Bitcointalk attention scarcity. Can Bitcointalk adjust difficulty?

[Comeacross]

I don't know the right board to post this between Meta and bitcoin discussion. Mods should please do the needful if necessary.

I have been reflecting on how this forum has evolved. In the olden days, a good thread had a higher chance of being seen and discussed by a decent portion of the active community. But today, probably because of much higher activity, good threads seem to drown faster. Satoshi solved monetary scarcity with Bitcoin 21m cap and difficulty adjustment. In this forum, attention is the ultimate scarce resource here.

From the current stats from Statistics Center it seems the forum has developed its own attention inflation. Average over 4k posts per day, over 170 new topics per day with over 200 new user registrations per day.

Compare to 2015 or so, far fewer total posts and active users and this made it possible for a good threads to remain visible and attract good engagement for days. Now, a new topic can sink in within hours. Visibility feel diluted even as raw volume grows with the help of many factors.

Relating this to Bitcoin, what would a difficulty adjustment for post quality look like on Bitcointalk? Should we propose cool down between posts depending on account rank (longer cool down for lower ranks). The forum is not just like other platforms and pure noise should not become order of the day. Is the current merit system sufficient as a filter or there is other alternatives we can preserve the depth that made the forum legendary while the ecosystem grows?

I'm not complaining or suggesting drastic changes. Growth is good but leaving it unchecked erode signal. As a Bitcoiners, I believe we understand the importance of scarcity and incentives better than most people. I believe it'll make a difference if we apply that lens here.

[KingsDen]

Newbies = creates max 2 threads 14 days
Jr member = creates max 4 threads in 14 days
Member = creates max 6 threads in 14 days
Full member = creates max 8 threads in 14 days
Snr member = creates max 10 threads in 14 days
Hero = creates max 12 threads in 14 days
Legendary = creates max 14 threads in 14 days

Is this what you want?

That is bullshit and theymos is not interested in this and likewise many of us.

Next suggestion could be for admin to decide posts that are quality that users will read. Typical social media algorithm kind of vibe?

Let's enjoy the freedom offered here please!

[Vod]

I'm not complaining or suggesting drastic changes. Growth is good but leaving it unchecked erode signal. As a Bitcoiners, I believe we understand the importance of scarcity and incentives better than most people. I believe it'll make a difference if we apply that lens here.

I've been here 15 years and I've seen a lot of call for change.  As a Gen Xer, I welcome change and am comfortable with all technologies, even pre-compute!  So at first I advocated for these changes - real time chat, mobile interface, anything to improve.   Then someone mentioned that this forum has a Bitcoin responsibility to stay as it was originally designed, and I agree with that.

That being said, I hope Theymos is already (and constantly) making background changes to protect us.

[Mia Chloe]

~snjp

First off the forum isn't some video game you can just tweak the difficulty. Currently I don't really see the exact point you are trying to make. Understand you cannot force people to post and likewise it doesn't make sense to stop people from posting either the community will only end up dying out.

What's most important is trying as much to maintain quality and that's not something for the mods alone it's a thing that everyone literally has a role to play in.

[Cryptoprincess101]

I assume that what you are saying is that the forum is growing in activity and you don't like the fact that it is experiencing such rapid growth right? this is the first time I'm seeing someone who is complaining about the traffic in the forum. You said that new topics lack engagement after few hours, are you sure they are topics that are worth engaging? because as far as i can remember, there are some topics in boards like the bitcoin discussion that replies get up to page 10 and above.
    You should be happy that the forum is growing in numbers and more people are identifying with the forum. If you see any anomaly that requires attention, it's either you take the topic to the reputation board or you report to moderators to handle it. Creating many topics is not the problem, bad and low-quality topics is.
    You can't expect the forum's activity to drop when there are a lot of things that are going on in the forum on daily basis.

[SatoPrincess]

Olden days? You joined this forum in 2022, I think your perception of the olden days is limited to that time period. You don’t know how the forum was before the merit system. People complain about the decline in post quality in recent years, but we can agree the post quality is better than it was in 2015.

IMO, the problem is that there are so many alts these days and campaigns willing to pay for quantity rather than quality.

[LFC_Bitcoin]

Olden days? You joined this forum in 2022, I think your perception of the olden days is limited to that time period. You don’t know how the forum was before the merit system. People complain about the decline in post quality in recent years, but we can agree the post quality is better than it was in 2015.

IMO, the problem is that there are so many alts these days and campaigns willing to pay for quantity rather than quality.

I think the forum is far more actively moderated now than in the old days. Some guys on here have tens of thousands of successful reports. I don’t think it was as harshly moderated back in the day. There were certainly more shit posts in the old days, one liners, short posts.

Signature campaigns are higher quality than they once were, probably because there are less now. Campaign managers are stricter now than they used to be.

[Comeacross]

Newbies = creates max 2 threads 14 days
Jr member = creates max 4 threads in 14 days
Member = creates max 6 threads in 14 days
Full member = creates max 8 threads in 14 days
Snr member = creates max 10 threads in 14 days
Hero = creates max 12 threads in 14 days
Legendary = creates max 14 threads in 14 days

Is this what you want?

That is bullshit and theymos is not interested in this and likewise many of us.

Next suggestion could be for admin to decide posts that are quality that users will read. Typical social media algorithm kind of vibe?

Let's enjoy the freedom offered here please!

Let me clarify myself. I'm not proposing new rules but you probably missed my point. Bitcointalk freedom is why we are all here and I don't expect protocol changes.

BTC works because scarcity and incentives are coded in which makes difficulty to adjust automatically. So I'm asking if this forum can get the same effect without rules. After all the forum exit because of Bitcoin.

For clarity, I'm not against freedom. I'm just curious if it's possible to keep the signal high while we still maintain freedom

First off the forum isn't some video game you can just tweak the difficulty. Currently I don't really see the exact point you are trying to make. Understand you cannot force people to post and likewise it doesn't make sense to stop people from posting either the community will only end up dying out.

What's most important is trying as much to maintain quality and that's not something for the mods alone it's a thing that everyone literally has a role to play in.

I know stopping people from posting would kill the forum. Maintaining that quality without compromising the freedom is the reason I created this thread.

Right now, forum has adjustment mechanism such as activity and merit system. So I'm asking if this mechanism is enough to contain the rapid growth we are experiencing in the forum both in terms of posts and users registration. Should we just ignore the attention inflation?

I assume that what you are saying is that the forum is growing in activity and you don't like the fact that it is experiencing such rapid growth right? this is the first time I'm seeing someone who is complaining about the traffic in the forum. You said that new topics lack engagement after few hours, are you sure they are topics that are worth engaging? because as far as i can remember, there are some topics in boards like the bitcoin discussion that replies get up to page 10 and above.
    You should be happy that the forum is growing in numbers and more people are identifying with the forum. If you see any anomaly that requires attention, it's either you take the topic to the reputation board or you report to moderators to handle it. Creating many topics is not the problem, bad and low-quality topics is.
    You can't expect the forum's activity to drop when there are a lot of things that are going on in the forum on daily basis.

Sorry, but I think you get the whole thing wrong.

Of course I'm happy the forum is growing. Over 200 new users per day is amazing and it shows how bitcoin and Bitcointalk is growing (this probably means more adoption too which is a good thing). Neither I'm worrying about new topics. Bad topics are the problem of course.

But as we grow, we need to put attention inflation into consideration. If you understand the problem Satoshi solved with Bitcoin, you'll understand my point.

[Vod]

People post mostly for signature income and less for interest.  Remove signatures and traffic will drop to people who are interested in bitcoin and not an income.

[Zaguru12]

Right now, forum has adjustment mechanism such as activity and merit system. So I'm asking if this mechanism is enough to contain the rapid growth we are experiencing in the forum both in terms of posts and users registration. Should we just ignore the attention inflation?

There is absolutely no way you can do this by not actually placing restrictions, Theymos has been against such actions for long and personally I agree with that. No rule can actually curtail low post quality other than the merit system that was introduced. Even if you introduce timer on threads to be created it will not change anything because People will still wait to post that low qaulity thread or even be worse because that timer could not prevent one from sharing very important information too.

One reason that I was hesitant to do this before is that there are an awful lot of newbie restrictions, and I don't want the forum to be unwelcoming to good newbies.
 

I think post quality on this forum is our collective responsibility, you report low quality posts and merits the quality post this way the posters will be getting motivated to post more quality content

[Findingnemo]

Quality post is subjective; a simple answer to what Bitcoin is can be so informative to one, while for some it feels like a kindergarten question.

If you are not thinking that quality posts aren't getting enough attention, then you can try to collect them in a thread and keep them updated all the time, we already have some of it's kind of not a bad idea t start your own.

[libert19]

Deffo belongs to Meta. As for good topics not getting enough traction, just keep bumping your topic every now and then (normal bumps, or posting updates relevant to op) —  if it's interesting enough users will get hold of it eventually; if this doesnt work your topic may not be good as you think it is.

[JollyGood]

First of all, am I the only member here that has looked at your post history and concluded that you are not all that you claim to be?

When I read posts stating they do not know if this was the right place to post and also the actual topic they are posting about (namely ranking up) then in most cases it simply raises questions about motives. On many occasions those posts are made by account farmers and alt-accounts.

Look at your post history and ask yourself why you felt the need to create this thread. When you have an answer, post it here as it might make interesting reading. Surely you will not mind sharing your findings.

I don't know the right board to post this between Meta and bitcoin discussion. Mods should please do the needful if necessary.

[examplens]

Of course I'm happy the forum is growing. Over 200 new users per day is amazing and it shows how bitcoin and Bitcointalk is growing (this probably means more adoption too which is a good thing). Neither I'm worrying about new topics. Bad topics are the problem of course.

But as we grow, we need to put attention inflation into consideration. If you understand the problem Satoshi solved with Bitcoin, you'll understand my point.

I don't know how to tell you, but this forum is not growing and has been in a downward trend for several years. There are many reasons for this, and one of the biggest is that this type of discussion is a bit out of date, and many people are turning to a different modern way of communication, most often through social networks.
I don't know what kind of analysis you did, but obviously, you didn't interpret it well. Everything else you say is based on your wrong perception of the growth of the forum, it seems to me that you have completely missed the point.

[Mia Chloe]

~snip

Well if I get you correctly you are suggesting for a modification on the current ranking up requirements? Well another thing I don't understand is if you are asking them higher or lower. However understand that wanting them lower is not gonna be a good edge against same inflation you mentioned.

That aside, Theymos is always watching these statistics back end and it's pretty much one of the reasons I guess he's not yet adding new merit sources on the go.

[Lucius]

~snip~
Signature campaigns are higher quality than they once were, probably because there are less now. Campaign managers are stricter now than they used to be.

Most sig campaigns belong to gambling, before there was a lot more diversity on that issue. As for the quality of those who participate in these campaigns, I will not agree that the situation is better than before - because firstly, a lot of quality posters are no longer on the forum, and secondly, sig managers are under pressure to fill spots in the campaigns, so there are a lot of members in them who are far below the average of what we could call quality posters.

Additionally, do you remember what it used to mean to have just one negative tag from a respectable member? Nowadays, people with a few such tags can easily get into campaigns.

~snip~
Of course I'm happy the forum is growing. Over 200 new users per day is amazing and it shows how bitcoin and Bitcointalk is growing (this probably means more adoption too which is a good thing). Neither I'm worrying about new topics. Bad topics are the problem of course.

How many of them are unique users, and how many are just attempts to create alts? Theoretically someone could create 1000 new accounts every month and show it as something positive. Numbers are just numbers if there are no real unique members behind them.

[Rikafip]

So I'm asking if this mechanism is enough to contain the rapid growth we are experiencing in the forum both in terms of posts and users registration. Should we just ignore the attention inflation?

Rapid growth? I suggest you check BitList and compare the current situation to the one from a couple of years ago. You will see that there is no rapid growth happening on bitcointalk (or any other forum, for that matter). As a matter of fact, situation is quite the opposite.

[dkbit98]

Relating this to Bitcoin, what would a difficulty adjustment for post quality look like on Bitcointalk?

It's not going to work, especially with AI crap getting used more and more this days.
I don't know any forum in the world that is growing numbers and quality, in Satoshi words - people moved to other things.

Rapid growth? I suggest you check BitList and compare the current situation to the one from a couple of years ago. You will see that there is no rapid growth happening on bitcointalk (or any other forum, for that matter). As a matter of fact, situation is quite the opposite.

Well there was a rapid growth of new members coming from specific regions only, and they are mostly not producing a good quality content.
 

[Rikafip]

Well there was a rapid growth of new members coming from specific regions only, and they are mostly not producing a good quality content.
 

That's not surprising really, since there are parts of the world where you can make a decent living off signature campaigns. Add on that abundance of merit, and you get what we have now.

[BlackHatCoiner]

A post cooldown by rank would mostly punish new members who are already struggling to get noticed, and the spammers would adapt anyway.

The bigger issue isn't volume, it's that fewer people actually read full threads now compared to 2015. Back then there wasn't AI slop, and Bitcoin wasn't as complete as it now is.