Topic: newbie jail (Read 2638 times)

Course I did. Complained a bit (about how easy it is to game the system) but didn't really mind it.

Then proceeded to ask a few questions about Bitcoin basics and got an extremely detailed answer by amazing users DeathAndTaxes and DannyHamilton, which, unfortunately went straight over my head but I was too proud to admit that at the time

Seriously, I get your objection, I can see how posting restrictions for newbies are a bit off-putting for some, but I also don't think it's unreasonably "elitist" to demand of newcomers to educate themselves for one or two days before they're let loose on the public.

The Newcomer forum, where you're expected to ask a few questions to learn the ropes, doesn't seem like such a bad idea to me.

I found the newbie section quite helpful when I first started. Spent a little while after release answering peoples questions too. It doesn't have to be a bad thing, that's just the perception some people have. Partly because of how we refer to it.

@odo.krell: Have you tasted newbie jail?

This would only scare away people who really want to discuss. 'Ignore' button is better.

   -MZ

Ibian said it best a few posts above: Even if the exact method is up for debate, the survey result of this thread speaks for itself.

Ignoring en masse, newbie jail, etc... those are all blunt tools, sure, far from ideal for dealing with the problem at hand.

But as the survey shows, there is a wide-spread perception among members that there is a problem^*, and that the forum administration should try harder to find ways how to solve it (ideally, with the help of the community).


^* The problem, in one brief phrase, being 'low signal-to-noise ratio'.

You are thinking from a "everyone want what is best for the community" perspective. The countless trolls do not. They are a real problem and need to be dealt with.

Thats a very strange point of view, not being able to read a topic due to the fact that we can't do everything is not the same as actively ignoring people in a way that is destructive to conversation. If I dont have time to read a thread, then its a given that I dont have time to post there, which means I have 0 impact on the thread what so ever. Ignoring others with valid inputs while still posting in a thread is destructive to the environment created.

The point of a forum is to stimulate conversation about a topic (Bitcoin in our case) if everyone is ignored, why bother even coming here? One huge issue I see, is what if you decide to ignore every newbie. How do you contribute to conversation that those newbies are part of? What if they are discussing something, and you end up just repeating what one of them says? You are then inadvertently spamming. The point is that you are supposed to think critically about a topic, people's opinions, and your own opinions to share your point of view or to add information so that others may expand their points of view as well. If there is a person who is taking away from that, you ignore them and you carry on or report them if they are breaking a rule. If you want to have a conversation with yourself you don't need Bitcointalk for that, there are far better environments for a relaxing chat with yourself.

Another thought, what makes a newbie's post less valid than a legendary members? I have over 90 days logged on to this forum, but I dont think my ability to discuss nor my opinions have changed much in that time. Will the newbies you have ignored automatically be worth unignoring after they post 28 posts over two weeks? And is it not our responsibility as active members of the Bitcoin community to try and help educate new members so that Bitcoin can be more than just an obscure internet currency for geeks and drug dealers? What if we had ignored the beginning questions of the newbies that now own multi million dollar businesses that represent the Bitcoin community on the news and to people who don't know Bitcoin? If you personally choose to not take part, thats fine, but why should the forum accomodate something that in mass would be harmful?

I see much less issue with newbies spamming, than people with signature advertisements spamming.

Signature campaigns shouldnt accept newbies. In this way newbies dont require to post everywhere.

Ignoring people doesn't really do anything lol, the place where the post is is still there, just made a tiny bit smaller. Also you might miss out on some people's opinions and then be confused on why everyone is talking about something you ignored. Grouping multiple people together also isn't the best idea, satoshi was a newbie one day

The Wall Observer thread is currently 11761 pages. It's over quarter of million posts. That's just one thread. The whole forum is over 10 millions of posts. Have you read all of them? I'm afraid not. You haven't read most of us. Does it mean you dislike most of us?

I think not. It's not about disliking people, it's just that life is short and we can't do everything. We have to choose what to read and what not to. We all have to filter out and we all do it.

So how do we filter out? We frequent some favorite topics and threads and rarely if ever visit the rest. Which mean we all commit group filtering and I can see nothing wrong in it.
But even in our favorite topics we probably skim or skip most of stuff. Again, I cannot see anything wrong with it, the only problem with such filtering is that it is not effective. We may miss some valuable posts, but in the same time we read a lot of posts we don't really need or want to.

I don't know which solution Theymos would choose, but any one would be an improvement over the current state.


tl; dr;
- All of us are gilty in the ignoring sin.
- All of us are gilty in the group ignoring sin.
- All we need is a feature to do this group ignoring more effectively.
- Theymos, please do something!  

Still overwhelmingly Yes. Something needs to be done, whatever that something turns out to be.

Why not just ignore individuals? Automatically ignoring thousands of people would probably do more harm that good. The point of ignoring someone is to not see garbage posts, there is no way an entire usergroup can be clumped together for post quality. The ignore feature is for people you dislike, and those that you feel provide nothing to conversations so you would rather not read their responses anyway. I can see a lot of issues arising from mass ignoring people. There are threads where people discuss their ignored list if you feel you have missed people you meant to ignore, but I cant see turning the ignore system into a popularity contest going well.



And there goes people's rights to pseudonymity. Also, you would then only be allowing people who own phones to register for the forums.

Thanks.

Typical habits from Spanish and Portuguese, which are my native languages.

Probably I haven't put it clearly. What I mean is an option in profile: "ignore users with status ..." and a tickbox for each status. So everyone would be able to choose, say, "read legendary only". Or "read newbies only". Or "read everybody but heroes". Or whatever combination you want to choose.

But the best solution, IMO, would be being able to subscribe to somebody's black/white list (with your own personal ignores/unigrores on top of it).
There would always be enough of volunteers to maintain such lists, so we would have just to choose which one to use.

That would be the Holy Grail of free speech: everybody can talk, but nobody have to listen

EDIT: I put it to OP.

Newbie jail is one out of many solutions to solve the underlying problem: too many newbie spam and fud

If newbie jail is not coming back, we could at least make it harder for spammers to register new alts one after another. This forum is not short of money. Use the bitcoin to register a phone verification service. New members has to enter the code sent to their phone to activate their new bitcointalk account.

The phone number is hashed and stored in the database, so the same number cannot be registered twice.

Uhm, ignoring ALL newbies and members and full members is a bit extreme don't you think? There are a lot of people in these ranks who don't post shit and shit only.
I vote for a reopen of the newbiejail though, too damn many people selling 128 GB iPhone's 6+ for 100$ on fresh accounts

Don't even know what this Newbie Jail is but as i see it , it might have been a feature in past , stopping newbie's from commenting or something. But whatever it may be , i don't think it shall be done.Since alot of newbie's here are legit and some who doesn't leave their local area are active regular and are still newbie or so , just because they just lurk the forums.

Just want to help out with that translation: "debils" --> "the weak"; "the big occidental" --> "the large Western nations"; "We never wouldn't want" --> "We would never want"

Cheers!

Precisely what I said.


I doubt that.

Like I said, they need to re-open accounts all the time because the old ones get ignored, so it means at the very least they now have one additional task (keep "grooming" a new batch of accounts for later posting).



Now we're talking. So the forum I mentioned is just a bunch of idiots posting anyway, and little of value is lost if it's drowned by trolls.

Talk about "watery shite" arguments, huh?

I don't believe it ever was called that but what we name it doesn't matter.


'High powdered trolls' wont care about waiting out some minor restrictions and will just do what they can to bypass them but you do put off other genuine users in the meantime who just want to contribute to the forum. The six minute wait for newbs is already pretty annoying but trolls wont mind it.


The speculation forum has always been full of watery shite from newbs bickering about the price and there's only so many ways you can speculate about what's going to happen to it so I wouldn't ever expect there to be much quality discussion in there.

Don't call it 'newbie jail' if you prefer, but re-introducing some probation period for new accounts is highly desirable in my opinion.

On some days, the entire speculation forum is flooded by useless drivel of new accounts, and moderation isn't the solution (since mods remove spam, but not troll posts).

I've asked for reintroducing the probation period before, and it was clear to me that there is no interest from theymos' side to change the status quo, so I'm skeptical it'll be different this time, but, that said:

I support bringing back posting restriction for newly registered accounts. 'Restriction' being in the form of a short period during which they are only allowed to post in the newcomer forum, and with the possible exception of leaving "jail" earlier if they write a few particularly good posts (good questions, good answers to other newbies' questions, etc.)

To be clear: the goal is not to make newbies' lives harder, but to make it slightly more costly time-wise for high powered trolls and spammers to open new accounts on a regular basis, which they need to do because their old ones are getting ignored after N posts on average.