Campaign to improve posting quality for local boards

[tranthidung]

Most likely yes but we will try to select good translators and avoid bounty spammers for cases where the intention is only a quick Merit grab.
And I can tell one thing already ahead: I won't give out Merit to Bounty spammers just applying here for a quick Merit grab. Such people will be denied.

Very good to know that your team have detailed criteria to manage it appropriately. It will boost local boards with high quality resources and better engagement in educational discussions.

We have seen this from other topics, it's not a problem limited to our campaign.

Sure. It happens everywhere and merit is for good contribution and good quality posts. If they make good things, they deserve to receive merit.

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[UmerIdrees]

Does your Campaign is limited for the improvement of local board or include the local threads also? We don't have a board yet but have a local thread (Pakistan).

A little initiative we took is that every month we analyze the report published for local boards and do the analysis as to what is gone better than the previous month and what needs to be improved.

Perhaps this can be a good idea to increase the posting quality and overall progress of local threads.

Below are a few examples of these analyses.


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=232519.msg60768387#msg60768387

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=232519.msg60255871#msg60255871

[1miau]

Does your Campaign is limited for the improvement of local board or include the local threads also? We don't have a board yet but have a local thread (Pakistan).

Our campaign is not limited to local boards, it can also be presented in a local thread, when there's not a local board for a specific language yet.

While your post about it will be buried quickly in your local thread, we can still link it here. 
Such a disadvantage is not a problem for me personally, so I'm also open to presenting it in your local thread if you like to create such a post once our topic for reference is up.
Most likely we will finish it next weekend. 

[UmerIdrees]

Does your Campaign is limited for the improvement of local board or include the local threads also? We don't have a board yet but have a local thread (Pakistan).

Our campaign is not limited to local boards, it can also be presented in a local thread, when there's not a local board for a specific language yet.

While your post about it will be buried quickly in your local thread, we can still link it here. 
Such a disadvantage is not a problem for me personally, so I'm also open to presenting it in your local thread if you like to create such a post once our topic for reference is up.
Most likely we will finish it next weekend. 

That will be very nice of you. Yeah, such posts are buried quickly in local threads because we have a single thread to discuss everything. However, it is assumed that everyone awaits these monthly stats and is eager to know about the progress of the thread.

It will be really appreciated if you can present it to our local board and another advantage is that we speak English as a second language so there will be no problem with understanding. 

[1miau]

It will be really appreciated if you can present it to our local board and another advantage is that we speak English as a second language so there will be no problem with understanding. 

I'm not planning to create an English version because part of our campaign to customize each local topic accordingly to what's important in your local board to increase posting quality. Personally, I don't know what's most important to increase posting quality in your local Pakistani thread. It's very different sometimes between local languages.
For reference, you can use a translation tool to check our German and Romanian topic (when it's published), compare it and decide what's important for your local community. Maybe many things won't apply for your local language or new ones will be important. 
For example, I have read about someone from Pakistan excessively copy-pasting tweets, like here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5395857.msg59956404#msg59956404
I don't know if it's a general issue because I'm not too much into local boards, most information I'm getting from is Meta / Reputation.

For local translations contributing to our campaign, I'll use a translator tool to get some idea of what's written there and / or ask some people I know from that section. If it's a good translation, I might send some Merit. 

[UmerIdrees]

For example, I have read about someone from Pakistan excessively copy-pasting tweets, like here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5395857.msg59956404#msg59956404
I don't know if it's a general issue because I'm not too much into local boards, most information I'm getting from is Meta / Reputation.

Copy pasting tweets is not an issue in our local board except in one or two cases. But then there are two types of people, one who knows that this is wrong but still they do it deliberately and think they can fool the system while there are others who are ignorant that this is a mistake and once they know it, they are already punished for it.

For local translations contributing to our campaign, I'll use a translator tool to get some idea of what's written there and / or ask some people I know from that section. If it's a good translation, I might send some Merit. 

Let me understand it. You will publish the German and Romanian versions and anyone from our community can translate it (and amend it also according to local needs) and post it in our local thread. Right?

[1miau]

Copy pasting tweets is not an issue in our local board except in one or two cases. But then there are two types of people, one who knows that this is wrong but still they do it deliberately and think they can fool the system while there are others who are ignorant that this is a mistake and once they know it, they are already punished for it.

Ok, nice to hear it's solved or at least limited to a few people.
People producing such spamposts deliberately are subject for Campaign Managers to get rid of such posters in paid signature campaigns, if these accounts have a paid signature.

For local translations contributing to our campaign, I'll use a translator tool to get some idea of what's written there and / or ask some people I know from that section. If it's a good translation, I might send some Merit. 

Let me understand it. You will publish the German and Romanian versions and anyone from our community can translate it (and amend it also according to local needs) and post it in our local thread. Right?

Exactly, that's our plan. 
GazetaBitcoin will publish a Romanian version and I will publish a German version.

[CoinEraser]

Since I read the post of 1miau, I have really reduced my “Denglisch” and find it quite good. This has made my post a little better and I pay more attention to the formatting of my post. That’s why I can only support 1miau! It definitely helped me. 

[1miau]

Since I read the post of 1miau, I have really reduced my “Denglisch” and find it quite good. This has made my post a little better and I pay more attention to the formatting of my post. That’s why I can only support 1miau! It definitely helped me. 

I can confirm that, many thanks for your support!
Paying a bit attention to our posting quality is indeed quite easy and these few seconds for reducing "Denglish" (for example) are invested very well.

In general, your recent contributions are well above the average in the German section, always insightful and constructive which is a very good start.
Going the extra mile will be rewarded long-term and in my opinion, campaign managers should take a close look at such considerations. 

[1miau]

Our local campaign (German local board) is up finally: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5413997.0

For everyone, who's interested in launching a campaign, customized for their local board, please have a look at it.
You can also look at GazetaBitcoin's Romanian topic as a reference. It will be presented by GazetaBitcoin below and later included in my OP.

We are very proud to lead another effort to increase awareness about posting quality. 

[GazetaBitcoin]

Similar to 1miau, I am also proud to present you the Romanian local campaign for improving posts quality: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5413999.0.
A separate topic was created as well, this one addressing the so-called Romglish -- the horrendous mix between Romanian and English: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5413998.0.

If anyone else is interested in translating these topics he can contact 1miau and or me. We will happily offer help and feedback, if needed

Congratulations again, 1miau, for having this very good idea! From this point forward, the rest should be done by any other member interested in helping his local board.

[1miau]

Since our campaign is running for a while now, it's time to reward the contributors so far.

Our goal

Our campaign has been launched to improve posting quality in a meaningful way in local sections, reminding everyone about the importance to contribute quality content, to be constructive, to apply a proper native language, to make posts more attractive by applying some basic practices like:
- Contributing interesting content and providing insights instead of just rehashing what’s already been said / uninteresting fluff / guessing needlessly
- Proper spelling and punctuation; proofreading
- Dividing your article / topic into meaningful sections, using sub-headlines, highlighting important parts. Nobody wants to read a text block of 10-15 consecutive lines
- Avoiding meaningless one-liners (Shitposts). Submitting a post just for the sake of paid signature campaigns should be prevented
- Avoiding bad / unnecessary Memes or GIFs (we are not in Las Vegas)
- Avoiding unnecessary "Denglish" by applying appropriate translations. Don't be lazy and don't annoy native speakers with some easily avoidable Denglish. Respect your language as Bitcointalk should be a place of education, not a place of primary-school-level illiteracy
- Don't be a fool who wants to see Bitcoin as part of a clerical sect
- Flawed identification of sources (plagiarism) for your quoted content.

We are not requesting huge essays all the time but even some basic things (bold) can be done without much additional effort.
It's quite easy to apply proper spelling and punctuation, especially for your native language. If our native language is represented with an own board on Bitcointalk, it's a privilege to write in our own language there. Before submitting your comment, please proofread it properly. Avoid unnecessary "Denglish" / "Romglish", because most translations are basic education and knowing them is not difficult at all. We are not in primary school, applying our local language properly should be easy when we put in at least some effort.


The outcome

Our campaign is a good opportunity to prove how valuable for the community some members really are.
As our "Discovery of the year" we want to say KUDOS to CoinEraser!

Kudos to CoinEraser

CoinEraser has proven to be a very good quality poster of the German section. His posts are insightful, well worded and CoinEraser simply proved how easy it is to apply the criteria mentioned in our campaign.
CoinEraser has been taking some time off the forum previously and it's great to see him back again, writing meaningful content and of course, his earned Merit is a good proof for that.
Finally, his efforts have been also rewarded by icopress, who accepted CoinEraser in his signature campaign as icopress is known for only accepting good quality posters.
Being rewared here in our campaign as well as in icopress' campaign is once again a sign that the posting quality of CoinEraser is a great contribution to the forum and especially the German local board. 


Disappointments of our campaign

As usual, where there is light, there is also shadow and it's also the case for our campaign. 
Unfortunately, the overall outcome is still not satisfactory.
While a few members have clearly shown some honorable effort, our campaign has also been maliciously targeted by some trolls and butthurt shitposter’s apologists. Of course our campaign is a great nuisance for shitposters, lazy illiterate Denglish spammers and meaningless one-liner offenders as putting effort into posts would result in „wasting more time per post“ for them.
When it's too much for you to apply simple translations (which should well known if you aren't illiterate) or if it's too much to do a simple proofreading of your content, it's a big, big shame for these people.
We don’t regret offending them and will keep offending them to push for a better posting quality. 

But for now, our campaign didn’t achieve combatting most easily avoidable problems.
Failing to achieve this goal is a pity for Bitcointalk as paid shitposting is still the main factor for lazy, illiterate word salat spam. And an additional issue, we have faced in our campaign is shitpost / spam apologia even after called out.
Protecting lazy shitposting practices is a sure bet to decrease posting quality further, enabling uneducated, illiterate spam gibberish.

I'm not giving any names here for now of these offenders.
When reading this part, these members will be well aware of their bad faith, which will be hopefully enough for them to feel guilty (and improve their writings).


However, it's a honor for me (and I'm sure that GazetaBitcoin will agree here), to have achieved at least some basic improvements, as positive members like CoinEraser have shown! 
We will keep bringing up ideas to improve posting quality and keep running incentives active. 

[CoinEraser]

-snip- Kudos to CoinEraser -snip-

Thank you very much 1miau. It's really very nice what you think of my posts and it's really an honor to be so praised by you. Because you are a role model for me with your posts. I just follow your suggestions and try to enrich the forum with it. It would be nice if other people would do it too. That would definitely be good for the forum. 

[1miau]

-snip- Kudos to CoinEraser -snip-

Thank you very much 1miau.

Yes, Bitcointalk usually rewards contributors and in my opinion, that's very succesful so far to improve posting quality as a whole.
Bitcointalk's Awards Campaign is great way to encourage it, too.  

I just follow your suggestions and try to enrich the forum with it. It would be nice if other people would do it too. That would definitely be good for the forum.  

You are completely right here and such campaigns are hopefully creating enough awareness.
Recently, KingsDen has published another topic about posting quality where some good points are made: What is a Quality Post?

Because you are a role model for me with your posts.

Wow, how far we have come.  
Probably, role models are exactly what we need to "enrich" the forum.
Normally, I would expect from members like Foxpup to be a role model but here we are and I'll try my best:



 

[GazetaBitcoin]

Kudos to CoinEraser

CoinEraser has proven to be a very good quality poster of the German section [...]

Sincere congrats to CoinEraser for joining "the white side of Force"! His support for this campaign, together with his own struggle for bettering himself, is even more important, as it comes from a very old user of the forum, which joined in 2012! I take my hat off in front of that!

Excepting him I would also like to point out that Romanian board's reaction toward this initiative was to embrace it. Indeed, Romanian section is not too populated but still, I, myself was with 1miau since he first expressed this idea to me. Very soon after the campaign was launched inside Romanian board, NeuroticFish, which is another valuable forum member, expressed his support. Furthermore, he also said that he is not just supporting the idea, but he will also try to better himself as well.

Time passed and recently another Romanian user joined this campaign. The surprise was huge, as we did not even know him, as he never posted before inside Romanian board. But, most important, his very first post inside Romanian board was made in this campaign's thread! Furthermore, I also discovered that PrivacyG, as this is his nym, is also a new era Sr. Member, which already earned enough merits to be Hero, with months before reaching the necessary activity. Chapeau to that!

Disappointments of our campaign

As usual, where there is light, there is also shadow and it's also the case for our campaign. 
Unfortunately, the overall outcome is still not satisfactory.

Maybe, especially after the news I brought above, the outcome is more satisfactory that we thought, my dear 1miau. Indeed, some opposed (and still oppose) our campaign, for reasons which are beyoind my capacity of understanding. And I am certain they do not feel guilty, no matter you mentioned that. Nor they'll ever feel guilty.

However, what I wanted to say about the results being -- maybe -- more satisfactory than we believe is the fact that, as PrivacyG appeared out of nowhere inside our board and started advocating for a better Romanian, without Romglish, the same may happen, without our knowledge, in other boards too. The fact that we don't know about other users which may have been motivated by this campaign does not necessarily mean they do not exist...

I will end here, by translating PrivacyG's post (highlight is mine).

I have to excuse myself for resurrecting this old topic, but I could not refrain myself.

The damn English infected us all. Now I'm even ashamed for choosing an English nym. But what can I do, since, in Romanian, IntimitateG (n.b. the translation of PrivacyG in Romanian) sounds so weird? And I'm convinced that not just Germans are our partners in this struggle. It's trendy to add one-two English words between 10 Romanian words. I am also finding myself, at home, saying a sentence in Romanian, followed by one in English, but I proposed myself to bitch-slap myself each time when I realize what I'm doing. It works, for the moment. It seems more difficult to say English words out of my mouth, when they are associated with a self-slap.

I told myself to make a post inside Romanian board, since I also want a change. After all, biggest change should start from ourselves. I am sure there are many Romanians here, since we are present inside all countries and cultures, but we are too ashamed of our origins to let ourselves visit our lovely forum section or we are too busy with hunting shitcoins hoping they'll make us rich tomorrow.

Sadly, I feel like our nationalism and patriotism are slowly fading away and I am sure it's not just our case. It seems like we prefer to borrow from others and promote theirs. What do I know? Maybe we are searching for something new. Maybe we got sick to see so many Romanians everywhere we go. [...]

[1miau]

Excepting him I would also like to point out that Romanian board's reaction toward this initiative was to embrace it. Indeed, Romanian section is not too populated but still, I, myself was with 1miau since he first expressed this idea to me. Very soon after the campaign was launched inside Romanian board, NeuroticFish, which is another valuable forum member, expressed his support. Furthermore, he also said that he is not just supporting the idea, but he will also try to better himself as well.

Yes, it's nice to see NeuroticFish, a big contributor to Bitcointalk, being very positive about our campaign and supporting it.
After all, we can say your translation of our topic into Romanian is already a huge success. 

Disappointments of our campaign

As usual, where there is light, there is also shadow and it's also the case for our campaign. 
Unfortunately, the overall outcome is still not satisfactory.

Maybe, especially after the news I brought above, the outcome is more satisfactory that we thought, my dear 1miau. Indeed, some opposed (and still oppose) our campaign, for reasons which are beyoind my capacity of understanding.

While that part sounded indeed very pessimistic, my overall impression of our achievements is very positive. A few misguided spammers and shitpost apologists can't hide the fact, that our campaign is indeed an important step into a good direction to encourage a better posting style and better writing skills. And so far, our support is 100% in the Romanian board. 

And I am certain they do not feel guilty, no matter you mentioned that. Nor they'll ever feel guilty.

You are right, as long as weekly rewards of valuable BTC for producing low-quality spam are coming in for them, widespread improvements for a better posting quality are highly unlikely. 

But, most important, his very first post inside Romanian board was made in this campaign's thread!

However, what I wanted to say about the results being -- maybe -- more satisfactory than we believe is the fact that, as PrivacyG appeared out of nowhere inside our board and started advocating for a better Romanian, without Romglish, the same may happen, without our knowledge, in other boards too.

It is very nice to hear such positive news, dear GazeatBitcoin! 
Amazing how our campaign has achieved such a lucky outcome where PrivacyG (IntimitateG) has now contributed to your local board.
Of course, it's very nice to see PrivacyG advocating for our cause which means a lot because PrivacyG is also a member frequently contributing quality posts on Bitcointalk's international section.
It's no coincidence to see that most established quality posters are highly supportive of our campaign. 

[GazetaBitcoin]

I have a small calendar at home, that kind where you remove the files as days pass. On one side of its files you can find important events which occurred in the past, while on the back side you may find some very interesting short writings. By pure chance, after I removed a file of this calendar I found an article on its page, which relates so much to our campaign of improving the posts quality in our local boards. And this campaign, in fact, vouches for the correct use of our mother languages.

The author of the article is unknown, signing it as "T.C.Z.". But, whoever this T.C.Z., is, he is so right with what he's saying!

I tried to translate the small article below, adapting as much as I could the Romanian idiomatic words in English. Although I could not fully adapt it, as some words make sense only in Romanian, I believe everybody will get the meaning.

At World Linguistic Congress it's a debate about the differences between how you spell and how you write words. French say: "Most spectacular French word is beaucoup. It has 8 letters but you pronounce only 4 sounds, bocu.". English people say: "In our language, most spectacular word is enough, which you pronounce as inaf. A single letter becomes a phonem. Romanians say: "In Romanian, coolest word is poftim (n.b. poftim can be used for "here you are" and also for "what?"; the article refers to the lattest meaning). You spell it as p-o-f-t-i-m and you pronounce it as - Ăă? (n.b. this is a funny riddle, "Ăă?" meaning a sort of "Whaaaat?" ).

Joke aside, things are not looking well. Just like in all other languages, we imported words and expressions which do not have an equivalent in Romanian, mostly being technical words: soft, hard, hard disk, mouse. However, without any proper justification, we also imported words which have Romanian equivalents: human resources, backstage, fashion.

We also have abbreviations: prof (n.b. like the proff as short of professor), [...] mate, geogra (n.b. similar to Math or Geogra used as short for Mathematics and Geography). Will we say one day ap instead of appartament, [...] or off instead of office?

And then we have acronyms stolen from English: FYI, BTW, ASAP etc.. Speaking of which, if we are in such a hurry (or we are so lazy at writing) RPD would be 25% shorter than ASAP (n.b. RPD is (abusively) used as short for repede, which means fast)!

The peaceful principle saying that "The language is a living phenomena" is a debatable one: terrorists are also a living phenomena. So are the sharks. Or real estate sharks. And so are also foolishness, cowardice or malice... This does not mean we accept them. And the idea that "The habit wins over the rule" is really a language killer. [...]

Maybe this text would determine all of us to try to use our languages more correctly...

[DYING_S0UL]

I tried to translate the small article below, adapting as much as I could the Romanian idiomatic words in English. Although I could not fully adapt it, as some words make sense only in Romanian, I believe everybody will get the meaning.

Sir I send a PM but I can't see anything (mobile). Not sure what you meant.

All I see is this :

[
GazetaBitcoin
Legendary
*
Offline

Activity: 1414
Merit: 4857


Jr.Exec. Merit Cycler | Spambuster '22 | Pie Baker


View Profile WWW Personal Message (Offline)
Trust: +9 / =0 / -0
]

[GazetaBitcoin]

Sir I send a PM but I can't see anything (mobile). Not sure what you meant.

Can you try reading my PM from a PC or a laptop instead of a mobile? I already deleted the PM from my Outbox and I would prefer to not have to write it once more. Let me know if the message appears okay when viewing it from a PM.

[1miau]

I have a small calendar at home, that kind where you remove the files as days pass. On one side of its files you can find important events which occurred in the past, while on the back side you may find some very interesting short writings. By pure chance, after I removed a file of this calendar I found an article on its page, which relates so much to our campaign of improving the posts quality in our local boards. And this campaign, in fact, vouches for the correct use of our mother languages.

The author of the article is unknown, signing it as "T.C.Z.". But, whoever this T.C.Z., is, he is so right with what he's saying!

...

The peaceful principle saying that "The language is a living phenomena" is a debatable one: terrorists are also a living phenomena. So are the sharks. Or real estate sharks. And so are also foolishness, cowardice or malice... This does not mean we accept them. And the idea that "The habit wins over the rule" is really a language killer. [...]

It's a well written comment in your calendar and it's very true. Sometimes, it's sooo easy to improve our language, when we are aware of it to do it correctly and spot bad influences, for example from excessive marketing (to make a product look better).
Your calendar is emphasizing it in a very creative and accurate way.
Some malicious phenomena are indeed living phenomena but not vital phenomena. 
We should always try to keep malicious phenomena at bay.

Maybe this text would determine all of us to try to use our languages more correctly...

I hope so, dear GazetaBitcoin. Luckily, applying our native languages correctly is not very difficult, sometimes we just need to be aware of it. 
At least you seem to have a very nice calendar.