This forum is full of bad quality posts, multi-accounts, cheaters, etc., and it makes it quite unpleasant to read. Let's be honest, it's all related to bounty campaign, and particularly signature's campaign.
Not completely. I would argue that ICOs contribute the most to spam, and that's not because of the bounties that they offer, but any investment opportunity get's a lot of hype because people are hoping that it will be the next Bitcoin where they can be early adopters, and earn a little bit of money.
Signature's campaign forces you to write at least 15 to 20 posts per week. It isn't simple to make 15 reasonably interesting posts every weeks ! And because some posts could get deleted, you might be tempted to write a couple more here and there, just in case, in those miserable 100 pages threads that no one has ever read, but where everyone keeps writing that Ethereum will/won't overtake bitcoin. I naively answered a couple of times in those stupid threads... What an idiot ! hahaha
Signature campaign mangers need to be looking at their participates, and only accepting those that are already making that amount of posts. It only makes sense to employ someone who is already making quality posts, and to the amount specified. Yet, they don't because they are lazy, and only care about their payment at the end of the day.
Replying in one of those threads isn't that bad, and I'm sure a lot more veteran members have fallen into the trap too. As long as it's a unique reply, and is adding something new to the thread then I don't see the problem with it. I can understand why signature campaigns rule them out, and rightly so in my opinion. But, that shouldn't stop you from replying to them if you would like to point something out to someone for an example.
So if no one ever read this kind of topics, it means that no one actually see the signature. Of course, it might still helps the project because your signature will be seen eventually, but no one will click on it after reading a bad quality post, or even something uninteresting.
Although, it's probably true that more reputable, and helpful members get genuine clicks or exposure than just the average Joe. I don't think they get more exposure than the users which are posting hundreds of posts per day. At the end of the day depending on what is being advertised people will click because the advert has got their attention, and not the individuals post.
Unfortunately, this has resulted in the problem we have today in were low quality members are hired because they bring the best bang for buck. Even if it's detrimental to the forum.
But now, we have the merit system... So what if, instead of quantity of posts per week, we had quality of posts per week ? What if, instead of 15 posts a week, you had to get 1 merit a week ?
It could work. Although, a lot of people would likely argue that this isn't a guarentted payment, and therefore no one would go for it. However, let's be frank here they would as it's money at the end of the day. 1 Merit isn't going to be hard to earn every week, and I much prefer a system in which there's a on going requirement as opposed to the current system which is implemented that you need x amount over the initial ranks starting merit because all this system proves is that you've made good quality posts in the past, however you may not continue that once you've been hired on a signature campaign. Thus, an on going merit requirement is likely better.
Just think about that for a minute.
It means, you could just write ONE post in a week to get your reward (and merits by the way). That would take you as long, maybe even less time to write it. You would bring some real contribution to this forum, instead of pollution. Now, imagine if we were all doing that... You could just divide instantly the amount of posts on the whole forum by 15 every week ! 15 !!! While increasing the quality a lot. Of course, it would also be MUCH EASIER to moderate the entire forum, which makes it a big double win.
This just isn't going to work. The merit requirement would have to be in conjunction with the existing requirements of post count. There just has to be a certain number of posts made to be beneficial to the advertisers. 1 post unfortunately isn't going to get enough exposure, and wouldn't be worth while to them.
I like the idea of an ongoing merit requirement just because it actually requires you to make good posts. I don't think 1 merit is high enough of a threshold to prove effective though.
And what about multi-account ? To me, you can write something interesting from whatever account you want. If you want to write 5 interesting posts from 5 accounts or from 1, who cares, at least you are actively contributing now. So you could basically also solve multi account issue at the same time.
The multi account rule is more than likely about morals rather than anything else. Enrolling alt accounts when it's specifically not allowed is just greedy. Signature campaigns can pay well, and I would imagine that there's several users exploiting this with multiple accounts. I wouldn't be surprised if a certain few signature/bounty managers are aware of it.
But what about the signature itself and ICO marketing ? Less signatures makes less audience.
No, it doesn't. Just think it through: with much less posts, people would actually READ the forum, so they would SEE the signatures. And who knows, maybe after reading something interesting from someone, you would even check his signature thinking that he looks smart, so his sig might be juicy...
Plus, I have to admit that when I see a post which has earned merits, I read it. So it is working, and it does attract attention.
And anyway, I am certain that a quality marketing will always be better than a quantity one. There is a balance to find, but polluting the whole forum, and every existing social networks doesn't really reflect good on any project.
I think if theymos were to implement a feature where you could filter all replies on a thread by merit, and perhaps only show those that had been merited this might work. But, unfortunately more does mean more money. It's the way our brains work we are pattern recognizing machines, and if we continually see an advert then we will likely either be intrigued by it, remember it when your looking for that specific service or automatically ignore it.
Also, people still read the forum, and every reply in each thread.
I noticed that campaigns which are paying in Bitcoin have less problems with spam. Managers are doing their job much better
The fact is that Bitcoin is actually worth something, but a lot of the ICO payments are made in stakes which the majority of the time result in you being paid pennies.
The correct board for this is meta, not serious discussion.
No this can be the correct section. The OP is looking to discuss the matter, and isn't looking for an input of staff members, but a discussion from the community. It can be in Serious Discussion.
Getting a couple of merits is a rare thing where you need to be a bit impressive, not just useful.
I don't think so. A post doesn't have to be useful in order to receive merit. It doesn't even have to be that impressive either. Maybe I have lower standards than some of the merit sources, and yourself. But, any post which took time, effort, and was thought out is good enough for me to send it merit. It doesn't even have to be 100% right as long as it's on the right tracks. Even if someone is asking a question if it sparks off a thoughtful discussion then I might even send merit to them for that.
