Topic: Effect of signature bans (Read 965 times)

Or maybe they just went off, created a new account and used that one while keeping the banned one as a backup. They could also use that for thread bumping services thus making things even worse. I always find it amusing when people see a positive result cause that's their bias, as opposed to looking for negative ones.

More data please OP.

I have edited my initial post, noticing my mistake. Still, the logic stands.

That data is 8 months old, please use the most recent version:

This user is an interesting case;

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=2595576

Surely a user who goes from posting well over 300 posts per week, to less than 40 is not qualified to be a default trust member?

As it stands, he is only trusted by two DT1 users (Nutildah) and (pandukelana2712): http://loyce.club/trust/2019-09-21_Sat_06.17h/1883627.html

I believe DT1 and DT2 users should add Shasan to their distrust list. Shasan clearly does not care about the betterment of bitcointalk and so shouldn't have any degree of influence here.

If the only reason for someone to post in a thread is because they will get paid for it, then no matter what, it's a disingenuous meandering around the forum and if they have no stake in the discussion, then why do you want this user on the forum?

It essentially boils down to this: do you want to pay someone to for fake discussions on a regular basis, high post quality notwithstanding?

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Even if they have the ability to create high-quality posts, once it becomes difficult because a topic is outside of their field of knowledge or because they're running out of time in the campaign cycle, you will see lower-quality posts. There is no way to force a genuine reply: there's not enough to talk about... and then you do the constant regurgitatory replies to pad it out and make it seem like you're writing a lot, when in reality, all of it could be crunched down to one sentence or even a few words.

In fact, if you want an example of this, consider this and the following sentences which merely rephrase what I have already written. The padding of posts constantly hinges on transitioning between the poster's various main points—however general they may be—with marginal insights every time they loop around. Especially when it comes to a topic in the Economics or Trading Discussion boards, you'll see users constantly talk about unpredictability and the price of bitcoin over the years. It's repetitive, and we've already seen it countless times. When a topic reaches post #50 or higher, most of what needs to be said will have been said, but unfortunately campaigners need those pennies and they're going to look back at one of the most recent couple posts... then, they'll quote it and either agree or disagree, making a very marginal point and trying to garner a reply so that they have a thread to return to. It's quite simple, really. Any quote and inquiry is merely an attempt to continue the discussion and thereby continue their signature payments.

Your tossing a wide vague net here and mixing in a lot of factors that have no bearing. I pointed to an example where the only continued presence appears to be financially motivated. This has nothing to do with bettering ones self, or growing as a member. We're talking about what effect these Sig Bans have had on users and their posting habits. Again this doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the rules; or how well they can potentially post. It's about no longer having anything to contribute in regards to discussion anymore, once there was no financial motivation.
Imagine growing up in a world where you don't realize it's a privilege to type a few characters on a forum, with no need for reputation or expertise and get paid for it. I would argue that not everyone was striving for improvement for the sake of betterment, more like that next pay bump that only comes with a rank increase. 
That's sort of what you would expect from any ranking system, experience usually brings a more polished approach. Though it still means little unless you can verify the account holder is still the same so I try to ignore rank in most cases. It also didn't really play into receiving a lenient sentence apart from the higher the rank presumably having more time to make a positive contribution to the forum.

It is very normal and understandable if users join here from invitation of others that they can earn money here from campaigns, bounties. I think such cases are very popular for ones who joined the forum in 2017 or very early of 2018, before the new era of the forum: with merit system.
It is nothing ugly if someone, after months of participation, changed their approaches, adapted to changes (partially triggered by merit system); and became better users, better components of the forum.
Why do we have Newbie rank here? How many newbies actually read rules and understand them at early days here? I doubt that there are very little.
Time goes, and when they realize that wearing signature is a privilege, not rights, and change how they make posts and make contributions; I think that they deserve recognition from others from what they have done so far.
The truth is if one only or mainly care about financial incentives, they will not spend too much time for their posts, and their post quality will be around or below average.

I think there are three periods of posters who change from shit posters to good ones:
- Newbie - Junior Member: make sparsely acceptable posts, and likely have quality around shitposters and above shitposters.
- Member - Full Member: make more regularly acceptable and average-quality posts.
- Senior Member to Hero Member: Post quality takes off, and their posts mostly above average quality
- Hero Member to Legendary: only or mostly make high quality posts, the rest ones mostly are above average quality.

This is an interesting example. To be a smart campaigner, and ensure quotas people tend to at least post 2-3 extras in case they get a few deleted. On top of that if you are running a lending thread or some other money making business on this forum you can be expected to have additional posts, that generally won't count towards payment in a campaign. The interesting thing here is that none of the current posts have anything to do with not earning.

Agreed. Personally my posting habits dropped off quite a bit lately. It didn't have to do with summer was more of a personal thing, at times I feel I get inside my own head. However everything else I do irregardless how I feel the wayside for the summer as usual. I had renos on the go, kids home all the time and just busy. Not to mention I'm most active here when I'm on the clock and I took a few weeks off work. I found myself reading more from the phone rather than taking the time to boot the PC and engage. My above reply though highlights at least one instance that helps sway my opinion.

The bright side, you do see the users that truly just want to be here and engage. redsn0w and ChiBitCTy   I'm not really familiar with some of the others. Not sure if zazarb  really posted outside of lending much anyways. This makes it worth it imo to continue to practice leniency.

That's a pretty good idea. Something along the lines of no more than 1 report per 30-50 posts seems appropriate, for 200(?) posts or 40 merit, whichever comes first.

It's difficult to create that many posts without getting reported for a spam post if you are, and if the user in question is able to make high-quality posts then that might also show their worth to the forum (the reason they were provisionally unbanned in the first place)

Arbitrary numbers of course and there are going to be other stipulations (to prevent merit abuse to circumvent the ban).

I'd expect a more random picture then. Some users would post more, some less. Granted the sample is small, besides some users in that list may still be temp-banned.

It's not an indictment by any means. I'm certainly happy that the sig ban allowed some users to stay here even if some others may not deserve it.

maybe sig bans should include a 'x number of posts without a spam / plagiarism infraction' required in addition to the 6 month time period (or w.e it is) to lift the ban. would provide a bit more deterrent to spam / plagiarism, and prevent users from going straight to spamming after the time is up.

Full Member creeps has at least three banned alt profiles.

After creeps has been banned, he also didn't become active on our local group on TELEGRAM, we tried to ask him but seems he left all of his account after that, he didn't even tried to appeal, but AFAIK, it was for the plagiarized post of his from years ago that made him banned.

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The effects is more likely a common thing, for we all know many of us here has just some interest on the forum because it pays off, only few can post for whatever the thing is. So if they've received a Sig Ban that stop them from earning they will lost interest,...

I was once like that before, posting just to be paid but now even if I'm on a campaign I do less activity just like the times I'm not on a campaign. I don't even know the reason why, but ever since I climbed up to this rank I haven't gone with 50 activities on a week, except there is a certain topic that I really want to participate just like now on our Coins.ph thread.

So if the admin will ban all the Sigs here on the forum, expect that the active users will half from the way it is now. Some boards will not be lively as it is now and thats for sure.

The numbers don't lie, but I'm not sure they're telling the whole story either.  I haven't been keeping track thoroughly, but if someone were to scrutinize my posting history for the same time period it might look similar to those users in suchmoon's table.  I was participating in the bitblender campaign up until it ended, but I was contemplating stepping down right before that.  Due to lack of help at work I had to take on extra work load, and home improvement projects that I started were preventing me from spending as much time on the forum as I had in previous months.  It's only in recent weeks that I think I've become a bit more active, now that some of my projects are complete and my work load is back to normal levels.

The spike in bans and sig-bans also coincided with the northern hemisphere's summer months.  A lot of folks take vacations, or have children home from school and are spending more family or doing things outdoors.  I made time to go fishing and mountain biking with my son a few times, and took a couple of road trips with the kids and one with a friend.

Again, it might be as simple as it looks for some, and for other's it might only be part of the picture.  

...had tea with someone's wife? LoL funny you!
sincerely, creeps ban is somehow scary, what would he have done to deserve a whole 10 years?, so many people especially creeps wouldn't even bother to wait and resume back to that very identity again. was there no warning then?, and i think bans induces pressure on people when they come back after been unbanned, usually pressure to plagiarize.

I'm not member of a signature campaign from (honestly I don't remember exactly) 2-3 years or maybe more, so my activity here is not related to my signature ban. Just pointing it out, nothing else.

OMG, years ago, Loyce joined campaign (the first one) as a Full Member, and now you have been a real Legendary of the forum. There are thousands of Legendary members, but you are different.

By the way, the OP is lack of figures on earned merits as well as earned-merits per posts before ban days and after unban days. I would like to make a request, if you have time, please give me your hands. It is interesting to have figures for before and after period, that will support the assumption of posting style changes due to signature bans for months or years (quantity - via postcount, and quality - partially via earned merits).

Certainly, one would be a fool to assume that the post quality will always increase apropos to the aftermath of a plagiarism ban. This may be different in the case of insubstantial post quality bans but the main point I want to address is that of the limited fields in the statistical analysis.

It's always great to see statistics and to make our own predictions thereof but we should always bear in mind that the confidence of our hypotheses is significantly dependent on the amount of information that we have.

Why not merits? Pretty simple to check how much they've earned lately, shasan has still earned 7 in the last 120 days while Acura3600  0.
Of course, the AIs probably have that stats already. 

As for the quality, I would assume it would be wore, they don't need to make qualifying posts, they are in no rush to have their posts reviewed by a campaign manager, free to troll, I doubt the ban motivated them to make remarkable posts. But of course, I could be wrong, and that would be great.


At least he has a real excuse, the number of ICO scams in the altcoin section has dropped a lot and the scammers don't even try it to defend their projects anymore, lots of shills are gone also, so probably he's running low on material.   

I can imagine a ban, apart from the loss of signature revenue, makes someone care less about the forum. As dumb as it sounds for some website on the internet, after spending several years here I'd really be hurt if it happened to me.

Xenrise was on my ignore list already, that's not a good sign for post quality. I'm surprised he qualified for a signature ban though, I thought unbans were reserved for people who make a net positive contribution to the forum, and I don't think someone who earned 1 Merit for a deleted post contributes much.

Search for ". Legendary " (excluding quotes) on my A wave of bans-topic, you'll probably recognize many more names.

When I joined my first signature campaign, I had made 145 posts in 11.5 months. I didn't even expect to reach the minimum requirement of 50 posts per month. I was a Mod on the site at that time, and that's why I joined the campaign.
However, I started posting more, and if anything, knowing that guitarplinker checks my posts made me very aware of the need for quality.
It all boils down to the signature campaign manager: if someone is paying for spam, there'll always be someone willing to spam.

This became quite evident very recently. At the boom of the ICO market when Bitcoin rallied to it's current all time high, there were lots of altcoin signatures whose payments were very substantial when they hit the market and even better a few weeks or months later. I can even think of some of the top of my head.

I can't speak for the altcoin market now, as I don't really participate or follow their discussions. But if the altcoin general value is anything to go by, it's not a very good period.

I've used that phrase before, but never for people who participate with regular Bitcoin-based campaigns.
Bounty hunters who participate in altcoin campaigns do usually fit that description. They'll end up working weeks for something that's barely even worth anything in the end.
They're also the biggest spammers usually.

I am glad to see some people being able to continue participating in the community, who might be expected to be permanently removed, even if their participation declines.

I don’t think anyone can deny that signature campaigns have an effect on posting habits on a broad scale. I believe anyone who denies this is either naive, or is trying to push some kind of narrative. This is not to say that signature campaigns do not help the bitcoin economy because they do, especially the forum economy.

Anyone who has outright stopped posting after receiving a signature ban is probably a good candidate to be checked for ban evasion, and was more likely posting solely for the signature payment, which is not a benefit to the forum ecosystem. 

I think it's normal for a user to post slightly more when on a campaign, than when not, and this is most especially if the campaign has special requirements as regards some specific boards to post in, you must understand that if such users are off those campaigns, they would no longer go to those boards and it'll reduce their average number of posts.

As long as such users do not just disappear after leaving a campaign or incurring a signature ban, if they do so then they are the users we do not want, as they are fully here for what they can gain, not for what they can give in return.

This user @lovesmayfamilis irrespective of the signature ban is still very active in the scam accusation board bursting scam projects every now and then. He's still dedicating his time for the forum although his post has reduce a little bit he's still posting some high numbers of posts 100+  that's the only user I have encountered with him still producing construction and quality contributions on the forum.

@Suchmoon understandable this are just raw data which doesn't give us the full information of the users involvement on the forums since their ban. You're quite inform on what quality posts are or maybe a decent conversation so how about comparing their quality (before and after ban), merit earned (before and after ban) using same timeframe in the OP, this might give us more information on how effective the users have been.

Only one guy that went from 0 to 11. Impressive

I don't think their post count is less due to high quality post. I have visited some of their post history but its seems like same as previous posting behaviour.

Whoever we are on signature campaign, we know very well that there is some requirement of post count. And that's the main reason of post count. Let's say some campaign has no minimum post requirement, but they are paying per post. So you are getting paid for posting. And usually you will think to increase your post count to get paid more. We can't hide real truth and we know everything about signature. That's why I am surprised that they are posting less due to ban. Because it's simple, they are not getting paid for their post and there is no minimum requirement. They are enjoying their freedom now.

You can get it there:
https://loyce.club/archive/posts/
Viewing unedited posts and deleted posts
Note that there are break-period when LoyceV stopped scraping data for a while: LoyceV broke Bitcointalk - error on "recent" page

Statistics don't lie, but they may mislead our simple monkey brains.

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What if - hear me out on this - users posted less, yes, but as a result of the signature ban, they started posting more cautiously and in turn started posting higher-quality posts?

If we have a word + character count that might bring us some more insight into their posting habits. Limited data forces interpretation thereof which shows us correlation but not necessary causation.

The point is signature campaigns and chances to rank up to earn more extra money motivate them, but if they made plagiarism (that led to their permanent bans) for financial reasons, they would have not had chances to come back. Because if moderators look at post history, reported plagiarisms and see hidden financial reasons behind plagiarisms, they don't unban those ones.

Not sure for each case, but as I saw from ban appeals months ago, most of bans come from months, years ago plagiarism, that is another reason to think of their recently (30days before ban days) posts are likely not plagiarisms that motivated by their participation and post quota in campaigns.

I know some of them, whom unbanned, and they are good posters, in terms of above average post-quality, but there are still shit posters among them too.

It sounds like part of the same thing. If being in a signature campaign means that someone made posts they wouldn't have made without the signature - that's not a good sign. Come to think of it, that's probably what led to plagiarism to begin with. Trying to make the "quota" at any cost.

I surely hope that if I ever get sig-banned (probably for posting some unattributed Taylor Swift lyrics years ago) I'd stick around to annoy you all anyway.

Yeah, it is.  I don't know how many times I've heard the "posting for pennies" thing from people when they're raging against shitposters, but it's not true--especially when bitcoin is above $10k.  It's not a small amount in some cases.

Anyway, great data collection suchmoon.  I really don't keep track of who's been banned and was actually surprised to see cellard, zazarb, and a couple of other members on that list.  I think I remember seeing a few members being kicked out of the Chipmixer campaign but I don't exactly remember why.  Very interesting stuff here. 

If you're being paid to post, there's an incentive--and I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with that.  If you know how to write and can make your posts even the least bit interesting, it's OK to post more than you usually would if you weren't getting paid.  It keeps the discussion flowing and obviously benefits the member who's in the campaign.  The problem is and always has been the idiots who have to post outside their local boards in a language they can't write AND about something they likely have no interest in (crypto).  I don't think most of the people on the list here fit that description, btw. 

The results in OP is interesting, and somehow it gives us a good overview on changes in posting habits of those ones given second chances from permanent bans and jumped out of grave. Most of them have decreased their regular post quota.

However, they are only raw figures that do not include so many other factors that can significantly affect post quota (30days period) of users, such as campaigns those users joined before their permanent bans.

For example: I know some of them, such as @shasan:
Weeks before his ban day, he joined the BitBlender campaign (I am one of that campaign's participants too), that has max post cap per week is 60. This is one of factor should be considered. In that campaign, shasan likely made max post cap per month at 240 posts, and 100 extra posts made likely to hunt for merits and rank up.  

Anyway, the ban period of signature for one or two year is too long, and it mostly drains out motivation to post to rank up or whatever reasons.

The thread gives me another idea. In fact, I observed it for months, but has not yet started to analyse it. Thank you, @suchmoon.  

To be fair, Xenrise might still be banned. Of those who have zero posts, thejaytiesto and cellard had 60-day bans, bu I don't know about Xenrise and creeps.

Wow, 229 shitposts to 0.

Crazy stats. It's truly amazing how many people are posting to these forums with pure financial incentive.

WhiteManWhite is a surprising ban though.

I, for one, am glad that ChiBitCTy has still remained relatively the same. Though, considering he's the only one I recognize as a collector, it makes sense that he kept the same number of posts.

I think signature bans are working as intended: giving some users a deserved second chance - ChiBitCTy, redsn0w, WhiteManWhite, perhaps Branko, lovesmayfamilis, and zazarb can also be included in this category since a slow down of ~50% doesn't seem unusual - while at the same time being almost equivalent to a permaban for others.


No idea why, but that's what it says on the user profile. There is no appeal thread as far as I can see.

If the temp ban was 60 days he should be back in a couple of weeks so you'll be able to ask him

I don't really have any special takeaways from the data above, think it's not shocking to see people who are sig banned to disappear completely and stop posting. It's not going to be shocking again when their bans come to an end and they get back to their usual posting habits aka being extremely active. ^[1] It is what it is.

By the way, why is creeps signature ban that long? It says "Banned from displaying signatures until August 02, 2029". That can't be right, i mean what did he do to earn himself 10 years...had tea with someone's wife?

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edit: [1] I'd like to clarify, i specifically had the -100% people in mind.

A few months ago some users have been given temp+signature bans in lieu of permanents bans for plagiarism. Here is how the posting habits of these users have changed since then.

   #  User                       Signature     Ban Date  Unban Date  Sig Ban Until  Posts Before     Posts Now    Difference 
   1. Acura3600                  pirate      2019-05-16  2019-07-30     2020-05-21            57            23          -60% 
   2. Branko                     azbit       2019-06-07  2019-06-19     2019-12-16            69            35          -49% 
   3. cellard                    chipmixer   2019-05-11                 2020-05-15            35             0         -100% 
   4. ChiBitCTy                       2018-04-28  2019-03-11     2020-03-09            68            64           -6% 
   5. creeps                     bustadice   2019-08-02                 2029-08-02           136             0         -100% 
   6. egghead123                      2018-08-17  2019-05-20     2019-12-05             1             0         -100% 
   7. hacker1001101001           howeycoins  2019-05-14  2019-07-14     2021-05-14           143            20          -86% 
   8. lovesmayfamilis            bestmixer   2019-05-10  2019-07-16     2020-05-14           182           107          -41% 
   9. redsn0w                         2019-01-14  2019-03-19     2021-02-02             0            11           +++ 
  10. shasan                     bitblender  2019-05-13  2019-07-15     2021-05-13           340            37          -89% 
  11. thejaytiesto                    2019-03-28                 2020-05-16             0             0           --- 
  12. tyz                        livecoin    2019-05-19  2019-07-25     2020-05-24           139            20          -86% 
  13. WhiteManWhite              huobi       2019-05-21  2019-07-21     2020-05-21            11            24         +118% 
  14. Xenrise                    bitvest     2019-05-09                 2021-05-20           229             0         -100% 
  15. zazarb                       2019-05-12  2019-07-14     2021-05-14            21            10          -52% 

• Signature - last known signature before the ban.
• Ban Date - last post before the ban.
• Unban Date - first post after the ban (likely when the temp ban expired). May be empty if the user hasn't posted yet after the ban.
• Sig Ban Until - expiration date shown in the current signature.
• Posts Before - number of posts during a 30-day period 30 days before the ban (e.g. for a ban that occurred May 15 this would be the number posts between ~ March 16 - April 15.
• Posts Now - number of posts during the last 30 days (~ August 24 - September 23).
• Difference - change in the number of posts from "before" to "now".

Please note that the data may be incomplete and/or inaccurate as most of it had to be inferred from post histories, ban appeals, archive sites, etc. There is no "official" data source for temp bans or signature bans. Sig bans that have already expired (e.g. Yobit) are not included.