Questionable posters in signature campaigns

[examplens]

What is new, and what worries me is that more and more shitposters now manage to earn enough Merit to move up through the Ranks.

Then, they can join signature campaigns and post without even trying to understand what is actually being discussed.

It's still up to the manager.
It's the same as when a reputable manager would make a prediction post in the Games & Round section, only because, for example, they come from a member with a lot of earned merit, even if it was LoyceV, the most recognizable.
It's simple, it's up to the managers to evaluate the quality and meaningfulness of the position, the basis for rejecting it or rewarding it with a payment. If the amount of earned merit is sufficient, then by now some of the automatic post-counting tools would have certainly come into play.

[lovesmayfamilis]

Did you read what he has posted on this thread? He has apologized already for the wrongdoing. You can also see that he sent Free Market Capitalist a merit also which show that he know he has done something wrong. Reading what he has posted is very important to get this discussion to the right direction.

What exactly did he do here?
He apologized to silence and forget this attention as soon as possible, so everyone could continue where they left off. He presents spam as something that happened by accident, so I don't understand how it's possible to spam accidentally.
I know a man who caught a woman cheating on him, she also claimed that it happened by accident. She apologized and promised that it would be the last time, it might happen one or two more times, but it would be completely accidental again.

As JollyGood often notes, checking the post history of some users, you can also notice in the case of Joy-maker that this is not his only account on the forum. Having started his "path" on the forum, he clearly understood where and what to write in order to quickly boost his account. Similarly, what can you want from an account that has a goal of dozens of daily posts on topics that are already impossibly "chewed up"? If a person has several accounts, it is very difficult to have time to think about everything, read, and write something new.
His apologies will not affect his personality in any way . It doesn't cost such accounts anything to apologize a hundred times, bow their heads, call the interlocutor "sir" as a sign of "respect," and continue doing what they did before.
There is a big difference between those for whom the forum is a place for communication, reading, and some profit, and those who have decided to live on the funds received from the signature companies.

You can also see that he sent Free Market Capitalist a merit

It turns out that this is all that is needed to resolve such situations?

[Lucius]

The problem we have on the forum when it comes to sig campaigns and those who participate in them can be defined in one sentence - too many open spots, too few quality posters.

Seems like there's an obvious solution to that, which is reduce the number of available spots and pay quality posters a little bit more. I realize this results in less overall impressions for the signature. I just have to wonder who off-forum with money to spend is reading through pages of garbage on the Gambling board and then randomly clicking on user signatures. Seems like those thousands of impressions are useless. We don't even know if they are contributing anything to a casino's SEO score.

Not so long ago, I suggested the same. If a sig campaign has 50 participants, of which at least 50% are below some average quality, I would personally increase the number of posts and the pay rate for those 25 quality posters, which would mean that the campaign will "produce" the same/similar number of posts per week and will not lose visibility.


The most successful sig campaign I've personally seen (CM) had a recipe that no other campaign even came close to trying to copy, so even though it's unrealistic for anyone to offer what they offered, anything above the current average would be enough to attract the best posters and achieve the best results.


---

Quantity has ruled over quality, and that's a great position for all the shitposters and alts farms - just 5 accounts earning $100 each week is $2000 per month.

Please don't encourage them.  

It's hard to call that encouraging, because the hundreds of alt accounts that have been discovered in the past 6 months are probably just the tip of the iceberg. I mean, these are old alt farms from the time when it was enough to invest just time and low value posts to reach a higher rank.

[nutildah]

Not so long ago, I suggested the same. If a sig campaign has 50 participants, of which at least 50% are below some average quality, I would personally increase the number of posts and the pay rate for those 25 quality posters, which would mean that the campaign will "produce" the same/similar number of posts per week and will not lose visibility.

That makes sense.. I'm also in favor of a more graded pay scale, like $40-$140 a week instead of flat rates for Legendaries. If a manager really, really wants to employ bought or hacked accounts, pay them $40 instead of the same rate you are paying legitimate Legendary accounts who are probably better posters anyway.

Same thing with utter shitposters: if a manager really, really needs to hire an account already tagged as an alt or a shitposter, pay them less than you would at their rank compared to quality posters.

This would actually incentivize quality posting, which could only be better for the brand you are representing. Not to mention better for the forum as well, which ironically, campaign managers depend on.

Somehow at the end of the day I refuse to believe that "impressions" is the only thing that matters here. SEO spam is becoming more and more a thing of the past, in all forms. Google is on to it and they're no dummies.

[Satofan44]

Not so long ago, I suggested the same. If a sig campaign has 50 participants, of which at least 50% are below some average quality, I would personally increase the number of posts and the pay rate for those 25 quality posters, which would mean that the campaign will "produce" the same/similar number of posts per week and will not lose visibility.

That makes sense.. I'm also in favor of a more graded pay scale, like $40-$140 a week instead of flat rates for Legendaries. If a manager really, really wants to employ bought or hacked accounts, pay them $40 instead of the same rate you are paying legitimate Legendary accounts who are probably better posters anyway.

Same thing with utter shitposters: if a manager really, really needs to hire an account already tagged as an alt or a shitposter, pay them less than you would at their rank compared to quality posters.

This would actually incentivize quality posting, which could only be better for the brand you are representing.

Proposals can be debated, but what can not be debated is that the current system is very fucked up and the incentives are in complete disarray. The real question is why no manager is actually trying to change something or to improve something. How long have these flat rates been a thing in the majority of time? It must have been some time since it became evident that this is only reading it massive amounts of generic shitposts.

Somehow at the end of the day I refuse to believe that "impressions" is the only thing that matters here. SEO spam is becoming more and more a thing of the past, in all forms. Google is on to it and they're no dummies.

It is not, it is one of those secrets that nobody here wants to admit publicly because it would lead to monetary losses for many parties. Random shitposting spam has very little impact on ranking, the best companies hope here is to get their name out there so that a few people try them out. It is different for the established ones, they just want to retain their leadership and don't hesitate to spend fair amounts of money. Bitcointalk is no longer relevant anyway as it used to be, so the impact on search rankings is even less.

The most successful sig campaign I've personally seen (CM) had a recipe that no other campaign even came close to trying to copy, so even though it's unrealistic for anyone to offer what they offered, anything above the current average would be enough to attract the best posters and achieve the best results.

Which was what? By not paying shitposters more money can be given to those that actually try to post something useful, it is as simple as that. Campaign budgets don't even need to be increased for some of these changes to work.

[Free Market Capitalist]

What does that suppose to mean?

Well, I was talking about a global problem, and you responded with an alleged solution specific to the gambling sections. As one post was from the Scam Accusations but referred to a problem with a casino, I thought you may have gotten confused.

Even if you are given 10% extra of your weekly signature payments? I will accept that deal gladly, no matter +ev or -ev.

If they give me that extra 10%, I might accept it, but I think it's all too hypothetical.

In the end, I think shitposting is going to continue and that's that. I started this thread because of the examples I recently came across of people responding with things that have nothing to do with the thread or with the facts being discussed, but if we were to tag all the shitposting, I think we could tag hundreds of posters, including those who shitpost in the gambling section and/or in mega-threads in the speculation section such as Buy the dip and Hodl or Buy Buy Buy Sell Sell Sell ones.

[yahoo62278]

In the end, I think shitposting is going to continue and that's that. I started this thread because of the examples I recently came across of people responding with things that have nothing to do with the thread or with the facts being discussed, but if we were to tag all the shitposting, I think we could tag hundreds of posters, including those who shitpost in the gambling section and/or in mega-threads in the speculation section such as Buy the dip and Hodl or Buy Buy Buy Sell Sell Sell ones.

The reason users are posting in the bolded sections are mainly its a merit circle jerk. Low ranked members have found a honey hole and know that spamming those threads ends up gaining them a few merits here and there.

The spamming has been a problem since at least 2014 if not sooner. This isn't the 1st thread I have seen on the subject and it likely won't be the last. Half the forum wants to say blame the managers while the other half puts it all on the users. They're both right but what is really the solution? Just fire everyone?

[Lucius]

Not so long ago, I suggested the same. If a sig campaign has 50 participants, of which at least 50% are below some average quality, I would personally increase the number of posts and the pay rate for those 25 quality posters, which would mean that the campaign will "produce" the same/similar number of posts per week and will not lose visibility.

That makes sense.. I'm also in favor of a more graded pay scale, like $40-$140 a week instead of flat rates for Legendaries. If a manager really, really wants to employ bought or hacked accounts, pay them $40 instead of the same rate you are paying legitimate Legendary accounts who are probably better posters anyway.

Same thing with utter shitposters: if a manager really, really needs to hire an account already tagged as an alt or a shitposter, pay them less than you would at their rank compared to quality posters.

This would actually incentivize quality posting, which could only be better for the brand you are representing. Not to mention better for the forum as well, which ironically, campaign managers depend on.

Somehow at the end of the day I refuse to believe that "impressions" is the only thing that matters here. SEO spam is becoming more and more a thing of the past, in all forms. Google is on to it and they're no dummies.

It's interesting to look back for those who remember how it used to be compared to today when it comes to sig campaigns. So some will remember that some campaigns had bots instead of managers that counted posts and registrations were automatic. Things got so out of control that something had to be done, so @Lauda took over at least one campaign, and another if I'm not mistaken @hilariousandco, which in combination with the introduced merits system somewhat improved the situation.

Whether anyone wants to admit it or not, the forum has lost a lot of quality members over the years (in one way or another), and unfortunately has not managed to replace them with a sufficient number of new members of the same or at least similar quality. Previously, a negative tag from a DT member was considered an insurmountable obstacle to a sig campaign, today I see members with several negative tags participating in campaigns.

I assume that all this is part of the changes that come with time and a combination of various factors. Somehow it seems to me that the future doesn't bring us anything better, considering that AI will become so powerful that it will be able to imitate humans in text communication without detection.

[SuperBitMan]

Somehow it seems to me that the future doesn't bring us anything better, considering that AI will become so powerful that it will be able to imitate humans in text communication without detection.

Lucius you are right, a time like that will come and things in this forum will become more worse, some are saying and I quote “when that time comes AI works may still lack the authenticity and creative, erratic nature of truly human composed work”, but that won’t be the case because of how powerful AI will grow to be.
The reason why we are still enjoying this forum with human writing and ideas is because we have AI detectors that are working even though not 100% effective, if this detectors can no longer detect AI writing because of how developed AI has become then the forum will be a mess with a lot of AI shit posters. When that time comes we can only catch those that are using AI heavily on the forum, by asking follow up questions, that will be help in catching those who are only using AI heavily on the forum. But the smart ones won’t be caught if we get to that stage that AI detectors can’t detect AI anymore except a good solution comes up. Like they say what ever that has advantage also has disadvantage.

[Free Market Capitalist]

The spamming has been a problem since at least 2014 if not sooner. This isn't the 1st thread I have seen on the subject and it likely won't be the last. Half the forum wants to say blame the managers while the other half puts it all on the users. They're both right but what is really the solution? Just fire everyone?

No solution I guess, just to create a thread to this from time to time, complain, then go back to normal.

To be clear I haven't blamed managers although I don't believe all managers or all campaigns should be put in the same category in this regard.

[TypoTonic]

The spamming has been a problem since at least 2014 if not sooner. This isn't the 1st thread I have seen on the subject and it likely won't be the last. Half the forum wants to say blame the managers while the other half puts it all on the users. They're both right but what is really the solution? Just fire everyone?

There's always the temporary and permanent bans, but the problem is that there are hundreds of campaign participants, and the staff can't possibly evaluate every single one of them properly. As addressed by theymos recently:

I acknowledge that not nearly enough people are banned for low-quality posts. The fundamental issue is that we don't want to ban someone just for posting one or two stupid posts, since that's subjective and might just be due to the person having weird opinions or being a poor writer. So to evaluate a user properly, we really want to be reading a sampling of 20-40 of their posts. But doing this sort of evaluation (i.e. reading through hundreds of mediocre-to-bad posts) is really soul-sucking, so nobody wants to do it very much. I'm still thinking about ways to resolve this issue, possibly involving rejiggering how merit works.

At the very least, he seems to be working on a possible solution, so there might be some changes sooner or later.

[yahoo62278]

The spamming has been a problem since at least 2014 if not sooner. This isn't the 1st thread I have seen on the subject and it likely won't be the last. Half the forum wants to say blame the managers while the other half puts it all on the users. They're both right but what is really the solution? Just fire everyone?

There's always the temporary and permanent bans, but the problem is that there are hundreds of campaign participants, and the staff can't possibly evaluate every single one of them properly. As addressed by theymos recently:

I acknowledge that not nearly enough people are banned for low-quality posts. The fundamental issue is that we don't want to ban someone just for posting one or two stupid posts, since that's subjective and might just be due to the person having weird opinions or being a poor writer. So to evaluate a user properly, we really want to be reading a sampling of 20-40 of their posts. But doing this sort of evaluation (i.e. reading through hundreds of mediocre-to-bad posts) is really soul-sucking, so nobody wants to do it very much. I'm still thinking about ways to resolve this issue, possibly involving rejiggering how merit works.

At the very least, he seems to be working on a possible solution, so there might be some changes sooner or later.

Well we are 12 years + with the same issues and no fix yet, so I'm gonna guess much later. There is some key text though that I have highlighted in the admins quote. Everyone is not the same on this forum and they all think different or have different opinions. Determining spam isn't as black n white as some think.

[nutildah]

At the very least, he seems to be working on a possible solution, so there might be some changes sooner or later.

Well we are 12 years + with the same issues and no fix yet, so I'm gonna guess much later. There is some key text though that I have highlighted in the admins quote. Everyone is not the same on this forum and they all think different or have different opinions. Determining spam isn't as black n white as some think.

Honestly its on us (me & whoever else is complaining) to help shape an actionable standard for poster quality, and I volunteered to help with this, but there's a work/life balance I'm trying to maintain, plus whatever you count this activity as. So anyway the change may come sooner rather than much later.

I am currently performing an in-depth review of campaigns, managers & participants in hopes of better identifying problems & solutions. That way I can be more fair than just saying "the system is fuct." It may take a few days.

[FinneysTrueVision]

Previously, a negative tag from a DT member was considered an insurmountable obstacle to a sig campaign, today I see members with several negative tags participating in campaigns.

Multiple red tags are just fine these days. You can even join the same campaign with your alt.

Despite the red tags, Solodoski was allowed to remain in the Rollbit campaign, where Callido is currently enrolled also.

At some point managers started making exceptions for red tags if you had an active loan. Cheaters caught on to this, which is why they take out loans as often as possible and keep extending them for months on end.

[lovesmayfamilis]

At some point managers started making exceptions for red tags if you had an active loan. Cheaters caught on to this, which is why they take out loans as often as possible and keep extending them for months on end.

The question always arises of how someone with a loan of more than $800 can pay it on time, despite the fact that his signature company pays only $80, or even less, per week. My only thought is that loans are paid from multiple accounts. Similarly, it is unclear why one should pay interest (given that the loans are taken as insurance against tags) if someone is not in the best financial situation. There is only one thought that there are alternative accounts, of which there are several, and only in this case will the interest payment not be noticeable.

I've said many times that there are two different sides. Someone wants a clean forum, and someone wants to develop their business by giving loans.

[mv1986]

@Free Market Capitalist, if your approach was deemed to be correct, football teams would have less than 11 players and one coach that stays forever. I'd actually be all for that, players should carry more of the burden, but it's not how it works. When sig campaign managers decide to go with a participant, it's their choice.

Look at Stake.com, all they want is visibility. Quality does not matter at all to them. Not at all! So you could tag 90% of those participants, but why? Stake wants it that way.

No kidding, we make fun of these idiots or just call them out, but tagging, I don't know. I have never done that, but I can see why some people get tagged, but the truth is that the sig campaign managers have to decide. It's really their reputation on the line. I would not blame the participants unless AI or whatever truly punishable thing happened.

I know the shit posting is so crazy that sometimes it feels like you need painkillers after reading a few posts. But isn't it the same in real life with some idiots? What do we do there? Call their employer? Slap them to tag them?

Edit: actually, anesthetize shit talkers in real life and putting a tattoo in their face, I gotta think about that...

[Lucius]

Previously, a negative tag from a DT member was considered an insurmountable obstacle to a sig campaign, today I see members with several negative tags participating in campaigns.

Multiple red tags are just fine these days. You can even join the same campaign with your alt.
~snip~

Is that allowed too? I haven't noticed that in the rules of the campaigns I've participated in, but if that's the case then it just confirms that managers are changing the old rules in order to fill spots in the campaigns. Anyway, I think alts in the same campaigns shouldn't be allowed, even though some don't ask for that permission anyway - the forum is full of alts.