject on what is notable and what is not notable, as there is no measure for quantifying a press release and see if it is -- let's say -- very notable (breaking news lol), notable, less notable etc. Practically, considering if a subject is notable or not is up to the topic's author. But, in my opinion, most of the articles shared there are not notable at all. For these reasons, the board's utility dropped very much and it seems now to be leading mostly to spam, shilling, accounts farming and other similar activities.


Another idea for reducing spamming, shilling and accounts farming is to lock the topics where the authors are not active anymore for a number of X months (let's say 3 months or other reasonable interval; of course, the term "reasonable" should be defined by someone in charge for taking such decision). The same should apply for topics where the authors are still active in the forum, but they didn't post anymore inside their topics for X months.

There are so many topics now which are continuously spammed and their authors abandoned them. They are either not active anymore or not interested anymore about their own topics. The most of these topics are just fueling spammers, leading to 0 benefits for the forum as a whole. If the topics would be locked automatically (by mods or by a script) after X amount of time since the author didn't write anything inside the respective topics, spam would be greatly reduced.

Opinions?

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[jackg]

Perhaps we should go on to define the difference between a notable source and something that isn't.

A news site in Europe or the US that has a lot of history and traction (ie the BBC, the guardian, the independent etc) could be listed there but other topics maybe not.

I wouldn't be against a "press bot" that scrapes certain sites for a mention of bitcoin or cryptocurrency in the headlines of NOTABLE newspapers and posts the date and headline with the link in the body of the post for users to discuss.

[Welsh]

Lets be honest here, most news sources have some sort of bias, and some users may also have a motive behind posting a particular press release. We see this all the time with mainstream news sources unrelated to Bitcoin, and I'm sure everyone has saw the misleading information over the COVID-19 space. So, although I would really like to see that section get cleaned up in the sense that only important press releases are displayed, and I would also really like to agree with Hilariousandco's proposal I think personally for the above point I made that non censorship is the best way of handling it, otherwise you'll have only sources which have been selected by theymos or whoever, and that in itself could lead to a bias being pushed out within that section. I can't think of anyway of fairly selecting what does, and doesn't get displayed there (ignoring obvious spam).

I think the Press section comes down to personal opinion on a lot of it. Personally, I would prefer not to see speculation based press releases as they usually have little substance behind them other than "Jeff said it will hit moon". Whereas, actual events that have taken place would be more appropriate, but generally its really down to the individual view point.

[LoyceV]

At the moment, there's not that much spam in Press: the oldest post on the first page was made on July 1. I didn't check for deleted topics, so it might be many recent spam has been removed already.

I like hilariousandco's idea to reject crypto-based news sites. Have a look at this list (not only for the Press board): it's no wonder a crypt-based site writes about crypto. It's news if it's the New York Times (this link is just a random example)!

[GazetaBitcoin]

That would be a part of the solution, yes. But it is hard to define what is notable and what is not, as you don't have a proper metric. Even if a publication would be considered in a select circle of respectable sources, this wouldn't automatically mean that all its articles are notable, right?

On the other hand, spammers would continue to exist. And they could farm their accounts by posting just articles from Guardian...

[hilariousetc]

That would be a part of the solution, yes. But it is hard to define what is notable and what is not, as you don't have a proper metric. Even if a publication would be considered in a select circle of respectable sources, this wouldn't automatically mean that all its articles are notable, right?

On the other hand, spammers would continue to exist. And they could farm their accounts by posting just articles from Guardian...

It's not that hard. Any crypto-based sites should be disallowed (or given their own sub but I would prefer we didn't allow them) as they're certainly not notable. Personally I think that board has served it's purpose now. It was created when any press article was notable but now articles are dime a dozen in the mainstream and even more so when there's now entire news websites dedicated to crpyto that post them multiple times daily. If the board is to stay then we at least should prohibit crypto sites as they're certainly not notable.

[khaled0111]

What about applying the new bumping rules to the press board! In my opininon, a news article shouldn't be bumped at all as it becomes less interesting/outdated over the time.
If someone thinks a topic deserves to appear on the first page then he has to use his bumping power.

On the other hand, spammers would continue to exist. And they could farm their accounts by posting just articles from Guardian...

If posts on the press board do not increase the total post count, then account farmers won't be interested in spamming there.

[DooMAD]

I think it would help if the rules were clearer.  I propose the following additions to the current rules:

1.  Official news agencies only.  No blogs.  No "cryptomedia" sites.

2.  Don't just post the article.  Include some of your own thoughts and insights about the article and/or the impact the news will have.  This will minimise the potential for low-quality posters to abuse it.

[GazetaBitcoin]

Thank you all for sharing your opinions! But how about the second suggestion? Nobody said anything about that. Do you think it would prevent the spam if the mods would close topics left unattended by the authors for long time?

[LoyceV]

Do you think it would prevent the spam if the mods would close topics left unattended by the authors for long time?

I just report them when I see useless bumps after a long time.

[Stedsm]

Why not conduct consensus with a few reputed members and if not, then all the users of this forum? I believe the number will be too small to even respond to the poll that will be available on that page but I don't see any possibility of this thing getting manipulated due to the fact that the reach of press section is least because most users here neither visit there out of 0 interest or they are here just for signature camps and as signature campaigns probably don't pay for that section, only those who are interested in the news may show up there with their opinion on whether the news is accurate or not. This will help reduce the biased opinions and bring betterment to the news part of this forum.

Do you think it would prevent the spam if the mods would close topics left unattended by the authors for long time?

I believe that closing the topics is fine but what if someone has something informational updates to add up in the future about the said news? I think there should be an "appeal" button or at least some sort of appealing to mods should be available to reopen (unlock) the thread in future.

[hilariousetc]

Thank you all for sharing your opinions! But how about the second suggestion? Nobody said anything about that. Do you think it would prevent the spam if the mods would close topics left unattended by the authors for long time?

Probably far too much effort and work unless theymos can automate it, but if someone has something valid and relevant to say then I don't think we should automatically prohibit them from doing so. There is a warning when someone tries to post in threads older than 120 days, but for spammy necrobumps just report them like Loyce said.

[DooMAD]

Thank you all for sharing your opinions! But how about the second suggestion? Nobody said anything about that. Do you think it would prevent the spam if the mods would close topics left unattended by the authors for long time?

I'm not convinced that part solves anything.  With regard to the spammers who bump older topics with low-quality contributions, they will just find an open topic to spam instead.  I don't think they're fussy.  The only reason that sort of thing is more noticeable in the Press board is due to the relatively low number of topics compared to other sub-forums.

And for the problem I mainly perceive with the Press board, the users who create the low quality threads using it like a dumping ground for copy/pasta and then abandoning the topic, it doesn't assist with that problem either.  There's no consequence for them.  Whether the topic is locked or not doesn't make any difference to the author if they're not planning on having an actual conversation.

[o_e_l_e_o]

I think it would help if the rules were clearer.  I propose the following additions to the current rules:

1.  Official news agencies only.  No blogs.  No "cryptomedia" sites.

2.  Don't just post the article.  Include some of your own thoughts and insights about the article and/or the impact the news will have.  This will minimise the potential for low-quality posters to abuse it.

+1. It would be a shame to see the board go entirely - since one line spammers tend to avoid the Press board, when an interesting article is posted, the discussion it generates is usually of far higher quality than you would get in Bitcoin Discussion. Now ideally, we should strive to improve the quality of the posts in Bitcoin Discussion, but in the meantime, the Press board does have a purpose provided the above rules are implemented. If not, then sure, shut it down.

I'm against auto-locking topics. Often in boards like Technical Discussion and Technical Support it is far more useful to bump a previous topic dealing with the same issue than to open a brand new thread and have people rehash all the same answers again. If it's a spam post, report it. If the entire thread is spam, report the first post and ask for it to be locked.