Topic: Signature spam - how to force users to read before replying? (Read 673 times)

At least users will be warned and consider starting a new thread when they want to reply on a thread that hasn't been posted for 120 days or more. I think it will be the benchmark for us to start a new thread.

But if they believe that the replies are quite useful and important then I don't think it will count as necrobump. Just useless replies whose purpose is crashing thread is part of necrobump in my opinion.

If there's a recent and active one then no, you shouldn't create a new thread if it basically deals with the same material being discussed.  However, if you do a search to find out if there's a thread about something you're thinking of starting a thread about and it turns out there's a thread from 2 years ago, then I'd say go ahead and create a new one. 

"Necrobumping" or resurrecting an old thread is against the rules, but I'm not sure if the rules spell out how old the thread needs to be in order to consider it a necrobump.  I think it also has to do with how relevant/important the post is that bumps it.  Sometimes you see members bumping threads from 2012 (or earlier) just to write something short and stupid.  There's no need for that.  And some would consider bumping a 4-5 month old thread to be necrobumping, but I think that's a little extreme.

You could say that. Funnily though, those that are updated/ active tend to have people spouting the same thing over and over.

I wasn't aware of that, thank you. However, I guess it's not a good idea to create a new discussion thread if one already exists with a similar topic and active discussion?

The information in an already existing thread might be outdated. Bitcoin and the blockchain is an evolving ecosystem. The rules and solutions proposed a few years ago might not work today, or the steps to resolve specific problems could have changed. Don't forget that we are also dealing with different software and hardware and what might be the best option for one software/hardware, might not work as well for the other.

Very often it's not suggested to necro bump an old thread unless you are bringing something useful to the discussion. It is suggested to users to create their own threads instead.

I actually agree with that mindset, but only for huge forums like this one. Yes, usually in RPG forums, opening a thread that has the same discussed subject should be closed or merged with the official one. But, for bitcointalk or any other forum that has millions of users, I find it unfair to not be able to discuss freely.

If someone opened a thread back in 2011 talking about mining with GPUs, it doesn't mean that I have to necessarily ask my question there. I could simply create my thread explaining my issues. Remember, once a new thread is created, it notifies the sub-forum watchers and they can judge by the topic title if they're interested in.

The wall observer is the only exception fortunately; I honestly couldn't be notified every time the price dumped/pumped with a new thread.

When I came here, I noticed that a lot of members were opening up new topics when there was already a similar discussion going on. This is prohibited in most online communities. I wonder why it does not apply here as well? This might have something to do with the mindset of today's youth who want everything instantly. My experience of using various social media platforms for many years has taught me to respect the netiquette and best practices of communities.

I totally agree with that, some things are better cut at the root than letting them develop to the point where they become shitposting mega-threads. We have one such recommendation in Bitcoin Discussion, and it would be good if each board has an additional explanation of what a low quality topic is and what all users should adhere to.

I think with the following highlighted reasons no system would work effectively on the forum, I think those were the reasons the trust system is not moderated, it could have been worse than what we have now.

This is not even the worse part of it, de-meriting would cause 12th century slavery on the forum, merit source would be more powerful than theymos ; having the right to de-merit already merited users to scratch if you deal speak against them, you must be loyal to them all the days of your life on the forum.

Imagine Campaign Managers having to deal with deranking; more headaches to deal with too. Definitely not a good idea.

Just because something works (If you say so as I never visited that forum) on altcointalk doesn't mean it would work here. This is much bigger forum, and with people having financial incentive to retaliate against each other and long standing feuds. Theoretically, I like the idea of downvoting, but knowing bitcointalk it would be abused. Forum staff is probably aware of that and that's why we won't see something like that implemented anytime soon. Same goes for de-meriting, which was also suggested more times, and would lead to the same thing.

This could be a great factor to consider before putting such a system in place but it not different from the trust system on BTT where the trust system is being used as a weapon of retaliation. Like I said before there is no perfect system, the dislike and like system would work perfectly if it's limited to certain ranks (Sr. Members upwards )

On the Atlcointalk forum there is a + karma and -Karma on every profile to fight against shiposters and it works perfectly because negative karma reduces your activity points thus making it impossible for such user to rank up.

Good job! I agree, reporting posts is not in vain. Some people might say "this is not our job" or "its pointless as spammers never learn" but I've seen cases where people posting changed for better after contacting them.


Not strictly connected to this, but what I would like to see is people reporting poorly written opening posts in the topics more often, instead just answering them, as it's kinda harder to get such topics deleted when they get more  answers.

In addition to your post repetition report, you can ask the moderators to close this thread.
Sometimes a lot of the same topics appear, we cannot fix it. Every year, views on this or that thing may be different. Therefore, let there be many similar topics, different in the time of creation and timely closed. This is better than the existing mega streams, in which information flows "from empty to empty", at a time when everyone understands that no one will read posts written long ago.

I'm glad you're back on that thread, it's not just an obvious example that people don't read - but that they persistently refuse to understand what it's all about. Even the OP continues with its thesis about 1 BTC -> 60 cars, after all that has been written - which is really amazing, maybe we are dealing with a poorly trained artificial intelligence



I did a test and report 3 posts from this thread, by using this in report "The user repeats exactly what has already been said in the post" as suggested by @LeGaulois and all 3 post are deleted. I know that some will surely hate me because I will report such posts, but I believe that it can have a good effect and that some users can change for the better.

I remembered game-protect, a Legendary member got permbanned for plagiarism though so I guess we're still not out of the woods

I don't think that there should be any kind of discriminations based upon the ranks. The posts should be deleted by the moderators if they think it is not up to the mark and not first check, what is the rank of the user.

It could be the case that since few of your posts were deleted, you now giving more aatention in your post and therefore they are being not deleted and it is not linked with your Sr Member rank.

Let's say for example you report some scammer/abuser, and he retaliates by activating his army of alts that are following you around and keep disliking/downvoting your posts. If mods have to intervene in those cases, that would just mean more work for them. Bare in mind that bitcointalk is different than reddit (which I also regularly use for many years), with all these signature campaigns and financial incentives. Another thing that you can be sure of is if something can be abused here, it will be.



Exactly this. Even the most notorious shitposters will start asking themselves what are they doing wrong, and maybe even come to Meta asking, as many of them did exactly that after few dozens of their posts got deleted.



I don't think that merit system failed, and that it's purpose was to remove all spam (which is impossible anyway). If that was indeed the case, theymos would simply make everyone start from the beginning instead airdropping the merit based on activity. The way I understand it, one of the ideas behind introducing the merit system is to make it much harder for new  shitposters/spammers to rank up, therefore reducing amount of spam done via signature campaigns.

As someone who started from scratch and went through that "grind", I must say that shitposter will have a very hard job  reaching anything above Member rank, meaning merit system works. Maybe its not perfect, but what is?

I feel that there is some leeway to higher ranked memebers, when I used to be full member I used to get my posts deleted frequently but since I became senior it seems to be less and less. It could sure be some kind of fallacy ofc.

Yes, as long as they can make new posts, they will continue to spam without any notice to deleted posts.
For example, take a look at post history of this user (Archived). You can't find any meaningful post. The user is still posting while he/she has more than 300 deleted posts. (Reference: BPIP)

There is no doubt a user with that high number of deleted posts should be banned.
I am not saying any user with more than X deleted posts should be banned. But we definitely need more strict rules for spamming.
Many of users who spam for their signature campaigns are high-ranked members. I feel moderators never ban high-ranked users for spamming?