Topic: Have we left "Bitcoin Discussion" board for spammers, forever?? - page 5. (Read 3025 times)

Yeah, bitcoin discussion is unreadable. Whenever I'm bored or want to know the news, I just go browse around Press and Serious discussion.

I took a screenshot of some of the newest/hottest bitcoin discussion threads on the first page and it's quite alarming to see the results. The results are quite alarming.

Most of the threads are either spam threads or just threads that have been made hundreds of times. I doubt anyone actually reads threads anymore, and instead just reads the title and makes a quick post for a couple stakes.

I must have missed your thread. That initiative is exactly what I suggested here as well. I, too, believe that we can still recover some boards if all of us start taking part in them and don't just sit and watch. I agree with everyone saying that the spammers are too many in quantity and they won't let us succeed in this, but that should not be a reason for us to not do anything for it. You can't win a fight if you don't even fight, no matter how hard it is.


I believe a member, who comes here not for spamming and knows what constructiveness is, can easily earn 10 Merits and then become able to wear signatures and not suffer at all. There aren't really a lot of them to be honest, maybe 5% out of 100%, and we should not leave the remaining 95% untouched only because it might affect the 5% a little. That would be unfair to the community itself.
Removing signatures for lower ranks would only reduce spam, but theymos already said that he wouldn't do it.

Yes, that's true but we can't say for sure that every junior member account comes here for just spamming. It would be unfair for the members who come here to contribute constructively. Although the fraction of such posters will be quite low, it would be biased if we let them suffer because of the other shit-posters.

I started an initiative some time ago to make only self-moderated threads there to fight the sig. spam. I even stated a thread and got some success in way of discussion.
[Discussion]How to decentralize the price of the bitcoin? Self-moderated.
I think if we follow this way of posting we may have some part of the section back to the real discussions.

Self moderated topic won't be a solution in Bitcoin Discussion, as long as our beloved spammers will continue to work spam as busy as a bee...
If you start a self-moderated topic with a decent subject to discuss
- you will have less posts than a normal topic, because spammers won't work spam in vain, so
- your topic will not receive enough 'bumps' daily to be able to stay on the first page, so
- nobody will find it after a few hours

I've used to report in Bitcoin Discussion (managed to have over 500 good reports in just a few days), but it's like you want to fight the roaring fire in the woods with a water pistol...
You can put countless people's energy, time and effort to fight agains the spam in that (and every other) board, but what about cutting spam at the roots? It would require much less time, energy, and effort to just restrict them somehow.
If that could happen, those hard working members who just report spam day in and day out, would have time again to create constructive posts, instead of just pushing the report button...

 

Interesting topic and discussion, thanks to the author ...
Yes, I completely agree with you that this "Bitcoin Discussion" has become a spam theme.
But I want to ask the question to all the Full, Seniors, Legends - so why do you give a bad example yourself, and unsubscribe in these spam themes created mostly by beginners and younger members of the forum?
And I'll tell you what I think - you write everywhere about banning signatures for beginning forum participants, and you can not stop writing posts in spam because of your posts for signing.
PS, Look at yourself first, before criticizing others ...

Though its a shame, but the amount of spam generated on the forum comes mostly from our ranks (Newbie, Jr. member, Member). Hence, I cannot suggest disabling signatures for any higher rank but nor I would lay my weapon down if someone tries to attack me only because I belong to a cast that is nasty as shit.


I too have said the same things in past, but just a bit differently. I said, that campaigns should be forced to either accept users above Jr. member rank, or only select the users that are at least mildly constructive. A campaign, if found accepting users that are extreme shitposters, should be punished by either locking down their thread or something like that.


I agree that no board is less in terms of spam posts these days, but "Bitcoin Discussion" is the only board that comes to your mind when you hear the term "Bitcointalk", and it deserves to be clean, and if it cannot be cleaned, it should at least have some quality topics, in self-moderated mode where constructive posters can come and have a good discussion for the day.


How is this similar to the spam? 
Its not the same topic that is repeated, like how spammers do. Every person, who condemns the act of spamming tries to bring up something that needs to be done to tackle it, and as long as the spammers exist, these anti-spam posts would keep coming.


I don't think it is useless as long as the creator of that topic takes this responsibility to keep the thread clean from spam and spammers, and that is what I want to see. Besides, I think every single person, who comes to the forum everyday with positive energy to have some good discussions and read some good posts would surely open up a thread in that section if the creator of that thread is someone who is known in the forum to be among the good ones here.

I like this idea and has already stated it couple times in my older posts, but do you have any idea on what kind of punishment will be made? And who will be the judge?

For the OP. All of your frustation is already felt by other members too, and some of member already make a move to make it better by persuading Theymos in a private and closed communication. There have been a talking about other suggestion too, but the key is on Theymos and he stated that acting as a CEO-like for this forum is hard and finding people/person to do the job to aid him is as hard as doing the job alone too, so we would not see the changes if that key problem is not solved yet. Either Theymos is not busy anymore with other works and can focus on this forum or he find a right person to help him.

If you want to ask people to create something there and make a change, i think it has a very low chance to be a successful attempt. It is like the good proportion to spammer are 1 : 1000. You can not win the fight.

I have read about "self moderated thread" in one of replies here, and i would like to say it is useless too. Five minutes into digging a snack and take a break from your PC for a while will leave you with couple of spams, and you can not check your thread everyday, so once again, spammer wins.

Exactly, there are spammers who are at higher ranks, and I think they should get the benefit of the doubt as they are fairly new.

Yes! I agree! I also joined the forum as a newbie -- looking for a place to learn more about cryptos and get some ideas from like minded users. I knew nothing about bounties or signature campaigns when I signed up and I didn't post much at all for several months after I signed up, because I was reading and learning - not talking about sh!t I had no clue about! As I read posts, I saw the user rankings and merit scores and so forth and did some research to see what the were and how they were achieved.  That was when I first found out that people could actually earn cryptos by participating in the boards.

I won't lie. I immediately wondered how much I could earn just by signing up with one of these "campaigns", but I also knew that I had very little technical knowledge or real life experience to share. So I knew that signature campaigns weren't for me (at that moment). But I wasn't prepared to swear off of them forever.

Fast forward several months and I've bumped up one rank to Jr. Member and hope to someday soon go up another notch to Member. I don't post just to rank up, but I do post if I think I have something constructive and contributory to say.  Like Alone055, I believe that I have earned the right to my signature, bland and unoriginal as it is, by following the rules that have been laid out for me by the current merit system.

Not all newbies are spammers and not all spammers are newbies.

Actually , Bitcoin discussion board is just become some kind news release or speculate the price of the bitcoin. It is very hard to find any topic there that demands real discussion. I think the very first step should be trash all the discussion that are speculating price/ or asking will bitcoin rise or fall.
When we already have Wall observer thread, we do not need these topic there.
Threads that are posting link will require some effort whether they are just repeating whatever in site or really put some value by adding some content of its own. Any topic just repeating the things also need to be deleted.

Agreed and agreed.  There are a lot of members here who advertise in their signatures and who aren't shitposters.  Chipmixer participants are a good example of that, and I really wish all campaigns had DarkStar_'s standards.  He only accepts Sr. Members and above, and in general the output of its members is above average. 

Unfortunately you see the exact opposite when you look at bounty participants.  They're mostly Jr. Members and they write one-line garbage.

All of this has been said many times before, and I'm not sure if it's even worth discussing anymore.  I'm sure Theymos is well aware of the problem and of the solution.  He's just choosing not to act.

I also agree with OP that it's a damn shame that what should be the best section of bitcointalk is actually the worst.  Anyone coming here genuinely wanting to discuss bitcoin issues will be sadly disappointed when they post in a thread there and their post never gets read or responded to.  It's a discussion forum after all, but it's morphed into a posting forum.

But it's not the high-ranked accounts that are doing the spamming.  It's very clearly people who come here just to spam and who create new accounts at will and who have no barriers preventing them from achieving Jr. Member rank.

These days, there are so many threads complaining about the level of spam in most threads.
And frankly, it's becoming a repetitive topic, similar to the spam being complained about.

It's obvious, bounties, and multiple account users limit the amount of quality post as users have a post target.
If the more experienced users contribute more in these threads, it would go a long way in raising it from the mud.

Frankly, i don't see much hope on "Bitcoin Discussion" board unless theymos decide to disable signature on that board. In a page, i only can find 1-2 thread with real discussion.

Unlike board such as Development & Technical Discussion or Bitcoin Technical Support, there's too much spam and even report won't help too much.

There is nothing that can be done, as freedom of speech is upheld, and every thread would end up having multiple, repetitive answers, which goes on and on.
But there are some quire useful information available  there, and I think it's best of an OP would lock his/her thread, once they are satisfied with the discussion, or their questions has been answered. This would limit the boards available for posting, and also the amount of spam.

Not only for Bitcoin Discussion but if we base it on statistics, Bitcoin Discussion is just below to Altcoin Discussion. Speculation and Economics section too is sort to be the spot where they hone their shitty posts to increase their post counts.

I have tried to report spam posts on that board, but I found it difficult to draw the line between a genuine short post and a shit post. Moreover, rank cannot act as a determiner. Honestly, even a Legendary creates severe broken English posts with no value.

As a former shitposter when I first came to this forum, I directly went to bitcoin and altcoin boards and saw how people behave. And five minutes later... a brand new shitposter appear.

I think we don't have to worry if theymos implements:

But only God knows when these suggestions will be implemented. In the meantime, maybe more spambusters is the only feasible thing to do.

I like this one. We can easily spot campaigns that are paying spammers for their project by just visiting Alt Section and I'm sure that we can catch a lot of campaign that were doing such activities. If this one were only applied, I think I'm hunting shit campaigns right now.

The main root of the problem comes from those shit Bounties and irresponsible bounty managers. Shitposters are not the only one we should blame and punished, those very irresponsible managers should receive enough consequences too because they are the one who were encouraging spam for the first place.

Usually when I visit the Bitcoin Discussion Section, I don't come there to post in threads anymore but I am there to report members that are contributing to spam, my help might not be effective but if we band together the spam in that section will be wiped out clean in no time. But before the problem of spam in the section even starts I wish there was a some kind of screening process or a thread approval in the section first, before it gets shown in the section. By doing so we can filter out threads that are easy to answer or threads with misleading titles that are often answered by newbies right away. The moderators can easily reject them in the screening process and this leads to newbies only finding topics that can't be easily answered by generic crap.

A better solution would be to crack down on the ICOs campaigns that are paying them to post rubbish in there. I've also been saying for years that that board needs at least one dedicated mod. I've messaged theymos about this probably 3-5 times over the past month or two alone. I managed to get a list of the top reporters in there from him about two months or so ago, but no action has been taken so far to implement one. In fact, I even messaged him about it yesterday. The longer theymos doesn't act on these things the worse it gets. Assigning a mod probably takes a few clicks from him and the benefits would be self-evident with no further action required from him. You can even just promote an existing mod to there if there's an issue with adding new people (though we should probably do both).

Three things can be done to help this situation which don't require much effort from theymos:

Assign some dedicated mods to trash spam threads on sight and help clean up the place.

Punishments for campaigns that are consistently paying spammers to churn out junk in there.

Remove signatures from lower ranks completely and/or make a merit requirement to become a Junior. Ideally you wouldn't be able to have a signature until you've become a Member which requires ten merit. The forum is being over-populated with clueless kids who have little to no knowledge about bitcoin but are churning out nonsense just to get paid. This can't be acceptable. If you can't acquire ten merit then you shouldn't be able to earn here and these people should stick to claiming bounties until they can earn the merit.


I don't think they're biased; they're logical. Newbies and Juniors who can barely speak English and know little to nothing about bitcoin shouldn't be able to get paid to post here. This is the campaign's fault for not doing their job properly so we need to force them to do this and removing signatures from lower ranks is the only way to do this. They barely have a signature anyway and it's pretty much useless to pay them for it, but ICOs don't care. They pay people in tokens they've created for free so they might as well pay as many people as they can because they still get their name out there even if it is minimal. The ICOs and the spammers they pay have ruined this forum and that needs to change. Remove signatures from lower ranks so bots and the worst of the worst can't get paid for writing crap or copy and pasting. Either prove your worth here by getting ten merit or purchase a Copper Membership if you want to be able to earn.

Theymos has said that this forum isn't a welfare system for people but that's what it has sadly become. We need to find a compromise here and removing signatures from lower ranks and punishing ICOs that pay for rubbish are one of the only two ways I can think of that will tackle this effectively. This doesn't effect anybodies ability to post here - just earn, and that shouldn't be a right for everyone, especially those who aren't qualified to do so and also do it at the detriment of the forum.