Topic: Forum suggestion for countering low quality (Read 671 times)

Well, that's the problem isn't it.

Earning the right in a fair an objective way would be one thing. However you are not earning the right in that way. You are waiting for those whom get the highest rates of paid2post to

1. bother to look for your post in sections like the main discussion boards some merit sources have on ignore
2. dream that people with financial motivation for taking certain actions wont act selfishly
3. hope you opinions of even presentation of facts fit with the ideologies they want to push
4. hope that those merit sources even have the capacity to understand your posts are provably correct so they dont go meriting incorrect misleading posts that they just prefer the sound of or actually think are true.
5. Hope you have not offended them in the past so they hold a grudge because you presented previous facts they didn't appreciate being presented.

probably others too

So you see until you can make sure people all earn their right to paid2post on a fair and equal basis then your argument does not hold water.

The other points you make are built upon the  observable fact that merit is not some score you can present as a solid measure of value or achievement.

I agree something needs be done but it needs to be fair, transparent and provide a real meritocracy here.

We already say that. Newbies are not able to display a signature since theymos introduced the "Enhanced newbie restrictions" back in September: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/enhanced-newbie-restrictions-requirements-5030366. Newbies must now earn one merit to rank up to Junior Member prior to being able to display a signature. I think that's perfectly fair - why should someone be able to create an account and immediately start being paid to spam the forum with trash? If you want to earn money form your signature, then you should first have to earn the right to display a signature.



Newbie spammers far outnumber spammers at higher ranks, but I agree this should also be addressed. As I've said before, changing the requirement from 1 merit to 1 earned merit, or ideally 10 earned merit, would achieve this.

OP's suggestions are simply just weird,in my opinion why remove signatures from newbies and not from all members of the forum
If we're to obliterate paid2post in here,then it should apply to every member and every rank
It'll be wrong to say"ok newbies you aren't allowed to earn via posting" but other ranks are

As for the issue of starting threads,you can use the report to the moderator button when you come across a bad thread,theymos is never gonna restrict anyone from sharing his or her views, and when it's done wrongly,such threads will be trashed
Edit:
If stricter measures are to be put in place will they also apply to high ranked members who only have air dropped merits and haven't earned any
And if not what measures are going to be taken against high ranked bounty spammers.

I agree with you, to an extent. You can read my previous posts in this thread to see why I also think that a blanket restriction on all newbies from opening threads or posting in certain sections is the wrong way to go. However, forcing them to meet stricter criteria to earn the right to display a signature does not prevent them from reading, posting or discussing any topic they like - "getting information and learning", as you put it. A signature is not required to participate in the forum, and those who are here for the right reasons - to learn and contribute - will have no problems ranking up and earning their signature soon enough. Stricter criteria for displaying a signature, such as either 10 earned merit or minimum of member rank, would further help to reduce bounty spam, as the 1 merit rule is already doing.

We all want crypto to grow and new people to come in to this space, but we people who are genuinely interested - not hundreds more one-liner bounty spammers who are here only to try to make a quick buck from some scam ICO.

To my mind everytime similar threads are opened, as I see non of suggestion is considered and a lot of replies (not in this thread) boosts spam instead of lowering it. I like idea of removing merit per post and 10 merit per thread once it gets deleted. But also to make everything fair, then every forum member must start from zero. At the same time I want to mention that spam is on every forum, on reddit and so on, you just can't prevent it but merit lowers it too.

I don't think that it is sad to be honest.

1. merit is subjective and is not an accurate measure of net value at all(at this time) i could point you to quite a few legends that could blow away most of the top merit scorers in any debate that only have 50 merits or 60 or even less. Compared to ppl that have over 1000 earned merits. So user member value is nothing like merit. Partly because many legends are not posting too much these days anyway.

2. If a legend got 1000 merit for free but has never be of net value he should have 0 merit anyway (in a true merit system that only awards net positive posts with merit). Time joined plus negative or neutral value posts do not entitle you to get a score that is meant to demonstrate you are valuable.

However since it was impossible to retroactively assess legends past net positive input then the 1000 start is fair enough and is perhaps in some cases woefully under what they should have or much much more. HOwever it is hard to fix this because merit was not here for 9 yrs.

We need to work from now on and fix up merit then use it as a more reliable tool to encourage net positve and weed out net negative members.

Now this is very sad.

You can not use merit as the basis for any quality control until merit itself has some objective quality control.

Any suggestions to use merit (as it stands) as a tool to control post quality are low quality suggestions if they do not include a system to make merit a useful/accurate and objective measurement. I would say any suggestions like that sink below low quality to negative value because you are wasting time building upon foundations that are already broken when the time needs to be spent making the foundations of this new screening system into something that is solid and reliable.


First you need to establish what even denotes low quality and high quality and make sure merit is a meaningful representation of those criteria. Then and only then can you start using merit scores to devise a higher level screening system.

It seems there are not even that many criteria to match posts against so it will not be all that difficult.

I don't think further restrictions would be a good move. I don't do signatures, so it is not that I feel targeted by OP's idea.

What we all must keep in mind is if we want crypto to grow, we need new people. You guys are forgetting how important this forum is. For many it is the first place to get information and learn.

Too severe newbie restrictions would be a bad favour to the entire community.

I agree with you.
Quality managers will eventually accept members that have certain merit/post payout scheme. There will be always trash campaigns who will look for those low quality shitposters because they can do it for cheap and for campaign owner signature views are only thing that matter.
But there is another problem that could from by this type of campaign which is called merit gangs.

I would rather like to see moderated bounty campaigns where owners have to specify unified rules given by the forum staff. I think that would hurt shitposters.

This is a good first step, but ideally we should be reaching a stage where members with no earned merits aren't accepted at all. However, there are just too many bounty campaigns for trash projects that are more than happy to pay out their worthless token for any old barely-comprehensible spam, and short of making a forum-wide rule, this ideal situation will never happen.

It's also worth pointing out that the example you quoted comes from one of yahoo62278's campaigns. There is a handful of very good campaign managers on this forum that don't accept spammers regardless of merit earned, and he is one of them. Again, there is no way we can expect for all the trash managers to live up to this standard.

Low quality spam that is easily ignored by most is not as net negative as some semi plausible sounding (to those that don't understand fully the topic) semi well written (basic spelling grammar) junk that sways and diverts consensus away from proven sound opinion and logic based upon observable evidence. Usually backed up by some merits to enforce the opinion that it has value when it actually has negative value and is damaging.

Therefore fix the merit system before trying to use it as a useful tool to get rid of "low quality"

Low quality is damaging via dilution and reducing collisions between "good" posters and some limited number of capable minds.  

Negative quality posters are equally damaging if not worse if you are trying to reach optimal level of discussion and debate.

Merit has very little value right now so i see no point at this time trying to use it as a tool to solve a problem that needs an accurate and objective criteria to define "low quality" "negative worth" "high value"

Anyone suggesting merit be used as system that has some objective and fair value themselves are making posts that really have no value they are just compounding the issues the merit system brings.

You need to fix this system before those merit scores can be given any weight.

Checks this suggestions and tell me what you think

I saw that some of bounty managers using the incentive scheme for members which have additional merit points.

I think, when most of the managers will implement such scheme then it will have a positive effect on the forum.

+1
Few of the discussion are so top notch that I am not even able to understand them. They just come, create a topic, Discuss/take suggestions and leave the forum.  Not allowing to newbie to create a topic in this case is loss for the forum.

I also noticed that very few people have any kind of signature in that board including moderators gmaxwell and achow101.

Actual problem of spam will be controlled by effectively using the "Report to Moderator" , temporary banning accounts creating spam and not allowing the rank below Member to bump up the topics.

Instead of moderators wasting their time on removing low quality content as someone has suggested It would be more convinient to either give them negative merit as I suggested or temp ban them, maybe perma ban use of signature.
But as you say bounty managers should be pressed to up their requirements for bounty and not reward spamming.

You've hit the nail on the head. But as with OP's post, this has been discussed several times before and we are no closer to a solution. Whether that's because we don't have a good solution yet, or because theymos doesn't want to implement anything yet, I don't know.

I would like to see harsher punishments for serial shitposters - at the moment, having one or two of their posts deleted is irrelevant when the can churn out a new one-liner in 2 minutes. Serial offenses should result in escalating lengths of ban. Similarly, there needs to be punishment for bounty managers who are paying these shitposters, again with serial offenders resulting in escalating bans, and the worst offending projects having their entire ANN threads removed.

exactly the point, we can't tell the exact number or ratio, which i would bet the house that in terms of shitpost to quality posts with be many:little. rank alone is not enough criteria to build restrictions on , if there is anything to be implemented it has to be rank-less based, it has to be quality-based, it also has to apply to everybody only then it will be fair.

i also think that shitposts are one of the main reasons the signature campaigns are still going. if every signature campaign focused only on members who post quality posts, then i am sure 2 or 3  campaigns will be able to utilize every qualified member.

but those signature campaigns focus mainly on VIEWS, someone who is promoting a shitcoin ico would rather have 100 shitposters wearing their signature than 5 quality members. and it seems like it's working for them ! .

Even 3 earned merits would be harsh enough... ~55% of Legendaries would lose signatures.

< 10 earned merits: ~70% of Legendaries.

I don't think anyone is denying that there are shitposters at higher ranks too, who got there before merit was introduced and would have close to zero chance of getting there now. I, for one, think we should change the requirement for a signature to 10 earned merits, which would therefore encompass all the legendary spammers as well as the newbie ones.

Having said that, the newbie spammers are the biggest problem, because as you say, they are the most numerous by far. I would put your ratio of shitposters to "good" newbies at 100:1 or even more, but I'm against any blanket restrictions on newbies posting or opening topics for the exact reason that it unfairly punishes the <1% who are here for the right reasons.

yes i have been on the forum since April but only started to be active like last month or so , and i do know how the merit system works. my statement was not a reply to anything you said in particular, it was mainly to the op suggesting the limit of newbies.

for example this

Chances to do what? Rank up?

You've been here since April and I don't think you understand why the merit system was put in place or why the 1-merit requirement to rank up to Jr. Member was implemented.  You just said that shitposting noobs vastly outnumber the good ones--that's the exact reason why those things were done, and the problem was much, much worse before January 2018.  The good noobs will rank up, the bad ones won't.  That's fair, and I'll say it again: all noobs can post as they please.

Or did you mean noobs should have the same chance to join signature campaigns?  It's not quite clear what you're arguing here.

I clearly mentioned this "look around the technical and series discussion"

here are a few examples

> https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/repair-a-t9-after-a-bad-firmware-lost-chain-5032987
> https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/diy-fpga-mining-rig-for-any-algorithm-with-fast-roi-3459858
>https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/antminer-monitor-2258344
>https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/collection-of-18509-found-and-used-brainwallets-4768828
>https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/new-way-to-generate-bitcoin-addresses-5079681
>https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/the-necessity-of-flash-back-pinning-in-structure-of-transactions-5089384

These members with low ranks along with many others have many great posts. the reason you see the low-ranked members as the source of problem is probably mainly because of the number of the low-ranked compared to the high-ranked.

for every good newbie there are probably 10 shitposters newbies posting in the same topic, it's mainly a matter of low-rank to high-rank ratio that gives this perspective.

everyone was a newbie at once, and i believe they all should have the same chances like those previews newbies who now ranked up.

Does what you just wrote above contradict anything I just wrote a couple of posts above you?

 
It certainly fits what OP wrote and what I gave a personal example of in my post:


In other words, you're making a non-argument and I'd already written how restricting newbies/Jr. Members from being able to advertise in their sig space doesn't prevent them from making all of those brilliant posts you claim they do.

If that's true, then they shouldn't have a problem advancing in rank if that's important to them.  But if you think it's not the low-ranked members who are the primary problem, obviously you haven't ready many threads in Altcoin/Bitcoin Discussion.  Not to mention the rest of the altcoin section, the ANN, bounties, and tokens parts in particular.  The shitposting noobs have also started to infest Economics, Trading Discussion, and Speculation as well.  Go read some threads in all those sections and then tell me if you disagree with me 100%.

I don't understand why many people relate poor quality / shitposts /spam posts to newbies or lower rank members. this is 100% wrong.

why would you limit a newbie who has a huge amount of knowledge just because he recently joined the forum?

look around the technical and series discussion, you will be amazed , many members who joined recently are top notch geeks.

allow everyone to post, let the members decide who is worthy and who is not,  by merting and commenting on quality posts.  

In my opinion, an outright ban on newbies posting in the Altcoin boards would be a bad move. Yes, the Altcoin boards are a mess - they are a total spam-fest, there is almost zero real or genuine discussion going on, and most senior or sensible members don't even visit those boards, let alone post in them. However, banning newbies from posting in Altcoin boards isn't going to slow them down on their endless quest for that one elusive merit. Yes, it might force bounty managers to move to Google Forms for all their reporting, but I fear it would have the side effect of increasing the spam in other boards significantly.

The only restriction you may see in the near future will be in the Altcoin section and it will affect only the newbies.
This is the only signals we got from theymos regarding further possible restrictions.
So don't be surprised if one day newbies are banned from the Altcoin section.

I hear you totally.  I've been involved in a thread in the Economics section, one that hasn't turned into a mega spam thread yet and one I'm interested in enough such that I requested help from smarty-pants math and economics members.  I just posted this yesterday:


And that's not the first time I've written a response like that or noticed that someone was answering a question in a thread that had been answered 100 times already.  I even noticed it in my early days here with that (in my brain) infamous bitcoin for cupcakes thread.

A lot of what you suggested has pretty much been written before, and I'm fairly sure that Theymos knows what possible solutions he could implement.  He tweaks the system in small ways with long intervals in between changes.  Since he just made the 1-merit requirement for ranking up to Jr. Member, I figure he's going to see how that works before doing anything else.  Your suggestions aren't bad; they're just not new.

*sigh*

Putting a restriction on newbie's signatures doesn't keep any of them from posting.  It just keeps them from earning money from their output, which is usually a bunch of shitposts.  If the solution was merit-based, a legitimate newbie member ought to have no problem earning whatever the requirement is, albeit probably slowly--but that was anticipated since the beginning of the merit system anyway.

As stated, theymos is generally against any more restrictions to new members posting, so you are unlikely to see any daily limits, longer delays or being unable to open their own topics. Some newbies sign up to the forum to ask a specific question or with a specific issue - we don't want to stop these people from posting.

I think the logical next step (as I've said before in other threads), is to remove signatures from Junior Members in addition to Newbies, effectively meaning that a user has to earn 10 merit before they are allowed to display a signature. We are starting to see many shitposters with exactly 1 earned merit, suggesting it is too easy to gain 1 merit from either begging, buying, or trading.

Signature campaigns are in the spirits of Bitcointalk forum and it has also increased the amount of engagement of people on the forum and just removing it would not be a solution to this problem but yes imposing specific rules for the Bounty Managers and participants can reduce the spam at some extent. There are also examples of some projects which have become very popular through signatures campaigns held on this forum and they are still running and you should not ignore this fact.



Yes, I think implementing this restristions to ranks can make huge diffrence in the amount of spam occurinng currently but its alredy suggested many time on the forum and theymos is yet  to considere it in the long list of "YET TO BE APPLIED SUGGESTION"

With the 1 merit requirement for Jr. Members, and the subsequent demotion back to newbies of a great amount of accounts, the number of signature candidates to cover all campaigns a fair share. Reducing the pool of candidates even more is a very strategic decision that is not single dimensional (spam), but rather imbricated in a multidimensional scenario (spam, website number of users, website traffic, derived income, and so forth). 

In terms of potential signature candidates, your proposal would be cutting current candidates by just over half:   
(*) nUsers active (logged-in at least) between 01/10/2018 and 06/12/2018.

So we've got:
Legendary+Hero+Sr. Members + Full Members (*):  15.483 (these would remain signature candidates)
Member + Jr. Members (*):                                    16.779 (these would no longer be candidates)
Newbies with >= 30 Activity:                                  26.884 (these have already been chipped-out of signatures with the 1 Merit requirement).

Personally, I do not know, nor even have a hint, as to how effective signatures are. That would be interesting to see somewhere, broken down by rank bearer. Signatures can have a direct impact (click-through to promoted site) as well as indirect impact (i.e. awareness, top of mind, etc.), so it’s not trivial to measure how effective they are. One would say that the better the poster, the more chance of it getting noticed, but sheer visual aggregate volume of viewable signatures also leads to awareness, and that is not directly measurable.

I agree with that they can create new accounts for bumping but at the same time that is the only thing they will have.
About restrictions for new accounts... I don't think that normal user would notice it. There are certain patterns that shitposters follow.

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I understand your concern but that could be aimed specificly on the OP while the rest would be unaffected. So if I make this shitty thread and you all report it, moderator removes it and I would get negative activity or merit while the rest of you would just lose post count.

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This is the point if signature does not catch your attention it means that it is too saturated. It defeats the purpose of advertisment. But my main reason of removing sig from low ranks is to disencourage joining forum just for those campaigns.

     Why do you want to impede people from announcing their new coins that they created? There are many reasons someone may want to use a fresh account to announce their new altcoin. I realize there is a great deal of shitcoins that are created. Most are just scams and schemes. However, the great thing about cryptocurrency is that it is permissionless. Besides, all this would encourage is account sales. I would rather have a coin be announced by a fresh account than some account that someone bought with "legendary" status that they didn't really earn.

The best solution is to encourage quality posters to make more posts, and for the mods to clean up the bad posts. This can be done regardless of rank, merit, or inside leg measurement.

Let me be honest with you.

For about a year of my existence on this forum, only Vod and digaran's signature caught my attention.

If only theymos would get rid of the ICO Ann bounty, no more signatures for them and no more posting of social media links, the problem with spam could've been solved.

There have been a lot of suggestions about how to improve the forum and majority of them are directed at newbies and limiting their activity and participation on the forum

Firstly, the forum can be improved without targeting a specific rank range. And such restrictions would only place more emphasis on merits and build the forum around it.
This would create an elite few and a large number trying to get across to the other side.
And we could have a situation where the merit distribution would not be able to cater for all quality members yet to rank up.

Topic has been discussed many time and eventually theymos implemented new merit system for Jr. members. I am agree with that posting own topic for newbie could be disable for few specific board, like Altcoins Announcement. All newbie account there bumping thread and spamming. Disable signature up to Jr. member is appropriate. Member should be allow for wear signature.

I don't thing theymos will change current system lately. And merit system is working fine. I do not expect any change for now.

That's why lots of scam projects are announcing there. By the way there is copper member to post Announcement new projects. I discourage to reply on ANN board for newbie. On the other hand account buy isn't so easy now. Actually whatever you see account sale post most of them are just scammer. They never have any account really.     

    Bitcointalk already tried to implement a "karma" system that was abandoned. The problem with a karma system that gives out negative merit is that whistleblowers are likely to accumulate a bunch of negative karma when they take on the perpetrators. We should not punish people here with decreased functionality just because they spout out unpopular opinions. We already have a trust system in place, anyway. I really do not believe we need to compound the "scarlet letter" that these negative trust member already have with decreased functionality. Some of the big negative trust members are actually good posters and are still capable of giving valuable input.

I doubt that. They'll just create more accounts to continue spamming.

I don't think theymos will impose more Newbie restrictions:

I have been around this forum for some time and even though I am not very active I just like to read about crypto and learn about potential trade opportunitys.
That being said I find it difficult to read constructive thread without someone junk posting and causing disruption. I started to use this forum mainly because of quality opinions on projects that I consider investing in.

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There are just so many low quality posts that sometimes makes me feel as if nobody reads the topic but rather just rambles non constructive answer based on topic title. I have noticed a lot of times when bot would pick up year old topic and suddenly low quality members would just post nosense without ever reading topic or realising that it is dead.
Another annoying thing that I feel might be more easy to solve are new members or low rank members who advertise scam, post refferals or act as bumps.

I that it would be a good idea to add further limitations.

Rank  

Newbie	-    Should not be able to open their own topics, should not be able to post links, with current 360s between posts they should also have daily limit.
Jr.Member	-    Should not have signature or personal text, longer time between posting, daily limit on new threads and posts.
Member	-    Should not have signature

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With cutting off new profiles from easy access to basic features it should demotivate some of the people who like to spam links or participate in bounty campaigns.

In addition I would like to see feature that would act as merit/activity karma which would reduce members merit or karma every time their post/thread gets removed. By that I don't mean losing stats gained by the specific thread but rather penalty that would punish members for low quality content. This would have effect on all ranks and make you think twice before posting.

All current spam defeats the purpose of sig campaigns in the first place. I remember that if I find someone making a quality post/s I would check their other threads, I would check signature because I build expectation of this person making quality decisions while in the other hand nowdays you have shitposters who probably barely earn anything and main reason is just that because nobody will ever get interested to check someones sig or website if all of their content is junk.