Is BCT dead and most of the traffic just mindless AI zombies now?

[coupable]

The ChatGPT post I quoted is objectively of much higher quality than those criticized by the OP, for starters because it replies on topic unlike the human replies. But you also have to know how to use it; a shitposter using ChatGPT will get lower quality responses than someone who knows how to use it.

I want to know your opinion about those who used to use automated translation tools or paraphrasing tools before those tools become fully integrated with an AI model. They used to post their own opinions and just used those tools to present them in a nice way. Someoene might be not that perfect in English because it's his second/third language so sometimes seek help when discussing something in deep. I recently discovered that a post can be detected as AI generated even it was just a translation or paraphrase of the author own ideas origianally written in his own style using those tools.

[KingsDen]

and the replies that follow then convince me that the forum isn't mostly populated by mindless bots now.

I'm not going to convince you, and already had 2 of the users that responded on Ignore. I've been "complaining" about the lack of punishment for plagiarism and AI for years now, and largely gave up reporting them. If it takes more effort to report a chatbot spammer than it takes for him to spam, it's a lost cause if they don't get banned on sight. If Mods just delete the reported posts but let the user continue, I just click Ignore and move on. This may very well destroy Bitcointalk as we know it.

I don't know how things changed so fast. I mean when I joined the forum 2021, not quite long. There was this great fear of being banned. The fastest way to get yourself banned is;

• Plagerism
• Spamming
• Spreading malware

But these days, I don't think that people are even banned anymore because I don't seem to see much ban appeal threads in the meta board. The forum has become so lenient.

[nutildah]

Honestly, mindless humans are worse than AI zombies, but there is a bit of both here. My ballpark estimate is that 90-95% of posts here are complete trash and should be deleted.

As far as the the Gambling and Altcoin Discussion boards go, yes easily. I believe the problem is the bar for what passes as "not spam" is so low in those sections that shitposters have gotten used to seeing their shitposts stand and now have the courage to shitpost in other sections of the forum... ones that are actually being read by people.

This number comes down to 80% for Bitcoin Discussion and as low as 20% for Dev & Tech discussion  

There's nothing we can do about it though as long as the man in charge thinks that there is no problem. Yet another example how centralized control leads to failures.

Ultimately its not a problem as far as the overall existence of the forum is concerned: the bills are paid and all theymos actually has to do is keep the lights on.

But yes, rational people looking for stimulating conversation - who might one day even contribute something positive to Bitcoin - can be easily driven away by all the spam posts about nothing.

I don't think the mods ever delete anything on their own accord, they are acting on reports 99% of the time, so the solution is to just report every piece of garbage post. Maybe if enough of us start doing this and reporting the same posts, we can kind of raise the bar a little bit.

That's all I got.

[brownn]

Is BCT dead and most of the traffic just mindless AI zombies now?

Mindless? Maybe. AI? Doubt it. Zombies? Absolutely.

[Lucius]

This is a bit OT, but whenever we mention shitposters, spammers, plagiarists, and inappropriate use of AI, it's hard to resist saying what we should do to make their lives miserable on the forum.

A good start would be if signature campaign managers actually began reading the posts they’re paying for, since mods are unwilling to be harsher when it comes to handling reported shitposts.

Some of them may even read part of the posts, but even if all managers read all the posts, they would still have a problem with the fact that some posts are relatively good, but written in a completely wrong context. Expecting sig managers to conduct such strict checks is a bit too much, though, as most of them have several campaigns that result in hundreds of posts per week.

[Free Market Capitalist]

Yeah, but you rant about AI on a thread caused by shitposts out of human asses. Overwhelming logic.

Have you seen the topic title?

Yes, not only have I seen the topic title, but I've also taken it apart, as well as posting an AI-generated response in this thread that is objectively of much higher quality than the responses out of human asses that the OP thinks are AI. But since you lose all your rationality when the word AI appears, and you have a lot of it, it seems that you haven't noticed.

Apart from the fact that the other part of the title asks whether Bitcoin is dead. Coming from someone who has been on the forum since 2011, it sounds like trolling. Come on, if you tell me that account has been taken over by an AI bot to generate traffic with absurd controversies, I'll believe you.

[LoyceMobile]

Apart from the fact that the other part of the title asks whether Bitcoin is dead.

Read it again, it doesn't ask that.

[I've also taken it apart, as well as posting an AI-generated response in this thread that is objectively of much higher quality

I couldn't care less about your chatbot response.

[philipma1957]

This is a bit OT, but whenever we mention shitposters, spammers, plagiarists, and inappropriate use of AI, it's hard to resist saying what we should do to make their lives miserable on the forum.

A good start would be if signature campaign managers actually began reading the posts they’re paying for, since mods are unwilling to be harsher when it comes to handling reported shitposts.

Some of them may even read part of the posts, but even if all managers read all the posts, they would still have a problem with the fact that some posts are relatively good, but written in a completely wrong context. Expecting sig managers to conduct such strict checks is a bit too much, though, as most of them have several campaigns that result in hundreds of posts per week.

 I would also read all the English posts made on the website for 1 day a week randomly picked and delete what I consider to be garbage but it would take about 2 days time to do it. Plus it would create a ton of angry people.

I did give a neutral trust today to this newer person TLoyal

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=3736158


I read a dozen posts they feel machine entered and do not match properly to the threads they are on.

[xandry]

The Forum is not populated by mindless bots because we all passed the I'm not a robot Captcha.

I didn't understand if this was sarcasm or if you were serious, so I'll answer you this: to overcome the barrier in the form of a captcha, user just needs to click mouse button, and then the assistant in the form of AI can publish posts in the required amount. 

[suchmoon]

Maybe if enough of us start doing this and reporting the same posts, we can kind of raise the bar a little bit.

Don't waste your time. It's far more valuable than spammer's time or even mod's time. It would be far more efficient for mods to look at that shit and delete it on the spot, instead of multiple people having to read and report it only for mods to leave it unhandled most of the time. The fact that there is no proactive moderation tells you all you need to know about the priorities of this forum.

Your time is better spent clicking that ignore button.

[philipma1957]

Maybe if enough of us start doing this and reporting the same posts, we can kind of raise the bar a little bit.

Don't waste your time. It's far more valuable than spammer's time or even mod's time. It would be far more efficient for mods to look at that shit and delete it on the spot, instead of multiple people having to read and report it only for mods to leave it unhandled most of the time. The fact that there is no proactive moderation tells you all you need to know about the priorities of this forum.

Your time is better spent clicking that ignore button.

yeah it is true.  I see 20 to 40 posts a day that are obvious bot ai whatever you want to say.

But I would not spend 8 hours a day reading and deleting (or moving  into a I think you are fake spot)

  One reason is I would not be paid to spend the time the other reason is the forum generates a lot of income for a lot of people via signatures I would not want to kill that off.


And when it comes to signature lost income banning mixers costs me a ton of $$. Maybe 0.08 btc I would need to go back and see what I refunded to the mixer.

I still think leaving too much in is better than taking too much out. So I guess it is bot time for us.

[suchmoon]

But I would not spend 8 hours a day reading and deleting (or moving  into a I think you are fake spot)

As a moderator? It wouldn't be 8 hours a day. It would be some hours to get rid of that shit once or twice to make the spammers go away. Then it would be mostly nice and clean with maybe 20 minutes needed per day per board to keep up. I know because I remember the not so distant past when it was indeed possible to keep up with reading multiple boards and any attempt to spam would stand out immediately.

  One reason is I would not be paid to spend the time the other reason is the forum generates a lot of income for a lot of people via signatures I would not want to kill that off.

The income would still be there, just distributed differently, with perhaps a higher chance that at least some of it would go to people who objectively deserve it rather than the ones with the biggest bot farms.

I still think leaving too much in is better than taking too much out. So I guess it is bot time for us.

I disagree. Quality > quantity, especially with the rest of the internet drowning in AI slop. Who is going to read all that? And if no one reads - what's the point?

[Bitcoin_Arena]

I don't know how things changed so fast. I mean when I joined the forum 2021, not quite long. There was this great fear of being banned. The fastest way to get yourself banned is;

• Plagerism
• Spamming
• Spreading malware

But these days, I don't think that people are even banned anymore because I don't seem to see much ban appeal threads in the meta board. The forum has become so lenient.

I believe the offense that can get you an immediate ban right now is spreading malware. The Mods seem to have softened their stance on plagiarism. In fact, when you check out the last reports in the thread where those who commit plagiarism are posted, it's just a few of them who get banned. The same applies to ban evasion. So, it appears that the reporters also sort of lost morale.

Also, with the emergence of AI, the offenders see no point of plagiarism anymore. All they now do is use AI which goes unpunished except just a couple of neutral tags when caught and lost less plagiarism offenders to report.

[philipma1957]

Look to me it takes a lot of reading. Not 20 minutes a day.

I READ FOR hours every day and I see 1 in five posts that  should go.

I suppose I could  only read the posts of newbies which would likely have 1 in 4 bots or ai or crap vs 1 In 5 if I read every post.

But to do that I would miss reading the better posts.

And yes I know people higher than newbie have garbage.

[suchmoon]

Look to me it takes a lot of reading. Not 20 minutes a day.

20 minutes was my estimate for workload for a proactive moderator on an otherwise clean generic board, like Bitcoin Discussion. Doesn't need to involve reading everything. Even in it's current sad state BD has ~20 threads with new posts in the last 24 hours. So that's 1 minute per thread to skim the last page of it and kill any new spammers. Ok, let's say that's not enough time and you need 5 minutes per thread. But in reality that board should have like 3 or 4 active threads at most, I mean how many different BITCOIN DISCUSSIONS you could possibly have every day.

Anyway, it's completely academic at this point, because this is clearly not the direction the forum is heading.

[Satofan44]

I don't think the mods ever delete anything on their own accord, they are acting on reports 99% of the time, so the solution is to just report every piece of garbage post. Maybe if enough of us start doing this and reporting the same posts, we can kind of raise the bar a little bit.

That's all I got.

This is the opposite of how moderation should be, just terrible. Does any senior moderator have a public stance on these things or are they just silently obeying the master?  

Look to me it takes a lot of reading. Not 20 minutes a day.

I READ FOR hours every day and I see 1 in five posts that  should go.

You can do it more effectively by focusing on users that are reported in the Reputation section first. Then you will have a need-to-eliminate rate of almost 100%. It takes very little time. Just cleaning those first would make a big change to the forum.

There is no interest to do it. Even if you'd put someone who would effectively destroy those accounts and farms in a moderator position, they are unable to do so without a green light from theymos. Therefore there is an impression that this is a problem that is hard to solve, it is not. From the places that I have been in throughout the years, this one has the biggest issue with shitposting and spam by far. That indicates that the issue comes from how this place is ruled, and not that the problem being tackled is a hard to solve one.

Anyway, it's completely academic at this point, because this is clearly not the direction the forum is heading.

Unfortunately, yes.

[coinlary]

This is a bit OT, but whenever we mention shitposters, spammers, plagiarists, and inappropriate use of AI, it's hard to resist saying what we should do to make their lives miserable on the forum.

A good start would be if signature campaign managers actually began reading the posts they’re paying for, since mods are unwilling to be harsher when it comes to handling reported shitposts.

They are reading it from the way they fill their spreadsheet (they seem to know the posts that qualify, right?). The only difference is that they can't start checking the topic and even the entire discussion under it to know if the person is actually writing what's in line with the topic itself, not rewriting what has been written by another user, or if it's totally AI-generated. That will take ages when they have to fill spreadsheets for hundreds of their campaigns participants.

[nutildah]

I propose a new category of spam/shitposts for immediate deletion: posts written with zero intention of anyone ever reading them. How do we determine such a post? Well if people who actually read posts - like many of the people commenting in this thread - come across it and the post is so bad it makes you want to put the user on ignore rather than attempt to decipher what is being said, that's a good indicator.

Here's an example pulled at random:

in the gambling you have to understand that two things is involved it is neither you lose or you benefit from gambling if you have such a mind you will not bother yourself that much when you lose in gambling so I believe that those people who find it very difficult to forget about their losses in gambling are the ones who think that gambling will give them whatever thing they needed at the moment, so if you are pursuing your losses in gambling that will give you edge to be addicted in gambling so it is better for we to not pursue our losses because it will make us to be more desperate and the gambling than before

No periods, one long, hard-to-read sentence about nothing. Even if the grammar and punctuation was completely fixed, they are still not communicating a single original thought. I will report it and see what happens.

And if no one reads - what's the point?

Signature impressions for the service/product is the only point... I just have a hard time believing that people read an utter shitpost like the one above and then think to themselves "oh this casino being adverised in their signature looks interesting." Maybe that's exactly what happens though. IDK.

[suchmoon]

Signature impressions for the service/product is the only point... I just have a hard time believing that people read an utter shitpost like the one above and then think to themselves "oh this casino being adverised in their signature looks interesting." Maybe that's exactly what happens though. IDK.

I thought it gives them an SEO boost if there is a bunch of forum posts linking to their casinos, even if those links appear under a dogshit of a post. Which ironically is getting killed anyway by search engines pushing their AI summaries.

But there is no point for humans to participate, was my point.

[nutildah]

Signature impressions for the service/product is the only point... I just have a hard time believing that people read an utter shitpost like the one above and then think to themselves "oh this casino being adverised in their signature looks interesting." Maybe that's exactly what happens though. IDK.

I thought it gives them an SEO boost if there is a bunch of forum posts linking to their casinos, even if those links appear under a dogshit of a post. Which ironically is getting killed anyway by search engines pushing their AI summaries.

It used to but not as much in the last couple of years as now its being filtered by Google as spam, apparently.

The below info is an AI-generated summary but other sources I read pretty much say the same thing:

https://www.quora.com/Are-forum-signatures-still-good-backlinks-or-will-they-damage-your-SEO

Forum signatures rarely provide strong direct SEO (PageRank) today and can harm a site if used spammy or over-optimized. When used selectively—as part of authentic participation on relevant, quality forums—they can be a low-cost source of referral traffic, brand exposure, and occasional natural links without significant SEO risk.

Google itself seems to be attempting to emulate a more human approach in determining its rankings to discourage SEO manipulation, which sounds good for us, in theory. It would be nice to be able to demonstrate that hiring spammers actually damages SEO.