Topic: Do we need to be more sensible about certain issues here before it goes far? (Read 808 times)

Perhaps the laws of physics in some cases...

Being a human and doing your best to be fair is a lot tougher than being a robot of course.  I will still try my best though. I believe in giving benefit of the doubt really... Until the threshold of being fair is blatantly being abused.

Calling them unofficial has always been silly to me. Rules probably aren't rules if they're not official. They're just something someone made up and people are always going to complain that they're not official when they fall foul of them. Maybe we should call them standards or guidelines instead of rules, but again it's just semantics. I think they're probably only unofficial because they were mostly generated by the community and not theymos, and when BadBear was here he was even against a rule-set because he believed people would then just try find loopholes around them (as people do, but I don't think that's an excuse not to have them). There needs to be some rules (or standards if you don't want to call them that) otherwise things just delve into chaos.


Are any rules or laws rock solid with no room for leeway? If the speed limit is 30mph and you're caught doing 31 or 32, technically you've broke the law, but the cop could either let you off if he wasn't an arsehole, or by the letter of the law he could give you a ticket if he was. Morality isn't always black and white either. Is it ok to steal? Most would say no. Is it ok to steal to feed your starving children? Maybe. Is there any distinction between stealing from huge corporation or a mom and pop store to feed your starving children? Cases can always be taken on a case by case basis but people are always going to complain when they feel someone else has been given special treatment for essentially the same 'crime'.

Fair enough but then

"NOTE: This is meant to serve as a reference/educational/informational thread, NOT a rock solid list of rules."

So we can say the rules are a guide not thrashed out in such detail they can be black and white and held to in a robotic/automated manner.
These allow for human intervention.

But you have made a point here which I see is correct.

Clearly break or be in contempt of  these rules and you will find they are official.

I feel some are deliberately broad to allow for scope for sensible decision and allow for context.

Why do many people consider the rules unofficial? Only the list is unofficial, but the rules are quite official.

@hilariousetc

I would agree with mostly what you have said as actually the important parts are to me pretty much true..

1. no people will be banned for a few movie quotes or helpful mining guides memes
2. that is more of less what theymos has said anyway - real financially motivated offenders will be perm banned.
3. discussion in general is good so long as reasonable consideration is given to all persons and a sensible/optimal action is the target. However in my own personal opinion theymos is usually rather fair and as in this example wants freedom of the user to remain in tact as much as possible until they actually take the piss and are then shown the door. This is the best way.

4. things were very different back in early 2013 ( i though you joined late 2014 or perhaps you had a different account) . I used to even wonder why these adverts are popping up in the page now and then.

It would seem reasonable and it is in line with what I have seen that the alt discussion board is more damaged than bitcoin discussion. You see the ico's are off limit to be discussed in the bitcoin forum they are alts. I find the fake discussion are the most damaging since they are the most convincing to noobs.  These are crushing the alt board and more and more icos need not rely on sigs they just need hire teams to drum up endless fake conversations there. The volume of these makes it harder to moderate than boards where they are taken out of the equation to start with. I mean the speed the board moves in the alt section has been insane in the previous months you could start a thread on alt discussion and in 10 mins it could be on page 2 or 3.  Bitcoin discussion is of course damaged and full of nonsense as well but it is easier to have a sensible discussion that can gain some traction.

I have suggested possible ways to resolve many of the issues we seem to be struggling with but to me it seemed strange that most did not approve and yet gave no reasonable explanation of why it would not improve things.

Well I've only been here since late 2013 so I can't say whether things were different between the time you and I signing up, but the prevalence of signatures will likely be down to opinion and perception, but signatures have always stood out to me. PrimeDice was probably one of the first things I noticed about this forum because so many people had their advert in their signatures, but for the first month or so I was here I didn't know people were actually getting paid to post with them. I remember being pretty annoyed finding out that you could get paid to post as I'd made around 100 posts already and could have been getting paid for them  . Things were different back then though. Sig spam was only a minor issue and only a few people got greedy and lazy and caused a nuisance and those that started spamming were usually quickly dealt with and issued temp bans, but as bitcoin grew over the years so did this board and more people found signature campaigns and the problem snowballed from there to what it is today. 


I think Bitcoin Discussion has been hit just as bad as the alt coin section has, but I see the entire board suffering as a whole rather than specific sections.


I don't think people are going to get banned for posting memes and a quote from a movie. I don't know of one instance where this has happened.


Discussion isn't irrelevant. I think the only way progress or change will ever happen here is via discussions on the topics that people think are important. Theymos was seemingly against making a merit requirement for Juniors initially but that eventually happened and I think a big part of that was so many people were pro it and thought it would help and argued as such. Things can change but they won't if everyone just remains silent. People should be able to propose ideas good and bad and others should discuss the benefits and negatives of that.


Some people may come across as high and mighty, but many people are also very annoyed by these lazy copy and pasters and what they've done to the board.


Well that's only something theymos can implement and I've asked for a ban button that gives the reason as copy and pasting so that would clear the confusion up. I've also requested signature bans instead of perma ones and those could be given instead in some cases. If the rules were made clear upon sign up I think that would also help, but again, that's only something theymos can do.

I do not remember even seeing many sigs back in early 2013 at all.

I am predominantly an alt board poster. So my favourite boards have been crushed by these types and damaged far more than bitcoin discussion or merit board here has. So yes I want them all gone too. However, 1 or 2 copy and pastes for a joke (quote from a movie where it may seem funny or appropriate - - like memes) or copy and pasting a mining guide for a new person is not a perm ban -- especially not if the person has made years of contribution here.

I don't see the point of discussing it further because what I say now or anyone else says now is irrelevant as it always was. The board owner has said made clear how it is. That's it. What point is there debating it further? Yes 99% of the current crop of copy and pasters are going to get perm banned. Good, then we will see a return of the good alt board posters.

I am glad you want them gone, I am glad there are people here reporting real bad eggs even though some have a very high horse attitude about it - - still they do predominantly beneficial work. I am not aiming to make their job harder. However one good poster who has spent years helping and contributing to the board has right to appeal if by mistake they are perm banned for a couple of movie quotes and a mining guide.... or some other post they though was interesting out of 1000's of great posts. They should get a temp ban or warning.

No need for anyone else to respond to the thread. I would delete the rest and simply sticky theymos post and label it "anyone appealing copy and paste read this first".  Then people won't keep promising not to do it again or any other excuses. If they know they are not good posters and loyal members to this board and are just here  to make money from sig spamming /account selling / ico fake discussions and posts then hopefully they will not even make threads to get reinstated. Even better if when they are banned they get a reason for their ban so they don't ask why am I banned. I am not surprised some do not know the reason if the offence was in 2015.

Anyway I think there is not much to worry about.... if many mods need to discuss to ban heros and legends for this and there is right of public appeal on this board for anyone who believes they have been perm banned by mistake. Seems a good system.

Signature spam has been an issue for as long as you and I have been here and it most certainly predates 2015, but it's obviously grown over the years exponentially, but just because people got away with their behaviour in the past doesn't mean we should give them a free pass. If you check the recent history of those banned their 'original' content are usually just one/two liners of generic crap. When someone gets caught for this just check their history. Pure rubbish. I'm not going to pat them on the back from going from copy and pasting to spam and I'd argue that very poor quality posters should be banned anyway. They're really not interested in contributing here; they just want to get paid as fast and lazily as possible and they're the reason why the board is in such a poor state content-wise.

Copy and pasting is usually done for only two reasons: laziness and greed. People want to farm accounts and get paid in the process and they're too lazy or greedy to do either the 'proper' way. Making distinctions between what "sort" of copy and paster you are is needless and will just cause more fuss. What do you think would be the new excuse when caught? I'm not a scammer copy and paster, I'm a spreading knowledge™ [copyright Tai Lopez] copy and paster and I'm not doing it for money. If you plagiarise content then in probably 99% of the cases you're doing it to either farm an account and/or get paid with the minimum amount of effort in the process and I don't think we need to start putting them into different categories of severity.

What is this total misrepresentation of what I have said and what is detailed in this thread.

Please re-read the OP for a start.

Clearly it says ban beside those copy and pasters for financial gain ie sig spamming, account sellers etc. Have another look the ? are besides others that could get caught up in this net.

This is not at all what my post is about.

I am not shaming reporters of real scammers and financially motivated copy and pasters

I am saying be careful not to be too heavy handed with those that do not fall into that category. Therefore context is key.

It seems the thread actually brought a lot of clarity to the entire process.

Copy and paste needs to be viewed case by case especially with members pre dating 2015 and even predating the rules. Financially motivated posting was not a thing before then like it is now.

I've got a revolutionary approach: How about people just stop copy and pasting content? Problem solved. Nothing for people to "grass" on then and nobody will get banned and that's what we're trying to stamp out. I'm not sure why you're shaming those who reporting rule breakings whilst seemingly thinking it's ok for the people who are doing it to earn money via fraud and laziness. Without the users reporting things the forum would be in a much worse state and a lot of people will be getting away with essentially theft, which isn't ok. It's absolutely shameful that people will sign up to this forum just to plagiarise somebody else's content and those caught should face very strict consequences so people know it's absolutely not acceptable under any circumstances. This should be a forum to share ideas and discuss bitcoin/crypto, not one where people are rewarded for laziness and greed and that's the only reason these people are even here in the first place, and that shouldn't be tolerated.


Can we add this to the welcome message? Whilst we're on that subject, implementing a welcome message with it stating that plagiarism isn't ok will cut down on a lot of the copy and pasting in the first place and it's because people aren't aware of the rules that we will continue to have these issues. At least if they're warned then there's no excuses at least.

This thread has brought out a great amount of information in regards to the forum moderation policy, implementation of the rules and the administrators views to some extent regarding both.

This is a perfect example of some information I feel should be captured in a locked topic maintained by theymos or restricted to staff members for updates. The explanations Saltyspitoon put out there sheds a great deal of light on the inner workings behind bans, and rule enforcement. I understand it may not be necessary once new forum software is implemented, but in the interim I think it would be a net positive for the forum as a whole.

As administrator I feel any statement of intent or clarification regarding the forum made by theymos should be documented. This would do members for all ranks and positions on the forum a service by having clear guidelines or explanations without out making it a commandment in stone to be followed for generations.


I had previously stated having the unofficial rules updated by theymos to have exactly that the rules black and white. After reading through this it's pretty crystal why that isn't necessary or an improvement. It would just create a forum law code and arguments and precedents... it makes my head spin already.

---

More on topic I feel I report a pretty decent amount of posts. If I find something clearly being plagiarized I put the source in my report to moderator and don't give it a second though; maybe they're banned maybe not. Now I have an idea of what happens behind the scenes. This does make me think of a recent case and clears up any confusion about how it was handled.

I did not know about it, so I have searched and found this article from BBC: Copyright law could put end to net memes

And there is a campaign against this interpretation of this law: https://saveyourinternet.eu/

@theymos

Thanks for that reply, and it is very encouraging to know that you take that reasonable, sensible, measured and human approach and not a strict robotic black and white one that would not consider context nor the net contribution of that poster as a whole.  I guess that puts this subject to rest.

Theymos summarized the whole situation here on that thread cited.

I do not know what goes on in the private boards or how users gets penalties for their actions.
And leniency has been applied in scenarios where reputable members were involved, as mods are permitted to take decisions at their own discretion.

Also considering quality contributions, it should not solely be weiuged by number of years you've been on the forum (of course old reputable members should get credits).
But those users who stand out in the current influx of users coming to exploit the forum and actually help improve the community should also be given consideration.

In general, I'm all for being lenient. There are users who have been temp banned many times but still haven't been permabanned because their contributions outweigh their misbehavior. I actively disbelieve in the idea of a "rule of law" where hard rules exist and are strictly applied across the board as if we're all robots. Every case should be considered individually in the context of the forum's mission.

Plagiarism is what gets people permabanned, not just copying. Plagiarism is copying with the intent of passing the work off as your own. In essentially all cases, plagiarism deserves a permaban because it usually proves definitively that the person is here for the wrong reasons: to fill up space in order to get paid, not to actually discuss or contribute. If someone was able to convince us that they were plagiarizing just to eg. impress people rather than to fill up space, then a lesser ban of a few months might instead be warranted. But this has never happened AFAICR. (Arguments based on plausible deniability aren't going to work; we don't need to prove that you had the motive we see in your actions.)

If you treat posting as a job, a chore, then you must live in fear, since the forum is not made for you. In this case, you need to blend in as someone who actually cares, but plagiarism will immediately out you, and producing a mountain of useless posts will also eventually be noticed, if more slowly. If you do actually care, then this will be obvious in your posts (and probably your merit score), and you will have nothing to fear from moderators; even allegations of plagiarism will be doubted when seen in the context of your other posts.


Plagiarism is almost always a copyright violation which could conceivably get the poster in a lot of trouble, but it's not a bigger legal issue for the forum than anything else. (Using the forum to violate copyright is never allowed, though.)


That's not a particular concern of mine.


Only in the EUSSR.

And theymos responded, case closed: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.35976937


I'm still waiting for those examples of jokes/memes/etc from 7 years ago that got unfairly banned.

Let's look at the flip side. All you need to do to avoid this - don't copy-paste, or add quotes and attribution when you do. Not a huge task.

@Saltyspitoon

Thanks for that post and honestly if it is like that then that seems a very sensible approach.

@suchmoon  - I believe this is the account....  I am not saying either way for this person I have not read his entire post history I am simply reading what other legends have written here about him https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/banned-account-question-3432369

I just actually never realised copy and past be it joke, be it a guide or help you can get perma ban for one instance of lots of seemingly great contribution. So I am not sure now we have become so serious about it we should be enforcing with such power so far back into the past when before nobody really seemed to make a big deal of it.

His offence maybe was more current but going back to 2 -3-6 -7 years is kind of worrying if all you need is one copy and paste.

If you have 20k posts, and 1% of your posts are copy and pasted, you will probably be banned. Thats 200 copy and pasted posts. That said, you would have gotten ample warning between the first and two hundredth. Like I said, don't worry about it.

The reason we have unofficial rules and not rules set in stone with no room for negotiation, is so that no one is penalized or escapes penalties on a technicality. The moderators read why a post was reported, spend a minute skimming through someone's post history. If 99% of your posts are real posts, your bad post gets deleted, and thats the end of it. If 99% of your posts are bad posts, you get the boot. If 5% of your posts are bad posts, you might get a warning from the moderator, the moderator might ask the others their opinion, or you might get 10 deleted post PMs in your inbox. Almost all of the rules here are common sense. If you break them, you were either having a bad day, or it was intentional. The rules that aren't quite so common sense, you get even more leniency with. Things like, you can only bump your thread one time per day. You'll get a PM telling you to stop it before something bad happens.

On a side note, moderators give extra caution to moderating old posts. The rules weren't the same back in the day. Go look through old threads, and you'll find people posting +1 in reply to things. It wasn't a spam issue then, it was just a quick way of saying I support this post. When you have thousands of people doing that though, it begins to get spammy, and the rules had to be changed to now allow people to post like that.

Link?


Will you just stop debating your straw man, the poor guy is getting frazzled. Nobody's getting banned for a meme or a joke, I doubt anyone is even reporting shit like that.

Find those "couple of cases from thousands of good and helpful posts" and help those users appeal their cases to theymos if you really care about the issue.

@SaltySpitoon - if that is how it works then that is quite encouraging and a sensible approach.

@suchmoon -  I have no evidence to suggest a good and net positive member has been perma banned. I am just glad to hear that that would seem unlikely to happen in light of what Saltyspitoon has explained is the process.  I was just hoping to see some views or explanation of how this works.

I'm not sure what you mean about ranking up  due to copy and paste. If frequent and I mean enough % to be considered helping rank up then I guess they will certainly be banned and so they should. If some legend has 20k posts and made 5 jokes or cases of copying pasting help/guides from 20k posts over the years that is not really being used to rank him up although of course you can subtract 5 posts and their activity to see what happens to their rank. I worry though that I read a case of a guy copying and pasting one time and was a hero (so only 1 case of it stated) and he was perma banned? I see there was a thread of lengends and other notables trying to stick up for him but sadly there was no hope and he was left on perma ban. He was also apparently a member with lots of high ranking trust and high net worth trader.

That is worrying... although I can not recall if he was proven to be doing it for financial gain or not.

I mean before icos and financial gain from sigs etc was rife I never recall hearing anyone banned ever for this copy and paste with out reference. I have seen many old legends in the past post things from movies as jokes and such. I have seen many guides on how to do things posted. This seems a new (since ico spammers and account sellers) priority and one can see why it would. I just think we should save the perma bans for those that are obviously scammers and spammers not a couple of cases from thousands of good and helpful posts.

Sorry missed this part:




Well to begin with, if someone in 2011 did copy and pasted something, it was likely for completely different motives than what people are doing now. People didn't really care about post count, and they weren't posting just to post, but to share information. In the case that someone did copy and paste, it probably had a fair amount of their own personal text along with it, such as an opinion or interpretation of the quote they had plagiarized. Intent plays a role in the decision. Someone who purposely claims words as their own, versus someone who uses the wrong format to cite a quote are different things. I'd say its a non issue.

Moderators use their own judgement for every single consideration. A member from 2011 that has 3 or 4 posts deleted per year, versus a new member who has 3 or 4 of their 5 total posts deleted will be shown more leniency. As I said before, intent plays a big role as well. Spamming the forum to increase your post count so you can get a signature advertisement is not the same as getting in a heated debate and yelling at someone. Both posts might be deleted, but the spam is more annoying and intentionally malicious.

There is no magic ban algorithm that moderators use. They look at what someone has done, how often they did it, whether they came here to commit offenses, or whether it was a once in a while people make mistakes type of thing, etc.

Reporters don't need to suggest bans and mods don't have to listen to suggestions anyway. There is exactly 0 pressure that a reporter can put on a mod for a certain outcome. Based on discussions I've had with some moderators I'm sure there is a sufficient amount of discretion and leniency being applied already, so your wall of text seems to be speculation on a non-existent problem, again.

Disclaimer: I have reported plagiarism as far back as 2014. If someone ranked up using copy-pasta I don't see how that is good for the forum but moderators will ultimately decide if a ban is needed.


Who are these banned good posters? Modlog is publicly available - find examples and post them here. You've already admitted in the other thread that you were arguing without looking at poster's history so I'm extremely skeptical towards statements like this.

I've bolded a few parts of your post. Moderators don't need to conform to the unofficial rules, and there is no pressure to do so. The unofficial rules are written as they are, as a guideline created by collective ideas by the staff. If someone doesn't want to take any actions against someone for a rule they don't care for, they don't, "have to". Another moderator probably will though.

Moderators aren't supposed to ban and then gather evidence. Thats frowned upon.

The rules regarding copy and pasting have very little to do with stealing credit for others work. They were created relatively recently because of the emergence of people copy and pasting genuine posts to disguise their spam, mainly for paid signature advertisements.

The forum doesn't have a spirit of decentralization or democracy. Its operated by Theymos, and the staff here are in charge of making sure that information collected in the form of posts are accessible to anyone that wants to read it. Spam makes it harder to find information and derails conversation, so it is not allowed. Thats the extent of it. Users of the site have the right to read and discuss any topic that they'd like, as long as they don't ruin it for the others that want to read and discuss.

Bans are not frequently overturned because they are often the decision of multiple moderators. With clear and shut cases where 90% of someone's posts are copy and pasted or one word responses, moderators will act on their own. If there is any ambiguity, the moderators consult with one another typically until a nearly unanimous decision is made. Its still pretty uncommon, but I'd say the majority of ban "mistakes" that are made, are just the amount of time. Maybe a 14 day ban is more appropriate as a 7 day ban and changed to that instead. Permanent bans are almost never overturned, because they aren't made unless its a clear and shut case.

I know a lot of self important high horseman here will be arriving shortly to voice their black and white snitch to teacher about foul language for a pat on the heard and perhaps more ethos.

However, for the people who always wanted to kick those types up the ass for grassing on you for swearing dropping off to sleep last period.


Should we start to look at the UNOFFICIAL rules and start suggesting some sensible and humanist approach to them.

Now let me first say I do not really include the mods in this. If you are a mod and something is reported to you then there is pressure for you to conform to what you believe the unofficial rules say. If you do not then you would have to spend hours looking through the persons entire post history to decide on a reasonable punishment. So therefore best to ban and await appeal to examine.  

Better if the onus was on the snooper reporter. If you want to go sniffing 5 years back for some copy and pastes words on the way back through that members past history here perhaps start factoring into account the value of their membership here and when report suggest a temp ban and duration of that temp ban.

The problem with perm bans getting over turned .... it does not seem to take place.


The one thing that seems to be most talked about here ( I mean so far only how to get merit for discussing the merit system and it's implications seems to dominate) is the complex issue of plagiarism - taking work and claiming it is your own.  

Now surely this is to protect the original source and the value in what they have created?  (anyway that can be discussed later). and to stop the board being filled with copy and paste material that makes it low value and destroys incentive to post for others.


Let's ask ourselves how can we apply some logic and human reasoning to this entire issue that seems to be blowing up.


1. why does the board care about this?

a/ rampant copy and pasters are sometimes bots or scammers trying to power up accounts to sell or simply to pump posts for sig money?
b/ in extreme cases could be copyright theft?
c/ when copying and pasting from the net can it lower google rankings? and internal copy and past could do the same thing?
d/ even memes may soon constitute copyright theft leave the board open to financial claims?

2/ the most obvious distinction between people copy and pasting without correct or implied reference/citation

a/ rampant copy and pasters bots and scammers ruining the board for financial gain = perm ban yes for sure

b/ those thinking they are being helpful posting an answer to a question from the net (no financial gain) =?

c/ those copy and pasting to be helpful with no financial gain ( incorrect source or mispelling or thinking url will suffice)= ?

d/ those that have copied and pasted something to be helpful years ago perhaps even before the board rules were there =?

e/ those that have copied and pasted a couple of things before icos and financial gain but have been good members for years since =?

f/ meme posters with no (what ever they may now be required to put next to a meme or permission to even use it first =?


So let's imagine the extreme where some poster from 2011 had once copy and pasted a famous quote (obviously not his own more like meme)  from a film as a joke in a certain context or copy and pasted even for instance theymos's own words for guidelines to a noob asking for guidance . He has 25k great posts and done a lot for this board and made some real difference here. (unlike most of the high merit back slappers and high horsemen ). Are we really going to believe this is a net gain for the board to perm ban him for something he posted with no bad intent 5 years ago?

Are we to put them in exactly same zero tolerance catergory as a deliberate scam team member with their bots or low paid copy and paste teams?

Would not a warning for future action be more suitable for the 2011 member?

As far as I can see copy and pasting anything as a joke, helpful or any reason is not a great idea for the user or the board.
This was not even a major thing before the ico scams came along. Perhaps those and the sigs are the main issue.

You have to realise that this could result in a lot of otherwise good posters (people that have made a big difference here) getting banned. I mean of course the only posters that the high merit back slappers believe are good posters are themselves. However asking them to point to one thing they have done or a total of everything they have done and how anything would be different is not met with much except silence.
That does not include all of the top merit holders some are indeed very valuable but I notice the very high self importance ones and those determined to nitpick on the "smaller guy" are essentially not able to provide actions that have made a big difference or any real difference.

Is there forming here a clique of tyrants pushing their own self importance and agendas that do not seem in the spirit of decentralisation and transparency or even democracy.

I may edit this if discussion brings forth some information that I have not considered and requires alteration.

Tip to small guys here - stop trying to ass kiss up to tyrants in the hope of some merit crumbs, better that a fair system (where the top 0.06% don't hog all the merits on an obscure sub board) where your opinion is not instantly of less import because of some gamed board circle jerk system... where your take on things is considered/measured and analysed for worth on an equal footing. Where you are not talked down to like absolute shit for an honest mistake and ridiculed for getting banned.

Once a small clique like this starts to form and starts to gather some support from the usual asslicking mindless slathering saps waiting for a pat on the head you better immediately stand up to it because soon anyone without the 5000 merits and a seat in the backslappers club is going to have a hard time here going against their ideology.

Again not all top merit holders or meta hermits are like this but for sure I have already seen a few.

But of course that is just my own opinion and some may claim groundless ... let's get back to the plagiarism issue and see if through discussion a broad board consensus can be reached on a sensible approach. Even if it changes nothing I would be interested to hear from others (not necessarily the self important tyrants since they are quite boring and predictable).