Signature Ban Appeal and Q&A : appeal your sigban here

[Rikafip]

I think of it a different way: merit is hard to get in gambling sections for a reason. The gambling sections attract the amount of merits they deserve. In the last year I managed to get 52 merits in Gambling Discussion with 195 posts. arallmuus got 33 with 1071 posts. Therefore, merits are not impossible to get there.

Its not impossible, but its undeniable that its harder than almost any other part of the forum. And you are definitely not an average member that others should be compared with.

Afaik, there is only 1 dedicated gambling board merit source (who has a very limited monthly smerit allowance to start with) and maybe a few merit sources that are somewhat active there and spend part of their allocation there so getting merit there is a struggle for someone who is not an established member (and let's be honest, it is also a factor when it comes to receiving merit).

Maybe you are right when you say that the gambling board has exactly the amount of merit it deserves, but that's precisely why members there shouldn't really be measured by the amount of merit they earn, but rather by whether they are genuine posters who engage in genuine conversations with others.
With that being said, I do think that your approach needs some adjustments, and that you should take these things into consideration when deciding whether someone deserves a sig ban.

Regarding arallmuus, I been communicating with him (and generally reading his posts) in various paid pools for some time, and not even once I felt or thought that he is low quality poster that is polluting the forum ( as someone who reported quite a few posts I like to think that I am not bad at recognising shitposters) and I think that it wouldn't benefit this forum if members like him start going out of their way to farm merit in order not to get sig banned.

[Satofan44]

Also, my RL job forces me to say something else. There should be some defined rules regarding the bans. You have your share of received merits and a good forum rep but that doesn't mean that we should take this as face value that you actually have the skills needed for the job.
We should start with a premise that you need to prove yourself in it and not that you'll do brilliantly because you're a good forum member or generally recognize spam well.
So far from a 'project manager' perspective, this has been poorly handled - and communicated even worse. I've worked in companies that would eat you alive for the lack of transparency and clear rules - and rightfully so.

We currently have the arallmuus case under special treatment because a few of us took his case seriously enough to take a look.

From what I've gathered so far - you have the power to ban and unban. This means that some form of checks and balances is expected down the road, no?
If you ban and then there's a committee to unban, how is the committee triggered? Who chooses committee members?

Don't over-complicate this whole thing because you like a member in particular and want them to not be punished. There is no other moderator that has any kind of "defined rules" -- they just do what they feel like doing under a general guidance from the rules that theymos created/decided, and even this whole thread is a big courtesy to theymos and the forum. It does not need to exist, it is more than enough and way more than most useless forum members deserve. Nobody has asked for any kind of real rules for any other staff member this seriously before, and only after they start issuing bans for useless shitposts do you want to put restraints on the person that does it. Fine tribalism. Furthermore, calling for anti-bias measures or neutrality measures and then coming to defend a member with a biased preposition (by trusted members) who know the user is peak irony.

Regarding arallmuus, I been communicating with him (and generally reading his posts) in various paid pools for some time, and not even once I felt or thought that he is low quality poster that is polluting the forum ( as someone who reported quite a few posts I like to think that I am not bad at recognising shitposters) and I think that it wouldn't benefit this forum if members like him start going out of their way to farm merit in order not to get sig banned.

He is free to contribute without being paid. When defense is so strong for someone's ability to get paid for shitposts here, it is always questionable irrespective of this particular case. A signature ban does not prevent anyone from participating in anything, stop being spoiled and entitled toddlers. If it were a defense against an actual ban (not a signature ban), the argument would be much more understandable and I would be against it as the person seems to be real or genuine despite producing low effort posts.
A quick review of arallmuus's posts shows that most are low quality, low effort, short posts that a teenager can write blindfolded in under 60 seconds each. But hey, if you like someone that means he is not a shitposter here.   If I get a signature ban, I'll suggest my wife as the unbiased party for review.  

[Hhampuz]

The case of arallmuus in particular matters more to some here because he is a real person who we, plenty of us, know and appreciate as an asset to this forum. He is not a spammer and no matter if it's "low effort" or repetitive posts he is producing he is still cared for and his opinion, especially in our telegram chats, is highly regarded when it comes to gambling topics. I rarely meddle in these affairs but as soon as I heard of his sigban I messaged nutildah and tried to plead with him about taking a closer look at who arallmuus actually is.

My support is firmly in favor of him getting unbanned, if not obvious yet, and if any "old heads" read this you know I bowed out of the drama many years ago so for me to take this so personally should mean something.

And to be honest, my signature deserves to be banned before the likes of arallmuus if we are simply looking at the quality.

[libert19]

...

And to be honest, my signature deserves to be banned before the likes of arallmuus if we are simply looking at the quality.

I should just off myself then.

[snipie]

My support is firmly in favor of him getting unbanned, if not obvious yet, and if any "old heads" read this you know I bowed out of the drama many years ago so for me to take this so personally should mean something.

Being part of the gambling section, I know many users and yeah arallmuus is not the kind of person spamming for bucks.
It is hard to explain to people who are not familiar with the gambling section how hard to be seen there and to get merit. As I said there, you can't compare yourself @Nutildah with the others in terms of merits. People tend to give you, to give to theymos and the other famous names a lot of merits per post while they don't give anything to even a better post in that section for less known members. Some even don't give much to high ranks and prefer boosting full, junior and senior members.
I will use what trofo said earlier "that is a fact, not opinion".

And to be honest, my signature deserves to be banned before the likes of arallmuus if we are simply looking at the quality.

I already mentioned that your signature deserves to be banned. No offence and don't hate me for that but for me it is a way to prove that there is no double standards here. I have to check other managers too to stay neutral but I recall you to clean a little your backyard (spammers in Rainbet), regards.

[Cypra]

The first one started this drama is Theymos. He should fuck of from this forum and hand over to someone else. Since Signature on forum isn't filling his pocket he started this drama with nutildah . He knows very well that only nutildah can bring this chaos to the forum.

Now tell me your pocket ain't filling enough that's why you guys are fighting right?

He is free to contribute without being paid. When defense is so strong for someone's ability to get paid for shitposts here, it is always questionable irrespective of this particular case. A signature ban does not prevent anyone from participating in anything, stop being spoiled and entitled toddlers. If it were a defense against an actual ban (not a signature ban), the argument would be much more understandable and I would be against it as the person seems to be real or genuine despite producing low effort posts.

Stop doing these hypocrisy. Remove your signature from your profile , since you're so eager to contribute on this forum why you're taking money. You loved this forum right. I didn't saw these hypocrisy ever.



I don't have any sig to show , but fedd off after watching these injustice going on the forum. Now make start making ur story. Lemme hear what you had created after reading my post's lol.

[libert19]

The first one started this drama is Theymos. He should fuck of from this forum and hand over to someone else. Since Signature on forum isn't filling his pocket he started this drama with nutildah .

I don't know much, but this sounds bullshit.

[darxiaomi]

Like a lot of people already said above me i want to say i also come here to support arallmuss he was always a super wellknow guy in the gambling section and i always talk a lot with him in a lot of threads, and i can assure he is always answering with organic post to whatever we were talking, i think is more important to be a real organic poster than one who write long post without really enganging in the conversation and worst of all without making community which is what makes a forum what it is.

I want to pause for a moment on what i mentioned regarding building community; for me, that is the most important thing in any forum, whatever it may be about. In our case despite having thousand of users in the gambling section only a few of ours involves in the community efforts and contest, we all know with each other from that and we always try to level up the discussions and the things that we take part, for example most of our threads are all self moderate to avoid the noise from spam accounts who never take part in any despite being invited.

In other cases we already start to develop new contest from scratch giving work to people in the service section, the UCL pool is one of this case with Joker making the work and buway managing it, in my case since my knowledge is low i only made some contest with forms, Trofo and Cryptofrka made some really great contest in which we have running from several seasons making a high engagement and trust levels with ton of hours of work behind them, i dont want to forget to mention anyone but like this examples we have plenty of it.

Sometimes in my case i cant spend so much time really writing in the forum but i already spend more time in activities related to the forum like working on the contest for free jsut for the fun and the banter and that is impossible to measure, and for sure a lot of other guys are in the same way spending a lot of time aside of what they do in the forum.

I know this sound a little bit OT, but in my case i really support every account that takes part in the community with real involvement, and i know this is a BTC forum and for a lot of people the gambling section is pure trash and i can understand why.

Aside of that i support the idea of banning the shit spaming accounts im not against the core idea, but in some cases i feel like some accounts from our board deserves a little bit more of understanding. Plus i think a lot of the accounts didnt harm the forum since they dont wnet out of the gambling board spamming so is likely encapsulated.

Sorry if i went OT, but is my point of view.

[Abiky]

Hi nutildah and everyone in this thread.

I just realize im banned from signatures today, i dont know why, im not a spammer or a shitposter, my quality can improve yes, but most of my post could be write by a bad english since is not my mother tongue and i prefer to be organic and not use a traslator and even less an IA.

I think is part of my way of writing. So please if you can review my case. Thanks!

Anyways i support the central idea and the work you are doing, is good to see someone is trying to clean the forum from spammers and most important clean it of farming accounts.

I'm in the same boat as you. Found out that I was "signature banned" recently. This was shocking, considering that I'm a long-time quality poster who writes consistently and coherently. I don't make use of AI, nor I'm a spammer.

Banning shitposters & farming accounts is great idea, but I also believe there should be also be a manual review in the process. Just in case the system automatically bans the wrong poster.

That said, I respectfully request an appeal. Thanks in advance.

[notocactus]

Why spammers can rank up easily? That's a one-way channel that'd create different problems rather than find a definitive solution. How? Almost every successful account farm has a reservoir of merit; it's either a corrupt merit source who, prior to their success was selected and supported to represent their interest, or a large circulation through the local board's Kartel.

Common ways are begging for merits from English boards, threads, merit sources and circulate smerit in local boards. It's together with local merit sources make up what you call as Local board's Merit Kartel.

Merit on its own is not moderated by the forum unless an outrageous number gets dumped on a post that's worth nothing but the trash, only then can it trigger an investigation.

When hundreds of Hero or Legendary members ranked up, it is actually an outrageous accumulative number of merit abuse. Agree or disagree, the consequence is the same for the forum, spam has become bigger and made merit system failed while about four or five years ago, there was no such massive spam.

What quality deserves merit remains subjective to one's own discretion.

It can be acceptable at minor level but when a spammer or spammer cartel ranked up through spamming and farming merit, it's problem. If they ranked up naturally, they would have no need of using AI to generate posts for ranking up or posting to fill quota. When they're overwhelmed, AI tools are like their favorite posting tools.

It breaks the "freedom of speech" course to which the forum runs.

Freedom of speech in this forum has nothing to do with ranking up or merit farming or spamming to fill post quota.

Actually theymos saw it, just wait for his next changes.

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

[nutildah]

Banning shitposters & farming accounts is great idea, but I also believe there should be also be a manual review in the process. Just in case the system automatically bans the wrong poster.

There is always a manual review in the process. I've mentioned this several times.

That said, I respectfully request an appeal. Thanks in advance.

You've been doing way too much burst posting. Most of your recent posts are only 2-4 minutes apart. Frankly I don't know how you write so much in such a short amount of time. I'm pretty sure this isn't allowed in most campaigns although it doesn't seem to be a specific rule for your campaign. It doesn't help that you're doing it for the sake of making posts that not many people seem to care about or read.

Interestingly, you have one of the most routine posting schedules of any account I've seen so far. Its really a commendable level of consistency.

[Upgrade00]

There is always a manual review in the process. I've mentioned this several times.

Are you open to the community having a committee that reviews the process, independent of you?
That means without you providing them any reason for the ban or your thought process that led to it. They just review the account and decide if its deserving of a ban or not. This can be in a different (self moderated) thread and ALL banned users can have a format to appeal there to keep it tidy.

If there was such a 'commitee' would you agree to abide by the decision they reach on an account that's banned even if it's different from your original action?

[joker_josue]

You've been doing way too much burst posting. Most of your recent posts are only 2-4 minutes apart.
~~
Interestingly, you have one of the most routine posting schedules of any account I've seen so far. Its really a commendable level of consistency.

Well, posting 6 or 7 times an hour isn't difficult, nor is it indicative of spam. If there's engagement, I can do much more than that.

Now, doing all of that, just two days a week, at the same time, without even following up on the conversations/topics you start, is something else entirely.

I post a lot, and usually when I manage to make many posts in a row, I tend to be more active on a particular topic because there's another user who's also active, and we start talking almost like in a chat.

Of course, this is just my experience; I didn't investigate this user's conversations in depth, but from a quick glance, even I, on my best days, can't have such a consistent pattern.

[LoyceV]

What I do feel is that, when such changes are being made, forum experience and reputation from established users should be respected - and their voices heard when they actually spend their free time to offer opinions.

I think you're on to something here, and I also think it wouldn't be bad to remove the Sigban of one or two users (out of 135 Sigbanned) based on community input. For the large majority of Sigbans, I think most users agree nothing is lost when they stop posting. But when there's doubt, in this case especially from Trofo, cryptofrka and Hhampuz, there's no shame in removing the Sigban.

So far from a 'project manager' perspective, this has been poorly handled - and communicated even worse. I've worked in companies that would eat you alive for the lack of transparency and clear rules - and rightfully so.

Full transparency would make it easier for (professional) account farmers to avoid getting Sigbanned.

[buwaytress]

I have to say I'm disappointed. I spoke out here for the first time in this sort of Meta discussion after being on this forum for ten years, because I saw that someone who cares for the forum is doing something to better it, but has inadvertently harmed a user who also cares for the forum, in a different way.

I spoke out and hope to have had done so respectfully. Many of us here are speaking out simply to ask that such an effort makes the fair and right choices. This sigban error has evoked some strong emotions perhaps because it was a unilateral move made with no input from actual veteran gambling sub users whose collective experience there is relevant, and whose wisdom in separating the contributing users from the spammers is extremely pertinent.

I'm disappointed because nutildah chose to act dismissively. Choosing to ignore us and reducing us to "fans" of arallmuus, for example. For the record, I do see arallmuus as part of why the gambling sub regulars enjoy good camaraderie but I'm not his fan. He's not even on my trust list. I don't think I've ever given him much merit, if any haha... but all of that is irrelevant. I actually don't think many of us who've spoken out actually are even close to him. But we all know him as a contributing user of the forum, in his own way, and in a way that benefits the gambling sub. And yet that we've chosen to come to a part of the forum we generally stay out of, should say something.

Is it not outrageous that a user on this forum has to have some sort of standing to have a voice? Lucky arallmuus, should we say, that the few of us who really aren't even such close friends with him, should come out like this to ensure he gets a fair review? I know of at least 2 other users in our circle who also got sigbanned, unlucky for them that we've spent all our effort on arallmuus, and will likely have to move on from them.

I'm old enough to concede that I have a reasonably good account only because I was fortunate enough to start the forum earlier, helped enough people early on, and made friends with just the very people who came into good positions on the forum. Plenty of people who dumped hundreds of merit on me just because I made them smile with a joke (that would objectively be a shitpost otherwise). Plenty of people who recognise me for a comment that wasn't the best or most thought out, but that reminded them perhaps of earlier days when we shared something good.

It's easy to treat fellow Legendary users and DT and what not with a good eye. I splash my merits around without much thought. But it doesn't make me forget that it was luck, timing, and circumstance that took my account to where it is. And woe to the newbie without that luck, timing, and circumstance. For it is on our whim and fancy that they ever get a voice.

nutildah, the way you've behaved on this issue calls into serious question your suitability to the role. You should look in the gambling sub some day, these megathreads and paid pools you seem to not want to spend the time to understand, and see how the managers there consult with its members on the way forward with new initiatives. See how feedback of even the lowest member, 0 merit contributing user, is respected and acknowledged.

I'm old enough to recognise when I've made a mistake and admit to it and adjust. Apologies, no hard feelings, we move on better than before. Seeing how you have instead opted to leave the appeal process to a committee suggests you either lack the conviction to decide if you made a mistake, or believe you have no room for error and so must allow a decision to be overturned only by others.

nutildah, for this Sigban initiative to work well and not harm the few in the interest of many, you must take responsibility and be accountable. Address concerns from reputable users, not dismiss them. Maintain an open mind, please!

A Sigban doesn't stop them from doing any of this, but most of them stopped posting the moment they stopped getting paid. What does that tell you about these accounts?

As for arallmuus' case: he's not on my Ignore list. After 10960 posts, that means I haven't seen worthless posts from this user on the boards I often read, and a quick look at his post history doesn't convince me he should be Sigbanned. But I don't have time to thoroughly go through it now.

Indeed, arallmuus can continue posting, and he continues to be playing in all our pools, as always. That's not really the point though...

I already said I fully support the sigbans, I believe all us gambling folks who've weighed in do, we've been fighting the spam in our way, keeping the relevant and useful banter to our threads (making them megathreads) and leaving the spammers to their nonsense threads. I, as others are,  am asking only to consider adjustments to the way the net is cast so that this error in ban does not happen again. I really feel it is a reasonable ask!

[Abiky]

You've been doing way too much burst posting. Most of your recent posts are only 2-4 minutes apart. Frankly I don't know how you write so much in such a short amount of time. I'm pretty sure this isn't allowed in most campaigns although it doesn't seem to be a specific rule for your campaign. It doesn't help that you're doing it for the sake of making posts that not many people seem to care about or read.

Interestingly, you have one of the most routine posting schedules of any account I've seen so far. Its really a commendable level of consistency.

That's because I have a way of doing things. I usually take quotes from different threads and put them all in Word document. Then, I take a whole day to write replies on the document. The same process is done when I make my own threads. When the time comes for posting, I just copy what I had written on Word and place it on the forums. Honestly, I didn't think an interval of 2-4 mins between posts would be much of an issue. Perhaps, I've missed that part somewhere in the forum rules (burst posting), and for that, I sincerely apologize. One thing about me is that when I make a mistake, I don't repeat it again.

Thanks for explaining the reason for the ban, btw. I respect your decision. If I get another chance, I promise to do better. I will continue to remain active on the forums. Peace.

[cryptofrka]

Full transparency would make it easier for (professional) account farmers to avoid getting Sigbanned.

I'm not asking for a 'how to avoid getting banned' playbook.
I'm saying there should be transparency regarding ban durations, ban appeals, usage of committee etc. What we have so far is that nutildah is banning, you can apply but you really should not - you'll get a vague 'you're burstposting' explanation and that's it.

I generally have no experience whatsoever in merit/account farrming, don't know how broad it is on BTT, it is of no real interest to me. I support any fight against it. I'm sure nutildah knows a lot about it.
What I'm saying is that we know the gambling boards. We know what works, what doesn't, where the shitposters are and where they do not go. We are willing to help at any point in time - all somebody has to do is DM and ask.
We'd have a better process, happier legitimate gambling users and a better foundation to make meaningful changes.

I do not know what the end goal from theymos is - but if it's to have a better gambling board (which transacts daily in BTC, thus helping the BTC economy) then I'm just saying listening to us would yield benefits.

Am I biased? Fuck, I don't know. Ask me a few questions and then decide. Don't decide in advance because I run competitions in gambling boards.
buwaytress was marked as biased. The guy is a champion of men, for fuck sakes. If somebody says buwaytress is biased, I say that the biased one is the guy that's saying that - without even knowing the guy.

____________________________________________

I don't mind the majority of the current sigbans. I mind the direction we're headed with the recent ban of arallmuus and those that already came with him (ILuckyGuyI and Jinetics1111).

The next guys on the chopping block will most likely be Harkorede, slaman29 and a few more I scanned but forgot - and these are legitimate members that play all the pools and help grow the economy.
Their sins? They write in a few threads of their interest that are marked as 'spam megathreads' while being anything but that by a script. Oh, and they are also not merited enough. Really?

The arallmuus case should tell you all there is to know - managers like Hhampuz, icopress, Trofo and myself all say that it's a legitimate user. Rikafip said so, TryNinja confirmed he'd not ban him. So did buwaytress, and partially yourself. He's still sigbanned. Should we start yelling bias?

____________________________________________

Now let's do something else as well - compare yourself to these guys.
You're a standout member of the BTT forum. Do I want you in my sig campaign? Sure, we tried a few times but your situation is a bit peculiar.
What would we get? Huge following for sure, a voice that matters - but not really in places our client considers valuable.

What are we getting with these guys? Natural and organic posting, surely, sometimes low IQ banter as well - in topics in which people come to discuss gambling. Even if their posts are portrayed as low quality, their actual worth to the end client is high.

[Bitcoin_Arena]

My thought is that signature bans should at least align with the official forum rules. Otherwise, this initiative that started out as something good is going to become a mess and meaningless in the near future, and it's likely going to create more chaos and a toxic environment.

Applying a signature ban because someone has not earned enough merits for months should probably be on a case-by-case basis. Someone really has to be a very bad spammer or something like that. Like most of the gambling board regulars have said, for an average poster, the gambling board is one of the places where you are less likely to get merits from.

The same thing applies to someone who makes posts every 2-3 minutes. I don't see in the forum rules where a user is forbidden from posting every 2-3 minutes. This is a rule that was brought up by some signature campaign managers, and it's their duty to enforce it by not counting those posts for payment and not through forum moderation.
Forum-wise, what is in the content of the post is what matters. Is he off-topic? Are the posts really low quality?

[Numan467]

Full transparency would make it easier for (professional) account farmers to avoid getting Sigbanned.

Snip

I already said in the other thread that theymos has given a box of matches to a monkey, and he will soon set the whole forum on fire.

And this guy nutildah is an extremely stubborn person. He just thinks that whatever he did is right, and he never admits his mistakes at all. Even now, he has done the exact same thing.

So you guys can try all you want, but this person will not listen. Only one person can fix him, and that is the forum admin, theymos. Otherwise, he will leave this forum burned down. Mark my words, and very soon all of you will realize that I was right.

[arallmuus]

I personally dont want to drag the other party into this since from the start they were not involved in the banning process but I guess this is the only way for my appeal to go through the next stage? Im going to send a PM regarding this

An update regarding my current appeal :

I've send PM to nutildah regarding the 3rd party as mediator on my case. Nutildah explained that he will explain the process that led to the decision of the sigban to the 3rd party then the 3rd party will report their conclusion about its fairness in the thread, and he will make a change based on their recommendation

As stated on his previous post, there are 2 names that he might named as 3rd party mediators.

We both agree on Rikaf_p ( intentionally leaving some parts of the letter again ) but as for the other party, I named someone from gambling community as the 2nd person because I think its important to have someone that understand the board from the inside while still remain unbiased ( buwaytress ). Nutildah rejected this because he thinks the person I named has already shown a lot of bias in my case. Nutildah doesn't believe they'd be willing to go into it with an open mind

In the end we settled with only Rika as the 3rd party mediator


I was also given a 2nd option which is to reduce the ban to 30 days.

Although I did plead reducing my ban to 2-4 weeks on my appeal letter, I think its important for bitcointalk community to see this whole process through until the end because so far there isnt any single appeal that have made it this far so I chose to go with 3rd party opinion regarding my case

The last reply that I got from Nutildah is that he is already in contact with Rika and atleast give them 2 days to discuss

Edit : slanted part are copied from the PM, also added the name of the person I chose as 3rd party