Topic: Let's make Off-topic section signature-free. (Read 455 times)

Posts in off-topic counted or not depends on managers and companies, but if companies and managers do their works well, shitposts will not be counted and rejected posts likely appear in any boards, not only in off-topic.
There are good topics in Off-topic. Sometimes moderators move good topics to that board, and if users who posted in those topics before it moved to Off-topic board, they will see those topics when they check "Show new replies to your posts". I agree that there are less interests in that board, nevertheless.
Their dumb posts will be reported, but I see shitposters make their merit-hunting posts around (with low quality, of course).

This. OP could contact those 2 campaign managers to express his concerns.

I don't think anyone is hunting for merit in the Off-topic section. Almost nobody with good reputation is checking the section regularly. The majority of those  posting there are for to gain activity and to spam posts for their signatures campaigns.
Of course there are good discussions there and I've seen regular members posing like OgNasty and Vod.

I don't think any of those shitposters will move to the main sections to shitpost, it won't take long before they get banned.

Shitposters will move around, and try to do anything they are capable of (making funny posts, pseudo-good posts) to earn a single merit to become Junior Members. They will try to do this (with their low-quality posts) as their 'efforts' to earn extra money with Junior Member rank if they fortunately make someone laugh and send them a single merit.

Sometimes, we see 'pseudo'-good / -constructive posts from ones who usually or mostly make bounty report posts, but then jump to Meta and make something looks like constructive. Those shitposters are easily to realize by looking at their post history, the ratio between non-bounty report posts and bounty-report posts.

I do hope that users together will help the forum (to be clean, and wipe out shitposts) and themselves because if they won't change significantly, theymos might bring the forum back to what it is years ago. The completely pure forum, without signature.
From what we saw theymos does, when he does something, he usually does it hard. He also openned odds to disable all signature with announcement of merit system and some posts inside that thread. If he does that serious change, he might do it without pre-announcement.

The forum and good users don't have to tolerate shitposts from bad users.

Two bitcoin signature campaigns are paying their participants for making posts on "off-topic" board.

Almost all of them don't count posts made on "off-topic" board.

You say this, but it's a lot harder to post about Bitcoin than to post about whether you drink tea or coffee.

I'm someone who advocates for eliminating signatures AND activity in Off-topic.

I'm not against your suggestion, but I think that we need to clean up board that realky matters first. I haven't checked, but from what I know almost all (or maybe all) Bitcoin paying campaign aren't paying for posts in off-topic. Though, I don't know how about bounties. If majority of bounties are paying for posts in it, then disabling signatures sounds not bad. But I'm a afraid that it won't solve problem in general - plague just will spread to other parts of forum.

Did you ever watch the TV series 'The Wire'?
They resolved the drug problem in Baltimore by giving the drug dealers and users their own district where they could go to buy, sell and use drugs.
The idea was that it would minimize drug trade in the city. It worked but it created a lot of problems in the drug green zone but that is another story.
Let them have their fun in the off-topic, who cares as long as it doesn't spill over to the normal parts of the forum. I'd rather have the spam contained there than seeing it everywhere else, just like the detectives from The Wire. 

You can report whatever you wish and the globals will either handle it or not. I tend to avoid reports on sig spam but it looks like someone is handling them at least. As for more mods, I think all big sub boards should probably have their own dedicated one but only theymos can assign them. Farming has pretty much died out now after the implementation or the merit system so there's not much good in just building up your account merely with a high volume of posts in off topic as without the merit you'll just be stuck as a lower rank forever.

OK, let them spam the Off topic, but shall I continue reporting posts abd threads there? If I continue doing so and there is no moderator assigned to the section I just keep the global mods busy with all the usless crap that was posted there? I think we need at least a own section mod.
The business in developing accounts there is dying so I suspect that all that shitposting will end soon.

All of what you're suggesting has been proposed in the past, but at this point I'd rather just keep them quarantined in the off topic section than them infecting any where else as you'll just get them shitposting wherever is easiest for them and they'll move from board to board until there's none left. The problem again comes down to shoddy signature campaign managers who don't really care where someone is posting or about the quality of those posts. If people are abusing the off topic section or anywhere else and there's specific campaigns that are paying them for this then they should be dealt with. People can make decent posts in there but the whole reason it's become a cesspool is because of the few campaigns that are allowing themselves to be abused so they should be dealt with if they're causing a problem.

If there was atleast one moderator assigned to the "Off-Topic" board, they would be facing a nightmare all day moderating the abundant spam present there.   May be 2 or more moderators can do the job perfectly but Off-Topic is one kind of a place where you can discuss anything regardless of any restrictions imposed on you. I am aware that very little/low-level scam campaigns pays for posts in Off-Topic section but none of them are hardly reading through all the posts. I am interested in the tech behind some of the popular alts, but the spam in Alt Discussion made me to completely ignore that section. There are threads like "Why do you eat? Why do you sleep? Why do you shit at regular intervals?" etc but the replies are quite interesting till atleast 2 pages of the topic and later on they are being infested with spam.

On other hand, we don't need really thought provoking discussions in Off-Topic by limiting the posters since we do have Serious Discussion for that, but the spam mega-threads should be controlled thereby reducing the spams to an extent. Nowadays Jr.Members and Members are worthless ranks for Signature Campaigns as they pay only a penny to them and with merit it would be literally difficult for them to rank-up past Member. Restrictions for posting in Off-Topic should never be implemented (apart from neglecting post and activity count) but controlling spams by locking mega-threads would be a great idea IMO.

Accumulate activity.
Buy or circle merit.

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The merit restriction is more of an inconvenience for the smart account farmers and for the low-functioning ones, they will buy it off of the former.

Yeah, theymos thought of this too...and he is still thinking...


I really don't get the off-topic section
- there is little merit to be earned there so there is no point in merit fishing
- most signature don't pay for the section and as hosseinimr93 said there are a lot of new accounts with no signature posting there
- activity is meaningless without merits to rank up...
- you really can't have a real discussion and interaction between posters is close to zero

So...why do those people still shitpost in there?

Are they trying to make some posts so when they stat bumping topics in the altcoin section they don't show up with zero posts? Don't think so..
So why??? Anyone with an explanation that could hold water for this?

That's why iasenko suggested this:

Making "off-topic" board free of signatures won't solve the problem. Most of the posts there doesn't contain signature.
Seems that some people post there only for increasing their activity. (I don't know what is the benefit of high activity when the user doesn't have any merit)

I counted the posts that contain signature in the first page of all four topics you mentioned.
Only 11 of the 63 posts contain signature.

This is a place where all the account farmers generate activity and later sell those accounts. I see no point anymore as you can sell only Newbies if you don't have a Merit Source on a speed dial and those newbies even Jr worht nothing.



Yeah, this just feels naturally right. So let's f*king do it! I know theymos don't like restrictions but this will be a positive one


This is the only section that it's a mess and has no moderator. See how Flying Hellfish is dealing with the Politics section, it was almost the same before that so Off-topic can be usefull.

As all of you guys said, you don't get in this section because it's a mess, but if it wasn't like it is today, you may find some interesting things there for sure.

A few signature campaigns don't pay for posts in the Off-Topic section, and I think that's how would approach it if I was managing a campaign.  But it is the off-topic section, and I don't see any reason to restrict a subject's worthiness.  If a manger wants to pay for posts about avoiding toenail fungus, I don't know if that really hurts the forum in general.  Sure, it may lead to sig-spamming but at least it's contained in that section.  Most of the threads in that section don't hold any interest to me, so I don't click on them.

Don’t think I’ve ever posted in the Off Topic section. I’ve had a quick peek in there once or twice & it’s so full of absolute shit that I don’t think most campaigns pay their participants to post there any way.
If they do then that needs to change. Off Topic is a hive for some of the shittiest posters on the entire forum.

Given that the Off-topic section is already a cesspool, this seems like a wonderful idea to start our purge of nonsense threads.

If there's no rank-up incentive to post there, we'll have genuine discussions, not just "what's your favorite food" or "what kind music you like?"
Since Serious discussion + Ivory tower are kind of an amalgamation of genuine off-topic + bitcoin this would be a proper way shift things towards that direction in a more public sector of the forum.

There is a lot of pollution in the Off-topic section. I haven't got the time to browse there last few months but I was browsing patrol and suddenly came to a post in "Why do people watch and follow sport?"
This is ridiculous. Well I kept browsing and reporting similar threads but I see a lot of people wearing signatures posting there. Somewhere I read that some sig. campaigns pay for posts in Off-topic, which as ridiculous as the first thread I gave as example.


Why don't we make the off-topic section free of signatures.Why advertising crypto in non-crypto section of the forum? Reduce a bit the spam there and assign a moderator as well?
There are some great threads there but are burred under the shit like this :

Where did you go this year?
How to sleep better?
I always feel tired

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I have some additional ideas, like make restrictions like in the Ivory Tower, so no posts and activity are generated from posting in that section then the spam will Suddenly disappear from there, and all those account farmers will have to find a real job . (i know what you gonna say, they will move to the other sections to spam, but hey, it won't be easy, i try to report shitposters every day)