Another way to fight spam, spammer and nonsense post

[Italian Panic]

In light of what is been happening in this days (expecially for Italian Board) I'm bringing some new proposal, but first I would like to make some few preliminary remarks.

First of all: I'm starting this separate thread because the suggestions, idea and proposals posted in other or another thread will more probably lost in the discussions.

Second: I appreciate the point of view and the proposal posted by cryptofrka here with some aggiustment.

Third (but not less important): we saw in the last days a two or probably more users of the italian board committend the original sin of creating farmed accounts to partecipate in signature campaigns and probably at bounties, lotteries, etc. here

I was really struck by this situation, not becouse i did not expect it happen, but because involved two users who make me a good impression in the time and if I'm not in mistaken I added them to my DT list in the past.

Fourth: what happened has caused an attacks to Italian Board which absolutely not deserve. In italian board there are users of absolute level, great ability and reasoning, people like: fillippone, babo, gbianchi, demidov, plutosky, ale88, arulbero, bitbollo and many more. Not to mention all those of this guy who are no longher with us but helped the forum grow and were here when bitcoin was a baby. I'm sending all those shameful remarks right back to the sender

Fifth: I know very well that these points will make it necessary to develop tools to made available to merit sourcer and campaign managers. i'm ready.

In this topic I speak for myself and not for the Italian Board. Obviusly.

I want to list below some points that I have in my mind for a while and I believe they work well in fighting spam, spammer and shitposter on the forum but expecially in gambling section. First I will list them, then I will explaine them.

1- Serious "post per user" time limit in the gambling section
2- Minimum monthly merit from local board or international section to be confirmed in signature campaign
3- Character limit to earn merit whit "+Mert" button disabled
4- Absolutely no merit in gambling section
5- Signature campaign will be updated with this new rules



Discussion of the points



1- Serious "post per user" time limit in the gambling section

I think limiting posts per user to one post every 10 hours or 1 post per day is an excellent way to improve the forum quality. User would be forced to write something of clever elsewhere in the forum or in the local board. This improve the visibility od signatures, since a serious user who leave a clever post increase the sense of thrust in what they are promoting.
Many user have shown that the gambling section is used for a quickly post whitout sense and for responding to other user opinion and it is more less demanding than the rest of the forum becouse here doesn't create constructive post. It's more simply write and share a personal opinion or prediction about a bet than a constructive psot.


2- Minimum monthly merit from local board or international section to be confirmed in signature campaign

The sense of the partecipation in a signature campaign should not automatically mean posting very low quality content to earn few sats. Bitcoin should be honores with high quality posts.
that's why I propose that once a user is accepted in a signature, his merit earnings should be monitored in his local board, other local board where he partecipate and in international board.
A minimum numeber of merit must be earned in a month (for example: 10 merit per mounth?) if the user failure this target he must be excluded from the signature campaign, as it would indicate that the user has not been posting quality content for a long time. For a long time becouse an user involved in signature write every day.
This would lead an increse in quality post in local board and discourage the practice of posting nonsense just to increase the activity and the hope to catch the eye of a merit source having a googd day.


3- Character limit to earn merit whit "+Mert" button disabled

This is very simple to image and activate. Set a chatacter limit on posts that can receive merit, make the botton "+Merit" disabling for user and merit sourcer if a post is under 250/300 characters, excluding spaces and special character (punctuation).
In this way all the users will be forced to write a bit more and a bit well, becouse if I write a 50 characters posts I did not think to I write enough to deserve a merit becouse it is a small character number to express anything of constructive.
Above all, this discourage the farmer of users operation becouse it would become very complex to manage. Furthermore, it will lead to an increase in quality of what is written, as mentioned in the second point. I'm totally free to decide to write something very short, but I will know by default that I not receive any merit.


4- Absolutely no merit in gambling section

Somethimes I see merit distribution in gambling section, in my personal opinion this is wrong. From the meaning of merit here in the middle is clearly explained in the forum FAQ:

What is Merit?

Merit is a new system created in order to reward quality contributions to the forum. Now to rise through ranks you will also need to acquire Merit in addition to Activity.

By definition, there are no constructive posts in gambling section but only OPINIONS, and the opinions shouldn't earn merit. The opinions is not fine for the merit counter but only for discussing whether it is better to bet on cricket than on Manchester United goign over 2.5, but it doesn't add value to the forum.

I love the definition fillippone gives it: Merit is a proof of work

And I add that proof of work requires effort to earn reward.


5- Signature campaign will be updated with this new rules

As I write above any update to the rules will require the development of tool or tools that allow signature amangers to scrape their employee posts. Eventual update of this rules cannot be the manager's alone responsability. That wouldn't be fair.
It should be in the manager best interest for the campaign to be carried iut by user who enhance the brand value through the credibility they have earned with clever posts.
Proposal 1 obviusly requires that there be no minimum requirement od 10 gambling related posts to receive payment (this threshold will need to be lowered at 5 if the user can write only one post in gambling section per day or every 10 hours).
The 120 day merit earn rule is very good, but will be need to update to reflect the prevision of Proposal 2, if an user don't earn a minimum of merit per month he/she is disqualify from the signature but he can candidate him/her in another from the day after (it is not a ban rule!!)
The character limit rule should also be raised from 150/200 to at least 300, this the minimum needed to express something even minimally coherent.



This is what I proposing for the good future of the forum, it is not the easy way, but I think it is the right proposal if the moderators want an increase of the quality.
Of course you can criticize it, add new points or simply tell me about what you think.

Please be constructive and polite.

[babo]

where there is money there are always crooks
as for example direwolf mentioned in other local boards, I am always in favor of cleanliness as I have been in favor of merits which I consider a brilliant idea of ​​theymos

However, you need to have evidence, otherwise abuse is just around the corner. We remember that we had moderators who deleted scam accusation threads.

There needs to be a control of the controller if there is only one controller, or some sort of peer review, because I repeat, it takes just a moment to get innocent people involved and in that way we lose the real new users who run away and only the farmers remain.

In my opinion the current system is fine, there have been many new findings and peer review more or less works, if we have the evidence on chain that nails the guilty without remission of sin.

[Joy_learns_crypto]

1- Serious "post per user" time limit in the gambling section

I think limiting posts per user to one post every 10 hours or 1 post per day is an excellent way to improve the forum quality. User would be forced to write something of clever elsewhere in the forum or in the local board. This improve the visibility od signatures, since a serious user who leave a clever post increase the sense of thrust in what they are promoting.
Many user have shown that the gambling section is used for a quickly post whitout sense and for responding to other user opinion and it is more less demanding than the rest of the forum becouse here doesn't create constructive post. It's more simply write and share a personal opinion or prediction about a bet than a constructive psot.

Restricting a bad poster on a board will not force them to make a clever post elsewhere, restrictions don't automatically make one clever, in addition the restrictions now will effect the quality users on the gambling board, good posters will have to suffer and I don't think it's fair.

3- Character limit to earn merit whit "+Mert" button disabled

This is very simple to image and activate. Set a chatacter limit on posts that can receive merit, make the botton "+Merit" disabling for user and merit sourcer if a post is under 250/300 characters, excluding spaces and special character (punctuation).
In this way all the users will be forced to write a bit more and a bit well, becouse if I write a 50 characters posts I did not think to I write enough to deserve a merit becouse it is a small character number to express anything of constructive.
Above all, this discourage the farmer of users operation becouse it would become very complex to manage. Furthermore, it will lead to an increase in quality of what is written, as mentioned in the second point. I'm totally free to decide to write something very short, but I will know by default that I not receive any merit.

Quality is not based on character, merit is based on quality and not characters, although it's not that difficult to get 250 characters on a post but it not the fully determinant of a quality post.

4- Absolutely no merit in gambling section

There are quality contributions in the gambling section, it may not be so to you that could be because you aren't interested but to some it is, people get important information on the board, latest news about casino's, government policies on gambling, something new and refreshing and also fun.

[ABCbits]

I disagree with first, third and forth of your idea. But while we can make any suggestion, IMO it's mostly useless if it's not enforced. I would rather see this forum enforce existing guideline on Signature Campaign Guidelines (read this before starting or joining a campaign).

2- Minimum monthly merit from local board or international section to be confirmed in signature campaign

About this idea, this forum could add feature which enable/disable signature automatically based on total merit (X) received in last Y days. The harder is part is choosing "proper" number for X and Y.

[doggywin]

The consensus will be "the system isn't perfect" and we do nothing

I was really struck by this situation, not becouse i did not expect it happen, but because involved two users who make me a good impression in the time and if I'm not in mistaken I added them to my DT list in the past.

This is going to get a lot worse in the coming months. AI is getting better and better, and the forum's merit and trust systems will be gamed if not already

[MarryWithBTC]

1- Serious "post per user" time limit in the gambling section

IMO, this is a bad idea. In the quest to reduce spam, the forum punishes both good and bad posters. This will also discourage organic conversation. When live sports or poker is going on, users follow the discussion. Such rule will mare everything.
Don't forget, that this will only shift spammers to other boards as bitcoin discussion.

If I am to improve your suggestion, I will say that such post per user limit should be handed to the people currently having signature ban due to posting in gambling board. Forget signature ban, and give them 1 post per day in the gambling board.

2- Minimum monthly merit from local board or international section to be confirmed in signature campaign

Managers remove participants when their 120 merit count is too low or zero. If you make it a hard rule, remember spammers know how to earn merits their own ways.

3- Character limit to earn merit whit "+Mert" button disabled

This is the most bulshit suggestion I have read this year. A one line post could be more valuable than a 5 paragraphs post. LoyceV one like posts earn good amount of merits.

Myself, my most earned merit per post is 15 and two lines post got the merits.

4- Absolutely no merit in gambling section

You were so harsh and unfair to gambling posters here, easy please... Of course you are wrong. I don't know why you have such an opinion about gambling posters that no single quality posts there. I mean you are insulting big wings in that board, I will not mention.

5- Signature campaign will be updated with this new rules

This has been suggested by some people, but I would like campaign managers to make their different rules with the forum at heart and not have a central mechanical rule for them all.

[Rikafip]

1- Serious "post per user" time limit in the gambling section

Bad idea for many reasons, but the main one is that shitposters will shitpost no matter the board, so if you limit their ability to post in one board, he won't magically become a better poster elsewhere.  

2- Minimum monthly merit from local board or international section to be confirmed in signature campaign

Bad idea, as it will only encourage merit farming, and we already have enough of that as it is.

3- Character limit to earn merit whit "+Mert" button disabled

Sorry to say, but another bad idea. Shitposters are already writing long posts, thinking that they will hide their low quality by having a large character count. As a matter of fact, that is often a telltale sign of a shitposter-majority of post history consisting of 4-5 lines of text and no variety whatsoever.

4- Absolutely no merit in gambling section

If you want to go that route, you might as well ban merit in half of the forum.  


I appreciate the effort you put into all these ideas, but I just don't think that they are good.

[Supreme Donvic]

I don't support no merit distribution in gambling board.
The fact that we have a lot of posts that are not quality posts over there, those not mean there are no quality post, I have seen few quality post in gambling session and those posts actually deserve merit.

I think there's a merit source that applied under gambling board and he was made a merit source, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5464289.msg62737109#msg62737109 for the improvement of the gambling board.

Merit is one of the reasons why people make good and quality post, every board deserves merit as long as there are still quality posts there.


I think we should focus more on quality posts and not merit, I see a lot of poor and spam posts getting merit, don't think or believe all posts with merit are quality posts or members earning merit are actually quality posters.
Merit should not be a factor to determine a quality poster, his or her writing should determine that.


~Supreme

[bisasam]

The consensus will be "the system isn't perfect" and we choose to do nothing

I was really struck by this situation, not becouse i did not expect it happen, but because involved two users who make me a good impression in the time and if I'm not in mistaken I added them to my DT list in the past.

This is going to get a lot worse in the coming months. AI is getting better and better, and the forum's merit and trust systems will be gamed if not already

I understand your point of view, but in my opinion, these remedies focus on addressing only the symptoms of the problem and not its underlying cause. The limit for gambling posts does not solve the problem of spammers; it merely makes it harder for honest posters to adjust. The same applies to the requirement for gaining merit; merit is a scarce resource; thus tying it to the income gives too much power to merit generators.

There is no use in implementing the character limit, as a short clear post is far better than a long one, so it would just lead to more meaningless posts. Gambling does have value; there is valuable information to be found there. In fact, we have some rules to eliminate spam but they are not being followed. What we truly need is tools and peer reviewing.

[doggywin]

The consensus will be "the system isn't perfect" and we choose to do nothing

I was really struck by this situation, not becouse i did not expect it happen, but because involved two users who make me a good impression in the time and if I'm not in mistaken I added them to my DT list in the past.

This is going to get a lot worse in the coming months. AI is getting better and better, and the forum's merit and trust systems will be gamed if not already

I understand your point of view, but in my opinion, these remedies focus on addressing only the symptoms of the problem and not its underlying cause. The limit for gambling posts does not solve the problem of spammers; it merely makes it harder for honest posters to adjust. The same applies to the requirement for gaining merit; merit is a scarce resource; thus tying it to the income gives too much power to merit generators.

There is no use in implementing the character limit, as a short clear post is far better than a long one, so it would just lead to more meaningless posts. Gambling does have value; there is valuable information to be found there. In fact, we have some rules to eliminate spam but they are not being followed. What we truly need is tools and peer reviewing.

Dismissing the proposed solutions without offering any of your own amounts to doing nothing.

[dkbit98]

I think limiting posts per user to one post every 10 hours or 1 post per day is an excellent way to improve the forum quality.

I don't agree with that at all.
Restricting known spammers is one thing and I could agree with that, but restricting everyone would ruin this forum, and create new kind of prison.
Any new genuine users would give up trying, and honestly speaking I would probably do the same thing if I was in their place.

4- Absolutely no merit in gambling section

Another terrible idea.
I am not so much active in gambling board but I would not like to see anyone restricting me to send merit to anyone.

[Mia Chloe]

~snip

Well regardless of the fact that you intend on reducing forum spam generally it's actually aldo important that your methods are not carried out at the detriment of something as Important as traffic and activity. The more you place post restrictions the more you create a a tendency for activity to reduce.

At the end of the day it doesn't take much to see that the gambling board it not the problem, the problem is general organic decline. The less organic posts are the less people read and interact. Even if there are no mandatory gambling post campaigns, the viability of posts in the gambling board will barely change.

[Daniel91]

OP, interesting ideas—thanks for sharing—but implementing your suggestions would actually infringe upon members' freedom to post as much and wherever they like, and to reward other members with merits based on their own personal criteria.
I don't think it's a good idea to impose restrictions on all forum members just because a small number of users are spamming.
If I like someone's post in the gambling section, it makes no sense to forbid me from awarding a merit to that post; doing so would restrict my freedom on the forum.
Sometimes, short posts carry more meaning and are more significant than long ones; therefore, post length or character count can't serve as criteria for awarding merits. That is a personal matter for each individual forum member.
The minimum number of merits required for campaigns should be determined by the campaign manager, not by forum rules.
Limiting the number of posts over a certain period is also not a good idea, as some members participate in multiple discussions simultaneously and provide high-quality, valuable contributions. They should remain free to post and participate on the forum, provided it doesn't cross the line into spam.

[Ziskinberg]

4- Absolutely no merit in gambling section

Even with no merits, people will still post there since it's a requirement of the signature campaign. And given that the majority of signature campaigns here, say 90%, are coming from gambling operators, I think this fixed rule you're proposing is not fair since we have to admit it, they are keeping this forum active. We've noticed many times that when a user doesn't have a campaign, their activity drops significantly, not for everyone but on average. So I guess, it should not be made into a rule, instead, if a post is of good quality and deserves merit, then giving it merit is fine.

[LogitechMouse]

Before I will share my opinion with regards to the suggestions that you shared OP, I would also want to say that many here are appreciative with the suggestions that every user is sharing here for the betterment of the forum. Now back to the topic.

1- Serious "post per user" time limit in the gambling section
2- Minimum monthly merit from local board or international section to be confirmed in signature campaign
3- Character limit to earn merit whit "+Mert" button disabled
4- Absolutely no merit in gambling section
5- Signature campaign will be updated with this new rules

1. This will limit the amount of posts being posted on the gambling section, but a shitposter will just shitpost on other boards. This focuses more on reducing the spamming ON THE GAMBLING SECTION ONLY, but the amount of spam will just be distributed towards other sections.  I always believe in the quote, "Once a shitposter, always a shitposter." Also, there are many users here who are posting more than 1 posts per day on the gambling section and when I mean posts, I mean "contributive" posts, and not just some shitposting although I know that there are numerous users that are doing it unfortunately.

2. I don't know if every local board has merit sources, and if there's anybody, there's a chance that the merits the source is getting to distributed isn't enough on a monthly basis. This might encourage merit farming even more TBH.

3. I don't think that a post being a spam or not can be hidden by the number of characters of the post. I can make a 1000-character post, and still be labeled as a spam. On contrast, I can also make a 200-character post, but can be considered a "quality" or a "contributing" post that's more valuable than a 1000-character post out there. I guess reading the post as a whole would be better, but of course we are lazy enough to not do it or we have outside life as well.

4. I don't think that this will help at all. As much as we've seen the amount of spam on the gambling section, I still believe that there are a FEW USERS on that section that are posting "contributive" posts and when I mean contributive, it's not just X defeating Y blah blah blah, or me sharing my bets with X amount of odds, and doesn't contributing, or not sharing any valuable information to the whole thread at all. It's just unfortunate that those who are "contributing" on the section is being covered by those shitposters out there hence, the section being called as "den of shitposters".

5. What I will just say is that, campaign managers have their own rules. I've seen Hhampuz and Yahoo implemented the no-minimum number of posts in gambling so that shows that there's a bit of a change already. I'm not saying that other managers should do the same, but... seeing a change is good if you know what I mean. As for the character-increase part, I don't think that it will be that helpful as users will just put more words into their posts. Like what I said, many could make a 1000-character post and could still be considered as spam.

In conclusion, there's no one-solution to what we are seeing right now, but with these kinds of solutions, there might be some out there that would come up with a better one that will benefit the majority because let's face it. Whenever there's a change, not all of them will benefit from it.

[Alpha Marine]

1- Serious "post per user" time limit in the gambling section

I think limiting posts per user to one post every 10 hours or 1 post per day is an excellent way to improve the forum quality

Don't you think this is a bit too much?
These kinds of restrictions are against the forum. I've been on this forum for a relatively long time, and I know restricting how many posts a user can make on a board is not a great idea.
I have had genuine back-and-forth conversations with reputable members on the gambling board. We can't use the fact that we want to fight spam to limit how many posts a person can make there in a certain amount of time. This doesn't make the conversation organic, which is what we all want. It will reduce the noise and spam in the board, of course, but it would be as good as dead because you're not restricting just the spammer, yu're restricting everybody.

3- Character limit to earn merit whit "+Mert" button disabled

I have seen 2-line posts that got loads of merits. Most of them deserve it, while a few others don't, but the point is, quality is not in quantity.
A quality post might have either a large or small quality, there are no rules to it. So saying people must post 250+ characters before they can get merit is indirectly asking people to say things they can say in two lines in 7-8 lines, and at that point, that is no longer a quality post.
Besides, do people really get merits from spamming?

4- Absolutely no merit in gambling section

You forget that merit is for posts. If you see a post that makes sense to you, you can go ahead and merit it no matter the board.
I don't think there is any board on the forum that forbids merit. People don't just give merit in some boards because they are filled with thrash or spam, but that doesn't mean there are no quality posts in those boards.

[PrivacyG]

1- Serious "post per user" time limit in the gambling section

I disagree with this idea because some people are actually legitimately active in that Board for the most part and it would throw them off with no good reason.  I would be really annoyed if I had a '2 posts per day' limit in the 'Beginners & Help' Board.  A lot of our Members do a lot of Shit posting in the Bitcoin Discussion Board, would you not be annoyed if you were only allowed to write 3 posts a day over there?

To me, it would make more sense if we had a 'post per user' limit that increases or decreases depending on how much Merit that user received in that section of the Forum in the past 30 days.  Or.  It could be a Forum wide limit where the amount of Merits earned in the past 30 days define how much you can post in each section.  Then it would be more evident when some of these people Merit farm, because they would need a constant flow of Merits in between the same accounts to keep going with their Shit posts.

3- Character limit to earn merit whit "+Mert" button disabled

Character limits do not really change much in my opinion.  They would simply start writing longer Shit posts and then send Merits to those.  I would also rather have short Shit posts than every Shit poster moving to larger and larger dumps.

4- Absolutely no merit in gambling section

Somethimes I see merit distribution in gambling section, in my personal opinion this is wrong. From the meaning of merit here in the middle is clearly explained in the forum FAQ:

If you want Merits to stop in particular Boards because it does not fit the meaning of Merits then there needs to be a significant change about how Merits work.  You see Merits being given to people who share a joke on the Wall Observer Topic, which I personally do not see as 'quality' contributions to a Bitcoin Forum.

Some people send Merits because they agree with a post, others send Merits because they developed a habit of sending them to one Member with out a particularly good 'high quality' reason.  I see around us some people with exceptional reputation, some of them Merit Sources even, and with some of them you notice some kind of pattern where they do help out growing Members a lot, but they also send a lot of unnecessary Merits in between them selves.

We are ALL using Merits the wrong way.  For that to be solved, we do really need a completely new system that strictly defines what deserves a Merit and what does not.  To some people a joke is a quality contribution, to me quality contributions are those that contribute to the actual Bitcoin environment, but considering there is no definite line between what is quality and what is not, I do not mind what either of us think.