Has Bitcointalk Become Harder for Genuine Beginners?

[lovesmayfamilis]

Adding the word newbies doesn’t change things a whole lot.

Likewise, don't take the word "newbie" for granted. Everyone understands perfectly well what kind of "newbie" these are.¯\_(ᐛ )_/

As they say in our region, "As you sow, so shall you reap," and it seems that the weeds bore much better than the wheat.

Besides, the one who directly multiplies alts is the source of merits. It seems this pointless discussion won't change anything.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;u=3423588

Yes, the forum needs people, lots of people.

[The Cryptovator]

Greeting to you all my fellow bitcointalk members. This thread was as a result of what i have observed on the forum so i do not know if something similar has been discussed about before. However, i used the search button and could not find anything of this kind.

It has discussed many times on the forum, topic title would different but not sure why have you failed to find through the search button.

As we all know, bitcointalk is one of the oldest cryptocurrency forums, and over the year the forum has developed systems to reduce spam, scams, plagiarism, and low quality discussions. while these changes have helped improve the quality of the forum, i sometime wonder whether the forum has also become more difficult for genuine beginners.

Probably difficult for newbies, not for genuine newbies. A newbie really doesn't need ranks or merits to learn from the forum and contribute to the forum as well.

Well, i am still new to the forum just a year plus, but as history has it. Years ago, ranking up on the forum was not really as difficult as it is now, back them ranking up was mainly based on activity, but today merit plays the major role in ranking up, and this have changed how users interact on the forum.

Merits are reward of your contribution and recognition to the forum. Still you can learn, engage on discussion or ask questions out of the ranks.

The merit system was introduced for a good reason because many users were making meaningless posts, low quality post and even spamming only to join signature campaigns. and without the system who knows what the forum could become by now.

Those intended to earn quick money from the forum, they think for quick rank up. Rather a newbie should focus to engage discussion, learn and contribute.

Perhaps from a beginner's perspective things may look different. A newbie can spend weeks, months making posts on the forum without receiving a single merit. sometimes the newbie may even have useful opinions but struggle because they do not know how to structure quality discussions or older members may ignore their post due to low rank.

Doesn't matter older users ignore a post, there are a lot of merit source they might notice. Otherwise there are couple of merits threads where newbies could raise there post to draw attention from the merit sources.

Frankly speaking, all these things sometimes can make genuine newbies to be discouraged quickly and began to feel that ranking up depends more on recognition than efforts and that's how i see the forum now.  Personally, i would say that this frustration sometimes can push newbies towards copy pasting, Ai generated content, account farming and so on just to survive on the forum.  So, please older users not only merit sources should have rethink genuine newbies are struggling to grow on the forum.

It's true newbies would have to struggle to build their profile here, but genuine newbies achieve their goal end of the day. So it's challenging for newbies to become a genuine newbie.

[LoyceV]

I think signature campaigns are also part of the problem.

Take a look at the most active users from the past week: if you ignore ChartBuddy (a bot in WO), 100% of the Top 20 is paid by the same signature campaign that's paid spammers for many years. It's not far fetched to say the Top 20 would look different if they wouldn't be paid for it.

[Majestic-milf]

Greeting to you all my fellow bitcointalk members. This thread was as a result of what i have observed on the forum so i do not know if something similar has been discussed about before. However, i used the search button and could not find anything of this kind.

As we all know, bitcointalk is one of the oldest cryptocurrency forums, and over the year the forum has developed systems to reduce spam, scams, plagiarism, and low quality discussions. while these changes have helped improve the quality of the forum, i sometime wonder whether the forum has also become more difficult for genuine beginners.

Well, i am still new to the forum just a year plus, but as history has it. Years ago, ranking up on the forum was not really as difficult as it is now, back them ranking up was mainly based on activity, but today merit plays the major role in ranking up, and this have changed how users interact on the forum.

The merit system was introduced for a good reason because many users were making meaningless posts, low quality post and even spamming only to join signature campaigns. and without the system who knows what the forum could become by now.

Perhaps from a beginner's perspective things may look different. A newbie can spend weeks, months making posts on the forum without receiving a single merit. sometimes the newbie may even have useful opinions but struggle because they do not know how to structure quality discussions or older members may ignore their post due to low rank.

Personally, from what I've observed, it's easy to get the merits if you know what you're doing. Even newbies will get merits as long as they have good content to give. You can't come in as a noob and begin to start teaching something that has already been addressed and then expect that merits will fall. It's also funny that some newbies who come here and ask for guidelines on how to operate on the forum don't have the patience to carry on.
 The forum has evolved. I came here over three years ago and have discovered that its not just what the forum will give to you that should make one stay here else you'd get easily disinterested when things, especially merits aren't coming.

[Rikafip]

Besides, the one who directly multiplies alts is the source of merits.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;u=3423588

And then I hear some merit sources saying that its not really worth it being merit sources and and all you get are complaints, but here is the proof that it can actually be quite lucrative. 

Joke aside, how the fuck is he still a merit source?


Meanwhile

[Lucius]

~snip~
Joke aside, how the fuck is he still a merit source?

Have you ever heard of someone stopping being a merit source because an admin removed him just like that? As far as I know, you can only lose merits source status if you are inactive or perhaps in the event that serious abuse of it is proven.

[philipma1957]

The merit system was introduced for a good reason because many users were making meaningless posts, low quality post and even spamming only to join signature campaigns. and without the system who knows what the forum could become by now.

I think signature campaigns are also part of the problem.

Even when someone creates a decent thread, many users will jump in and post a quick opinion without reading the previous replies or engaging with the discussion itself.

As a result, threads can end up with pages of repetitive comments where the same points are repeated over and over again.
Those posts may not look like obvious spam, but they often add very little to the conversation.

That also makes it harder for genuinely useful posts to stand out and get noticed.

Here is a new guy or pretty new and the post is pretty good. Also I like his 69 comment.

as I am 69. btw 6 - 9 a variation of 69 works well when you get older.

I am going to review all his posts and see if I will give him more merits.

[Jostern]

The merit system was introduced for a good reason because many users were making meaningless posts, low quality post and even spamming only to join signature campaigns. and without the system who knows what the forum could become by now.

I think signature campaigns are also part of the problem.

Even when someone creates a decent thread, many users will jump in and post a quick opinion without reading the previous replies or engaging with the discussion itself.

As a result, threads can end up with pages of repetitive comments where the same points are repeated over and over again.
Those posts may not look like obvious spam, but they often add very little to the conversation.

That also makes it harder for genuinely useful posts to stand out and get noticed.

I’m not entirely going to agree with you, that signature campaigns are part of the problem and challenge that we have in this situation that you’re talking about.

Apparently I have my opinion that it’s just all fact and nothing is proven from what you have said.

There are so many threads in this forum that you will come across that you see everyone repeating quotes, what some previous accounts have already said, because you find out there are so many pages, and how can you read everything in all that numerous pages, do you have any choice than just making your statements when this threads like mega threads aren’t locked ? There is every tendency that this things would definitely happen in mega threads, and I don’t think there is anything signature campaigns can do about it.

They will obviously add little to the thread because someone has previously posted about some certain contributions.

I don’t really know if my suggestions makes any sense but I think I have come across some threads that are locked probably because the individual have gotten every necessary information he wants, so there is no need for more comments so this threads gets locked.

[philipma1957]

The merit system was introduced for a good reason because many users were making meaningless posts, low quality post and even spamming only to join signature campaigns. and without the system who knows what the forum could become by now.

I think signature campaigns are also part of the problem.

Even when someone creates a decent thread, many users will jump in and post a quick opinion without reading the previous replies or engaging with the discussion itself.

As a result, threads can end up with pages of repetitive comments where the same points are repeated over and over again.
Those posts may not look like obvious spam, but they often add very little to the conversation.

That also makes it harder for genuinely useful posts to stand out and get noticed.

Here is a new guy or pretty new and the post is pretty good. Also I like his 69 comment.

as I am 69. btw 6 - 9 a variation of 69 works well when you get older.

I am going to review all his posts and see if I will give him more merits.

After reading all this person’s threads and posts I wonder if the current person controlling this thread is not the original person.

btw this is not the first lower merit person that i really looked at because i found a good post or two.

looked at every post in this case around 140 posts. i do feel this is a different person than the original 2018 poster.

so once again thanks to the op for catching my attention to read this entire thread.

[Perfectbaby]

I think I have came across similar discussion or post but not in your way you wrote it.. but similarly is about Merits.
I will still answer the same thing here because you can expect a newly signed up user to be bath up with Merits for just a single post they made without knowing the intention of that users. Of course, merit are worth giving but, to me I seems to meriting a dedicated member who has put effort to contribute something meaningful than just coming up here and sign up, expecting to rewarded a Merits.
Instead, such person could be thoroughly monitored to see their dedication on the forum if they actually have a good intention to the community than just wasting a Merits to someone who is not that serious to keep continuing the process of contributing to forum, and I know that as a newbies it's actually hard for them to receive merits but whenever you have becomes established then it would be that easier for you to earn merit due to your quality discussion and dedication to the forum.

[Majestic-milf]

 Why else would you torture yourself by "struggling" on such a "difficult" forum?

Eh, probably because they've got a the survival instincts of a cactus? Its plain and simple: if there were no signature campaigns, will this place generate the traffic it is having now and will the topic of merits be discussed? There it is. We know the Op is "concerned" by the dwindling rate of merit disbursement for "beginners" because the ultimate aim is to rank up and join a paying campaign..

[Rikafip]

Have you ever heard of someone stopping being a merit source because an admin removed him just like that?

Nope. Then again, would that be publicly announced? Unless someone caught them like selling merit and created a thread about it.

As far as I know, you can only lose merits source status if you are inactive or perhaps in the event that serious abuse of it is proven.

Dunno, seems to me that was a pretty strong case of merit abuse.

[New Judgement]

It’s really funny that the newbies we talking about are not actually commenting on this thread to defend themselves and give their own side of the story, if it’s actually hard for them “Genuine beginners” in bitcointalk. Makes me wonder if the newbies are actually aware that there’s a serious discussion concerning them, that’s ongoing here in Meta board. Or are there no “Genuine newbies in the forum that has seen this post?

If the Genuine newbies are not commenting then there’s no need debating on this because the newbies are not speaking up for themselves. In the actual sense, the Genuine newbies are in the right position to bring issues like this and not higher ranked members.

[TokenTikas]

Even when someone creates a decent thread, many users will jump in and post a quick opinion without reading the previous replies or engaging with the discussion itself.

You've raised a good point but this doesn't happen in every thread. In some threads, genuinely good discussions continue, new discussions are added later as well. However, this is seen in most threads, and when people make new comments based on remarks from several days ago, those posts seem baseless. But if we see that the discussions can be explained more clearly or that some additional informative details can be added, then it is fine to continue them.

[Joy- maker]

 Why else would you torture yourself by "struggling" on such a "difficult" forum?

Eh, probably because they've got a the survival instincts of a cactus? Its plain and simple: if there were no signature campaigns, will this place generate the traffic it is having now and will the topic of merits be discussed? There it is. We know the Op is "concerned" by the dwindling rate of merit disbursement for "beginners" because the ultimate aim is to rank up and join a paying campaign..

Whenever I read comments from some Nigerians, i  laugh a lot  because they often talk as if they are saints while they are not. And if I may ask, why is that some users here do not see things from a different perspective apart from ranking and start earning from the forum?

Outside that,  there are newbies from our local section who barely receive merit,  despite having useful opinions and you know what I am saying, yet see what you came here to say.  It is just that, they do not know how to structure quality discussion. However, this is the last time I will create a thread concerning merit and newbies because i have read enough.