[Proposal] Hiding the signature space in the Off-Topic section

[AverageGlabella]

That's the problem.

How is this the problem? If more signature campaigns paid for off topic posts you would be complaining again because there would be more people posting in there. Off topic is probably the easiest place to go unnoticed for spammers and if they are getting paid to post in there then they are more likely to post in there increasing the amounts of spam.

I do not think removing signatures in that board is the solution but I think putting it into the forums rules that signature campaigns cannot pay for certain boards could be a possibility.

Can you name some signature campaigns that are allowing writing in off-topic section (maybe it is Bitvest and 777Coin)?

Checking the signature campaign topic shows that only 777coin and Bitvest allow for posts to be paid in the off topic board. I think there will probably be bounties and many of them which pay for posting in off topic though.

[Pmalek]

And have all that spam spill over to the normal parts of the forum? No thanks! As far as I know, most bitcoin campaigns don't pay for posts in Off-Topic. Those that do, probably don't care about the quality of the posts anyways. The nonsense should be battled by creating self-moderated threads, local rules, and reporting anyone breaking the rules.

@dkbit98
You are forgetting about altcoin signature campaigns. I am sure there are those who allow it. I really don't want to go and check though

[dkbit98]

You are forgetting about altcoin signature campaigns. I am sure there are those who allow it. I really don't want to go and check though

I mention Altcoins board in my previous post, and some campaigns allow it, some don't allow it like Chipmixer for example.

[AverageGlabella]

You are forgetting about altcoin signature campaigns. I am sure there are those who allow it. I really don't want to go and check though

The altcoin signature campaigns and bounties will literally pay for anything the majority over there pay for posts in off topic. If there is a problem its probably from the ones over there instead of the Bitcoin paying ones. I think there probably needs to be something done about the signature campaigns over in the altcoin board and start punishing those behind the campaigns including the managers.

[Charles-Tim]

---Snipped---

What should have solved this is to report the low quality posts, but most good posters do not post in off-topic which makes the reporting option not effective enough, most quality post are in Bitcoin boards. If you check the altcoins boards, try to read long threads, you will also still see many low quality posts while some are reported for deletion.

Signature was allowed on off-topic board by the admin, I do not also know why but admin or moderators can give us answer to this which can be a good reason. Some campaign managers can see the board useful, especially those with participants that require high number of weekly posts and some bounty campaigns. After posting in almost all boards, they can consider participants to also still post in off-topic board (but not low quality posts).

This can be a repetition as I have once commented, there is no barrier to report posts in off-topic, report the posts. You can even also report some poor posters to the campaign managers. But if to hide the signature space on off-topic board, this may not be considered. Also do not see off-topic as as a board with quality contents like Bitcoin boards.

[pooya87]

Another solution could be to forbid the managers from rewarding for off-topic posts.

Imagine a spammer who no longer gets paid to spam in a certain board, they won't just stop spamming. Instead they simply migrate to another place and spam there since they are still "paid to spam".

[Pmalek]

You are forgetting about altcoin signature campaigns. I am sure there are those who allow it. I really don't want to go and check though

I mention Altcoins board in my previous post, and some campaigns allow it, some don't allow it like Chipmixer for example.

I just went back and read your earlier post to see if I misunderstood it, but I don't think I did. I was trying to say that altcoin and bounty signature campaigns probably count posts in the off-topic board. Your reply is about how signature campaigns don't count posts in the altcoin boards, but you weren't talking about altcoin and bounty signature campaigns. It was only about bitcoin paid campaigns from the way it looks. 

[BlackHatCoiner]

How is this the problem? If more signature campaigns paid for off topic posts you would be complaining again because there would be more people posting in there.

No I wouldn't. It's not the total of the participants who use that subforum to earn money; it's the quality of those participants' posts.

Imagine a spammer who no longer gets paid to spam in a certain board, they won't just stop spamming. Instead they simply migrate to another place and spam there since they are still "paid to spam".

Should we, then, create a subforum called “Spamming” where they could constantly spam their shitty content? Don't you see that this is a makeshift? We aren't tackling the problem from its root which is the way managers hire their participants and have then no responsibility.

[Charles-Tim]

Should we, then, create a subforum called “Spamming” where they could constantly spam their shitty content? Don't you see that this is a makeshift? We aren't tackling the problem from its root which is the way managers hire their participants and have then no responsibility.

Imho, if the signature is hidden in off-topic, and the campaign managers amend their rules that posts in off-topic will not be counted anymore. Do you think the same posters will not move to other boards? They would. Why not just leave them as off-topic posters. If good posters move on to post on off-topic board, there will be changes because many of the poor posts will be reported and many will certainly be deleted. It can also go other way around that good posters should visit off-topic board often.

It was said theymos had to deploy a way to reduce shit poster posts on this forum, and merit system was introduced. The approach was not about removing the signature from all/many boards on the forum. No post is also immune to report.

[Pmalek]

We aren't tackling the problem from its root which is the way managers hire their participants and have then no responsibility.

There are no rules when it comes to how a campaign is supposed to be handled and which participants it can or can not accept. There are only the rules that the manager of the campaign follows and if he wants he can decide to accept only negatively tagged users. You can also not prohibit someone from becoming a campaign manager or being a bad one. It comes down to the users themselves. They are the only ones that can make the choice to be in a spam/scam campaign or not. We saw it with Yobit, we see it now with 1xbit.

Even if the community would start to negatively tag campaign managers who pay for spamming, I don't think that would prevent spammers from joining campaigns managed by that person.   

[Igebotz]

create a subforum called “Spamming” where they could constantly spam their shitty content? Don't you see that this is a makeshift?

If you create two subforums called "Spamming and quality posts only" you would be surprised to see a lot of shit posters in the quality post only subforum, the fact is that even shit posters are not comfortable where their fellow shit posters are, they want to be where quality posters are. The bad news is that there is no perfect forum anywhere we can not change the philosophy of people and how they post our only Responsibility is to REPORT!

We aren't tackling the problem from its root which is the way managers hire their participants and have then no responsibility.

The managers are not the root of the problem, before the first sig campaign was launched in 2011 there were shit posters everywhere, the forum was rebranded to reduce shit posts in 2018 when the merit system was introduced. Managers only hire good posters and who they turn out to be after being accepted is not the manager's responsibility, in this situation, most of them get kicked out after 1 week without payment  There is no root to shit posting. imho

[BlackHatCoiner]

If you create two subforums called "Spamming and quality posts only" you would be surprised to see a lot of shit posters in the quality post only subforum, the fact is that even shit posters are not comfortable where their fellow shit posters are, they want to be where quality posters are.

Sure, that's why they frequent on the Off-Topic board. Because, there are lots of quality posters there...

There is no root to shit posting. imho

What would you say that is the cause behind most of the forum spamming? I'd guess signature campaigns & bounties. There's even a marketplace of people who farmed accounts by spamming and who they, then, sell them to other people who'll also spam to earn from signature campaigns & bounties. If the managers stopped accepting shitposters, that procedure would be useless.

Where there's money, there's immorality.

[Igebotz]

If you create two subforums called "Spamming and quality posts only" you would be surprised to see a lot of shit posters in the quality post only subforum, the fact is that even shit posters are not comfortable where their fellow shit posters are, they want to be where quality posters are.

Sure, that's why they frequent on the Off-Topic board. Because, there are lots of quality posters there...

Hmm, I have been to the off-topic section several times and I can't point at least any quality post for conversation. Are topics like " how to wear clothes, how to find a woman, how you met your ex-girlfriend, what colour of your shoe is good for an outing" are these the quality topics you are referring to? That part of the forum is like Facebook where you seek everyone opinion on something less important just for the sake of conversation.

There is no root to shit posting. imho

What would you say that is the cause behind most of the forum spamming?

I would say human psychology, not bounties, not signature campaign, not manager.

Where there's money, there's immorality.

Anambra State

[UserU]

Most signature campaigns I've known of (and joined) do not count posts from the Off-Topic section.

But still, that place is pretty much a spamfest so those bots/ posters could still shill their stuffs there with less surveillance than the rest of the board.

Don't mind if that gets disabled.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

For example, if I want to start a discussion, or continue an already existent one like “Share Good Movies Please?”, 8 of 10 times I'll get a reply from a signature campaign participant who spits non-sense and gets paid for it or from account farmers (who want to spit non-sense and get paid).

For one thing, bitcointalk is the absolute wrong forum to be asking about good movies, and exactly for the reason you've pointed out--and second, shitposters have been infesting crap threads like that since before I registered here over six years ago.  It's not likely to change.

I thought most campaigns/bounties didn't pay for posts in Off-Topic or P&S anyway.  But even if that were true for all of them (which it probably isn't), I'd say that a lot of members who just drop one-word posts in threads that have a question like "what's your favorite X?" in the title are trying to gain activity rather than get paid from whatever campaign they're participating in.  That would be especially true for those members of Newbie rank, who gain activity daily regardless of how long their posts are.  They probably figure it's easiest to do in the Off-Topic section where shitposts are the norm rather than the exception.

Most signature campaigns I've known of (and joined) do not count posts from the Off-Topic section.

That's what I thought, though I'm not sure about altcoin/token-paying bounties.  It's been a long time since I've looked at the requirements to get paid for posting on the forum in a bounty.  They might not have standards as high as a bitcoin-paying sig campaign.

[skarais]

That's what I thought, though I'm not sure about altcoin/token-paying bounties.  It's been a long time since I've looked at the requirements to get paid for posting on the forum in a bounty.  They might not have standards as high as a bitcoin-paying sig campaign.

I am trying to get the truth about the bounty campaign rule that have a signature campaign program. Of the 10 bounties I checked on the first page of the bounty board, all manager seem to have a rule not to count off-topic post. These are the rule written in the OP that I could find when I checked. Reputable managers like Hhampuz, Royse777, yahoo62278, Murat and a few others seem to adhere to this rule but I'm not sure about other managers even though there are rule written in the OP of every bounty.

OP, by far the best solution is to report off-topic post to a moderator as some users have mentioned. I agree with that and I've been practicing some off-topic post prevention on some thread I've created by enabling the self-moderation feature. But I know, maybe it won't be done by all topic starter for never the same reason.

[LTU_btc]

Personally, I'm not against your proposal, but I doubt that it would significantly improve quality of off-topic section.
I went through list of campaigns and found that only Bitvest, 777coin and 1xbit pay for posts in this board. But as I see, main problem comes from Bitvest & 777coin participants who spam there. Though, maybe there is some altcoin bounties paying for posts there, but I haven't checked it.
But if signatures would be removed there, would it make any difference? What's the difference between Bitvest & 777coin spamming in off-topic and participant who spam in remaining board? Because if signature will be removed from off-topic, they simply will continue spamming in all remaining board.

[UserU]

Personally, I'm not against your proposal, but I doubt that it would significantly improve quality of off-topic section.
I went through list of campaigns and found that only Bitvest, 777coin and 1xbit pay for posts in this board. But as I see, main problem comes from Bitvest & 777coin participants who spam there. Though, maybe there is some altcoin bounties paying for posts there, but I haven't checked it.
But if signatures would be removed there, would it make any difference? What's the difference between Bitvest & 777coin spamming in off-topic and participant who spam in remaining board? Because if signature will be removed from off-topic, they simply will continue spamming in all remaining board.

Easier to moderate with one less board IMHO. Even if the spams get rerouted to other subforums, more members are active to report them, just like plagiarism.