Topic: The Reality of this forum - page 3. (Read 2709 times)

Maybe before, the signature campaign was really one of the biggest reason why most of the users are spamming. Yet look at how the signature campaigns right now. The current standards of most of the signature campaign that can be found on the services section(except for the ICO's or in the alt coins are still on this problem) is really high.

You are actually been seeing the rules quite some time for some of the known campaign managers in this forum. That issue should really be addressed into most of the signature campaign that can be found on the alt coin threads.

The other big issue for me right now is the bounty hunting aside from most of it are just scam it has also been dragging the forum standards down.

There are no words of "nationalism" or feel ashamed for such bastards (Spammer)


I really know their true situation, the fact that they aren't poor but greedy. Poor people in my country rarely can operate the Internet let alone know about this forum. This is a fact on the ground, poor people who you think like toilet cleaners, working in factories don't do things like this.

The questions now who did that?

In Indonesia, there is the term "Cukong" = rich people have a lot of money to buy a number of accounts and take actions that aren't commendable. that's where I call it greedy. Poor people in my country aren't as bad as you think. instead the poor in my country are more authoritative but greedy rich people who leave a disability.

This is called the poor in Indonesia




This is called Cukong

As long as you're not doing what they do and you're not adding garbage in the forum then you're free from guilt likewise some part of nationalism is getting hurt here.


This may need ton of work from the staff to monitor a lot of bounty campaigns which obviously popping everyday. However, if this will push through we can see this forum the way it's used to be.

Also the bounty managers will get the full responsibility to this or else he'll be the one who will get in trouble. And to lessen the spam posts, manager will require their participants to at least have a particular merit, in this way people will force to improve their post quality. Or the least we can do is to review the post history of the participants before it gets accepted just like what we have in bitcoin campaign.

Deep condolence mate, that's my country too. I don't mind what they are doing as long as they are not shitposting or break the rules. It's not different than being in an internet cafe and chill (IP wise). But, I'm pretty sure that they were the culprits who contribute to my 99.99% report accuracy.

Let's imagine that they were actually scripting bitcoin or design fancy bitcoin wallet. Just kidding.

There is definitely nothing more all of us want than the betterment of the forum and getting rid of what has, unfortunately, become a nightmare for all of us, but such theories actually don't work as much as we think they might. I totally understand that most of the spammers are from third-world countries, having no sources of income and are forced mentally to do all this in order to earn something, but a very large majority of this is too ignorant to grasp the things that you have mentioned to be done to help them. Where some of them might have even a little knowledge about what they are doing, there are some who doesn't even know what is a Cryptocurrency or what is Blockchain, but all they know is that if they post 20 times a week, they will get x number of tokens which they later can exchange for money. Or, if they tweet/retweet/share x number of Social Media shares, they will get x number of tokens which will turn into real money later sometime. I can even guarantee you that about 70% - 80% people participating in Bounties doesn't even know what ERC-20 stands for and how it works. All they know, or learn from others that are already in it, is that they would require an Ethereum wallet to receive the tokens.
The point is, you can only teach the people who come for learning, not the ones who are not even interested in it.

It's actually worse than that. There's no repercussions for doing a shitty job here. Even if they took some job doing menial work in their own country like cleaning toilets or packing products into boxes, they'd be fired pretty quickly if they showed up to work whenever they wanted and did the worst job imaginable and cut every corner they could possibly do and that's essentially what happens here. People are unqualified for the 'work' or tasks that they're doing. I wouldn't be able to work in a factory or office in Indonesia because I can't speak Indonesian, so I'd be useless. The same applies here but obviously they're not going to be fired because ICOs are happy to have them on board promoting their crap which only ruins the forum in the process and puts money directly into both their pockets so they all have a financial incentive to keep doing it.

And I know exactly why they do it. I totally understand and don't even begrudge them for it, especially those that live in poverty and I accept that poverty can make people do desperate or even unscrupulous things, but there's also a lot of greed going on here. I think it's a beautiful thing if this forum makes a huge difference to people's lives (as it has mine) but people can't be earning here at the expense of the utter deterioration and degradation of the forum. If I was in their position then I'd likely be doing the same, but it's more of an issue with the administration and rules (or lack thereof) as we not only let them get away with it but have created a culture where it's acceptable to do so and there's mostly no punishments for abusers and rule breakers. You can come here, bot or farm as many accounts as you want and earn from them by either writing drivel or copy and pasting and we allow campaigns to pay for it with zero repercussions. At this point we might as well rename or rebrand the forum to icospamtalk.org or getpaidtopost.org because that's what this board has become. I'm all about making it better for everyone here and it can happen without it being restrictive to those who just want to post. If you want to be able to earn here via posting then you should earn that right through merit and ranks (or cough up for Copper/Silver/Gold member etc). If people who can't speak English very well want to earn here then they should either stick to their local board or just collecting bounties. It wouldn't be ok for me to go posting in the Spanish board when I can't speak Spanish to an acceptable standard and people there would rightly get annoyed if I was being nuisance and shitting up the place because it is both incredibly disruptive and annoying. Also, ICO campaigns and those that spam on them need to face punishments because otherwise nothing will change and as long as Juniors can get paid for copy and pasting or writing drivel then they will continue to do so and over god knows how many accounts.  It's not that difficult to find a compromise here that benefits everyone, but doing nothing as we usually do isn't going to help.

When people are poor and live in terrible conditions, they take any job that brings them money, even if they don`t understand it. They are forced to do this and this behavior can be understood. The situation is the same with shitposting. Many folks have heard that this forum allows you to earn money through signature campaigns. And since many bounties don`t make the right demands, many newcomers who don`t understand the subject are gladly accepted for such work.

I don`t justify those who write low-quality posts only in order to fulfill bounty quotas. I'm just saying that such people can be understood. And the forum community can help them. In order to do a good job, people should be interested in it. The primary goal of this forum is to unite crypto-enthusiasts from around the world, to create a platform for free communication of those who are fond of crypto-currencies. But over time, a lot has changed and now the forum is filled with people who pursue material goals and who don`t have the desire to understand the crypto sphere, because they are not interested.

I believe that it is the duty of the leaders of this forum, of those who really are crypto-enthusiasts, to interest newcomers, who initially think only of easy earnings. Admins can set more stringent merit rules, participants can continue to create an endless array of topics about how they are fed up with spammers, but the latter won`t go away without our help. Instead of increasing the propensity between those who serve the original purpose of the forum (sharing news, discussing developments in the market, making predictions, increasing their knowledge of crypto-currencies), and those who are pursuing the goal of simply earning on signature campaigns, we should try to interest the latter, so that they aspire to improve the quality of their posts.

In order for this theory to work, it is necessary to create and consolidate topics for beginners about the initial mission of this forum, about how the crypto-currencies changed the lives of the bitcointalk participants, how to write quality comments, where to look for crypto information resources, etc. When people are interested in some field of activity, they are improving. We can help beginners and together make the forum better.

Why are you ashamed of them, it's not your fault, and I'm not ashamed even though I come from the same country because they and I are different in "looking at this forum". instead, we have to prove that not all members are from Indonesia like them. who only searched for .002 BTC / week by breaking the forum rules (Spammer).

The country is irrelevant really and you shouldn't feel shame for the acts of others just because they're compatriots, but when people can't speak English very well, don't know much about bitcoin if anything at all and are doing this over multiple accounts each and as a full time job then that's when it becomes a huge problem and just leads to the utter degradation of the forum. I've made the comparison before that it's like someone going to Chinese-speaking Lamborghini forum to talk about Lambos, when you don't care about cars, can't drive, and can't speak Mandarin, but you can get paid to talk about them so people do and in their droves. It's a recipe for disaster. People should be able to earn here, but there needs to be some standards because the practice is destructive and the poor/barely decipherable posts ruin the experience for everyone else. It's like doing a job that you're in no way qualified to do but people are paying you for your shoddy jobs day after day with no penalties for the job even getting worse as time goes on. That needs to change. Theymos says this board isn't a welfare system for people, but the truth is that's pretty much all this place has become. We can easily change this. Newbies and Juniors shouldn't be able to advertise and a small merit requirement should be implemented to get a signature. ICOs who pay for spam need to be punished and people who can't speak English very well should be urged or suggested that they stick to their local board. If people only got paid for decent contributions then this place would clean itself up dramatically, but the longer we do nothing the worse it's is going to get.

I agree with you that very often signature campaigns are the reason for shitposting, because people just want to fulfill bounty quotas. But at the same time, signature campaigns can be a motivation to write better and more qualified posts. The problem is not in the existence of signature campaigns, as such, but in the fact that they put forward different demands on their participants.

There are campaigns that take everyone in a row, but there are those which set a high bar. And if the participant doesn`t reach it (not enough merits, bad history of posts, etc.), then he doesn`t get into the spreadsheet. Perhaps, instead of eliminating the very phenomenon of signature campaigns (which will have a bad effect on the website's traffic), it is necessary to establish certain rules for recruiting participants. If the bounty breaks them and reduces the set bar, then the admins will close it.

@hillariousetc

Shit i believe that picture is coming from my country and i am really in shame now. That is what happens when you treat something wrong. This is a forum and should be treated like that, and getting money should be the least priority (bonus) for their self, but it is like they are making money by doing a shit work which a kid even do. They deserved to be labelled as a spammer. We can accept it if they do some work like excellently managing a campaign as a team, translation as a team, but they made a spamming service as a team and selling them to the bad managers who want to hire them, that is the next level play.

I don't disbelieve you when you say that you don't care that much about making money from here as there could have been numerous ways that you could have personally enriched yourself both legitimately and illegitimately from the forum over the years and I've even suggested that you pay yourself a reasonable wage and do admin duties here full time before because one is badly needed, but saying things like you've thought about getting rid of ad slots baffles me. Why? Because they're too much of a hassle and headache for you to organise? If so, can't you either automate the procedure of people buying them or delegate a staff member to be in charge of advertisements instead of just considering removing them completely? Delegating workload to various people will seriously free up your time to do much more productive things and stop you from being pestered about things you don't have the time or energy to do (and other staff members are then pestered who don't even have the means or authority to help). The forum shouldn't be losing money or throwing it away and even more ad slots wouldn't hurt (especially when the forum is covered by sig ads that the vast majority only contribute to the deterioration of the board). Even if we don't need the money the reserve funds won't last forever, but you could even put the money made to good use. Use it to finance worthwhile projects that will benefit bitcoin or even the world, or even give it all away to charity. Nearly 500 people died in floods in Kerala, India last month. We could make sure it gets into the hands of people who actually need it there. What's even worse is that you always get scumbags popping up here trying to use various tragedies to scam by asking for donations. Happens with every natural disaster. I'm sure if we had some sort of official donation drive many people would contribute to it in knowing that the money will actually get to the right people and make a difference.


This forum is probably one of the most free and liberal on the internet, but there are rules here and without rules or when they're not enforced efficiently it just descends into pure chaos and anarchy and that is what we have now. There needs to be some basic laws for a functioning society and this forum is a perfect example of what happens when you do away with law and order and let people do largely whatever they want. You say you don't want to destroy the economy, but the forum has already practically been destroyed as it's unfit for its original purpose and is now mostly populated just by spammers and scammers. This shouldn't be the culture here and it can change, but it won't as long as we do nothing. There are numerous compromises we can make that don't even encroach on anyone's freedom to post here. Everyone should be able to post and I agree with your reasoning for removing things like Newbie jail, but I don't think everyone should be able to earn here straight away and especially by contributing little to nothing, especially those who literally have no idea or interest in bitcoin other than somebody has just told them they can earn money here for posting. This is what leads to the wall-to-wall illiterate spamming and copy and pasting which ruins the true purpose of this forum in the first place. What do you even expect them to do? If you have little to no interest in bitcoin and can't speak English very well if at all but you want to get paid here then that's a recipe for disaster. That's why we should look at things like punishing ICO campaigns that are financing it in the first place and removing signatures completely from Junior Members and/or requiring them to get a minimal amount of merit to become one. That is not too much to ask and isn't restrictive to anyone posting here at all. We really should start 'reshaping the environment' before it's too late. I don't think we should ever fully ban signature campaigns, especially when a compromise can be found without impinging on anybodies right to post, but if we continue to do nothing then removing them will likely be our only option eventually. To make that work efficiently though you would also have to remove avatars and personal texts because people would still utilise them for adverts. The logical explanation to me is to do something about it now and we can do so in various ways that are not at all oppressive to people posting.


I agree, but the problem is that not many people are doing it constructively. I've always said I think it's awesome that people can earn here, but there needs to be a compromise and we can't just let both ICOs and spammers and bots do whatever they want. People can't be getting paid for generic one liners and bots copy and pasting content over x amount of accounts each. Where do we draw the line and when do we say enough is enough? I've been saying for years that's it's not going to be long before the only people posting here are spammers and bots just earning their 'daily needs', but that already happened long ago. Go into any thread and spend a few minutes reading the replies and you'll see this how bad it is.

This is probably the best example I've seen recently about how bad things have got here:

 

There's so many things wrong with that post:

1) He's a haiki/doge bot.
2) He's a Junior Member.
3) He's on a signature campaign.
4) He's posting in the Howeycoins thread about how great it and its team are: A non-existent fake ICO with a non-existent team.
5) That will just be one of dozens/hundreds/possibly thousands that never get looked into. How many others is he getting paid on?

This is another:


That's a picture someone provided to prove that they weren't alts and are all separate people posting away. Just check their posting history. All generic one/two liner spam. Sadly, the forum has actually become some sort of "worldwide welfare organization" and that is literal picture proof of it. The longer we sit back and do nothing the worse it gets.


But what about when the barriers to join are too low and anyone can get paid just by singing up with an account here? A bot can even do it and get paid as evidenced by the haiku/doge bot above. Also, what about all those who come here to actually discuss bitcoin or get some help and they just leave because it's useless and full of barely decipherable spam and wrong information? I've lost count of how many times I've seen people giving wrong advice on something they know nothing about or complaining about all the lazy, generic crap that gets posted everywhere purely for payment or ranking up.
 

It annoys everyone other than those making and profiting from it, but I don't think it is difficult to curb. If you keep paying people to spam then you're not allowed to advertise here. Simples. If you remove signatures from lower ranks like Juniors or require some sort of merit amount to become one then that stops the worse of the worst getting paid to bot and spam. Those are two very simple suggestions that could be implemented today and would have a tremendous effect on lowering spam and stopping people from earning by posting drivel. It's acceptable to do this because we allow it. Please change this culture before it's too late.

This is the best piece I have read today and I am glad hearing that the reason behind the forum was not based on milking money but was based on genuine desire to let many people in on the blockchain technology and cryptocurrency at large. And truly by far, that goal is being achieved. I personally have been able to learn one or two things ever since I joined the forum and to that, I am most grateful. Who knows if payment was required before having entrance into the forum, people like me might not have been able to make it here.

If you're trying to say a bounty hunter is the next Satoshi then I will disagree with you 99.999% of the time. If they spend their time in useful sections outside of megathreads then they may have potential. Other than that, they're just shitposting.

FTFY. I would estimate that 95% (at least) of Hero+ members post garbage.

There's nothing wrong with having rules. We're not made better with having fewer regulations.

If managers cared who was advertising for their campaign, none of them would allow negative-trusted members to participate.
If managers cared about the spam on the forum, none of the bounty threads would reach the ridiculous page lengths that a lot currently do.
If managers cared about post quality, then 30% of the forum would be cleaner. None of the useless, redundant, garbage posts would be accepted and the spammers would have to move on or learn that they would need to increase their quality.

Exactly. Which is why when newbies come to Bitcointalk and see all the Hero and Legendary members act so inexperienced, it's disheartening.

A lot of new members come here just to earn money from bounties. It's sickening.

A lot of this is abuse. It'll eventually dissipate.

I agree with the author that the prohibition bounty on the forum will reduce traffic. You can close the main Board from advertising and to develop a forum.

Don't want to be rude but almost everyone from the creation of forum talks the same shit about this forum, brain is just....
Yeah people spam here but don't read shit topics if that makes you anxious and why to read something unvaluable? Also did you ask question and not get answer? Has that ever happened? I bet noo... Community is amazing here, I know some people who helped me a lot, really a lot. Just ignore spammers and keep using forum...

Google indexs them fine annoyingly. They are likely getting hits off google which is driving a lot more people to their thread and to this forum this might sound like a good thing but its exactly the problem we are currently having with these people registering accounts and spamming the altcoin board in order to earn shares in their altcoin. I am not sure what Google thinks of this as its just generating traffic on their side. But if they go the route of banning adverts of icos like Facebook and other companies have done then we could see a reduction of users signing up and the spam.

Spot on mate.

Absolutely. I had the same thinking of not monetizing the forum but seeing the response from theymos had me no doubt that the motivation behind running this forum is far more noble than making it a cash machine. 



The motivation is the freedom of doing that you want to do. Problem is there are people who will take advantages from anything.

I'm shocked by the alt announcement board. I've decided that I'll create my own coin at some time in the future, and I decided I'd post a statement of intent in the Alt coin section. I looked at one board, and the first two pages were full of threads that had been updated within the last 10 minutes. I didn't bother to look at any of them, and I decided that the whole board was a waste of computing resources. I wonder what Google thinks of the threads. I'm also having issues with the mining boards. It looks as if they are focused on earnings potential, and have forgotten that Bitcoin Talk used to be a learning resource.