Topic: Alt ideas other than merit system (Read 394 times)

If a mod is a manager, you shouldn't let him decide who gets to be a manager.

I also support this great idea, and also all posts on meta should not be counted on any signature campaigns.

I don't really understand what you implied in your thread by using the attached image. What does it mean?
To say the truth, your thread likely non-sense and the image hurts my eyes a bit. Bright and contrast colors in the image, I think this image was terribly designed. What are purposes of the image is vague, too.

well why the forum dosen't motivate people by choosing the best posts of each week of each level, and those chosen their posters will get merit depending on the quality of their posts and of course their level.

Why waste time on trifles let's text the forum will do without Meta Board no smileys, no pictures. Let's remember how to play text games, imagination will replace everything )

I think that is a great idea, and I'd support a vote on that.

I suggest to block signature display in Meta board too. Why? As you can see around three months after launching day of merit system, Meta board has been polluted by hundreds of shitty posts from scammers, merit farmers, account farmers. They have visited the board to complain, to cry, to moan, and ridiculously to show their signatures up to our faces in order to hopelessly get merit points and money from their campaigns they participated in (mostly alt-campaigns).

Just check the boards that block signatures to get an appreciation of what will happen. Don't forget that those who do post there, may not visit the forum if they can't display signatures elsewhere.

If the merit system is already being abused by farmers and alts then it will just be abused in the same fashion as it already is. Whilst in theory it's one more hoop to jump through people will just find a way to game the system and several users have already been caught giving merit to others just so they could join campaigns. As for being more strict on campaign managers this is something I've been pushing for a while but we can't do anything without theymos' approval.

Actually, high paid signature campaigns have already had different payment rates for users who meet merit requirements and who don't. Most campaigns which paid in Bitcoin require merit points to join.
And their requirements for post quality are also high, too.
I think merit system has performed well in signature campaigns by its contributions to prevent low qualities but high ranked members to ask for joning.

Why not include merit requirements in signature campaign?

I think if we ban signature bitcointalk will be cripple for it was started for a long time with signature campaign and more bitcointalk followers change lives from nothing to something.

Next, require the bounty manager to be more strict than before. Make the requirements harder.

That old chestnut. A manager needs to be able to delegate to successfully run any enterprise. The same story with the hacked account recovery. If he could have delegated moderating signature campaigns then this would have been solved a long time ago.

Anyway, thanks for sharing a bit of forum history I didn't know about. I just assumed it hadn't happened because it couldn't happen.

You mean a maximum of 50 posts, right? ChipMixer's signature campaign doesn't actually require a minimum of posts per week.

I actually can't manage to hit 50 posts anymore due to how busy I am

It should be because theymos suggested it. As far as I recall he even agreed to it. It was at the same time we created the signature campaign guidelines and it was meant that those that didn't follow it even after warnings were supposed to have their signatures blacklisted for x amount of time if not permanent. Only theymos can blacklist them though and he probably doesn't have time to do that right now. The merit system alone isn't going to work and punishment for lazy campaigns who do little to nothing still needs to happen otherwise nothing will change.

The signature block will not kill the forum. The forum will become clean and here will be found and communicate cryptoanarchists. I agree that the forum will not be so popular, but it will not die.

If that is technically feasible then I think it's a good idea. Getting someone like you to monitor campaigns and zap their signatures sounds like a great way to go.

Poorly run campaigns were meant to have their signatures blacklisted/blocked from the forum by theymos to stop this from happening. Several poorly run campaigns were suggested but it never happened.

theymos could start a signature space auction to supplement the ad banner space auction.

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It's a good idea but how do you do it. You can ban the signature campaign managers from the forum but there's nothing to stop them organising a campaign off-forum. You should tell that friend of yours to register btctalksigcamp.com ASAP.

Banning or punishing poorly run campaigns has been suggested numerous times but the only person who can sanction that is theymos. If we'd started punishing badly run campaigns long ago the forum wouldn't be in such a mess as it is and we probably wouldn't have needed the merit system. It's because they can get away with doing nothing that they do. Why would anyone do work that they don't need to do if there's no repercussions for them? Of course people will just sit back and do nothing whilst they count their money, but this shouldn't be acceptable.

So nobody liked my idea that bad campaigns should be banned, rather than a complete block on signatures ( which would kill the forum ).

No. The only thing this forum gains from signature campaigns is traffic. It will survive without them. The forum probablky loses money because money that would be spent on forum ad slots isn't and is instead paid to users. And it wouldn't be hard to implement a ban at all. Signatures would just be disabled and the problem of sig spammers will be solved instantly. Alternatively, and like I have suggested before, I think all signatures should be removed and people have to pay a substantial fee to get them. If everyone had to pay $500 for one or something then it would severely restrict how many accounts somebody could have whilst pretty much eliminating account farming in the process.

Surely if this happens the forum will be quiet and all spammers and shitposting will be lessened because they think that they never have profit on this forum if a signature will be a ban. If I was not mistaken also forum have profit on that bounty/signature campaign I am right?

Good solution but hard to implement I think.

This could be true.

But possibly there are some other solutions before going radical.

I see that one of the problems is that people do not give their merits away because for some reason they think that they will gain something in some point of time from their Smerits, i believe that we need  something that motivates poeple to give their Smerits than just keeping them.

Also i think that the amount of Smerits out there is way too small in respect to gaps between members.

Aand one simple thing that could help the forum, 2FA. It would help to reduce  Jr.member farming because i believe it wont be rational for them to have ton of mobile devices to keep registering new acc s.

You can look at this thread:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/ideas-for-improving-post-quality-2605767
Many members posted their ideas hiw to improve quality of posts there.
I'm not complaining about Merit system, I think it's one of the best things happened to forum lately. I also liked idea to require payment to wear signature.  Now I think that Merit system are better solution than require payment to wear signature, but maybe both these things can be combined?
It would the most radical and the most effective solution.

then the sig campaign managers need to be approved to work on the forum? I know it is more work for someone, but if mods actively managed the signature campaign managers then it would stop the need for 50%+ of the post removals ETC.  It seems like more work for them initially but in reality it will make the mods life easier in the long run..

I'm all for that.

A minimum post count is better than unlimited. Minimum post counts usually aren't excessive so the user isn't forced to make hundreds, but a user has to make a minimum of x amount posts otherwise people just won't do anything. A better solution would be to actually make managers do something about spam. When you have managers like sylon who accept hundreds of users and don't do any sort of quality checks then that's when they get abused. Chipmixer has a minimum requirement of 50 posts a week but we don't see any spam coming from their campaign. The onus should be on poor managers not what minimum amount of posts are required because any amount of posts will include spam if nobody is poling them.

Indeed this one is the only possible solution after merit system.
The second solution is to remove/restrict the condition of minimum post count from signature campaigns.

I've been active on various forums for over 20 years, and I've moderated and owned some of them. The difficulties stem from the fact that it seems that to achieve high volumes you need to pay members to post in some way. Signatures are a way to reward active posters, and they allow members to choose their own way to gain these rewards, and they remove the need for the board owners to have to pay posters directly for posting. This causes a bit of a conflict, as the more posting that sigs generate, the more page views that are generated, and this increases the potential revenue from the forum's advertising. However, it comes at a price.

Talk merit has given me a bit more of an understanding of the dynamics  of Bitcoin Talk, and I would suggest the following changes to "improve" the forum. They do not include changes to merit or activity, as I think both of those are beneficial.

- Don't allow signatures to promote any obvious frauds or other scams, they damage the reputation of the forum.
- Delete low grade spam postings.
- Leave Bitcoin discussion as a frog pond for the spammers.
- Create a Beginners discussion board for new members and spammers.
- Moderate a beginners help board, and keep spammers out of it.
- Move topics posted on the wrong boards over to the correct board as soon as possible.
- Moderate the serious boards such as the technical, legal and economic ones, and senior discussions, and remove spam postings from them.

I think these changes would allow the forum to continue to operate at a profit, and it would allow members interested in Bitcoin and crypto to discuss these topics in an adult fashion. It would also allow newcomers to the exiting world of crypto economies to learn about, and understand, the dramatic changes that are part of the emerging economies.

theymos has already said that if Merit doesn't cure the shitposting problem this is the next step. I don't think there's much point coming up with alternatives other than that.


I'm in the same position, I've only had a paid signature for about 6 months. I think theymos's reluctance is also about the people providing content being able to monetise it. It is a unique place (AFAIK) that the contributors can sell advertising space rather than the site owner. But that generosity has been exploited badly.

Sounds funny but really serious idea. Now that I think of it, most of the members here are aiming to rank up just to join signature campaigns where they can earn more pennies. They keep on posting just to reach the minimum posts for their campaign.

+1 merit I don't have one and I personally think that will do for now.

Although I'm a signature designer by nature I hope that somehow this signature space will be of any use other than promoting an ICO/Bounty of any promising altcoin.

^^ the man has it right^^^

Even though I wear a Sig now I didn't for years, no odds to me if they go and I am sure it would better the community, Although I can understand Theymos's reluctance as selling a forum with Xmillion users is more value than 100K users..

Ban signatures. Problem solved.

I see a lot of people who complaining  about merit system because many quality posters didn't get any merits, which is true.So if someone will give you a chance to express your thoughts and suggest any alternative solutions other than merits which can help to improve this forum and stop those spammers and account farming by posting quality posts  what ideas can you possibly suggest? If you are complaining, you must have any better ideas to contribute to this forum.