Topic: Merit against spam: reward spam reporters & punish spammers - page 2. (Read 599 times)

Now imagine this:
-bots create 10,000 accounts
-bots start spamming "great project" with 10,000 accounts
-1000 bots start reporting the other 9000 accounts
-1000 bots turn Jr. Member and continue spamming with signature
-Mods run away screaming

If you want to get Merits fast, write useful posts. That's what Merit was meant for in the first place.

If you are not able to do so but are not a spammer either, get your hands dirty and help us clean up this mess. So yes, I think 500 per Merit really is an acceptable amount. It's that, or writing useful posts, or nothing. Can't complain about an additional way of earning some Merits, right?

(But hey, we could test it and see if lower amounts give better results)

Reporter badge already has proposed by admin. Most likely he is working on it. One merit for 500 good report isn't big deal for forum. I don't think new people will encourage to make report only for single merit. Those can make 500 good report they can make one quality post and will receive more than one merit. So merit is not main fact for that. Those are reporting now they will continue even there is no reward. Actually we are reporting what we don't like really. Obviously its good for forum.

On the other hand detect spam post will very hard for spambie. So they will report wrong post and mod will too busy. It will be more better if we can motivate peoples for make good post. Even here is merit system peoples still doing spam so we can't stop spammer by the way. Just we can try to motivate them.

Reporting 500,000 to enable potential legendary sounds like a strange and hard to remember number. I would suggest keeping things simple and making it 1M.

Merit as the reward for the spam reporters is also abusing the merit system.I think the reward for the spam reporters are the reporter badges which will encourage the users to report more,if we have the merits for number of reports then the bounty hunters will click all the report to moderator button in every thread which makes huge work load for the mods.

Isn't it demeaning for a newbie to try to earn one single merit for reporting a mammoth/gigantic 500 posts, I'll rather stay on the forum without merits,and read,learn and report spam posts without really witch hunting for them..

Removing merits from spammers is impossible,there is currently no Demerits system in place in the forum,though @Loycev has made a thread proposing it, but it's yet to be approved..
So no matter what a user does,his/her merit remains with'em, even if they get banned...

I can't really see the advantage of this suggestion,as we'll simply be getting tons of bad reports from noobs who find it hard to earn one elusive merit the "right" way

Reporting spam posts is simply ones own voluntary way of contributing/giving back to the forum

There is a far easier solution to all of this which i have suggested many times.

Nobody wants to spend their time snitching and reporting real bad things and lesser evils that are  just annoying kids seeking a few bucks (cant say that i don't empathise a bit with some) that spoil the board experience.

A system that would allow you to reward the good and deserving and simply not bother with the rest.

However, without providing any reasonable argument that I could establish within their posts they all said they didn't like the idea.

There will always be a far greater number of kids and people from less well off countries that will go to extreme lengths for a couple of bucks than those not financially/morally motivated to stop them.

In a place like this in the situation we are in now you can not assume everyone is an honest enthusiast that wants to discuss/learn about cc in a reasonable way. It is better to let them prove or at least demonstrate they are capable of such before letting them drive genuine enthusiasts away.

Of course it would boost the reporting ratio. That's the exact purpose.

I mean, why should we even have a "Report to moderator" button altogether, if we don't want to get rid of ALL spam? Is the "Report" link only there to report "some" spam "now and then"? We could as well remove the report function then and get the mods out.

Can you imagine how much mod have to recruited only for checking the reports?
People specially the people who aims to have merit onoy and rank up will start to report a lot of posts daily. If 500 users do that, at least 50 mods will be needed to check those only, IMO.
I believe it will boost up the ratio of reporting useless posts but the ultimate output will be worse than ever.

As I have reported before in this thread, I've continued to report spam posts on a daily basis. It sucks. You feel like cleaning other people's houses, but without being paid for it. It also feels like you're losing the battle cuz every time you clean out a thread, there's new spam the day after. My respect for the mods who do this constantly has been grown even huger since.

Keeping in mind how many - if not all - spammers only do this only for the signature bounty campaigns, I (modestly) think I might have found a way of using the Merit system to actually get rid of new spammers as well as to clean the threads from the spam that's already there, and I believe it might even be quite simple to implement.

This idea no doubt needs to be refined, and I am quite curious to hear the other members' opinion about this.


1. REWARD PEOPLE FOR REPORTING SPAM

For every 500 reported posts, which are evaluated and confirmed as "Good" spam by the mods, users get 1 Merit.

To avoid inaccurate reports (meaning posts that are not actual spam and are qualified as "Bad" non-spam posts), the user only receives this if his accuracy is at least at 99%. If he goes lower than 99%, he loses his number of reported posts and firstly has to continue reporting to get back to 99% from which the counting to 500 restarts from zero.

At the end of this post, I explain why I believe the system should be so severe.


2. PUNISH PEOPLE WHO SPAM

You know those 1 Merit Junior Members? You know those long-membership Full and Senior Members who post nothing but shit? Does "You sir project very unique I follow" ring a bell?

I say: hit them where it hurts most.

Every time 20 posts from a member have been rightfully reported (meaning 20 posts qualified as "Good" spam by the mods), those members lose 1 Merit.


3. ADVANTAGES OF THE SYSTEM

- It would be appreciated by those good-willed Newbies and Juniors who are actually trying to do something useful for the forum, even without necessarily posting rocket science or Nobel Prize in Literature quality, to get a little bit higher in rank. You just can't expect people who are new to crypto, to post HQ topics and replies but at least they can earn some Merits while they are growing and learning. The reward would be nice but not disproportional, because if they wish to grow in rank, they will actually need to report 500 posts which is A LOT. So they will be helping to keep the forums tidy whilst being discouraged to post spam for which they risk to lose Merit again.

- It would be appreciated by those good-willed higher ranked members who are always wondering if it wouldn't be better to get a life, instead of spending hours reporting spam on their favorite forum. At least you'd feel like you're not doing this for nothing. Yes, that includes myself, too . (don't worry, I will continue to actively report even without Merit )

I believe nonetheless that it would especially help newer members, as the reward decreases "relatively" while your rank grows.

Let me use an example to make myself clear:

I have now over 1000 reported posts with 100% accuracy. To me, this would mean 2 Merits, which is nice but modest for a Full Member and even more modest for higher ranks. To a Newbie or Junior Member, however, this is huge, and their participation and involvement in the forums would increase.

- It would be appreciated by those good-willed higher ranked members (this also includes myself), who have been searching endlessly for those lower-ranked good-willed members "who most certainly are out there and deserve to receive sMerits but can't seem to be found nonetheless". Of course, these low-ranks will still be able to receive sMerits for their high-quality posts, but this extra "Spam Reporting Merits" will at least guarantee them a bit more visibility and credibility.

- It would be appreciated by those good-willed mods who do not like to ban people easily. The system would not "kill" or "ban" members but these members would be forced to respect the very minimum low-level requirement of participating in the conversations in a normal people's way to be able to receive Merit and participate in bounty campaigns.

- It would be appreciated by those good-willed members who do not want bounty campaigns to disappear but hate spam nonetheless. Indeed, you've guessed it: this also includes myself. This system would not only clean the existing spam posts, as these would be reported and deleted by the mods. It would also avoid new spam as you risk losing Merits every time 20 of your posts are accurately reported as spam.

- It would be appreciated by those good-willed members who do want to learn more about crypto or other subjects on the forums: by reading, scrolling and reporting spam, you also get to see interesting replies and OP's.

- And to those goldseekers who don't care about interesting topics, involvement or participation, and who came here only to get bounty signature money we now could say: you are most welcome to this forum and can stay a Newbie forever, but if you want to get a higher rank, you'll have to get your hands dirty and work for the forum by reporting spam.

- Keeping the numbers high and the accuracy demands very strict will avoid making a whole new level of Merit accumulation by members who are trying to report posts untruthfully.