Topic: Campaign to improve posting quality for local boards - page 8. (Read 3577 times)

I support this campaign, it is a good campaign.

One of my reasons of supporting this campaign is that I read an article somewhere outside this forum and understood that some people had to quit this forum due to high level of shit post and spamming that had happend in the forum.

I couldn't justify their action of quiting the forum because it got messy by shitposters not until I was involved in a 5 aside football in my new neighbourhood. Football that I enjoy playing became a nightmare because my team mates were not anything close to good. They could not trap the ball, they give away 80% possession, poor position to recieve passes. Within 15 minutes, I became frustrated and left the pitch.

It was after the football incident that I understood how other people's activities could make you to even quit or hate what you are passionate of doing.
Though, I wasn't around when there was no merit system, but I understood that things were worse than it is now.
Meanwhile, this good campaign can only affect positively those who are sincerely interested in becoming good users of the forum. Those users who are poised in posting shits and getting paid would not benefit from this.

There's generally a pattern to a users posts. Of course, this is a generalisation, and therefore this isn't concrete. However, users start off with slightly less quality posts when they sign up, and over time they'll learn the standards of the forum, and get sucked in to the community, and therefore want to actually contribute. Now, guides, campaigns, and all of this is all well, and good. However, there's a difference between a user that wants to learn, and those that don't. Take the altcoin section as an example; there's plenty of users there that don't care about learning, and no matter how much you push what's acceptable, and isn't acceptable on the forum, they aren't going to listen.

Even moderation doesn't cure it, they'll just register a new account. theymos has put evil points associated with IP addresses to try, and avoid this issue, but there's ways around it, and the spammers know it. Most of these types of users only care about money, they seem to join every bounty available, and in some instances have setup bots to reply to them. These users aren't teachable, no matter how good the campaign is.

Then there's the users which are new, maybe to the forum or the language, and we can't discriminate against them for using poor structuring of sentences, because eventually these types of users might actually become some of the most valuable to the community. I for one don't have perfect English, for anyone that's from the UK, you might be familiar with the term "Wenglish". Also, my grammar definitely isn't perfect.

So, my point is we can put all the information we want out there, and I do believe it's already out there to some degree, but the audience matters. Those that read, and take into consideration those threads, are probably going to become good quality users anyhow. Whereas, those that aren't interested, and therefore more likely to be a spamming kind, aren't. Therefore, much of the effort is lost on the types of users you're talking about.

Obviously, translations, and all of that is a little different. However, I don't think we should be expecting perfect native language either. Since, depending on where you're in that country, depends on how you structure, and use the language. North Welsh for example, is a lot different to Welsh in the South, and I mean different words for the same thing, kind of different, and not just the way they speak.

So, while I definitely do appreciate any proactive way of increasing the quality of the forum, don't expect miracles. A campaign is only going to help those that are interested in the first place. Moderation is still the best thing we have for dealing with spam, even if that isn't always efficient, due to the reasons mentioned above.

There's also the issue of signature campaigns, and local sections. A lot of the time it appears that the signature campaign manager doesn't understand the languages (almost certain with the amount they accept) that are being posted, but still accepting that for payment. So, we either need a better review process or multiple managers that are natives of that language for it to be accepting in a signature campaign, if that makes sense.

Also, worth noting; if you find a lot of spam in your local section, report it. If it doesn't get handled then that shows theymos that a moderator is needed in that section. Just because it doesn't get handled this time around, doesn't mean its meaningless, since it does indicate there's a need for either a dedicated moderator or an additional moderator depending on the workload.
 

Supporting the campaign is not the equivalent of applying to translate the threads and customizing them in the local section, right? To do that, I would have to reserve the language as described in the OP. I might be interested in doing the translation as well, but only after I see the German thread, so I can get a clear idea of what exactly we are talking about. 

Yeah, it's somehow advertising, when someone is opening a new topic where people should recommend "bullish Altcoins". Most of the time, a few constructive posts will show up. Usually the first 10 replies will contain up to 5 constructive answers but after that, the spamposts are piling up, where shitposters are praising useless, centralized shitcoins like Binance Coin or Tron because "tRansAcTioNS aRe cHeAP" over and over again...
Like here: Your Altcoin for December ?

Quick, produce some one-liners and recommend
Tron [1] [2] [3]
Solana [1] [2] [3]
Binance Coin [1] [2] [3]
EOS [1]


Or here: Is TRON dead?

Quickly, the first Tron shill post came up:

Tron defense shitposters starting at post number 11, 12, 14, 17, 18 ....
It's a bit strange, same bounty campaign where all Tron shills are joined...


Luckily, shitcoin shills have quit their marketing mission in our German section. They were always around to recommend their useless shitcoin bags to newcomers without going too deep into it, why these coins should be bought.
But even with going deep, why Tron or EOS are good coins it would be a violation of my Merit criteria. There are simply no reasons why such crap coins should be bought. Tron is just marketing hype, EOS is centralized an dead, Solana is frequently not working and BCH and BSV are fraud coins.
But in Altcoin Discussion / Altcoin Speculation, the most annoying shitposters are very quick to recommend a random centralized shitcoin or defend useless shitcoins when these flawed coins are being called out.  

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Oh, sorry. I've missed to remove the German link, when it was copied from our local board. Here it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denglisch
"Denglish" is, when people are too lazy to translate properly and are using English words instead, even when there's a known German translation for.

Very good point, I'l add it soon and try to include it into a single point
- researching properly
- correcting errors when detected by other Forum members / via proofreading
I'm not sure if someone would add a disclaimer, some members are even forgetting to link their sources properly or hide them to receive more Merit (when Merit sources are tricked to think all the text is written by OP itself)

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I've changed my OP from "DT member support" to "community member support". Should be easier to understand now and cause fewer misunderstandings.  
We appreciate your support.  

But for formal reasons, we need to have you posting our code.  
Too many have said "I generally support" or similar, which is hard to know if it's just a statement or a real "support".
I don't want to cause misunderstandings here.  

So, if you are in support plz use code, Sir.  


I've only added NeuroticFish so far.

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Well, time for improvements.  

Very true, my impression is especially when some people are saturated in their current signature campaign and are getting their payments week after week, the posting quality is slowly degrading because payments are still coming safely. And when everyone is posting a bit shittier every week, it doesn't even affect your position negatively.
Because every second invested for a more detailed reply is a wasted second.
Proofreading? - No time for that...
I have noticed that trend in our local board and hopefully our campaign can remind everyone to review their posting style.

I have to admit that I am guilty of the occasional CROnglish here and there as well. But that's just because I have gotten used to the English terminology so much that certain native words feel like they have been butchered. It sounds like someone forced you to come up with a local translation no matter how ridiculous it sounds.

I support any initiative that makes the forum a better place and improves the posting quality. But I am also afraid that the forum culture is slowly dying and the new generations are all about posting short, grammatically incorrect, meme-filled responses. Many simply don't care.

@GazetaBitcoin
Every time I see your username, I associate it with Italy and think that you are Italian. Although "Gazeta" isn't spelled correctly and it should be "Gazzeta", like Gazzetta Dello Sport, it still doesn't make me think of Romania. I have to keep reminding myself that Romanian is a Latin language and that "Gazeta" probably has the same meaning as "Gazzeta". 

I've started seeing too many guides/tutorials made by people who don't know the matter deep enough, hence they're full of mistakes misguiding newbies into making errors.
So I strongly advise those who are unsure about their new topics, add at least a "please tell about the errors so I can update the first post" disclaimer, to avoid harsh replies.

Also I tend to give more credit to an useful answer, even if it may be an one-liner, than a meme.

But overall you're correct (although I expect exactly the worse shitposters won't read or won't care about this kind of guidelines).



I think that this is wrong and can be misinterpreted (I see that some already thought that you're asking for trust feedback). Also DT comes and goes, the list can be reshuffled and one will no longer be DT for a while (especially if DT2).
I think that you need this from all users, especially Merit Sources (although some don't like to say they're merit sources) and users with high amount of merit, i.e. those who may actually merit those posts.

So:

but I say this not as DT, but as user of bitcointalk.

Well, If this is the case. You may want to ask for support from every forum member and not only from the DT network. When someone supports your initiative means he has to improve his posts as well. I support your initiative.

Pyramid- or nested-quotes are sort of lazy way of posting. It mostly comes from spammers and such reply usually has very low quality.

Sometimes we need to quote other posts (even nested ones) for fully transparent, avoid censorship etc. but mostly we don't have to use nested quotes.

• [Tips] Posting technique and its Video guide
• [GUIDE] A good post/reply and formatting
• Bitcointalk posting etiquette and [GUIDE] Bitcointalk forum etiquette

I chuckled inside when I read this:


Admittedly, I don't visit the altcoin section that much, but do people actually advertise coins like the above (with the exception of Libra, which died in the womb)?  I'm assuming it's the hyping up of shitcoins that's frowned upon, but do members do that to the point of it being annoying?

And oh, that pyramid-quote suggestion....that's more important than you think.  I swear, if someone quotes a bunch of text that need not have been quoted, I'll often not even consider meriting that post, even if it's decent.  People don't like to scroll through shit they shouldn't have to, so that's an excellent point.

Overall, this is a great initiative and I wish you guys luck with it.  I'm glad you defined "Denglisch", because I had no idea what that is, and the link to the wiki page is all in German (which I can't read).

In case you want to present it later, feel free to apply any time when it's still open. 
Spanish local board would be great.

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Very good idea.
I've totally missed these boards like Bitcoin Discussion or Altcoin Discussion etc., where spam is still an issue. Good point.
Bringing a campaign there could have a considerable impact.


Translation can be done even if there's no or not much spam, just for educational purposes. 

This is a good initiative indeed,  and one that shouldn't be limited to the local boards alone but to the entire forum boards,  but it is indeed a good plan to start the campaign from the grassroot because it is being said in my place that "A person's beauty, starts from his house, then to the outside world.^(translated)
So it is possible that if we can win the fight against spam and low quality posts in our local boards, then winning the same fight in our international boards become very easy....

Fortunately,  my Nigerian local board is still a growing community compared to several other boards on the forum,  there are no none spammers and low quality posters in my local board that I know of, else,  I would have applied to join the campaign.

A horse can be given the privilege of being lead to the stream,  but still will refuse to drink water,  and you can not force it to...
It is exactly what it is,  we all are different in attitude and preferences the same way our faces are different, a matter you consider important can be looked upon as totally unimportant, uninteresting to the other person,  so this is say that,  no matter how much we campaign and fight against spam and low quality posts,  it is close to, or totally impossible to have every single user of this forum become a quality poster,  what I feel we all should pay attention to is making sure that the number of quality posters are far higher than the low quality posters.

I see this as a good initiative, although I am not sure it needs to be applied in our local board. I would say that on the Spanish board we have pretty decent quality, and I don't remember reading any low quality posts there. I guess because they are reported and deleted quickly.

As for the endorsement of DT people, I guess the best person to support it or not would be the person who contributes the most to our forum. I leave it up to him.


So I guess I am neutral about the initiative applied to our local board, but I would not say that it is not useful.

It is and that's a very sad thing.  
But how can we try to improve posting quality in addition?
I've tried to come up with various ideas and the one presented here is what should achieve the most impact, in addition to my 1miau Merit criteria.

Even if we can improve posting quality only a little bit, it would be beneficial for everyone.  

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That's true, DT has nothing to do with posting quality and it was not intended like that from my site, so maybe you got my intention a little but wrong but how do you measure support from (quality posters / established accounts) for an idea?
Merit? (I don't know if Merit should be used for "supporting" something and a Merit coming from someone like you has more weight that a Merit coming from a scammer)
Established accounts? (how to measure that)

So, I was going for DT as a general set of established accounts, nominated from a decentralized way of determining "good judgement for leaving trust".
That was what I saw coming closest to "measuring support".
If you have a better idea, how to measure "support", feel free to share it here.  

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I'm not asking for positive feedbacks or inclusions, I'm asking if people are supporting our campaign ("this is a good campaign"), nothing more.
So when you are "supporting" our campaign, you are just saying "it's a good campaign, I agree to the goals of the campaign because it's beneficial for the forum".

Doesn't involve any feedbacks or inclusions.


So, for our campaign, people can either
- support (it's a good campaign)
- oppose (it's a bad campaign)
- be neutral (it's not useful)

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

1miau, I am taking it very positively because such an initiative can increase the quality of posts on local boards/threads. But, As LoyceV already pointed out, I don't think DefaultTrust has anything to do with this campaign. Or Do you offer Positive feedback to those people who participate and do good? If I am not wrong, You already offer to merit their posts if they improve the post quality and follow the other things you pointed out. I am confused; why are you seeking for support of DT members? It would make sense if you sought Support from Merit sources because they can help evaluate the posts if they understand the language.

By asking DT Support, I see two points here;

1. Offer Positive feedback who follow this Campaign (This will be inaccurate)
2. Get Trust Inclusion who follow this Campaign. (This is too)

I hope I am wrong.

Isn't that what they should have learned in school? I may be mildly sarcastic, but in my experience most shitposters can't be saved. And the people who have more skills than that, use them already.
I admire your trust in users though

It is a great honor for me to collaborate with 1miau on this matter -- improving posting quality for local boards.

I noticed that, as time passes, more and more people have poor knowledge about their own language. For various reasons (people read less, educate themselves less, teachers are not so good or passionate as they were in the past, lack of possibility of attending school, apparition of Generation McDonald's -- followed soon by Generation FaceBook etc. etc. etc.) many don't give 2 cents anymore on speaking and writing correctly in their own language. Many can't even correctly associate verbs with the subject of the sentence (e.g. using a plural form for verb and a singular form for the subject).

No matter the reason for this, it's something terribly wrong! Nobody asks you to know a foreign language as a native but, at least, everybody should correctly use the native language.

I am a perfectionist myself. Besides trying to spell and speak correctly in my own language (which is Romanian) I also pay a lot of attention to punctuation. To the order of words inside a sentence. Sometimes, a comma may change entirely the meaning of a sentence. Same about a missing comma. Also, in many times, I noticed people which do not use the question mark when needed and, as a consequence, what they say sounds like an affirmation and not as a question. Example: when someone wants to ask you to go out with him and he says "Come with me", instead of "Come with me?". It's a huge difference, as in the first form it sounds like an order.

However, I understand that not all can master their own language. But, at least, they should speak and spell correctly.

Mixing words from the native language with English words also became a big problem. In Romanian, we call this as Romglish. It is also what 1miau names as "Denglish". At first, people started this outrageous method of tormenting their native language as it seemed something "cool". In Romania, at least. They believed they were cool for mixing Romanian words with English ones. But they were not cool at all, only ridiculous. Yet, this trend continued and, in time, it became more and more adopted, until it became a vice.

I have to admit myself that even I, although I struggle a lot to avoid it, have this sin. I try hard to avoid Romglish yet, sometimes, without even realizing this, I am mixing Romanian words with English ones. It happens rarely, but it happens. It's so hard to quit a bad habit, a vice. But it's always important to try, to improve yourself.

All the above mentioned facts occur also inside the forum and people use their poor skills of their language for writing posts with poor or zero value, just for reaching the quota for the campaign they are part of. In some occasions they also received merits for such posts. This should change.

This is the purpose of this action initiated by 1miau and I second him. I encourage DT users, Merit Sources, Campaign Managers, moderators and all other users to not support this behavior anymore. It is a vouch for having a better forum!

Available translations: || Română (Romanian) by GazetaBitcoin ||  Deutsch (German) by 1miau || Pyccкий (Russian) by zasad@ || Pakistan by HONDACD125 || Nigeria (Naija) by Hatchy



Launched by 1miau
Co-sponsored by GazetaBitcoin


Providing a good posting quality is essential to keep Bitcointalk’s role as an important source of Bitcoin-related content, with hopefully some new people signing up here and of course, established members staying active and not leaving Bitcointalk.

Since Merit is not limited to prevent spammers from joining Bounty Campaigns, Merit was also introduced to encourage more interesting content and Merit Sources are advised to facilitate and reward good content, while discouraging bad, uninteresting or flawed posts such like Shitposts.

I’ve tried to incentivize a good posting quality in our German local board by my 1miau Merit criteria, where I’ve outlined points resulting in Merits and points making it much less likely to receive some Merits.

Some examples:


Merit Contributions (translated)

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Anti-Merit-Offenses (translated)


But, since it’s unfortunately not enough to increase posting quality in a meaningful way in our local board, because some people are extremely lazy and saturated from their weekly shitposts rewards, I’m planning a new campaign where I’ll be trying to improve posting quality a lot more.


By doing so, we are planning to increase self-awareness of how a good post should be composed / what should be avoided. We are targeting several points:

• Presenting interesting and well researched content
• Presenting your content in a way that people can read it easily
• Avoiding meaningless shitposts
• Avoiding illiterate gibberish, write in a proper and good local language
• Avoiding useless „Denglish“ / „Romglish“, where English and local languages (German (Deutsch) and Romanian) are unnecessarily mixed. When there’s a certain word existing in your local language, please use your local language for this word, not English
• Avoiding pyramid-quotes
• Avoiding off-topic / trolling / derailing threads
• …

Most points are very easy to follow but still some people are far too lazy…….

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Translations to local boards

Since our campaign is dedicated to local boards, I would be happy if you can bring our campaign to your local board and add your own points, relevant for your local board.
Important:
Part of the task is to review our German and Romanian topics and create your own topic dedicated to your local board, not a translation of the Meta announcement.
As a reference, your topic should be unique and customized for your local board.

German: link will follow in late October / early September
Romanian: link will follow in late October / early September

Our topics are not written yet but will be up in a few weeks.
You can already apply below by reserving your language, just submit a post:


Reserved Translations

Filipino - Latviand


Translations

Romanian - GazetaBitcoin
German - 1miau
Russian - zasad@
Pakistan - HONDACD125
Nigeria (Naija) - Hatchy

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Community support

Our campaign is intended to be a very broad and international campaign, so it would be useful if we can present it at our local boards as a campaign supported by many community members.
If you are in support of improving posting quality as suggested by us, we would be happy to receive your endorsement.

I’ve already the support of GazetaBitcoin, who will be co-sponsoring our campaign and bring it to the Romanian local board.
As a community member, you can support our campaign, just include the following code in your reply:



We would be very happy to receive MASSIVE support for our campaign to improve posting quality in our local boards.


Campaign Supporters:
- 1miau
- GazetaBitcoin
- NeuroticFish
- KingsDen
- PrivacyG

See also GazetaBitcoin's important points below.