The no ad-sigs posters allowed topic - come and not be annoyed by rubbish posts

[CIYAM]

You'd probably best to ask Vasilis or one of the Burst team about any issues you are having with AT.

Whether one idea is "better" than another is a very subjective thing (and not something I am going to wade into).

The Ethereum project has a lot of funding and some very talented people working on it (more than the AT project as we have very little funds and therefore pretty much only volunteers).

[CIYAM]

You know you can hide all user sigs, right?

This has been brought up many, many times. It is not the sigs themselves but the pointless posts that is the issue (there is no option to "hide all posts by ad-sig posters" which would be something I'd gladly use if it were available).

[abyrnes81]

You know you can hide all user sigs, right?

This has been brought up many, many times. It is not the sigs themselves but the pointless posts that is the issue.

So is not it better to disable the sig view and let people write (and you will delete all the not constructive posts)?

[CIYAM]

So is not it better to disable the sig view and let people write (and you will delete all the not constructive posts)?

And that is the issue - if you want a "nice experience" on this forum now you have to either spend most of your time clicking Ignore for every ad-sig poster (which could eventually cause performance issues depending upon how that is actually implemented) or create a self-moderated topic like this one and monitor every post like a hawk (I have already deleted around 6 and that's in a topic that specifically says "no ad-sig posters allowed").

[DannyHamilton]

You know you can hide all user sigs, right?

That's a horrible idea.

Then how would I know who to click "ignore" on?

[DannyHamilton]

you have to either spend most of your time clicking Ignore for every ad-sig poster (which could eventually cause performance issues depending upon how that is actually implemented)

Actually, I'm hoping for that.  If we all ignore nearly all the posters that have sig ads, and if that eventually causes significant performance issues on the bitcointalk servers, it might force Theymos' hand into either better moderation, or better tools to deal with such individuals.

[CIYAM]

Hehe - my guess is that it probably uses a NOT IN clause which will start to cause problems if many users have ignore lists in the thousands.

[abyrnes81]

So is not it better to disable the sig view and let people write (and you will delete all the not constructive posts)?

And that is the issue - if you want a "nice experience" on this forum now you have to either spend most of your time clicking Ignore for every ad-sig poster (which could eventually cause performance issues depending upon how that is actually implemented) or create a self-moderated topic like this one and monitor every post like a hawk (I have already deleted around 6 and that's in a topic that specifically says "no ad-sig posters allowed").

You are right.

You know you can hide all user sigs, right?

That's a horrible idea.

Then how would I know who to click "ignore" on?

Wear/put an ad-sig doesn't mean you will pubblish a "not constructive" posts. Maybe some users have a different opinion, this is normal.

[CIYAM]

Wear/put an ad-sig doesn't mean you will pubblish a "not constructive" posts. Maybe some users have a different opinion, this is normal.

Unfortunately as others are agreeing to here - the *vast majority* of ad-sig posts are just rubbish (so just because 1 out of 100 could be useful doesn't make it something we should just put up with).

[abyrnes81]

So is not it better to disable the sig view and let people write (and you will delete all the not constructive posts)?

It's gotten to the point where I don't even need to bother to read the posts from the sig spammers in order to decide if they are useful or not. The huge majority of the time, they are just spam. Therefor the sigs themselves actually make it easier to know who to ignore and I am comfortable with the fact that I may miss an occasional useful post from a sig spammer.

The best solution is one which entirely removes the incentive to spam.

I don't think the signature campaigns will be totally banned, it is a "way" for the newbies (or better to those don't have the possibility to buy BTC) for make some "free" bitcoins.

[CIYAM]

Then let them do that in a "newbie" area (I wish they would bring that back) and ban it elsewhere.

To be more clear IMO areas to do with Technical Development and Project Development (the more serious areas of this forum) should really be "off-bounds" for rubbish posts (in areas such as Speculation which I don't go near anyway I couldn't really care less).

[DannyHamilton]

You know you can hide all user sigs, right?

That's a horrible idea.

Then how would I know who to click "ignore" on?

Wear/put an ad-sig doesn't mean you will pubblish a "not constructive" posts. Maybe some users have a different opinion, this is normal.

No.  It doesn't mean you WILL publish "not constructive" posts, but it raises the likelihood beyond a level that I'm interested in tolerating (I think many members of this forum can confirm I have a rather high tolerance for newbie posts).  As such, I'm happy to miss out on the occasional single constructive post in order to avoid needing to scan through thousands of crap posts.

And individuals that actually want to participate constructively will find that there is an incentive to not include sig spam (as most constructive members will be ignoring anything they say).

[abyrnes81]

Then let them do that in a "newbie" area (I wish they would bring that back) and ban it elsewhere.

To be more clear IMO areas to do with Technical Development and Project Development (the more serious areas of this forum) should really be "off-bounds" for rubbish posts (in areas such as Speculation which I don't go near anyway I couldn't really care less).

If a member with no ad-sign (like me) posted a "rubbish" post (your definition) in one of the board that you have reported (Technical Development and Project Development).

Will this it "right" for you? is it a problem?

[inBitweTrust]

I like this idea and it is likely that the future forum will include sigs as the forum operators are incentivised by a high traffic site all these shill accounts create regardless of the quality of posts. Thus we may need to create our own solution.

The one problem I see is searching through and reading one long thread is problematic if one wants to focus on a specific topic or news item.

Perhaps the solution is to each create new self moderated threads for every new topic and have a 1 sentence explanation in each of our sigs that all posts that break forum rules and/or contain paid sigs will immediately be deleted?

[CIYAM]

I incorrectly deleted a post which I just assumed was from an ad-sig due to having a "colourful sig". I admit that was my mistake but this is unfortunately the kind of problem that this whole ad-sig thing has led to (and I do not have "saint-like" patience like Danny) as we just become conditioned to ignoring posts with colorful sigs in the assumption that it is not even worth reading.

[CIYAM]

If a member with no ad-sign (like me) posted a "rubbish" post (your definition) in one of the board that you have reported (Technical Development and Project Development).

Will this it "right" for you? is it a problem?

It is not "up to me" to decide the quality of posts (that should be up to the majority who have an interest in the particular area to decide).

But I think that the majority of us would probably agree that a +1 post is of zero interest.

[DannyHamilton]

If a member with no ad-sign (like me) posted a "rubbish" post (your definition) in one of the board that you have reported (Technical Development and Project Development).

Will this it "right" for you? is it a problem?

I would report the post as being "off-topic" and a moderator would remove it.

Since there wouldn't be any incentive to create such posts, there wouldn't be very many of them to deal with.

With sig ad campaigns, there is a monetary incentive to continue to create many off-topic, unnecessary, useless, unhelpful posts.  Therefore reporting the post and having it removed is insufficient. It will simply be followed with more and more of the same.

[abyrnes81]

If a member with no ad-sign (like me) posted a "rubbish" post (your definition) in one of the board that you have reported (Technical Development and Project Development).

Will this it "right" for you? is it a problem?

It is not "up to me" to decide the quality of posts (that should be up to the majority who have an interest in the particular area to decide).

But I think that the majority of us would probably agree that a +1 post is of zero interest.

Ok thanks for your information. Everyone of us have his personal thought of what is "constructive" and what is not constructive

[CIYAM]

Ok thanks for your information. Everyone of us have his personal thought of what is "constructive" and what is not constructive

Apart from +1 posts I see plenty of posts that say (in very poor English) "I don't understand this topic as it is way too technical" (always from ad-sig posters).

I think it would be hard to find many that think such posts are "constructive" in any way at all.

And I know for a fact that Danny (who tries very hard to help out newbies) is constantly fighting against people offering "bad advice" (based upon "completely factually incorrect" statements and assumptions just because they are trying to earn BTC from their ad-sig).

[steeev]

hi ian,

Although lacking any technical expertise, i do like to read discussions and threads on various aspects of
Bitcoin, and lately there's been a fair amount of talk around the block size limit, and around the idea to increase it to 20MB...

i recently read 'Economic Fallacies and the Block Size Limit, part 1 and 2' by Justus Ranvier -

https://bitcoinism.liberty.me/2015/01/21/economic-fallacies-and-the-block-size-limit-part-1-scarcity/

https://bitcoinism.liberty.me/2015/02/09/economic-fallacies-and-the-block-size-limit-part-2-price-discovery/

i wondered if you have read this, and any considerations you have of what is being proposed, as it takes rather a different approach to the idea being more broadly discussed.