We need a new global moderator.

[dkbit98]

I'd love to see that board cleaned up though, and if theymos would give me a Delete button, I'd take on the challenge.

I have few of those cherry Delete keycap buttons, along with bitcointalk, satoshi and theymos, just waiting for a challenge  

I'm not against more mods and certainly think there's a few people who have earned a place on staff with their report counts but I think it's a lack of reports that is the main issue.

There isn't a day when I don't report several posts, but problem is that I ignore more and more users every day, to be able to function as normal as possible in this forum.

Maybe it would be best to add some dedicated sub board mods...

Yes please, and I think that Bitcoin Discussion thread should be priority right now, along with adding Lightning Network thread.

[Lucius]

I'm not sure how much tinkering theymos wants to do with this current software but I still think we should considering adding those reporter badges that come with a few small perks as I certainly think that would help boost reports and clean up spam.

If you really think that would help, then we are really in big trouble. If the members of this forum have to be motivated in this way to do something good, then at this moment it is crystal clear how much they care about this forum. "I'll clean up the spam if I have a badge, and if not then I don't care", how low someone can go to get one more dot in their profile?

If every active member reported at least 5 posts every day, so let's say at least 100 members do so - 500x30 = 15 000 fewer spam posts per month.

[UmerIdrees]

I would propose that if in the space of 30 days (rolling) you have more than 10 posts deleted for spam, then you automatically receive a one week ban. This increases to 2 weeks, 1 month, 3 months, permaban, on subsequent offenses. (Replace numbers as you see fit.) Every signature campaign that has a member banned for spamming receives a negative point, and after x number of negative points that signature campaign is booted from the forum.

The one reason for the merit system to be implement was to remove the spam as the spamming accounts won't be able to rank up and those already ranked up will get no current merits. Most bitcoin signature campaign require you to have at least 5 merits in last 120 days.

Even then we see the spam from those poster who have gained the minimum merits requirements. Now whom to blame this? 

I know Altcoin campaign allow Jr members / Members and no merit conditions but lets just try to first find the root cause through bitcoin signature campaigns.

[Jawhead999]

The one reason for the merit system to be implement was to remove the spam as the spamming accounts won't be able to rank up and those already ranked up will get no current merits. Most bitcoin signature campaign require you to have at least 5 merits in last 120 days.

Even then we see the spam from those poster who have gained the minimum merits requirements. Now whom to blame this? 

Of course still the poster, the campaign manager has nothing wrong and already doing their job pretty well.

The mininum merit usually just a rules to apply, it's not guarantee if you receive 5 or even 100 merit you'll not spam. Because I still see some user like that, he get a minimum merit to apply in a campaign but after got accepted he spamming to earn signature quota or burst posting.

[actmyname]

There are always more threads to post in and spammers can also open new threads faster than they can be reported and locked.

Either way, the deletion of posts is even more inefficient than the locking of threads. Shut off the tap rather than draining water while the faucet is running. Opening up new threads is one thing, and filling them with spam posts is another: if the same thread keeps cropping up, does that mean we stop locking? Here's a similar question: if users continue to post spam without slowing down, do we stop reporting posts (or instead create a new section because the spam is too much)?

Spammers chasing a paycheck will always find a way to reach their quota, whether or not 90% of threads are locked. It will just make the unlocked threads even more unbearable. The only solution is to starting handing out real punishments to the spammers and the campaigns which encourage them.

Not mutually exclusive! Doesn't it make it easier to both read through the forum and target spammers by locking away useless threads? What we lack is streamlined, efficient moderation: I have personally seen users post waves of spam and be unpunished for them, sometimes even despite having been reported dozens of times. An increased volume of reports relative to the content would help in that measure, fitting well within a smaller space of topics. If it is so that we find the same spammers posting the same redundancies, locking away similar thread topics will bring attention to this behavior much more quickly than a loose collection of posts from assorted users and boards.

Besides... you write as if current threads aren't unbearable.And for the sake of the forum, can somebody handle the altcoin boards?

[icopress]

[...] And as far as mprep goes, I never did see many of his posts at all--but that doesn't mean he or any other global mod isn't doing their job.

If mprep is not verbose, this does not mean at all that he is not coping (although you didn't say that), I have never seen that he would not answer when it was really necessary (including PM), the same goes for hilarious. In any case, since Theymos ignored the discussion regarding the appointment of a moderator in the Mining section, in particular, the appointment of philipma1957 as a moderator, (despite the fact that this section really needs a moderator), then I definitely would not expect any job changes among the global mods.

[Welsh]

The issue with re offending users is likely because a limitation to SMF. Moderators can't see if a user has been reported or had x amount of posts deleted recently, unless they manually check via the modlog. On a very busy day of handling reports, a moderator might see several hundred, and at its peak of reporting probably thousands of reports a day, and therefore potentially thousands of users. Now, because of the way reporting, and the report queue works, multiple moderators might be dealing with those reports at the same time, and therefore that's where the consistency might be lost.

For example, mprep might delete a post from user1, and I might delete another two from user1, but because there's no clear indication, at least without manually searching the recent modlog data, then there's no easy way of seeing if a user has had a number of posts  deleted recently. You could potentially look at the modlog or previously handled reports, but this is a rather messy way to do it.

It would probably be beneficial to include recent number of deleted posts by a user using the existing modlog already in place, and put that information on the profile page or potentially within the report queue itself.
 

I have few of those cherry Delete keycap buttons, along with bitcointalk, satoshi and theymos, just waiting for a challenge  

You have too much time on your hands .

If you really think that would help, then we are really in big trouble. If the members of this forum have to be motivated in this way to do something good, then at this moment it is crystal clear how much they care about this forum. "I'll clean up the spam if I have a badge, and if not then I don't care", how low someone can go to get one more dot in their profile?

Gamification works, as demonstrated by various industries. For example, universities now offer badges as motivation for completing certain tasks, and courses. Other learning resources like Coursera, and Edx also do the same.

I wouldn't be particularly motivated by things like this, however I know others will. Some people enjoy social status more than others.

If every active member reported at least 5 posts every day, so let's say at least 100 members do so - 500x30 = 15 000 fewer spam posts per month.

The reality is a few months ago reports were either around this value, or exceeding it. However, recently its been much lower than that figure.

Besides... you write as if current threads aren't unbearable.And for the sake of the forum, can somebody handle the altcoin boards?

I'm going to be dedicating a little more time to the areas that I can moderate within the altcoin sections, but I've also recently delved back into reporting inside the Altcoin Discussion section, since that place is rather over run, and by accounts that I can't handle due to their rank. Although, I know that there's a lot of work that goes on within the Altcoin section, and while it might not seem like it there's multiple staff contributing to moderating there.

Also, I do get the frustration from reporting, it is at the best of times a thankless job. However, it is absolutely vital to the community, and I know that I'm always grateful for people throwing reports my way. I've got to echo hilariousandco here, but I think the reporter badges will at least help revitalise reports again, however it would probably only be a temporary solution until everyone has reached the highest obtainable badge. Judging by theymos' update though, it hasn't been cancelled, but rather its more work than anticipated.  

As I see it the current issues we have are:
 
- Slightly cumbersome UI when it comes to the reporting queue, and additional information between moderators e.g displaying recently deleted posts in a intuitive way.

- The community seems to have become tired with reporting, whatever the reasons that may be.

- There probably isn't enough moderators, however because of the lack of reporting, how is theymos suppose to determine a good candidate. Obviously, there's other factors, but I think it's safe to assume that reporting will be one of the primary factors considered.

Personally, I'd love to see the community operating towards a common goal again, like a few months ago, and making a real concentrated effort to get spam dealt with quickly, and efficiently. However, it would be unfair to ask that from everyone, and the best option we have is offering an incentive, without it being problematic. The reporter badges was a fantastic idea, and its probably the best solution to our problem, albeit likely a temporary one, unless some very high, and frequent reporter badges were added.

With the amount of reports increasing, it would likely mean the possibility of moderators being added would be higher. I can't speak on the behalf of theymos, and whether or not its in his vision for new moderators, but at least with the data being there i.e number of reports, there's at least a little more to work with when it comes the time he wants to add more.

[PrimeNumber7]

Banning someone, means that someone is being removed from the community. Theymos wants to remove someone from the bitcointalk community, only as a last resort, even for people who cause problems for theymos personally.

Which is why I suggested escalating levels of temp bans first. If you've been temp banned four times already for spamming, and are still continuing to spam, then you are never going to change and banning you permanently is a suitable "last resort". Exceptions can be made as they are with the plagiarism rule for less black-and-white cases.

If there are red lines in which bans, temporary or otherwise, must be issued, moderation overall must become more strict for everyone. This means if I am relaxing and having a good time in a thread, I might have my post deleted (and risk getting banned), even if the post is borderline okay, and it is well known that I usually put a lot of effort into my posts. If rules are not enforced evenly, and strictly, those who are banned will have legitimate complaints when they do get banned.

I have seen you (I believe it was you) post a single image that says something along the lines of "don't feed the troll" in response to, well trolls creating troll threads. Do I agree with these posts, do I think these posts are necessary and do I think these posts should be removed? Yes, yes and no. Do I think these types of posts should be removed under a strict reading of forum rules? Yes, it is a low effort post. As I mentioned above, I don't think these types of posts should be removed because their benefits outweigh the issue of it being a low-effort post. However if someone is banned the same day they see this type of post, that doesn't get deleted, they will legitimately think they are being treated unfairly. On the other hand, if individual judgment is used, and the circumstances are weighed, someone who is banned will have less of a leg to stand on.

I think it's a lack of reports that is the main issue.

Also, I do get the frustration from reporting, it is at the best of times a thankless job. However, it is absolutely vital to the community, and I know that I'm always grateful for people throwing reports my way.

I think part of the problem is the lack of readability of some sections, such as bitcoin discussion. Some sections are so bad that users who report posts won't even read certain sections. If modest improvements can be made to certain sections that result in increased readership, the number of reports may go way up as more people read these sections.

The issue with re offending users is likely because a limitation to SMF. Moderators can't see if a user has been reported or had x amount of posts deleted recently, unless they manually check via the modlog.

This should be a fairly easy fix. It should not be difficult to create a userscript that show the number of deleted posts within x timeframe. However, I think it would probably be better for this to be something displayed to moderators via the forum. The public modlog does not show when a post was made, or the reason for deletion, so a mod deleting 100 old bump posts from 5 years ago is treated the same way as 100 low effort posts made within the past two months. If these two details can be added to the modlog, any userscript will be able to provide far more context to any information it displays (ditto if the forum displays this information to the moderators). If the moderators are not currently being asked to justify their actions, a dropdown could be added to either reports, and/or to posts themselves. There could even be a default "none" option for justification for mods who (semi)automate their moderation (and have not yet updated their scripts) or otherwise don't want to justify their actions based on the available options on the list. Keeping track of the "why" moderation actions are taken can also provide additional insights to the administration in managing the forum. For example, if a certain section has a lot of posts deleted for excessive bumping, the administration might want to implement the "new" bump system for that section. Or if a lot of well-established forum members are violating a particular rule, the specifics of said rule may want to be re-evaluated.

[LoyceV]

The issue with re offending users is likely because a limitation to SMF. Moderators can't see if a user has been reported or had x amount of posts deleted recently

Do Mods act on external evidence? I've just reported 2 topics for bump spam, showing loyce.club link 1 and loyce.club link 2 as evidence. The user has no posts deleted by Mods, but bumps his topics about 6 times more than allowed.
What happens to such a report? If his latest bump gets deleted, he'll probably just continue. If he deleted his own post before a moderator sees my report, does that invalidate my report?

I think the reporter badges will at least help revitalise reports again, however it would probably only be a temporary solution until everyone has reached the highest obtainable badge.

That's easy to solve: give badges based on the number of posts reported in the past 120 days.

Is it possible to use BBCode in reports? URL-tags could be useful.

Can I promote my spam detection tool a bit here? See: [Active] Finding spam and scams by keyword.

I have few of those cherry Delete keycap buttons, along with bitcointalk, satoshi and theymos, just waiting for a challenge 

Here's a challenge: Make theymos without € sign

[UserU]

As I see it the current issues we have are:
 
- Slightly cumbersome UI when it comes to the reporting queue, and additional information between moderators e.g displaying recently deleted posts in a intuitive way.

Back then the malware wave was just insane, that was some real work for you guys.

It's crazy because almost every time I report those bots, another one pops up real quick.

The community seems to have become tired with reporting, whatever the reasons that may be.

Could be them trying to maintain their accuracy scores, who knows? :p

[dkbit98]

You have too much time on your hands .

This was made two years ago for 10th anniversary art contest, I never posted it in public and I found the picture few days ago when I was cleaning my hard drive (because I though it's going to die).

Here's a challenge: Make theymos without € sign

Sure I can do that, unfortunately cherry is not making ₿ symbol yet  

With the amount of reports increasing, it would likely mean the possibility of moderators being added would be higher. I can't speak on the behalf of theymos, and whether or not its in his vision for new moderators, but at least with the data being there i.e number of reports, there's at least a little more to work with when it comes the time he wants to add more.

Is there a way to see some public statistic for total number of reported posts and it's historic values?

[Welsh]

The mininum merit usually just a rules to apply, it's not guarantee if you receive 5 or even 100 merit you'll not spam. Because I still see some user like that, he get a minimum merit to apply in a campaign but after got accepted he spamming to earn signature quota or burst posting.

This is actually really common from my observations. They bust their gut to actually get into the signature campaign, however once they are actually in it they get complacent, and just focus on getting to the required amount of posts. It's a pity, since they've demonstrated they can actually put a good amount of effort in. I think campaign managers should probably be a little more strict on this after all they hired them on the premise of their past posting quality.

I think part of the problem is the lack of readability of some sections, such as bitcoin discussion. Some sections are so bad that users who report posts won't even read certain sections. If modest improvements can be made to certain sections that result in increased readership, the number of reports may go way up as more people read these sections.

Talking about complacency above; I've probably become a little complacent in moderating, relying too much on reports coming in, rather than actually reporting outside of my sections. Like I mentioned I've started to kick into gear again in the Altcoin Discussion section, but I might have to make a little more time for a concentrated effort on Bitcoin Discussion, and other sections.

This should be a fairly easy fix. It should not be difficult to create a userscript that show the number of deleted posts within x timeframe. However, I think it would probably be better for this to be something displayed to moderators via the forum.

Its a good shout, I didn't really put much thought into it before this thread was brought up. I was always aware of that little niggle of deleted posts not showing, however never saw it as a big enough issue. Obviously, the drawbacks I see from including it on forum is it might influence moderators to take more drastic measures that need to be taken, because they may feel pressured by the fact that this user has x amount of deleted posts. Its probably worth moderators escalating these cases to global moderators though, since a temporary ban might be better depending on the context.

Anyway, back to your point; user scripts could definitely be a individual fix, but it would probably be beneficial if this was available on the forum directly, as not everyone wants to sort it out with setting up a user script    

This was made two years ago for 10th anniversary art contest, I never posted it in public and I found the picture few days ago when I was cleaning my hard drive (because I though it's going to die).

Ah, I was only kidding anyway I thought it was pretty cool.

Is there a way to see some public statistic for total number of reported posts and it's historic values?

Nah, hence why I didn't say a specific number of reports since it's not public, and there might be a reason for that. However, for sure reports have gone down dramatically over the last few months at least.

Could be them trying to maintain their accuracy scores, who knows? :p

Loads of reasons, some of which have been given in this thread by various users. I didn't want to specify exactly what, because it varies from each user.

What is clear to me is; there was a real community drive a few months ago to concentrate on removing the spam as a community, and that was fantastic. However, recently as outlined above in this thread there's been a shift in mentality. I think reporting badges are more important now, than when they were proposed so I would like to see these implemented sooner rather than later, however I don't think they are a permanent fix, and rather patching an issue up for a little while until the regular reports have achieved the highest level offered.

[PrimeNumber7]

The issue with re offending users is likely because a limitation to SMF. Moderators can't see if a user has been reported or had x amount of posts deleted recently

Do Mods act on external evidence? I've just reported 2 topics for bump spam, showing loyce.club link 1 and loyce.club link 2 as evidence. The user has no posts deleted by Mods, but bumps his topics about 6 times more than allowed.
What happens to such a report? If his latest bump gets deleted, he'll probably just continue. If he deleted his own post before a moderator sees my report, does that invalidate my report?

You will need to report a post that will not get deleted. If you report a post that gets deleted, your report will also get deleted.

[Welsh]

Do Mods act on external evidence? I've just reported 2 topics for bump spam, showing loyce.club link 1 and loyce.club link 2 as evidence. The user has no posts deleted by Mods, but bumps his topics about 6 times more than allowed.
What happens to such a report? If his latest bump gets deleted, he'll probably just continue. If he deleted his own post before a moderator sees my report, does that invalidate my report?

In regards to acting upon external evidence; It's a hard one to say really, context applies. Moderators obviously act upon external data, because we have to verify plagiarism via off site sources usually. However, other external data would probably have to be considered on a case by case basis since it could easily be manipulated.  

However, as far as I know if the user deletes the post before a moderator actually handles it, it'll move to the handled reports, and a moderator likely won't see it. This is something I'd have to verify, and actually be on the look out. Moderators can look at recent handled reports, which means they could potentially verify if this has happened. For example, I just searched the recent reports, and have verified that the user was definitely reported twice, and either it was deleted by the user or another moderator. We can't verify without an admin, whether it was deleted by the user or another staff user.

If a user is abusing the bumping system, and bumping more than 24 hours it you mention that, I tend to put these lists on a little note, and just observe it in the future. If I can verify that then I can escalate it. Obviously, this sort of behaviour is more common in the marketplaces sections, but I do see these reports every now, and then due to them being newbies. Though, I'm not sure what the dedicated moderators or global moderators do in these cases. The user that you reported at least on the thread that it was reported, the thread seems to have been completely removed, so that was probably the punishment that the staff user handling it deemed appropriate.

[UserU]

Loads of reasons, some of which have been given in this thread by various users. I didn't want to specify exactly what, because it varies from each user.

What is clear to me is; there was a real community drive a few months ago to concentrate on removing the spam as a community, and that was fantastic. However, recently as outlined above in this thread there's been a shift in mentality. I think reporting badges are more important now, than when they were proposed so I would like to see these implemented sooner rather than later, however I don't think they are a permanent fix, and rather patching an issue up for a little while until the regular reports have achieved the highest level offered.

While the community could play their job, I believe mods do have to be proactive as well. Most of us don't hang out at the local boards so spams might be overlooked there.

About the badge thingy, it's an interesting addition ngl. Any way to check with theymos about its progress?

[Welsh]

While the community could play their job, I believe mods do have to be proactive as well. Most of us don't hang out at the local boards so spams might be overlooked there.

About the badge thingy, it's an interesting addition ngl. Any way to check with theymos about its progress?

Absolutely, I don't think we should be relying on reports from the community, but it does significantly help the process, because multiple eyes is better than one. I do believe most moderators remove content they come across that hasn't been reported, and also report posts that they can't remove.

Last going off; theymos stated it was harder than initially thought to implement, and as a result went down on his to do list. I am paraphrasing a bit there, but I'll look for the quote soon. However, I would think theymos is aware of these discussions, and questions about the reporting badges, so I guess he'll update the community when its appropriate.

Here's 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.

[LoyceV]

However, as far as I know if the user deletes the post before a moderator actually handles it, it'll move to the handled reports, and a moderator likely won't see it. This is something I'd have to verify, and actually be on the look out. Moderators can look at recent handled reports, which means they could potentially verify if this has happened. For example, I just searched the recent reports, and have verified that the user was definitely reported twice, and either it was deleted by the user or another moderator. We can't verify without an admin, whether it was deleted by the user or another staff user.

Actually, we can verify it using modlog: this user hasn't had any posts deleted by a moderator, and indeed the reports are marked as Good.
He also bumped both threads 3 more times since my (failed) report. I've now reported the first post of those topics:

Code:

Bump spammer. Bumps about 6 times per day. See https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5353772.msg57683201#msg57683201 for evidence.

The user that you reported at least on the thread that it was reported, the thread seems to have been completely removed, so that was probably the punishment that the staff user handling it deemed appropriate.

Nope, they still exist.

[Welsh]

Global moderators will now be aware of the issue where they can decide whether to take action, and to what extent.

Nope, they still exist.

Looks like we might have just found a bug. In the handled reports section, it most certainly points to a different thread, giving the illusion it was removed. However, it hasn't been, and I've just checked a few others, and the exact same thread number is given. Not sure if this is intentional, but some of them work as intended. Not exactly sure why its behaving like that.

I'm assuming its caused because the user themselves is deleting it rather than a moderator.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Moderators can't see if a user has been reported or had x amount of posts deleted recently, unless they manually check via the modlog.

I often reported users with a comment along the lines of "I have x number of good reports against this user for spam in the last 30 days, please consider a ban", which was easy to do by simply visiting my reporter stats page and searching for their username. Even when I the number of reports I (never mind anyone else!) had against that user was in the order of 50+ or even 100+, they did not get banned.

- The community seems to have become tired with reporting, whatever the reasons that may be.

Because when it comes to reporting spam, there is no point. I don't care about gamification, or rewards, or badges, or anything else. All I care about is being able to have an intelligent discussion without spammers. But as I said in an earlier post, I could spend nearly every waking hour doing nothing but reporting posts (and indeed, it felt like I did do this in the past) and see next to no difference. If you delete a bounty hunter or sig spammer's post, they are simply incentivized to make 3 more to make sure they definitely hit their quota even if other posts get deleted too. If we aren't going to take any real action against the spammers, then you might as well be asking users to use a cup to empty a bath, while refusing to turn off the faucets.

If I though my thousands of reports would actually lead to change, rather than only cleaning things up for a matter of hours, I would be back at it in a heartbeat.

Do I think these types of posts should be removed under a strict reading of forum rules? Yes, it is a low effort post.

So then you would be well within your right to report it. If I had my image deleted, I would know the community thought it was spam. If I posted it again and it was deleted again, then there would be no doubt in my mind. If I did it another 8 times, then I can't really complain about a temp ban. If that's still too lenient, then increase it to 20 posts or 50 posts in 30 days. Even then we would find no shortage of accounts hitting the threshold.

[suchmoon]

The issue with re offending users is likely because a limitation to SMF. Moderators can't see if a user has been reported or had x amount of posts deleted recently, unless they manually check via the modlog. On a very busy day of handling reports, a moderator might see several hundred, and at its peak of reporting probably thousands of reports a day, and therefore potentially thousands of users. Now, because of the way reporting, and the report queue works, multiple moderators might be dealing with those reports at the same time, and therefore that's where the consistency might be lost.

That's why I think a regular of the board who can proactively keep it clean with some help from user reports would be better than having global mods taking care of mod-less boards on a 100% reactive report basis. Someone who is actually hanging out there would know immediately who's truly disruptive and who's just occasionally trolling.

And all this talk about numbers... it's not really a math thing. Someone can have 100 posts deleted out of 1000 and still be a valuable member. Shit, someone could have 15 out of their 20 first posts deleted if they didn't know some obscure rule - which by the way is not an easy thing for a newbie to figure out but that's a whole different discussion - and they could still be a valuable member, just may need a little nudge in the right direction. Mod discretion FTW.

What gets my goat is persistent willful spammers and shitposters, who take enormous numbers of reports to get even a temp ban.