Topic: Posts quality, WTF!? (Read 1404 times)

Just to let all you know.
I’d written a message to theymos, actually was asking for 2 things, which were:

1. To leave his opinion of this thread (publicly or privately doesn’t matter)
2. To stick the thread in Meta or elsewhere so community could be able to systematize suggestions.

Theymos never answered yet. Since my message had been likely read and nothing of asked is managed I consider it as an answer hence there doubtfully will be any official reaction.

In the near future it’s quite unlikely for us to see any fundamental changes.



You’re still welcome to make proposals anyway

Remove altcoin campaigns? Why?

SMAS is only limited to the managers that are part of it and those that are using the SMAS list. This isn't a forum initiative. I fail to see how it could improve other than us getting even more campaigns to manage. I am not going to go play whack a mole in random campaigns, knowing that often the users that I point out won't get kicked from it (see the shitcoin Waves campaign).

This is a very bad proposal that won't do anything. Scratch it.

Trash the whole thread and ban, yes.

Amen.

This was discussed before / is too prone to abuse and will not work properly.

Put it all on fire.

I have no idea why you're telling me this. No idea what cave you've been living in.

What about mods locking spammy threads ? I've seen threads with 1k + replys and people dare not to read them and just reply what have been told hundreds of times, I have seen it before but no so often as I would like to, do we have to report these threads to be locked upon request of us ?

Specifically the altcoin section has become a total shitshow due to spammers and scammers.

The moderation on BCT has always been very lax regarding some things like scams for good reasons (time), but I think the stricter enforcement of the unofficial official rules would be very useful. It's funny that those are hidden away in the Meta section instead of being advertised with a big red button on the top of every page: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/unofficial-list-of-official-bitcointalkorg-rules-guidelines-faq-703657
edit: Well they are on the top of every altcoin forum (oops), the point about the enforcements of those rules stands though. I guess it comes down to number of moderators, the altcoin section having only one strikes me as odd as well (although he has always reacted to my few reports).

So make use of the "Report to moderator" button besides every post, if enough people did that, mods would perhaps be so annoyed by the amount of reports that they finally did something. One could even advertize that idea with a signature or avatar campaign. BCT riot!

BTW: I wonder how many bots are posting on this forum.

It is easy to look upon those posts and thread which are pointless and nonsense. This forum is free for everyone, i think this forum needs a moderator or a police moderator just like that to regulate those spammers and nonsense threads. They can as well implement more strict rules than the currently we have right now. Lets just stay tune and see if they can solve this problem, i know they are well aware of it since it is too obvious.

Global moderator Hilariousandco multiple times offered various solutions to spam problem. But main person of this forum - theymos, he ignores the problem. Maybe it means that he is happy about current situation here on bitcointalk?

If it won’t take much time I don’t see any reasons why not to do it. Having all those suggestions and conclusions in one place could result in something one day.

For now here’s intermediate list of suggestions aimed to solve spam problem according to thread participants:

1. Release ban hammer! Remove altcoin campaigns from the forum along with banning their signatures until they get the hint.

2. Improve SMAS initiative (how?)

3. Create specific sections of the forum for things like 'signature campaign discussion', 'how
to earn bitcoin', and similar topics that keep getting created. Then campaigns should not pay for
posts in those sections.  This will be of benefit in two ways:
- Members could use the ignore board function to block those spammy sections
- It would discourage people from making spammy topics like those. 

5. Ban people who persist in opening shitty threads (repeated, etc) as well as ban people who keep posting there.

6. Give negative trust ratings to spammers.

7. Add a feature to up or down vote a thread. Then users could scan the list and see the threads that have been given up votes.

8. Implement "thread blacklist" or "ignore thread" feature. Which would allow users to mark these "spam megathreads" and never see them again. (Something like a "negative watchlist")

9. Do nothing, cause it’s hopeless

Block campaigns without proper moderation might be a good solution.

I think you will have trouble finding someone with my experience/knowledge on the matter. I've been banned for this very same thing, was moderating the forum for a few months and managed (or am managing) some signature campaigns. I've also participated in a number of previous discussions on this matter. Kitty has attained wisdom.

I could rehash a number of things from previous threads, but what's the point when the administration doesn't even want to comment on the problem publicly let alone solve it?

Apart from my support to apply stricter rules, I would personally enjoy a "thread blacklist" or "ignore thread" feature, which would allow users to mark these "spam megathreads" and never see them again. (Something like a "negative watchlist")

Ideally, forum users should be able to view the list of forum users who blacklisted a thread. This could be educational for signature campaign managers, because they could see which threads would not add much visibility for their campaigns, so they would be incentived to not pay posts in threads ignored by a large number of forum users.

 I don't know if SMF supports this feature, however.

lol, do we inhabit the same universe?    
Oh, i see. Those are with your posts (https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/jump-ranks-2156318 or https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/real-life-bitcointalk-2150777) also consists of many opinions and different views, right mate ?  


I admit there’s evident logic in your statements, it’s also clear you’ve faced this problem and discussion before. I assume you have your own sight of how it could be solved. Curious to hear.

No, a lot of threads are mostly consists of opinions and different views of every individual so everyone has their own thoughts. If you want "normal talk" then find other bitcoin enthusiast personally so you can discuss with them with useful information face to face.

You move it far away from the place which your reside (the forum). You don't keep moving your garbage from 1 room to another or creating small compartments in your house to keep this garbage forever.

Another bad idea. Most (maybe not the former) legendary and hero members nowadays are farmed/bought accounts and there is absolutely no way to generalize them in an expectancy of reasonable voting.

I think it will help alot. And making up/down vote option available only to legendary and hero members? Of course status just means activities not quality but when I have a question or need help, I get satisfactory and quite objective answer from these guys. They are more than familiar with the forum and have better experience with bitcoin that help alot for newbies like me.

You know moving garbage from one place to another is not so bad idea at all, that’s what we all regularly do in our life.


So what? I see our (community) role here in systematically pointing out a (1) problem (2) solutions (3) and making those suggestions available for moderators/administration to get familiar to. Let it be their thorn in the ass. For that sake mod should stick this or similar thread in Meta section or elsewhere (I’ll try to send an inquiry). I could’ve rename and edit this thread if needed to systematize adequate suggestions in one place.



That may create a field for abusing against respectable users

That is indeed a much better idea, and I think it would be a much fitter
ending for these lame excuses for human beings.  But you know as well as I do
that the powers that be don't want to do that. They (or he) wouldn't even implement
my suggestion or any variation thereof.  Feels like wasted thought and typing.

I liked your previous suggestion that theymos should turn the forum over to people
who care about it.  That's not going to happen either.

Maybe add a feature to up or down vote a thread?  Then users could scan the list and see the threads that have been given up votes.

Moderating such an active forum is virtually impossible.  Up/down voting could get the users to take a more active role in helping moderators triage their limited time.

We all know about signature spam problem. There was hundreds proposals how to solve it, but almost zero actions. There are many more or less effective ways how to reduce spam: Give negative trust ratings to spammers, ban them or remove them place for signature. I can continue, but such offers was posted many times in past andnothing has been done to stop spammers.
And I think that worst thing which happened to this forum is Altcoin signature campaigns. Literally, every spammer is free to join it. No matter, how terrible quality of your posts will be, you will get paid. And people spamming with tens or even hundreds alt accounts.

So you mean to say banning signature campaigns is the only way to solve this problem ? I think not.

Either way SMAS has reduced spam to a certain extent.Not all campaign managers choose quality participants as of SMAS standards.They do keep an eye for participants banned by SMAS but still that doesn't guarantee the replacement participant accepted has good posting quality.

Is the difference so big between a short crappily written post and a 2-3 paragraphs long sugar-coated post which contains nothing of essence but sports perfect grammar? Because I have seen both and honestly as long as people get paid to post around here the barrage of pretended replies will continue.

I have a much better idea that this useless diversion: Trash both and ban people who persist in opening those threads/posting in them. For example, if you open a "How to earn Bitcoin?" thread in Beginners & Help you are either an illiterate idiot (as a thread summarizing this is the 3rd stickied thread of the section) or you're intentionally doing this to spam post / help your other (or just others) accounts rank up by spam-answering.

The idea is inherently useless. Real world equivalent to the *idea*: "We have a trash problem; there's so much of it. What do we do?!? I know, let's take all the garbage from place A to place B so that we can't see it each day. That's a great solution!".

I generally like an idea of creating specific sections. Could you improve your idea with more details? Maybe someday our suggestions will be heard 

SMAS is great! But what a pity it’s never going to solve the problem and I’ll tell you why. As long as it is self regulated community based on voluntary formation, truly honorable SMAS participants can’t force one to enroll. Actually I see one way for it to become more effective and it’s about implementing SMAS as a common courtesy to each campaign, so it could obtain something like a Michelin stars for restaurants status. From that side, SMAS would become a supervision institution for campaign managers and campaigns which could be for example labeled in appropriate way rising trust level of a whole project.

Well, one thing I noticed is that the shit poster would reply to the first thread with a post that is not necessarily short or bad. However, the answer to the OP's question or point has already addressed many times before the shit poster's reply. So one measure of quality should be the uniqueness and originality of the reply. A response that is correct but is just a repetition of what somebody else has said is for the most part a shit post.

Create specific sections of the forum for things like 'signature campaign discussion', 'how
to earn bitcoin', and similar topics that keep getting created.  Then campaigns should not pay for
posts in those sections.  This will be of benefit in two ways: 1) Members could use the ignore board
function to block those spammy sections, and 2) It would discourage people from making spammy
topics like those. 

I agree that signature campaigns have all but ruined this forum.  This is what happens when you
pay people to post.

While im reading some information this is caught my attention so now i just want to ask some questions is there a required length and quality that we need to post?

We all know the benefits of decreasing spam on the forum ,can you propose an idea which realistically has the potential to decrease spam without hampering the things as they're now ? For instance,take SMAS initiative by Lutpin/Lauda.You can think of something similar which doesn't need involvement of moderators.

Wait, why should I as a forum participant care about someone revenue? Don’t get me wrong, I believe that any project as long as it not non commercial, should gain income. But bct is a forum first of all isn’t it? Well, repurpose it into a marketplace or something like that or at least create special sub forum, people might understand these moves.
Once again I’m not agitating to ban bounties, signature campaigns and etc. Regulate it in appropriate way, that’s all. The majority of users will be grateful.
Ignoring this issue will bring only negative consequences in the long run.

P.S. traffic gains are significant indeed

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.

I think every bounty campaign that we will follow has its own rules and we can only accept it.
post in this forum there is also a rule that we should not violate so surely you will be familiar with this

The administration of this forum has mostly ignored any suggestions related to solving this problem. What exactly makes you think that a petition to the "head moderator" would do anything? There's only one active global moderator, and he can't change the forum policies nor tackle this problem on his own.

---

Another example of a monopoly ruining everything for its customers/users.

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.

There have been numerous suggestions on how to deal with the spam but all have been ignored. The easiest one would be to crack down on lazy campaigns and remove them from the forum along with banning their signatures until they get the hint but this can't be enforced without admin input. At the moment anyone can create a crapcoin and a signature campaign to go along with it and pay an unlimited amount of users to promote it with no quality checks at all. Anyone can also create as many accounts as they want to milk these lazily run campaigns dry and hence why the forum is such a shit show. As long as this is allowed to continue it's only going to get worse day after day.

I believe the staff are aware of the problem, but lack a solution.

What do you suggest we do?

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?