Topic: Alternatives to Permabans for plagarism - page 8. (Read 22209 times)

Well that’s pretty quick to draw up (as of today):

Number of forum members with >= 500 earned Merits: 34
Number of forum members with >= 400 earned Merits: 57
Number of forum members with >= 300 earned Merits: 96
Number of forum members with >= 200 earned Merits: 176
Number of forum members with >= 100 earned Merits: 463
Number of forum members with >= 50 earned Merits: 1036
(I wouldn’t go any lower than that).

It is a rather limited set of people, and again, it would create a “wealth” class distinction if used in someway to get a pardon granted.

What about spammers who are paid for posting?
They are often stealing posts from other users to bump topics, I doubt that signature ban will stop them.

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BTW I saw an identical message about temporary signature ban in some of users profiles:


https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/andriyana-1040537
https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/duchaitp-1254681
https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/jasmine226-1320777
https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/van021-1352938
https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/faulidin-1590420
https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/vanminhcoin1-1900506

As I mentioned in the other thread, I'm against fines because it is discriminatory. If we are setting a new a rule, it should be the same rule for everyone, regardless of wealth. There shouldn't be an option that allows those more well off to buy themselves out of a punishment.

Out of any of those options, I would be the least against a signature ban, but only for users that weren't obviously plagiarizing just to get paid from a signature campaign - these spammers should still receive an outright permanent ban. In those who do get a signature ban, it should be either permanent or based on them earning x amount of merit. I don't think it should be temporary - most would just abandon their account until the ban is up, which is no real punishment at all. They should have to work for its reversal. 100 merit is on the lower end of what I would go for personally, but I appreciate my views are probably quite skewed here. Perhaps @LoyceV or @DdmrDdmr could provide us with some numbers - how many users have earned over 100 merit since the system was introduced?

Another possibility to earn their signature back would to be make x good reports - this would need to have an additional requirement of >x% accuracy to prevent spamming the report button. Say 5000 reports with >95%?

Having said all that, my preferred option is still the status quo - zero tolerance.

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Edit: Spelling mistake.

I vote for banning signature and one question. What is the difference of a temporary signature ban to an amount of merit they should earn? I guess it is better option to let option 1 be in permanent only and let the temporary choice be on option 2.  Somehow option 2 is sounds a temporary signature ban too.

I'm open to suggestions.

By the way I vote for option 4 too. I guess there's no harm if we stick to the classic.

I'd like to get the community's thoughts on possible alternatives to permabans for things like copy and pasting/plagiarism. One that seems to have the support of quite a few people is instead of a permanent ban a user has a signature ban instead (IE the signature is removed so they can no longer earn here). The signature ban could be permanent, temporary, or indefinite until the user has proven their worth over time and then it's reinstated. We could even make it so after the user has received x amount of merit then their signature is possibly reinstated (it would have to be a lot - at least one hundred in my opinion). I think there are several levels of severity in plagiarism and not all are equal and in some cases a permanent ban forever can be a little harsh (especially if it was just one silly mistake). I think there's a big difference in someone quoting something from Wikipedia to answer someone's question, and those that purposefully copy someone else's post here or 'text-spin' it just to earn from signatures (I'm really not sure if those users deserve a second chance, but good luck to them trying to get hundreds of merit to get it back). To be honest, removal of their signature to signature spammers might as well be a permanent ban and most will probably just give up immediately if they can't earn here, but for others it would be shame if there's no chance of forgiveness especially if they've been an active or helpful member of the community and just screwed up one time. Theymos has mentioned before signature bans and blacklists and was something that was supposed to happen with the signature campaign guidelines but maybe he could make this his next priority after the account recovery tool.

Alternatively, what do people think about paying some sort of fine to get their account back? The money probably wouldn't go to the forum or staff but to a bitcoin-accepting charity instead. That way at least a good cause benefits and they're still paying a financial penalty.

You could maybe give people two options for those that are banned for plagiarism: You can either have a sig ban indefinitely but are allowed to post, or possibly even allowed to earn the signature back by getting a sufficient amount of merit (say maybe at least 100), or just pay a substantial fine (at least $100). As I've mentioned before I'm strongly in favour of more donator ranks that give you a bigger signature and maybe they could get their signature back by purchasing one of them. I think we should also give them the option of earning it back via merit so at least they have two options and if they don't want to pay anything then they can try earn their signature back by contributing something worthwhile.

You can vote for two options on the poll just in case you are for both a sig ban and paying a fine. If you have any other alternatives or issues with the current options then please state so. You can also discuss how much a fine should be or how much merit a user should earn before they get their signature back.