Hey guys, I’m not an old-timer here, but posts quality problem is so evident and eye-catching even for me though.
80% of threads consist of pointless posts simply simulating discussion and activity. When I saw few paged threads with paraphrased replies my first impression was like WTF is going on, really doesn’t look like a normal talk. Didn’t take too much time to sort things out and realize where a problem is. IMHO, signature campaigns should be better regulated, maybe limited and users rank system is quite imperfect. I’m not against campaigns at all, but you cannot force one to post regularly and maintain meaningful conversation, it’s frankly incompatible, otherwise you undermine forum the very aim to let people discuss and share useful information.
So do we need changes?
I believe the staff are aware of the problem, but lack a solution.
What do you suggest we do?
We could’ve draft some kind of petition to head moderator or which is more preferable due to new forum development, moderators might want to stick a thread in Meta section for example, where anyone could freely offer or promote their opinion on how to improve rank system and bounty regulation, as well as discuss sanctions for those not willing to obey the rules.
The first thing on my mind is to oblige signature campaign managers to control participants posts a way better, secondly to restrict or lower significantly minimum post amount requirements.
https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/bitcointalk.org, now i know this is not 100% accurate, but it gives a pretty good indication of what the traffic has been up to lately.
I don't think it's in the best interests of the current owners of the forums to change anything at all, hence why they try to ignore the issue as much as possible..
Signature campaigns are one of the things which keeps this forum relevant, it brings in alot of posts = views = money.
If they would follow your suggestion, they would go out of their way to
A. enforce rules which are, with the current mod team, unenforcable (Checking the post quality of thousands of posts daily?), and
B. destroy their own "business"/ forum. Activity / Posts would obviously decrease by alot, which means less traffic, less adrevenue, less rankings in google searches, name it all.