Blanket ban on signature campaigns, what it'd yield? Let's discuss

[LoyceV]

Honestly, I wish I could overthrown theymos, do a Bukele and start banning people all around. I feel like theymos/mods here are too lenient to spamming, like a judiciary system that allows criminals to keep commiting crimes. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying mods are useless or that they do a bad job, or that it's their fault that they don't nuke everyone. I'm just saying that I would be a ruthless dictator.

My first impression: I'd love it!
But: then I realized every other forum on the planet does that already, and yet, I'm posting here, not elsewhere. So this place must be doing something right (for me) too

Like, why allow the Bitcoin Discussion board to be a megaspam fest?

Agreed. I've said it before: Bitcoin Discussion should be one of the most interesting boards on the forum, but I can't even get myself to read it now.

[FinneysTrueVision]

Rather than punishing the entire forum for the actions of the worst users, which I believe Theymos has ruled out previously, you could instead find some middle ground and take a more targeted approach. For the most part, spammers tend to be predictable and follow similar patterns.

I'm still thinking about ways to resolve this issue, possibly involving rejiggering how merit works.

Reworking the merit system is long overdue, and would make a significant difference. Perhaps someone could develop a scoring system that could determine how many smerits are allocated to sources. This would lead to questionable merit sources having their smerits reduced.

It is complete madness that spammers are able to rank up so easily just by talking about Chamby tokens and doing push ups. Stricter guidelines around campaigns and spamming are also definitely necessary so these farmers don’t go on to join campaigns with half a dozen or more alt accounts.

[stompix]

Cons:
— Significant drop is traffic. 

Significant? Does that include 95%? 

I'm not even joking, I do a few reports nowadays, but I do report full topics, and some of them get moved from the gambling section to Politics and Society, the moment it moves that's the perfect example of how a topic dies, from 20 posts in an hour to zero in a day!  Why? Of course, because the P&S board is not counted for payouts.

Honestly, I wish I could overthrown theymos, do a Bukele and start banning people all around. I feel like theymos/mods here are too lenient to spamming, like a judiciary system that allows criminals to keep commiting crimes. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying mods are useless or that they do a bad job, or that it's their fault that they don't nuke everyone. I'm just saying that I would be a ruthless dictator.

I wonder if you would be as ruthless as I would!
In my case, I would open each user's post history and just look at the posts, are they all 3/4 lines of text or the same length over the last two pages like a broken xerox machine? I would not even read them, instant ban!

[nutildah]

OP forgot to mention that most accounts still here after the campaign ban would be posting because they actually wanted to... they actually had something to say or wanted to contribute out of their own free will.

I'm personally to the point where I'm OK with less traffic and higher quality discussions.

Seeing as how the forum has the funds to continue operation for an infinite amount of time, it doesn't actually need traffic, or anything. As I like to say all it needs to do is keep satoshi's posts accessible to the public, as they were written. Everything else is a bonus.

I think most of the community are too the point where enough is enough, its quite tedious to read the same sort of hashed together response just because they want a payment.

The other day I got a PM asking me to remove a neutral trust (happens somewhat regularly). Part of this person's reasoning was I should forgive them because they have 7 kids.

This was a low-rank account that had never been accepted to a sig campaign. Yet they were placing all their hopes and dreams on getting that sweet sig money (which is not a living these days unless you're a multi-accounter).

Meanwhile, they had been specifically using AI to make their posts less readable and in principle less detectable, but it backfired spectacularly.

So this is the kind of behavior the system is currently encouraging...

If we really wanted to crack down and become real strict in terms of moderation, I think over 80% of signature campaign participates would have enough posts removed per week, that they wouldn't earn the minimum thresholds to get paid and stay in the campaign, which is saying a lot. Probably leading to more overall bans.

I'm all for it, let me know if I can help.

[NotATether]

Signature campaigns aren't the only way to earn incentives on this forum. Also consider the potential for backlink, ANN thread visibility campaigns, etc. (remember how 1xbet did this in the past?). If the pay was comparable, everyone would still farm alts. I don't think spam will ever disappear completely; it will likely be more concentrated on boards that are allowed to carry specific brands.

Exactly. This will just drive away normal users, while the scoundrels and scheming marketers for scam platforms like 1xBit find creative ways to circumvent the restrictions because they have nothing to lose by being banned here. (By the way, have you guys noticed the explosion of 1xbet ads during the World Cup?)

[Don Pedro Dinero]

This is really funny. Do people actually shit post for entertainment purposes?lol
Who are those being entertained with shit posting? I admire your good play with words, it makes reading interesting.

Are you only on this forum?  Of course, people shitpost for fun, without being paid. See this forum for example:

https://forocoches.com/foro/

It is the largest forum in the Spanish-speaking world. The main section 'General' is worse than Bitcoin Discussion here. People shitpost, post one-liners, AI usage is allowed even if you don't quote it or reference it, and people post there just for fun or entertainment. They don't wear signatures, even less paid ones.

[NotATether]

It is the largest forum in the Spanish-speaking world. The main section 'General' is worse than Bitcoin Discussion here. People shitpost, post one-liners, AI usage is allowed even if you don't quote it or reference it, and people post there just for fun or entertainment. They don't wear signatures, even less paid ones.

A lot of people will remember CryptoTalk.org. It's dead now, but the quality of discussion there was genuinely abysmal. It may have something to do with the fact that the entire forum was treated like a signature campaign.

[Don Pedro Dinero]

A lot of people will remember CryptoTalk.org. It's dead now, but the quality of discussion there was genuinely abysmal.

I don’t remember it; I don’t think I knew it at the time, but that doesn’t surprise me – the higher the ‘quality’ of a forum, the less traffic it has. A forum with little traffic but high quality is something else entirely; it’s not really a forum, but rather a modern-day version of the Viennese coffee houses, not intended for general audiences, for the masses, but only for the modern-day equivalents of Freud, Schnitzler and others. It’s an exclusive place, not for everyone.

If any of you would like a site like that, you could set up elitebitcointalk.org and see how it goes.

[Vod]

I'm personally to the point where I'm OK with less traffic and higher quality discussions. I think most of the community are too the point where enough is enough, its quite tedious to read the same sort of hashed together response just because they want a payment. Seriously, its annoying. Some days it feels like the same type of responses going around in your head. I feel for those that might have OCD and get triggered by things being repeated, since there's a ton of that around here.

I considered this community my home for the first few years.  I tried to start conversations on topics I found interesting, and sometimes it worked.  But once signature campaigns introduced new methods of income (manager, poster) and an informal trust requirement, that marked the end.  Every petty trust issue become a forum war for the best campaigns.

We been bombarded from the top 1% on this forum about the incredible money to be made, and the stupidity of not making as many posts as possible.    Now if I post a topic of interest, I will get many replies - but all to my original post.   Not a single person will read the thread because that is more time they would be here instead of wherever.  

Removing signature campaigns will improve conversation, but in the same way removing alcohol from a bar would.  There will be a lot of intelligent conversations between the bartenders and staff - because no one else will be there.  :/

A lot of people will remember CryptoTalk.org. It's dead now, but the quality of discussion there was genuinely abysmal. It may have something to do with the fact that the entire forum was treated like a signature campaign.

Great point!   They paid per post and the result was not surprising to anyone.

[lovesmayfamilis]

Now, in some local sections, the forum is perceived as a place to earn money, and as nutildah said, it is simply not possible to feed a family, all seven children, by "working" from one account. Reading such PMs, everything comes out, even without searching for alts. Once the same topic was raised, a low-ranking participant answered the question of what you would do if the company's signatures on the forum stopped, quite frankly stating that he would have nights in which he could sleep and there would be personal time.

I think everyone understood what it was all about and the amount of time and accounts that some users have available. But publishing posts around the clock, it is obvious that people will write nonsense, especially if people are not strong in knowledge.

There is a solution that will make it very difficult to create alternative accounts, using some kind of fraud protection system.. One device, one IP, and a bunch of trackers, which are also used by casinos to identify cheaters.

But yes, the forum pursues freedom, and it, as a consequence, allows everything that these fathers, the breadwinners of families, do.