Yeah. It seem there is not much more to add to those. I think that we’re going to have a run of threads like this on the forum, just as happened when the merit system was introduced.
Well you know, theymos posted "Deal with it" with a gif.
I can not find it but I remembered it was quoted by other users many times.
Even I think the current progress does not solve problems.
What are used now as solutions to fight against spam is like doing something on tip of an iceberg, and it will not prevent spammers.
- Merit system successfully prevented spammers ranked up.
- Before it failed when merit sources got more merits, and merits to shitposts were allowed gradually with time. That is like legally allowing spammers to rank up.
- Why we don't start at this point, fix the merit system? It will resolve the cause, rather than trying to cut grass on tip of the ground.
- If continue using this solution, it's like (again) another legal allowance towards spammers: like it's ok, you can farm merit, rank up, post shit, get money until we catch you.
- They farmed merit, and they must lose their ranks.
- Bring the demerit button, community can report merited shitposts, to derank spammers. They will stop posting from such accounts and will not rank up their new accounts in their old ways that now can not be used without losing ranks.
- Furthermore, it will return to a harder time for spammer to rank up again like how merit system succeeded years ago.
- Spammers ranked up by farming, already results in many things: spam endemic in the forum, they got merit undeservedly and made it harder to other people to rank up - like merit sources and forum members will feel harder to send merit, they suspect about many things; lastly such beautiful merited accounts can easily be accepted in campaigns because they had more merit totally and in last 120 days while in quality they are shitposters and even worse than accounts with lower merits.
Lastly, I feel like the forum accepts that things can happen shadily in local boards and ignore it, until such shitposters after ranking up by local boards start to bring their shitposts to English boards.
Think:
If we force spammers to rank up by posting good, we force them to have a good writing habit, and when they ranked up already, they will more likely post good, or at least better than spammers.
Let's create a community-led/ reported thread to
demerit them in
decentralized way.
A person who ranked up from posting good will make it a writing and posting habit and will not lose it after ranking up to Hero member or Legendary member rank, whereas the spammers who ranked up by shitposts to Hero/ Legendary member rank will continue his habit (writing shitposts). While with time, the farm becomes bigger and more shits around.
Will it stop spammers?
No.
It only triggers them to make longer posts while they're still shitposts. It's how they tried to hide their shitposts, and make it like long posts are quality ones. They already did that to gather merit, before their farms became big enough to circulate merit inside their locals. Now, it's time for making long but pointless posts again to bypass this signature ban.
Because they ranked up by farming merit, why don't solve this issue?
If the merit system forces spammers writing good posts to rank up, somehow and somewhat it forces them creating quality-posting habit. Not all of them change to have that habit but some will.
In contrast, if forum community are "Blinded" to let spammers farming and ranking up easily as they have farmed merit in about last 3 years when merit sources asked for more merits, the community let spammers bypass the merit system, rank up, post shitposts around like nothing.
I even think spammers who have clear records of merit farming deserve to have a double-time ban. For example if the other users have 1-year ban, that merit-farming spammer needs to receive a 2-year ban.
Same with spammers used AI. No excuse. Because they double break many rules.
It is my thinking if the forum want to continue with signature ban on spammers but I think if the Demerit button is deployed, it would be better to derank spammers, and force them making better posts, having better posting habit.