Topic: @Admins: Merit not working as configured, trolls just don't care (no surprise) - page 4. (Read 1271 times)

Do you think that requiring a payment for posting can really satisfy your demand? I don't think so, why do they bother to make a payment if some of the serious members here are contributing good replies or comments inside the forum?
Spammer/Account Farmers/Merit Farmers/ Scammers are being handled by the administrators. If you don't want to encounter such low posts, then stop using BCT. Do not implicate us.

I agree with you, but with a pay-to-post system will not help anything. To be honest, I got into this Forum because I heard there's an easy job that can make a lot of money, and that's a Signature Campaign. I think that pay-to-post or delete signatures will not help reduce spam. In fact will make this forum more lonely because if just talking about Bitcoin, we do not need in this forum. We can discuss on Facebook or Twitter that has features more easily and more sophisticated.

An alternative way of banning signature campaigns/remove signature is to have a merit requirement for participating in one. This should be imposed by all campaign managers out there especially in altcoins. Also, it may be better if only Full Members or Senior members and up are the ones allowed to participate in campaigns. Let's see how lower ranks thrive to make their way up to the forum.

I kinda agree with Carlton Banks.. I believe bitcointalk has reached a stage where everything has been answered... most of these posts by newbies are repeats.. Like how to export wallet key etc.. They keep on repeating the same stuff.. They need to learn how to use the search function.. Plus the general discussion section gets spammed with shit posts which are repetitive and are in broken English, which ruins the reading experience for other users.. Like if you believe you have something super important to add to the discussion which has been missed by other users then happily pay a 500 Satoshi fee... Also i kinda like the repayment idea.. Like if your reply gets merited you get back your 500 satoshi.. This can work and can do wonders for this community.. But on the other hand i believe the merit introduction has been working wonderfully.. So far the posts i have read have been less shitty.. So by giving it more time it will eventually give us the same result..

Normally I read a lot of comments before posting a reply in a topic that already have few pages of replies however for this one I lost my patience after reading few replies on the first page.

This is what I am having in mind after reading the original post...
Are we talking about a forum here or a membership club for any service?

We are living in a free world (Look around).
The best media of all: Facebook
The best search engine of all: Google

You are talking about paying bitcoin. How about if I say I am paying more valuable asset than bitcoin to leave this comment?
- It's my time.

Anyway take it easy fella. Every idea has pros and cons. The adopters will thrive.

i am not scaring you away, i am just explaining you the systematic behind pyramid systems, you cant avoid them they are everywhere, if they claim not to be those they still are. like the banks and financial system in the west.

I don't understand what are you talking about
When discussion is limited to a group of people it will be same like closed source software where those who have huge amount of financial backing control the projects goals and futures, BTCtalk is place for everyone to discuss freely about BTC, should you put any fees to post anything you start to limit the discussion, there is no more freedom to have any says about BTC development anymore.

There is nothing to do with me or anyone liking it, that is how open source project run everywhere.

bitcoin has a begininng and therefore also a centre

if you dont like it best way would be to leave and join start new project

you cant escape pyramid systems except you run your own one...

Those who have lots of BTC will quickly dominate the forum and we don't have recourse to prevent them from posting any spammy things they want because they 'pay' for it, this forum will quickly become ads medium by people with lots of BTC

Have to pay to share ideas, thats probably the most ridiculous rules for a community based open source projects, will turn the BTC into centralized development project only rich people can participate

More like burn your house to get rid of mosquito

Ok, let me rephrase that: everybody except for you... and possibly a few others. This really isn't the best way to solve the spam issue here. A much easier solution would just to be ban signature campaigns/remove signatures.


Nothing will get rid of a detemiend troll, but why don't you do what trolls fear most and ignore them? Trolls only post to annoy and get a rise out of people but if you just give them the silent treatment they usually get bored.


I doubt it. I don't think there's that many trolls here or at the very least they're drowned out by all the sig spammers.  There will be far worse forums for trolls out there but it's probably the biggest for shitposting seeing as people actually get paid to do it here.


I wouldn't be so sure of that. Theymos has already said that if the merit system doesn't work then signatures will likely be the next thing to go. They only people that would leave are the thousands of shitposters and nobody will be sad to see them leave.


It's a silly idea regardless of whether someone has a signature or not. I would rather signatures just be removed than having to pay to post here.

They just want to increase the marketing not the quality of the forum.

There are two kind of user here.

1. Post just because they have to post
2. Post just because they need to post

However both kinds do sig campigns. The first kind should be eliminated.
Introducing merit based sig campaigns is the best option in my opinion.

If those bounty participants earn a lot from posting in this forum, why should they not pay a fee for each post. Hero, Sr, Full members who has not even received 10 merits in the span of 3 months must not be allowed to wear signatures. If such a system is implemented, we would be free of shitposting Sr and Full members. Most probably, Hero and Legendary guys are the one who joined the forum in the timeframe of 2014-15, so most of them would have signed up for learning something and earning. But 2017 era was the worst part were all those Third World shits created an account, spammed and became Sr and Full members.

Why a low rank member should pay higher fees than a High ranked one?
There are some shitposters in Legendary too.

I requested for a   Altcoin Technical Discussion board for saving Alt holders to retrieve their money back. I am not a dev to help those guys who are seeking for help out their in the Alt board. It could help those guys from the insane amount of spams generated in the Alt Discussion board. But I didn't get a positive reply and bumping the thread. 

I find that interesting but probably in a different way than you do. In effect imposing a fee to post would be a form of regressive taxation. Those with the highest income from their signatures would be paying the lowest tax rate and those with the lowest income from their signatures would be paying the highest tax rate. Then those with no paid signature, if they couldn't afford the tax, would be forced to join a signature campaign or leave.
So it is those in the best position to pay the tax that are most against it.


That's not a bad idea in my opinion but when it was suggested here https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/ideals-for-merit-system-2823134 theymos said:


That was part of what got me to thinking of other ways to tackle the signature spam from accounts that are already of high rank and I came up with Merit Phase 2 - Drain the Swamp.

tl;dr Hide the signatures of anyone who doesn't get any merit over a certain timeframe.

Merit is acting like medicine in this forum but when tooth is decayed too much then dentist extract the decayed tooth instead of giving medicine.

So I donot think Merit can control spam but it will be able contain the spammers in their ranks.

How is it going so far? do you think you could rank up anytime soon?

Theymos said all people have the right to use this forum to make money. The problem lies within shitposters who only post either to get paid or to rank up their accounts. That is why the merit system was implemented. You will not rank up unless you have the required merits and activity. Also, the problem is within the managers who accept these kind of people. They are the ones to blame. Let alone Theymos do what must be done.

I'm not really neutral, maybe just diplomatic.

I've been on a lot of boards over the years, and I've started some and moderated others.

I was a member on a paid to post forum, and managed to make over 1,000 posts in a day in a posting contest with another member ( what a way to waste a day, but it was fun to do once ). You have a lot of problems with moderation on these boards. I'm a member of a small private webmaster forum with no public viewing, and it gets about 10 posts a day, but it's very friendly and helpful. I was a member of the DN forum, but left when it converted to paid membership. I'm a member of a casino forum, and that is split - there are a number of boards for new members, and a much more interesting private section, which you have to apply to join after you have been a member for a while, and if they think you are OK, you get promoted. All of those allow signatures with various restrictions. I don't like forums that don't allow signatures, they are a type of payment for posting, but they shouldn't be abused. I use my signature to promote services that I use and trust, and to link to some of my sites. I experiment with the messages to see which ones get clicks, and this is useful for me.

Two things are guaranteed to generate a lot of spam. The ability to create multiple accounts, and a system that rewards posting volume. It's easy to generate discussions with yourself to boost threads and post counts, and it is usually not of great benefit to the forum.

I would consider to pay a really small fee (like dust) per post if it would help the forum on the long run, but I think this won't help a lot in the current situation.
According to my understanding, spammers are here to earn money with sig.campaigns. Sig.campaigns and bounty campaigns are usually for advertising ICOs, services or something similar, so someone, who is interested in being visible on the forum pays the members (bots) to post and to wear the signature.
What if we implement the payment system for posts? If I try to oversimplify it, these guys, who runs the signature and bounty campaigns will pay the fee per post instead of the members and they will deduct if from the members (bots) campaing payment at the end of the week.
This pay per post would only prevent trolls (who are not in any signature/bounty campaings) to spam the forum.
I was shocked when a few weeks ago I thought that I found the solution against copy-pasters, but someone enlightened me that if we give merit for reporting a bunch of copy pasters, the merit abusers would create even more copy-paster accounts for themselves and will report them with their original account, to earn merit. That time I have realized that spammers are not only a few undereducated poor folks from worldwide but groups hunting for the profit they can earn here. (https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.34148476)
Also, a few hours ago, I have wrote a small post about trashing spam megathreads, which makes the spammers lose post count and this can be really bad for them, even worse if they don't rank up because the lack of merits. https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.35031143
So I agree that something has to be done, but we need think about a really effective solution, and this is not easy at the moment... I can imagine that the merit system, combining with trashing low quality post and topics will help, but there's also a need to somehow force bounty campaign managers to stop the one liner spammers, and I don't have an idea how we can force them...
I know TLDR

you should expect people to be rational.

but it's probably more accurate to shorten this to:


calling this neutral is a bit of a stretch:

i have observed gay lobby groups giving each other merit. not because an article was well written but because it suited their interest. and out of "love" and "support" for each other

this fractioning and party creation will happen, anyway. i have a clear point when i think about merit:

i ignore merit, if someone has a lot of merit, for me this is just someone who is longer in this community than those with less, its not a more trustworthy person just because he has more merit, you cant trust anyone in cryptoeconomics, no one has any idea whats going on all run their agenda or are driven by someones.

there are very view players that know what they are doing.