Topic: Since 2018, what did you contribute to prevent signature ads removed globally? (Read 1418 times)

bump

Yeah  a signature ad in and of itself is not bad or good.

It is a tool like a hammer.

Hammers can be used to do good things.

Hammers can be used to do bad things.

Signatures ads here on BTC  can be scam links or good product links

Signature ads here on BTC  can push  people into spamming like mofos.

Or people  just write  what they would write good quality posts.

No one wants a post like this

"BTC to the moooooon baby!!"

With a signature link to a btc doubler.

He did not read my topic title, and my OP. Honestly with you, I don't think  my topic title is too difficult to understand, and my OP is clearly explain the topic title.
We have been luckily to see the success of merit system and the signature has still been allowed to display so far. Moreover, I see the reduce of spamming. Patrol pages are still crowded but there are effects to reduce spamming, IMO. Nowadays, threads on some boards won't be bumped by spamming (as a result of the bump score).

You really didn't got the idea of the thread. Did you read the OP, or you just assumed that based on the subject the OP is against the signatures?
Let me tl;dr to you

Theymos said that if the shitposting continues in a high rate as before the merit system, he will probably remove the signatures totally. So the OP is asking what did you do to stop shitposting and keep the signatures.

You have created this thread to discuss and appreciate the ban of Signatures forum wide but then why are you wearing the signatures yourself ?

Isn't contradictory ?

If you know that years ago (before January of 2014), the forum allowed altcoin giveaways, but after that, it did not allow such giveaways through altcoins; you will seriously think and imagine that someday the head admin might disable all signatures in the forum. So be careful with any post you make, in the aspect of context and quality.
Giveaway threads are not allowed

You can hide all signatures, by using that userscript: Signature Adblock Script [0.5.0]
For avatars, I think you can make request to communit developers, here: [BRAINSTORM] Any requests for custom extensions/user scripts for BitcoinTalk?
For more userscripts, you can find here: List of Bitcointalk.org Userscripts/ Add-ons

nothing. because the only thing that could help is removing all paid sigs.
you would be surprised to see who does not write anything anymore.

edit. and avatars. i cant hide them 

There certainly is a positive and negative element to signature campaigns, it's been a few months since I have been part of one and it really hasn't changed much for me personally except I have less coin for collectibles. I think a short-term experiment could really aid us to have the data necessary to draw better conclusions about signature campaigns as a whole.

I'm embarrassed to share my report stats, they're not the most accurate I've only reported 300 posts, but in my defense most of my "bad reports" are judgement calls in the Digital Goods sections about illegal/fraudulent goods being sold. I can't wait until I can access report-stats, how/when is that available to me? 500 Reports IIRC?

I can't say I have done too terribly much to prevent spam and prevent signature ads from being removed globally. I will say that I was the first to do the whole "sMerit Review", which definitely helped shape a couple dozen members that I see as much better contributors these days: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/smerit-post-review-2819141

Then, there was the "Signatureless Challenge", which I was a big sponsor and advocate for. That got newbies excited about more than just "bounties" and allowed them to focus on actually contributing in more benevolent manner: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/joes-signatureless-challenge-win-25-4-merits-every-week-paused-3784164 , I'd really like to get that signatureless campaign/challenge back up and running; any takers on getting that going again?

A lot of the time the most good someone can do is within themselves; I'm not trying to sound like a fortune cookie, but if every individual made changes to be a better poster, contribute to the community, follow the rules and only represent companies they would be proud to wear publicly then we would have quite an impressive corner of the internet. I used to post rather low-quality posts a few years ago, but I've improved and attempted to assist others in improving.

I know I'm jumping in the thread late, but let me have my fun and reminisce. Ever since YoBit actually got temporarily banned from advertising, and over a dozen of their participants got banned as well I have seen an intense tightening of signature campaign rules, participants and managers.

It's the people outside sig campaigns who come out with the most rubbish and nothing other than reporting them will deal with it unless there's some automated way of disposing of a post with several hundred Facebook and Twitter links.

Sig campaigns are gradually being tamed and are becoming more discerning. The threat of their removal is probably what's brought the grottiest into line. Dunno how you apply that to the content of posts. Then again the distant prospect of entering one is possibly what keeps shitposting hopes up.

I'm tired so I don't know if this actually sounds as good as I think it does. How about max number of posts per week that can show a sig.
You can post as much as you want but only the 1st "X" number of posts actually show a signature.

400 posts this week. Fine, only the 1st 20 have a sig, the rest are blank.

-Dave

Hmm. I hadn't considered that.

I would say the crappiest posters are outside sig campaigns and squirting their diarrhoea all over the alt sections with miles of links to Twitter or posting 'real' shitposts elsewhere in the hope of getting enough rank to get into a campaign.

I presume the forum operators aren't interested in experiments. They'd rather keep things humming while attempting to ease the junk to the margins. Perhaps a short sharp shock would achieve more but I can see why they wouldn't be into the idea.

I asked for this myself.  And I have end my free endorsement of simplemining.net in my signature.

Along with my free endorsement of the Avalon a1041 under my avatar. I think a one month vacation could do us all some good.

This would only stop one kind of spam.  But shit posts with blind links to whatever would go on maybe increase.

I would love to see the data.  Ie 10000 posts a day saying here is a link to ?

Turns into  25000 posts a day saying here is a link to ?

It could be that paid signatures really have a hidden good. Ie prevent bs links to really bad shit.

We will never know unless we test this by a temporary signature ban to get the new stats.

Depends on person. Some might have made this forum a home, so they will stay here with their fellow beings while some may leave who were here for money benefit  — good posters with paid signatures.

There are more merits from normal users. Merits do not only come from merit sources.
If 21k merits used by merit sources each month, forum will have 10.5k smerits to use each month. In reality, those figures of available smerits are higher due to cumulative figures over time.

If the rolling merit requirements lead to more merit spellings, it is good. Because it will help forum becoming cleaner. What we witnessed with Junior Member derank last year is a good example. People instantly reacted by sending merits to deranked Junior members, than they all caught.  But it is not main reason to think of rolling merit requirements, because I think main reasons are to force people doing more constructive posts, especially high-ranked users, who will also see their risks of deranks if they keep posting garbage.
People who makes good posts will not have any issues with rolling merit requirements, IMO.

The question is does the 21,045 sMerits being generated by merit sources enough to satisfy all the members from dropping their ranks? Now I don't the exact number of active members here in the forum but 21k won't cut it even if it send half of the sMerits sent to them it still not enough to guarantee all the members can receive sMerits. The merit system is designed to make post better not create a turmoil in the community in which makes members desperate on ranking up with the "Rolling Merit" idea you have you will only create merit selling more profitable for people who are actually doing it, as what have been discussed before they are doing their business elsewhere and they'll have a huge demand for their merits once this will be introduce.

Really i would like to see how many are here only for discussions without any money related benefit. I am saying this because signatures are worn by not only spammers but also the very good posters are wearing signatures too.

It is obvious that spammers will go away (when they find no money) but those good posters with paid signatures will stay or leave ?

Your suggestion is demerit, right?
But I think demerit 15 points for each 5 good reports (mean 5 bad posts) is very very strict. It should be reversed as 5 merits per 15 bad posts that reported by forum users, and handled with agreements from staffs. With the reversion of suggested demerit, I still think it is strictly.
It will cause massive complaints, so in my opinion it is good if the period of permanent bans expand longer, because it will not demerit, derank, just put bad posters in longer temp-banned jails.

This can create a FOMO. There may be accounts using purely for knowledge purpose and not for signature. There are member or even hero member accounts with no signature.

Instead, Why can't there be a relation between the number of posts or comments getting deleted by any account and its rank rollback. This will make them alert that they need not post any waste comment that can cause their account a threat.

I had read that there are lots and lots of comments getting deleted on daily basis irrespective of the rank the account is in.

Only problem with my idea is that something like this was supposed to be implemented in time when admin is introduce merit system, but it maybe still have good effect because all good members will probably keep they ranks since most of such members earn 100+ so far. But many members ranked before merit would be deranked, and they will probably never earn 100 merits.

Personally, I think something like this will not be done, it is maybe too complicated and no matter how much sense it makes, it would not be fair to punish someone who was doing something by the old rules. Merits have certainly made a very good move in creating a better quality ranking system, and some new measures are likely to be introduced in the future.

While I have not really done anything with the specific intent of "preventing signature campaign to be removed", I do have my own strategy of dealing with shit posts.
Shitposts come in all shapes and forms, but the ones that I tend to find most annoying, are the ones that are basically disguised as normal posts, but lack any real substance.

It's those replies that are somewhat on topic, but do not add anything to the discussion and the poster usually makes some kind of claim which isn't backed up by anything.
Even today I saw a post like that on a topic that talked about Bitcoin mining profitability.

The thing I do is just call it out, I quote the reply in question and basically correct them. Sometimes I'll use strong language, sometimes not, depends on the situation.
My main reason of doing it like that, is because I think that other people who might see my reply might be inclined not to copy that sort of behavior in the future.

If we want to raise the basic level of intelligent discussion on the forum, the best way to do it is to add intelligent discussion ourselves and try to call out bad behavior as much as possible.

I am against using merits as a punitive measure to curb spam rather than as an incentive to encourage quality posting, which it was originally designed for.
In my opinion it would be an overkill and would stimulate merit sales and bring about a cat race where members are forced to earn merit from other members. Regardless of their reasons for being on the forum.

I'll consider it one of the best ideas as, it's preferable than removing all airdrop merit. The old era-member who were quality contributors won't find it difficult to earn merit but the spammers will get trapped and they'll be the ones disturbing the forum with complains. This suggestion if implemented will also turnout to be an advantage to the airdropped users as, they won't be overlooked by campaigns managers when applying for a slots like they're currently been overlooked.

Here's another suggestion, all airdropped merit stays but smerits declays. Now when a user, get certain amount of good report against them for spamming, they get punished by removing some airdropped merit. Could be 15 merits per every 5 good report against them. This way, only the spammers get affected. The report used for this punishment has to be strictly spam related.

The numbers I provided were to enable us to see (roughly) the impact of your/a suggestion. Obviously there are plenty of cases amongst any rank that do not provide any meaningful content, a range that do, and a select reduced group that do and manage to be merited in the event to some meaningful extent.

I’m not one to vouch for maintaining ranks perpetually, but once given, it’s not easy to make the decision to revert it, from a social and psychological point of view. One has to view the reach of the numbers to understand the impact it would have, especially from the global perspective of the forum, the number of members and its traffic. That has to be balanced against changing the ranking system to a reward+punish one, based on the amount of earned merits, and finding the right equilibrium and the driving need to undergo the task is rather much a feat.

I'll put my guess.

— Signature bounties will be removed from bounties section.

— Some members will leave as they will not be able to make any earnings.

— A less number of new joiners, since most registrations happen because of earning matter involved.

— Post count will decrease significantly.

— There will be negligible spam.

— Less work for forum moderators.

The forum will become heaven for those who are here for discussions.

By mentioning about activity point, I meant actively posting. People can keep posting for their signature campaigns or bounties, and delete their past posts to maintain (nearly) constant activities over time. However, I don't think that is big issues and unsolvable because what LoyceV began to collect weeks ago might help, and forum can do it too (Viewing unedited posts and deleted posts)
It is fair if old Legendary maintains that rank over years if that account is inactive posting, but if that account makes 1000 posts and does not satisfy merits required (ie. 100 merits), that is very good indicator for shitposters.
They only should send their sMerits to good posts they see, but they must not do it.
So, there are 12955 users from Full members and above; and only 425 of them (about 3.3%) satisfy the proposed time-rolling merit requirements to maintain ranks (by DaveF). If that thing actually used, it will be another big change of forum, just after merit system in 2018. Personally, I think it will be the biggest change in forum rank system, because all ranks will be affected, no matter users are old-era (before) or new-era (after the birthday of merit system).
With legendary users who have been actively posting within last 6 months, and earned less then 60 merits; are they real legendary users? There are hundreds of users from Full Members to Hero Member ranks whom earned from 100 merits and above to rank up. They likely have higher values than those legendary (less than 60 earned merits) during the same period of last 6 months. I believe for those cases, their earned merits are much lower than 60.

How many of those 1602 are still active?

https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/otrkid70-183495 hacked
https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/mellon-339752 dark over a year.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/maged-6347 Dark for 3.5 years
https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/kwh-70535 Dark for 8 months
etc...

How many of those 1602 were legendary when merit came into existence and have provided no real content for over a year but just keep posting for the sig campaigns?

Edit a minute or 2 after after I posted this: Keep in mind the merit numbers I used I pulled out of my ass. More data points could give better numbers, it was an example.

-Dave

So if this temporary signature bans happens, how much should be the amount of time for this signature ban if we were to check who are posting for the bounties and who are posting because they want to post and if the aim is to resume the signatures regardless of whatever analysis come out, whats the benefit to  know all this ?

If that happened I could just imagine what Yobit has din when it attempted to re-enter Bitcointalk, a lot of inactive members woke up and when all the complaints broke in they are just trying to save Yobit's ass that its a good signature campaign that doesn't promote spam. I could imagine a temporary forum wide sig ban will just make a lot of members inactive and when it will be brought up back again then you will see that these members (or accounts) will be back being active again. You will really see the real members who will stay and won't stay just because of a sig ban.

That would have pretty drastic effects. Looking over a specific subset of profiles (those that have either merited or have been merited historically), I make it we’d get:
The first figure represents the number of profiles that meet the criteria. For example, 111 Legendries have earned over 60 merits in the last 6 months (meeting the "must get 10 every month on average per rolling 6 months" criteria), making it 6,93% of the Legendary profiles I’ve studied, and thus 93,07% of Legendries would be de-ranked to Full Member in your proposal (or whatever other rank).

The figures are really an overkill, and would really destroy pretty much the ranking system. If the merit requirements were to be high-ish (the above are not that high, but not many people make it), it could even give room to collude to not merit someone in order to de-rank them (a bit remote, but possible).

Note: In addition, there are other profiles I have not accounted for: those that have neither earned nor sent a single merit so far.  I'm also simplifying a bit, and omitting the added complexity of changing-conditions once ranked-up (i.e. a Full Member profile just turned Sr. Member with 30 earned merits in the last 6 months may be automatically demoted for not having the 42 required over the last 6 months to keep the Sr. Membership).

No point really. They would either spend them without giving it much though, or open a thread on Meta complaining for being de-ranked when they don’t care about the Merit System.

This will only make the merit thing more complicated. You know getting merit isn't an easy task as people are not generous in giving merits even to many good posts and dropping the rank level will make it more difficult to rank up.
A better approach is to demote the people who do not distribute the merit to others. Those who receive merit gets smerit too. They should spend it too.

This way merit will be more distributed and the deserving one will rank up quickly.

Users will then delete previous posts if they do not want to rank down. Easily circumvented.

I don't think so, DaveF, because you forgot about inactive users. Your suggested requirements should be combined with activity points.
I think it can be improved like this:

Brand new: Same
Newbie:   Same
Jr Member: Same
Member: 10 but must get at least 1 merit for each 100 activity points to maintain the rank, if not, user will drop to Jr. Member
Full Member: 75 but must get 5 merits for each 200 activity points to maintain the rank, if not, user will drop to Member
Sr. Member: 150 but must but must get 10 for each 400 activity points to maintain the rank, if not, user will drop to Full Member
Hero Member: 450 but must get 50 for each 800 activity points to maintain the rank, if not, user will drop to Senior Member
Legendary: 750 but must get 100 for each 1000-1200 activity points to maintain the rank, if not, user will drop to Hero Member

Thinking about it how about "rolling merit"

Instead of:

Brand new: 0
Newbie:   0
Jr Member: 1
Member: 10
Full Member: 100
Sr. Member: 250
Hero Member: 500
Legendary: 1000


You need:
Brand new: Same
Newbie:   Same
Jr Member: Same
Member: 10 but must get at least 1 every month or you drop to Jr. Member
Full Member: 75 but must get 5 every month on average per rolling 6 months or you drop to Member
Sr. Member: 150 but must but must get 7 every month on average per rolling 6 months or you drop to Full Memeber
Hero Member: 450 but must get 8 every month on average per rolling 6 months or you drop to Full Memeber
Legendary: 750 but must get 10 every month on average per rolling 6 months or you drop to Full Memeber


This way if you are off the forum for a bit due to work, life stuff, etc you are not dropped straight down to a lower member tank for months, BUT if have status you have to work to keep it with good posts.
And, even if you are legendary and you have an issue and have to leave for a year, in 6 months back of good posts your status is back

-Dave

I agreed that old users (before merit system) should have grand-father's rights, because they actually spent lots of time in the forum, and in more purely period of the forum, before spam attacks in 2017. Nevertheless, as lots of users complain, what is a fairness of old legendary, whom has been still very actively posting, but are unable to earn 100 merits (to compared with new era Full Member's requirements). They still think it is unfair.
After two, three or four years after merit system's birthday, such derank makes sense. It is unexplainable that you are good legendary if after four years, and with thousands of posts, you are not unable to earn 900 - 1000 merits. 

I think it's pretty unrealistic to expect that airdropped merits may be removed in the future, but this is up to admin to decide. Still, I understand some members who think differently on this, but old ranking up system is just upgraded with merits, and anyone who is ranked without merits is invest lot of time to reach Hero or Legendary rank.

Maybe airdropped merits could be assigned in a slightly different way, so that every member who hold any rank should prove itself by earning some extra merit.

For example every Legendary member could only get 900 merits and become Hero member, and every Hero member 400 merits. Maybe this is not best idea, but it is much better then take all airdropped merits.

Admin does not want to change seriously and make the forum unfriendly for good newbies. I don't think he will require more merits for the Junior Member rank.

Remove of airdropped merits will make old Senior Members, Hero Members and Legendary members feel paranoid, like what theymos said on misuse or too serious use of trust system months ago. Good old users can rank up again, even their airdropped merits removed and they will be deranked. They definitely don't have issue to move up again, just need a little bit time. Nevertheless, once again, I don't think airdropped merits will be removed because of probably paraniods.

Hmm. I think I've gotten so used to shitposts I kind of look through them.

I always report phishing stuff, blatant shilling of junk and necroposts.

When it's a 'Dear, bitcoin is a most excellent system of money for we can make profit' type post it's invisible to me.

As for merit my own views are - 3-5 to move up from newbie. Lower requirements for the middling ranks and the removal of all legacy ranks and airdropped merit.

It's been long enough now.

No need to upgrade anything anymore, now we just have to agree with the mods what and how to fight the HQ spam with its fake conversations giving 0 value to the projects, useless comments just for a post count which are hidden in just repeating the things already posted. That's all, for the rest the bots are doing their work.

My major contribution to stop spam has been to develop myself hugely in over a year on the forum, learning how and the right way to post, so I do not fall on the wrong side of the line and increase the number of shitposters that roam the forum everyday.

To me that's a wonderful personal contribution, one that if everyone takes they'll be better persons here and it'll reflect on the forum, instilling sanity and stamping out laziness.If only everyone can behave in the most appropriate way expected, then in here would be a better place for sure.
This one is never going to happen, to put in the words of theymos:

Merit system (original version), upgraded merit system (aims at Junior Members); your Spambuster club in 2018; and the bot to fight against plagiarism this year; together contribute to clean the forum. This year, thousands of accounts banned with supports from that bot.
I think the upgraded merit system brought a powerful tool to stop spammers creating new accounts, and their spamming severity and intensity decreased considerably too.
Bot (this year) cleaned up more by searching, reporting, and consequently help to ban so many accounts permanently, not only Brandnew, Newbies, but also top-ranks, like Hero and Legendary.

---

I guess which kind of next upgrade for merit system? KYC, possibly?

In the summer of 2018 the situation with the spam was so awful and I got so tired reporting alone so on 21 of July, I created the SpamBuster's Club, after that we have reviewed more than 20 000 accounts, significant part of those got banned. Thousands of comments got removed,and I think we pushed theymos to come up the badge idea,(just assumption here). Many things changed after the club was announced.

Signature itself is harmless, it is just as same as username. If users don't abuse it with harzadous links, or abuse it by spamming and get a few cents from their spams.
Basically, everyone has rights to show off their ideas, discussions here; but if they abuse and make mono-conversations, thing will be different.
I hope the thread reminds shitposters that admin gave them second chance, or third chance (second one is merit system, third one is upgraded-merit-system, with Junior Member demotion), more correctly; to keep signature industry running here; gave them chance to earn some money. But if they ignore kindness of admin, who knows they will have fourth chance or not?

Signatures are an important way for the forum to reward active and responsible members. Almost all of the forums that don't allow signatures with links are of a far lower quality. However, it is a privilege and not a right, and members should respect it. Members should be aware that links and comments in their signatures affect their reputation, and they should research any projects they are promoting, before they add them to their signature. Even better is to restrict yourself to the promotion of services and products that you actually use, and thus have some knowledge and experience of them.

Signatures are also used for political comments, and news reports that some members consider to be important. I think this is a useful benefit as long as it is used responsibly.

So what could be a viable alternative to a global ban? One possibility is the removal of signature rights from a member who is promoting a fraudulent product. If this ban was for 3 or 6 months, then just the threat of it could encourage members to research the sites they are considering promoting before adding them to their signature. That ban could be imposed across all known alts as well.

As average forum member without much power I can't much. I'm just not spamming myself, trying to report worst shitposts and not giving merits to spammers. Maybe I could do more, but lack of time and laziness don't help :/. And I'm doing these mentioned things without thinking about signature campaigns. I just want to see quality forum. And I feel huge respect to users who reported thousands of shitposts or avarding best posters with merits actively. They're making this forum into better place. And in my opinion, merit system is doing it's job very well.

Wanna know an easier way? Be a dick to shitposters -> they get mad -> they enrage all across the forum -> someone goes deep in on them, dig out the shady stuff -> expose them -> get them tagged -> they never use the account ever again-> repeat. Voila. All because of saying "fuck you bitch", or something you'd possibly say: "go to Halifax"

I agree with the fact that there are still many high ranked member who shitposts. They were lucky to get the airdropped merit. It was not that hard to rank up before.

But there are so many uses who are good posters despite they got their rank when there were no merit. Those users are regularly earning merits and some of them have few thousand of merits to be honest.

The easy way to differentiate a shitposter than a good one is to see how frequent they earn merit. However one have to admit this fact that not all good posts gets merit. There are a lot of factor involves in earning merit not just good quality post.


You seems pushing it hard :-P

According to History of bitcointalk.org's rank system, it is the second changes on forum's rank system; and it is a biggest one, so far.
So far, we have witnessed three periods with three rank systems

• Without activity requirements (November 22, 2009 - January 22, 2018)
• Activity requirements (June 18, 2013 - January 23, 2018)
• Activity requirements + Merit requirements (January 24, 2018 - by now)

---

I actually want to see a short-term experiment on a forum-wide sig ban.

Before January 2018, actmyname and I started tagging shitposters around the time both of us got added to DT.  This created a firestorm in Meta, since having red trust from a DT member disqualifies a lot of campaign participants.  I've since admitted that it was a bad use of the trust system, but you have to understand that the situation was out of control and nobody had any tools to combat shitposters. 

Theymos did not approve of our actions and "requested" that all those feedbacks be removed or else I'd get removed from DT.  That message was relayed through my DT1 sponsor at the time.  Then the merit system was created (or it could have been before; I can't recall exactly), which was a huge relief to me, because I was spending a considerable amount of time seeking out the worst posters and giving them negative trust.  After the merit system was put into place there was no need for negging spammers/shitposters.

That probably had nothing to do with preventing sig campaigns from being erased, but my actions along with actmyname's at least lit a fire under some people's asses and made people realize that something had to be done, that the quality of the forum was becoming unbearable.

Hell yes it was a good step.  It's one of the best improvements I've ever seen here, and I'm very grateful to Theymos for coming up with something so clever.  And while there are still tons of shitposters, I've definitely seen a lot of improvement in a lot of members' post quality as a result.  If you have some incentive to rank up in the form of earning more money in a campaign and the only way you can do it is to improve your post quality, you know damn well a lot of members are going to step up and try harder.  And they have.

I am one of those users who came in after the new Merit system and understand the pros and cons of the system. The new system will definitely do wonders for bettering the forum in terms of shit post and signature spams.

The only bone of contention comes from users that were airdropped the merits on the basis of their existing rank. They are the only people in my opinion who would still be posting sig spam. They had not earned those merits and what the forum can do is that they can have the airdropped merits removed now because we have had ample time to earn merits by posting quality posts and proving our initially held rank. Why give them a favour of having a Legendary/Hero rank and qualifying for highly paid signature campaigns without earning the right by getting merits through their posts? Or we can reduce their airdropped merits in some proportion that can be calculated by using the current post/merit earned of that user. This would ensure that their previous effort (when meriting a post was not so prevalent) is duely appreciated in merit calculation.

Introducing Merit was a good step. The amount of spamming we used to see in the later 2017 to early 2018, it was ridiculous. I can not speak very correctly since I do not have any data or I am not a data analyst but in the naked eyes, I see improvement. There are a lot of members still ranking up.


Have not thought about it. Think is if you have a goal to contribute to the community then nothing else comes in the equations. I understand that not everyone has the same goal.

This thread plays as a reminder for all forum members, especially shit posters, whom have kept continuously to post their shitpost daily.
This thread is for old-era members, and for new-era members whom joined here after merit system kicked-off.
Nearly a month later, merit system released
Merit & new rank requirements
Around 2 weeks later, theymos wrote

Above is reminded section on theymos' standpoints on post quality, forum situation, plans and expectation to clean up the forum by merit system.
The system born as main tool to fight against spammers; keep them unable to rank up, and reduce spam posts.

Did it help as expected? Not.

Merit system failed at somewhat extents, spammers stucked on low ranks, but they kept spamming, globally.
That is why around 8 months later, in September last year, theymos moved further by derank Junior Members whom did not earn 1 merit (at least) by that day.
After that, it seems merit system and that demotion on old-era Junior Members have significant impacts on spamming here.
Newbies stopped spamming because they can not rank up to Junior Members. It is truly right with farm accounts, but there are 'companies' that run bumping services still use their Newbie accounts to spam globally.
In Welcome message (draft), admin wrote

---

Question
My question stated in thread title: Since 2018, what did you contribute to prevent signature ads removed globally?

---

Solutions
Please stop or reduce considerably your spam posts. Admin actually want to keep signature and signature industry, for good users, to have extra income.
You should support admin's standpoints on post-quality and help the forum as less shitposts as possible.
Be good, be constructive, help the forum, and help yourself!