Topic: Have we left "Bitcoin Discussion" board for spammers, forever?? - page 2. (Read 3025 times)

I understand where your concern is coming from. I just feel like it's only going to get worse if legitimate members don't hang out there & continue to report posts.

Look at this as an example: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/how-many-coins-does-satoshi-hold-5015332
People are only going to start posting threads (which should be in Bitcoin Discussion) in other categories in order to avoid the spam. It's only going to lead to mis-categorization of posts if people avoid that category.

Just my $0.02

These are great suggestions I definitely agree with. Minimum merit would make the job a lot harder for alt farmers while forcing the rest of the spammers to probably quit, or get their shit straight(small chance). The only thing I would disagree with is continuing to post in the category, it's pretty pointless to any sane individual. Posting just to get dumpster with spam is not worth the time. People who post quality stuff expect quality discussion in return since they spend a lot of time writing those posts, so when they get broken English non-sense replies I can only imagine the frustration. As cowardly as it seems, I think users should migrate to areas where the shitposting is on a smaller scale and report bad posts there since the results are more likely to be seen.

Along with this, I'd like to suggest a limit for new accounts on how much can they post at the beginning in terms of frequency and the minimum characters per message allowed. I feel it would boost the quality of posts globally across the board. Once you are a certain rank, you are allowed to post more often and fewer characters if you want to(although we see that users of a higher rank usually write longer posts which are higher quality).

Restricting them completely from posting won't be a necessity if their signature spaces are restricted. That would reduce the spam itself without even having to restrict them from posting, because most of these spammers are bounty participants and their primary purpose is to reach the minimum/maximum post thresholds that their campaigns offer so that they don't stay behind in getting payments. And maybe, there are some low rank members who can post constructive things and deserve attention from higher rank members. Such members won't be able to show themselves if they won't be able to post just because of some other users who used to post crap all the time.

As a newcomer to bitcointalk the first thread I visited was the BITCOIN THREAD. back then I read/enjoyed every post and commented on those I found more interesting but after weeks of joining the community, the period i spent on forum dropped drastically. I felt most posts are been reposted continuously because i will comment on a particular post this week and next will come across another new post with the same heading/content. So felt it wasn't worth my time and decided to stop logging in.

Point that I'm trying to make is that I agree with you when you said,

Because that thread, is the selling point {first thread} all newbie surf through when they register on platform. The impression they get on that thread matters alot and will determine the future of this forum. Truly, it shouldn't be left to die in spam, something should be done like restricting newbies and jnr members from commenting on thread but can access thread to get vital informations. so the spam level can be reduce to its minimum.

I think merit requirements for signatures are a step in the right direction. It forces users to actually create posts which are valid. This would have to be maintained w/ strict rules regarding merit, and strict rules against merit abuse.

Having been on this forum for more than 5 years, I will admit I have seen a drastic decrease in post quality. Thinking back, bounties weren't really a huge thing, and I think with their increase, and signature campaigns, it was only going to get worse without a further mod presence.

While I think that signature campaigns are affecting this, I don't believe they should be prohibited. But I do believe a "minimum merit" rule should go into effect. IE, signature campaigns can only add members who have a minimum amount of merit per rank (as some campaigns have effectively put into place).

The only other thing I can say is to not let the spam make you avoid that category. Stay in the category, post high quality posts within the category, and report all posts you can.

For a guaranteed week ban the spammer would need to get >100 accounts to make it happen. Due to the fact that moderators would get much more free time after such change, they can spend this time on genuine users appealing such cases of abuse. 100+ users downvoting a decent post could be either a botnet/multiaccounting or a well organized spammers group violating the rules\ideas of this forum. It's good for the forum and  its users to detect and get rid of such things, so if anybody tries to do this to you, you simply appeal to the moderators. Moderators can always investigate the case. Punishment for premeditated abuse of such feature and the number of accounts at risk in a collusion case should prevent any attempt of abuse. If the user or group is risking a ban on 100+ accounts just to ban you for  1 week - it's heavily unfavorable to even try.
Other option is  doing it a "+/-" kind of stat, where decent users can upvote your posts in this type of scenario, but that would be much more abusable actually.
I, personally, don't think it has been thought over, since shitposts everywhere are still a major problem. The reputation system of some kind is used in most decent boards nowadays, it is proven to be more efficient for huge boards.

I mean to have read that there is a punishment - mods are regularly deleting/banning lots of "spam accounts", above all, bots. But it seems to require manual action, which means a lot of work. So a technical solution indicating "serial spammers" would be certainly nice. (I'm only speculating; I don't know SMF in detail. I once had a small Drupal forum and there were no such "helpers" at that time, but surely there are extensions for that task.)

I just tried that with a typical megathread on the Speculation forum - and no, it didn't work, the thread continues to appear. The idea is good though - because if a spammer you have on your ignore list creates several threads, they would be all hidden by default.

So true!
I actually opened that link to see if there is actually something in it. So stupid!  


Doesn't a thread get hidden if you ignore the person who has started it? If not, that is how it should be. If you ignore the user that has started a topic, the entire topic should be hidden for you because you don't want to see that guy and his posts anymore. It would make no sense if the thread still shows up even if you have the creator on ignore. Let me know if someone have tried this. I didn't, yet.

I like your ideas, by the way.


A ban might not be appropriate, but closing the signature space for a week or two for a lot of your posts getting deleted in a short period of time sounds like a good idea to me. People should keep reporting, and the mods should keep deleting and the automation will keep closing the signature spaces thus reducing the bounty spammers. But again, I don't get tired saying this: We need more mods!


It has already been thought over, and not implemented because such a thing can be used negatively by the spammers as well. Now you can't only let genuine users use this feature. So, what if a spammer teams up with some other spammers and plans to get me banned for a week, because I have done something that harmed him, by charging one of my posts? How would you counter such problems?


No board is better, when counted for spam, but Bitcoin Discussion is one of the most important boards (or used to be) of the forum, and that is the reason why we are discussing that. Otherwise, pick up any board and you will find hundreds or such spamming routines going on every day in each one of them.


A deleted post is a deleted post, no matter if it has been deleted by a mod or the user himself. So the merits associated to that post would get removed if the post is removed, meaning no one can delete the posts only to hide the abuse if the merits would also vanish along with the post. It would make no sense to merit your alt and delete the post if the merits are being removed too with that. But I think this has already been discussed before, and wasn't approved, either by the community or by theymos, I don't really remember that.

I'm not sure that would make much difference, to be honest. The vast majority of shitposts do not receive, and will never receive, merit, and I don't think they are intended to. Most trash bounty campaigns seem quite happy to use hoards of Junior Members for their spamming. Some sort of signature removal/ban punishment for either the users being reported or the ICOs paying them is needed.

Another question is what would happen if the user deleted their own merited post to hide the merit abuse scenario^[1], but not the mods? so I don't think removing any merits associated with a deleted post would be a viable option by considering those two factors of your and mine even though we liked to see that removal of merits.

[1] - User can award merits for their alt and then delete their merited post from their alt.

The forum has got so bad that probably 90% of posts in Bitcoin Discussion threads are spam or unsubstantial so reporting is futile and it would be a full time job trying to report all the posts that actually need to be removed. Ain't nobody got time for that. Without changes to what is actually allowed to go on here then nothing will change. A handful of users will still keep reporting for whatever reason but it's like picking one turd out of a sea of shit. Signatures from lower ranks need to be removed and badly run ICO campaigns need to face repercussions for shitting up the forum.

One easy solution would be to remove any merits associated with a deleted post. I'm not sure what the "knock-on" effect of that would be though. What would happen if the postder had awarded the sMerits associated with the deleted post?

That's a nice modification. I had figured 10 (or maybe more) posts would be a good minimum - everyone has had posts delete for a variety of reasons, but it would be fairly unlikely that you would have 10 deleted in a short space of time unless you were a serial spammer - but I agree there might still be some false positives.

I do think there needs to be some form of punishment though. Deleting a hundred posts makes no difference when three hundred more spring up in their place.

I would be against automatic bannings. There are lots of reasons why a post can be deleted. I got deleted, for example, some posts because I discussed with a member declared persona non grata in this forum (some may know who he is ). Some may want to get posts deleted because they wrote personal information in posts, etc.

What could be done instead is to give moderators an automatic "hint": if (e.g.) 10 posts of a single user were deleted, a checkbox could appear which would ban the user (or delete his signature), but the final decision belongs to the mod.

@vphasitha01: Good additions, thanks!

Agree, Maybe increasing the mods there would help, The mods usually deletes lots of comments of people, So i guess the Bitcoin discussion board should have more strict rules, Same asked questions, useless questions and other posts should be frequently removed.
Anyway, everyone is enjoying it there tbh, The more useless posts, the more posts people get.

Bitcoin Discussion Board  -  ( A city without a police authority). Ask theymos why there is still no one handling that area.

but for me the  Economics board and speculation board are much worse.

I will be sighting a little example to why this 2 boards are much worse than bitcoin discussion board.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/hometester-44206

This user posted x4 on economic section  within just 35 seconds.


https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/kenel-121472

This user posted x4 on economic section on (september 5)  within just 35 seconds.

Agree with this! If we're to try fighting against shitposting and spammers - there must be a REAL punishment for villains action. Merit is good and everything, but the fact is it doesn't help in this particular case due to no mechanism of lowering it as punishment. It serves its role in highlighting quality posts most of the time, but does no good in preventing or eliminating the shittiest ones.
IMO, there should be a 'bad' bMerit either as a separate stat, or interchangeable with merit. Interchangeable is the hard thing though, the control at the beginning would be in high merit accounts hands, which, unfortunately, seems as a bad option given the merit abuse going on since its inception, as well as the fact that nothing prevents them in using it in a self-serving scenarios. Separate stat, for example red 'Shit Post" button near every post , appears to be much more reliable and decentralized in concept as well. Provide all the bitcointalk users with button charges depending on rank(i.e. 1 daily charge for newbies, 3 for Jr.Member, 10 for Member, then 50, 200, etc...), limit the amount of charges available for use by single user on a single post by 1(this could be rank dependent as well, but not necessary, as the more flat it is among users, the more decentralized the whole concept is) and  all you have to do is add "Shit Post" counter rules automatically applied for users. Rules could be something like 20 charges on a single post - user gets warned and asked to modify/delete the post, while at 30 post is auto deleted and user gets 2-3 days ban from that particular subboard, 120 total charges on  all your posts across the forum in last 7 days - you get banned for 1 week. 300 in a month...?  Month ban is provided for free! This way the more important/popular/high-level the discussion is, the higher the risks are for the shitposting villain, while newbies can still post trashy comments/questions in their own boards, where the daily charges limit would make it very unlikely to be banned for minor stupidity(1 daily charge among most participants would lead to users awarding only the most retarded posts with their precious charge).
This change would lead to a more self-regulated forum, freeing existing moderators time for more relevant issues, giving individual users a non-abusable moderating role and cleanse the forums of most filth.  

- Lock the threads if you get the answers without allowing spammers to spam fest in your thread.

- (hilariousetc idea) Require one Merit to rank up Jr. Member

- Require "earned merits" for participate signature campaigns as already done by @Zapo and @LoyceV

I think part of the problem with reporting posts and getting them deleted is that it isn't really a punishment. A spammer can easily churn out a one line shitpost in under a minute. Even if 50% of their posts are getting deleted, they can still max out their bounty campaign easily enough.

How would people feel about some form of punishment? If you had 10 posts deleted in a week (for example), you are either banned or lose your signature for a week, with escalating punishments for repeat offenders.

Knowing there is a punishment might serve to get more people reporting, as well as serving as education for the spammers who are currently having their posts deleted and retaliating simply by posting more.

Some weeks ago, I got the impression the spam problem in "Bitcoin Discussion" had improved. Now it seems to have been worsened again, so I would fully support some changes to improve the situation.

I read some good ideas in this thread. I would like to categorize and collect them, and add also some own ideas:

Easy actions which can be followed by every poster:
- Start more self-moderated threads.
- Report spam!

Feature requests:
- Make the character limit of signature space, for Junior Members, depend on the received merit points. An idea to not overly punish "honest" Juniors: give them automatically a minimal space, enough to post a Bitcoin address or a simple link without any advertisement slogan.
- (own idea): Signature space "on probation" for Juniors/Newbies. Juniors who are legitimately reported for spam can lose their signature space until they rank up.
- (own idea, I have already suggested it several times): Allow users to ignore entire threads, so megathreads can be "hidden".
- (own idea) Allow to reatroactively change threads to self-moderated, if they're "taken over" by spammers.

Staff/Rule-change requests:
- Enforce signature campaign quality rules by Staff - e.g. delete threads of campaigns with abusive behavior.