Self-moderated topics - nice feature or should it get banned?

[1miau]

In my opinion, self-moderated topics are a great feature of Bitcointalk for many reasons, for example:

- managing a Service and preventing trolls from flooding it
- great for the Gambling section, where so much spam can be prevented if OP is knowledgeable in the sport and can delete spam from Gambling spammers who have no clue about the sport
- preventing extra work for moderators, removing spam quickly
- setting up unique self-moderated rules to improve posting quality for example, as long as these self-moderated rules do not violate the official rules and are resonable

There are much more probably. The forum is very big and self-moderation is a great feature.


But recently in our German section, Unknown01 attacked me like a troll by calling me "mentally ill person" because I'm trying to improve posting quality on Bitcointalk.
In addition, Unknown01 alleged that:

By the way, I would be in favor of banning self-moderated topics and if you don't like the community here, please leave our board.

What's your opinion about this?
Considering Unknown01 and his past of shady abuses, such a suggestion is just showing how limited his knowledge about the forum really is.

I'm completely against what Unknown01 suggested because self-moderation is vital in my opinion. We should not ban it.
Removing this feature would be insanely sad and affect the forum very negatively in my opinion.

So, what's your opinion? Self-moderation to get banned or to stay?  
Do you have more points, why self-moderation is a beneficial feature for Bitcointalk?
Looking forward to your replies and your votes.  

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[Nwada001]

In my opinion, self-moderated topics are a great feature of Bitcointalk for many reasons, for example:
- managing a Service and preventing trolls from flooding it
- great for the Gambling section, where so much spam can be prevented if OP is knowledgeable in the sport and can delete spam from Gambling spammers who have no clue about the sport
- preventing extra work for moderators, removing spam quickly
- setting up unique self-moderated rules to improve posting quality for example as long as these self-moderated rules do not violate the official rules and are resonable

With the above points that you have given, it's definitely worth it. But when it comes to scammers using the forum, the reverse is also the case; they create self-moderated topics where the only comments they allow to stay are anything dropped by them, that of their alt accounts, or anything that just has to be positive based on their discussion.

Another thing about self-moderated topics is that, since it helps filter scammers, to some point it also prevents the freedom of expression kind of thing here in the forum, where all of us are entitled to our own opinion. If I'm the creator of a self-moderated thread and it happens to be that the majority of the people commenting under it are against my opinion, I might likely wipe all those comments and leave only those that I see as being in my favor. I've come across a thread where a few of my posts were deleted back when I was still a newbie, if I remember correctly.

So if I'm to be asked, a self-moderated topic is good depending on the OP and how it's being used. There are situations where they are really necessary, but for threads that require open discussion and want people's opinions, I see it as unfair to make them self-moderated.

[GazetaBitcoin]

Considering the record of Unknown01 as a proven shitposter and his inability (or rather unwillingness to improve (what's a big, big shame because everyone can try at least but he refuses to do so)), it's no surprise to me that Unknown01 wants to ban all self-moderated topics because if these would get banned, he'd be able to spam his low-quality content with massively decreasing the chance of getting it deleted. Shitposters and lying trolls like Unknown01 are very fearful towards self-moderated topics because self-moderated topics will make it more likely to get low-quality spam and trolling removed.

Unknown01 has declared his willing to ban self-moderated topic here. This is the most lame way of fighting for not having your posts deleted. Of course, I am more than certain that theymos would never do such change to the forum, so this post is not an expression of me being worried for such a change. The post is aimed to show Unknown01's character and his ridiculous ideas for keeping his zero-value posts not deleted.

Of course, his character can be understood better also by looking at his Trust feedback page:

- [...] Unknown01 is a "casual but ardent shitposter". Unknown01 is not admitting his mistakes and keeps pushing his nonsense shitposting like pyramid-quoting etc.
Additionally he's misusing the trust-system by giving MinoRaiola positive trust without any involved trade [...] -- Nestade, 28.06.2022
- Spreading his insane lies about several established accounts from the German section because he's butthurt that we called out his positive trust abuse, his troll- and shitposting and his disgusting behaviour. Unknown01 is contributing nothing to the forum and recently, he has started to threaten and attack Newbies. -- 1miau, 28.06.2022

He's involved in much more abuse:

- Attacking our campaign to improve posting quality in the German section repeatedly, where we advocated to improve our liguistic writing quality (proper translations, tips to avoid unnecessary Denglish, improving spelling, punctuation etc.) and Unknown01 trashed our campaign.
- Threatening Newbies with a forum ban
- Dangerous and inappropriate use of Trust: giving positive Trust for Shitposters


We have a saying in Romania and it just crossed my mind: tell me who your friends are, to know who you are -- meaning that you can also understand how someone really is by taking a look at the ones he associates with.

Let's take a look at Unknown01's "friends":

- MinoRaiola -- cheating on a contest organized by himself and caught with triple plagiarism. All he says to plagiarism accuses is that he plagiarized the content 2 years ago and he does not remember it, since he does not even remember what he did in the previous day -- makes sense, right?

- s0nix -- supporter of the war, against Ukraine, where also our dear icopress is affected by Putler's disgusting invasion against Ukraine, so it's no surprise, that s0nix is a troll and shitposter + also friend to Koal-84. Should we also talk about Koal-84? Lol.

I believe that, expecting Unknown01's personal actions, his association to such shitty users also says a lot about his character and mindset.

[1miau]

In my opinion, self-moderated topics are a great feature of Bitcointalk for many reasons, for example:
- managing a Service and preventing trolls from flooding it
- great for the Gambling section, where so much spam can be prevented if OP is knowledgeable in the sport and can delete spam from Gambling spammers who have no clue about the sport
- preventing extra work for moderators, removing spam quickly
- setting up unique self-moderated rules to improve posting quality for example as long as these self-moderated rules do not violate the official rules and are resonable

With the above points that you have given, it's definitely worth it. But when it comes to scammers using the forum, the reverse is also the case; they create self-moderated topics where the only comments they allow to stay are anything dropped by them, that of their alt accounts, or anything that just has to be positive based on their discussion.

If a scammer is abusing self-moderation, we'll have the option of providing and compiling evidence and we can make a scam accusation if OP is using self-moderation to scam people.
Remember, all posts of Bitcointalk are archived by LoyceV here: LoyceV's Topic Details: highlight deleted and edited posts (forum wide)
Finally, such an abuse would be very simple to prove and in case self-moderation is abused to scam anyone, we will be able to give out a negative trust for anyone trying a scam.

Another thing about self-moderated topics is that, since it helps filter scammers, to some point it also prevents the freedom of expression kind of thing here in the forum, where all of us are entitled to our own opinion.

That's not true at all as long as such self-moderated rules are reasonable and not affecting a particular opinion. Most often, self-moderation is against trolling and lies, which is not an opinion because such behaviour is just meant to derail a discussion, therefore removing such posts is not "preventing the freedom of expression". Sometimes, trolls are deliberately targeting topics to derail them.
And if someone doesn't like these self-moderated rules, he should not reply there. It's as easy as it gets.
If he's just here to troll, removing these posts is totally deserved.
Forum rules are also not "preventing the freedom of expression" as well.

If I'm the creator of a self-moderated thread and it happens to be that the majority of the people commenting under it are against my opinion, I might likely wipe all those comments and leave only those that I see as being in my favor.

Then, you haven't applied the self-moderation feature properly because if these are legitimate opinions, deleting them is not ideal. Deleting is only advised if it's a troll post.  

Of course, his character can be understood better also by looking at his Trust feedback page:

Yes, he and his friends are so braindead, it's quite a clown show.

And honestly, demanding to ban the opportunity to create self-moderated topics is so shortsighted, that it's already stupid.
The forum is very big and there are so many cases where creating a self-moderated topic makes sense to remove spam effectively.
Some sections might be less spammy but we all know how spam is a big issue in many forum sections. Obviously, Unknown01 doesn’t know this or it's feeling normal for him, because he's a shitposter.

Let's take the Gambling section as an example: there are topics where dozens of replies are made every single day. These spam megathreads have grown to over 1000 (!) pages or 50k replies.
For example, this one about Bundesliga discussion: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1159912.0
Bundesliga season is over now but still every day our shitposters are making tons of replies. Even yesterday, 25 replies have been left. Nobody is reading these shitposts, maybe a bunch of shitposters searching for crumbs to reply to.

Igebotz made a good job pointing out, how self-moderation can help to prevent shitposters flooding new Gambling topics: Gambling Board Spammers; Concerns, Solutions & Suggestions

The solution is very simple: shitposters will get their replies deleted due to self-moderation, these shitposters will get a PM and realize quickly that it's wasted time to post relies in such topics.
These shitposters will stop to shitpost in such topics and that will result in a cleaner thread.
It's simple and it's working. Great outcome from self-moderation.
But as a shitposter, these self-moderated topics are a big nuisance and it's leading to their shitposts getting deleted.  

Funnily, 2 of the biggest German shitposters (MinoRaiola and bct_ail) are part of that spammers list. And funny as well, that bct_ail is one of the shitposters shitting a reply on page 1777 on that spam megathread.
I hope that Signature campaign managers will consider the list from Igebotz and kick these shitposters out of their campaigns due to massive shitposting.

[Volgastallion]

I think the only one who can oposse to the self moderate topics can be the "freedoms fighters" who doesnt understand some basic and logic rules of the world.

Im not gonna talk this case itself, because i dont know him and also its not the main topic of the thread.

For me the most important poin of self moderation threads, its to avoid spam from newbies or accounts that doesnt understant the disscussion or they want to confuse.

Obviusly this can be used to not good goals, or for other pourpose, but that pass with everything in life, like nuclear energy, you can make energy or a bomb.

And this feature its very important in some games and rounds and other topics when somebody cant participate.

Also its a good tool to dont make the mdoerators work so hard, because you are making some of the work. Can you imagine the ammount of posts/reports they have to see if self mdoeration doesnt exist?.

[1miau]

For me the most important poin of self moderation threads, its to avoid spam from newbies or accounts that doesnt understant the disscussion or they want to confuse.

Exactly that. It's quite spammy in the Gambling section, where many topics are flooded with dozens of low-quality spam daily. Even in 50 comments, very little information is contained.
These posts are only made due to paid signature campaigns and that's really a problem.

Luckily, some members dedicated to our Gambling board have launched new, self-moderated topics, where spam posts are getting removed, for example:

Spam topic: Premier League Prediction Thread 2023/2024 (4000 pages of replies)
Self-moderated topic: ⚽ English Premier League Season: 2021/2022 (200 pages of replies)

Hopefully, such incentives will decrease spam in that section even more as some topics are almost impossible to follow, when there are 50+ new replies every day.

[suchmoon]

There is nothing inherently wrong with self-moderation. It is abused by scammers and spammers and other dross, just like any other forum feature is (trust system, merit system, etc). I think some limitations could be useful, e.g. not allowing self-mod threads for newbies. But really anyone seeing a self-mod thread created by a person they don't like should just ignore it, and if they see one created by a scammer they can use trust feedback to warn users.

As for some deranged troll threatening to "ban" this feature... I wouldn't waste too much time worrying about that.

[tranthidung]

There are more serial serious arguments in the past with self-moderated topics when in the forum, DT members had fight with each other. They even included "additional rules" to prohibited members they don't want to join such discussions.

With self moderated topics, all rules set by OP and OP has freedom to delete posts on his rules and vision. It can be right or wrong rules and vision but if you don't see fit with such topics, don't join them. If you want to discuss but with your own "additional rules", start your self-moderated topics and exclude the trollers ...

I am not against your proposal but with precedent cases, I believe the self-moderated feature will remain like it be.

In self-moderated topics, the OP can delete replies. The option for enabling this is under "additional options".

There are no rules to self-moderation. In self-moderated threads, replies belong to the OP. In other threads, replies belong to the respondents individually. Think carefully about whether you want to reply to a self-moderated topic, as your post may not be given due respect.

[1miau]

I am not against your proposal but with precedent cases, I believe the self-moderated feature will remain like it be.

Actually, it's not my proposal to ban self-moderated topics, it's a proposal from Unknown01, a deranged troll. 

Myself, I'm in favor of self-moderation, have applied this feature in some of my topics and I'm also replying to self-moderated topics frequently.

In fact, self-moderation is a nice, additional feature here on Bitcointalk and it's helpful in many occasions. Mainly to prevent spam but also for various other cases. 

[nakamura12]

Self-moderated threads should continue though someone might use it to abuse the system. I think there would be people like that where they delete some posts and only allow what they allow. In scamming people, they can also delete the evidence so that the victim won't be able to prove the claim unless they make a copy of it right away. I think the request to ban self-moderated won't happen as the person who requested it is a troll who doesn't deserve the attention of such issue. He will continue spamming more if that happens.

[Smartvirus]

Self-moderated threads should continue though someone might use it to abuse the system. I think there would be people like that where they delete some posts and only allow what they allow. In scamming people, they can also delete the evidence so that the victim won't be able to prove the claim unless they make a copy of it right away.

I wonder what the purpose was? Obviously it’s been archiving a variety of purpose but the idea it sprang from is a history am not part of yet.

Still, self moderation has been the closest way to proper thread keeping as most times, the capable gets to pick interest in the discussion and keeps the thread as clean and on point as possible. No doubt there have been those who might use it for an abuse and delete contradictory statements or ideas that doesn’t agrees with there’s not to mention, the selection of who gets to say what.

It still plays yo the ideas of self moderation but in a way, it offs some truth.
Even still, I won’t want it washed away up as some good still comes from it.

[1miau]

In scamming people, they can also delete the evidence so that the victim won't be able to prove the claim unless they make a copy of it right away.

All (originally posted) forum posts are always getting archived. There are several tools like from TryNinja or from LoyceV.
For example from LoyceV, we have a copy of all replies of this topic here as well: https://loyce.club/archive/topics/545/5458161.html



So, in case of a self-moderated topic, all submitted posts are getting archived on LoyceV's site and everyone will be able to look up these posts on LoyceV's site, no matter if these posts are getting deleted here on Bitcointalk. All posts are getting archived there.
A scammer could be exposed easily for deleting replies in a self-moderated topic because we would be able to prove it easily. Every post is getting archived.

I think the request to ban self-moderated won't happen as the person who requested it is a troll who doesn't deserve the attention of such issue. He will continue spamming more if that happens.

I'm thinking the same as most likely his motivation is, to ban self-moderated topics because he's a shitposter and OP of a self-moderated topic can delete his low-quality replies, should an OP of a self-moderated topic consider such replies as spammy shitposts.

[Despairo]

This is more like a personal conflict than for the forum good.

Each user has their own opinion to call someone is shitpost, off topic or low quality post, but you can't delete that user post because you're not a moderator. We as an user in this forum can only report that post to moderator, if the moderator didn't delete the post, you can't force them.

Now what we can do? we can only press ignore button as been pointed by @suchmoon, you can distrust him too if he leave inappropriate feedback to your or other user profile.

Discussing the good and bad about self moderated topic is like discussing mixer where it can be used for good or bad.

[SmartGold01]

I was actually trying to see what resulted the attack from Unknown01 but I noticed it was local language which would results me to start using translation and If does I may not get the correct information that warranted to his word of action.

Hence, what I will say is that we understand how the forum works and in local sections we are comprises of many individuals with their own ways of reasoning and if you brought a suggestion to the local board, there is every possibility that not all would agreed to what you said by then it has opened floor for criticism.

So as an experience user you aren't meant to pay attention to what people would say after giving your suggestions, if they don't like it then moved on and forget about them beside you aren't the only one who is to put everything in places I believe there are lots of people over there in your local board.

Then lastly, about self moderated option; I think there is no need to banned it after reading your above highlights, is worth to remain functional in other to keep the forum and some thread clean from spam whereby reducing much task from mod and admin. Let say in the gambling section as you mentioned, there are series of people who posts over there and there could be more spam over there so if any topic is being created, self moderated topic could be more valuable in other reduce tension and task for mods. I believe other educated users also given their reasons as well.

In summary; Let love leads despite our respective localities and countries we are still one family, one community and one bitcointalk.org, we rise by lifting others and by hearing one another in a peaceful way.

[Phu Juck]

I don't see a valid point, why self moderated topics should be banned. It is really hard to understand why someone want to ban such feature. If someone does not like a self moderated topic, he should just reply elsewhere. We have so many topics where everyone can find a place to reply.

I have never seen it as an issue. Self moderation is good feature and should stay. 

[un_rank]

I do not think I have ever used the self moderation feature, but there is no call for it to be removed and you do not really need to stress yourself amplifying the opinion if you do not agree with it. The statistics of posts which are created self moderated is not much, not nearly enough to cause a forum issue even if it was being commonly abused (which it is not).

I think the request to ban self-moderated won't happen as the person who requested it is a troll who doesn't deserve the attention of such issue.

The request will be rejected on merit of the argument and not the user that made it, or so it should be.

- Jay -

[elevates]

I do not understand the reason for creating this thread. If 1miau had previous issues with Unknown01 why was this user not placed on your ignore list? As a DT user, you could have given Unknown01 a red trust and moved on. Whereas you come up with the idea of banning self moderated posts. Why? Considering the amount of spam is happening in the gambling board why do none of the DT members leave a neutral trust to those OP's? A few of them are active and are part of a signature campaign. One of the BM has multiple threads that are constantly getting bombarded with spam. No one will say anything about it as they are DT members. This is not an excuse to ban self moderated topics. I do not agree and I have voted against it.

[sheenshane]

Ain't know who is this Unknown01 so I'll not argue about his troll and I don't even understand the arguments in your local sections since it wasn't my language, the most I've been concerned about is why someone is proposing to remove this wonderful feature that possibly helps to combat the spammer or just spamming for the sake of a signature campaign.  IMO, nothing special to him to be worried and listen to his troll, but instead putting him on our ignore list would be better.

I voted no, it should continue to be possible since it's very USEFUL to keep the forum clean and maintain healthy from irrelevant discussion.  When you're a topic starter and open a discussion thread, this feature helped a lot and it's better than locking your thread to avoid spam.

Though this feature is nice and the same on a merit system or even in a DT system, it could be also abused by anyone else.
But at least can be traceable through the archive tools.

[CryptoHeadlineNews]

I don't think the issue of self-moderation is worth our time and argument for us to start bringing diverse views on why or why not it should be banned, as that feature has done more good than bad on this forum, hence keeping the thread clean by helping individual ease the work of global moderators by deleting both spam & off-topic post made on a thread that goes against its rules and code of conduct.
While secondly, I will like to suggest that in other to avoid misuse and abuse of that self-moderation feature, it will be better if the only set of people allowed to self-moderate their post should be of the rank of "Senior Member" and above, as at that rank I'm sure such user must have known the forum better.

[hugeblack]

self-moderated is necessary for anyone who wants to reduce spam or try to prevent an individual from discussing a topic he created, but it may be misused in some boards by scammers, I remember several years ago it was the preferred method for scammers  as they create these topics with links to auto-sell link, spam topic with has a lot of false responses and deletes everyone who tries to point out because this topic is scam -----> Avoid auto-buy links, mainly locked or self-moderated. Register before dealing
Now this problem is solved by trust flags^[1] so there is no reason to ban self-moderated topics.


[1] Overview of the trust flags