Topic: @theymos, many community suggestions but silence from your side.[Answerd] (Read 530 times)

Unless there is a minimum merit requirement to get into a campaign, managers enforcing is optional, not mandatory, they can get in a Junior spammer/s; It's a losing battle.

Decentralization perfectly aligns with freedom and as the forum is centralized and as far as I know, theymos has always advocated freedom of speech, maybe that's one of the reasons harsh requirements are avoided, but still as absolute difference can be, decentralized forums wouldn't have this much a mess because there isn't an incentive to post, open ideas/discussions/arguments/implementations.

But Bitcointalk is an incentivizing forum, spamming ain't freedom, it's pure abuse which every non-spammer member has to take in and simply ignore the duplicate threads, copy/pasting, text/spinning/duplicate posts/merit abuse and simply carry on like there never was an elephant in the room.

Let me tel you a bitter truth. After he has implemented change to old format bu introducing the merit system, it is obvious that members will give  suggestions to improve it. There are hundreds of threads regarding this ranging from removing signatures to some wanting the merit system be taken back. For him to reply on all those threads is impractical.

If you really want to get yourself heard, wait for him to open a thread asking for more changes to current system. He did that last time before introducing the merit system.

Just to illustrate how desperate things are getting, I gave this post a couple of sMerits just for making me laugh. This was a nice break from a fairly unrewarding look through the latest posts.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.44452276

Yeah, many are giving up reporting because only the posts get deleted but accounts often continue to do the same, and if by change some of those get banned, they just go make new account and start all over again. So even banning is not efficient but it is quite hard to achieve. I saw the impact of the SpamBuster's club at the beginning but now more people are getting discouraged as there are no any reason to report anymore.
You get to close one ANN then they open a new one, you report that too they one a third one, its like playing cat and mice game with the scammers/spammers.

I've found a lot less copy past bots recently as they have mostly switched to spinning which takes a lot longer to find where they copied from. After seeing theymos' response in your suggestion thread it seems the things that would actually stop bots are very unlikely to happen. I don't think I'll wast any more time reporting them as you're right that we can't win just by banning them if they can just start again. While that financial incentive is in place there will just be more and more of them coming.

It's a bit frustrating, indeed, to see that a lot of time we spend here in Meta, with the ideas for improvement that are not taken into consideration or at least some sort of acknowledgment from the admin.

I remember I have also posted something similar to your thread here in the past (maybe not that direct   ) where I was asking if any of the proposed solutions/improvements have ever been implemented but I didn't get any replies from the people in charge with the forum.

Maybe you'll have better luck now

That's a shame. I wondered why your reports had stopped coming in. I'd hoped that you'd just either found them all or the bots got the idea and realised it wasn't worth it. Sadly, there's probably hundreds that are still going that will now evade detection, but this is yet another reason why there should either be a merit requirement for Juniors and/or their signatures removed completely. I understand why you've stopped as even I have been contemplating not handling reports on copy bots and not banning them as a protest until things have changed. You literally cannot win a war against someone using a bot to farm unlimited accounts because it's just like playing whack a mole with ghosts. As long as they can get paid as Juniors then they will continue to farm accounts this way because it is easy money and costs them nothing to do so. Even if we ban 100 of them there could be thousands more still earning and that needs to change. Campaigns need to be forced to stop accepting them and the only way we can do that is to remove their signatures.


I strongly agree with the merit requirement, but theymos seems to be strongly against limiting new accounts to certain boards so this almost certainly won't happen. I still have hope for the merit though.

The easy fix would be to take signatures away from newbies and juniors, and to restrict them to a about half of the current boards.

IMO, with the current framework having a consolidated ignore list for merit sources isn't going to have any impact on spammers, but on the bright side would definitely be good to ignore all the spammers and shorten the list for one's who deserves merits. And still all the spammers on the ignore list would get away, if caught, alt, goes on, they don't need a merit. As far as I have seen, the purpose of merit system so far has been meriting quality posts, meriting the one's trying to come up with quality posts, alts/buds, whatever, but nothing to stop the spammers. If one can spam, create alts, and simply earn without leveling up, how effective is the merit system?[

In between Ok/maybe/no, according to theymos:

1. Requiring at least one merit is no/not yet.

I personally have stopped reporting newbies and juniors, tiring process with a time being non-existent solution, threads getting thrashed/locked are way more worth to put time and effort into.

There are a few things that we can do within the current framework. The suggestion that we have a consolidated ignore list for merit awarders could have an impact on the spammers. It would need to have a formalised structure though. Maybe we could work on this.  My ignore appeal ticket system allows for more than one designated person to handle appeals. - https://talkmerit.com/support/

Fair enough, though I suppose the discussion could be continued in the my suggestion thread, but up to you.

I'll leave this open then, as I thought that the case was closed, but since you add more to the discussion I'll give a change to jackg to answer if he wants.

If there is nothing more to be added, I'll wait some time and lock the thread again.

I didn't say they all were, but it's more of a brainstorming session and people are free to chime in if they think they're good, bad or why they won't work. Some probably may not solve much or annoy more users than they benefit, but I'd rather propose something and it be shot down or improved upon with a better solution than say nothing and watch the forum continue to burn in the process.


Pretty sure most if not all browsers show you the link when you hover over it but that isn't the point for several reasons. People can click on the links accidentally as I almost have a few times and when the domain is very similar upon first glance it's not always easy to tell. That's usually how they sucker people in. Users are also getting scammed by buying things from autobuy links and they often come from google without signing up and the sellers feedback isn't shown (which is often painted in red). Sure, they should probably be more careful with what they buy and from who but this is just an additional safety measure. It could easily be toggled on/off in settings if people didn't like it but I have seen this feature on many forums and websites so it obviously has its purposes.


Some people are also really annoyed that he barely ever replies to PMs or the numerous threads created about suggestions to make this forum a better place or get help with simple issues. Things not getting done is annoying for everyone just as I'm sure it's annoying for theymos constantly being bothered about them. I'm really annoyed that I get messages pretty much every day containing a variation of the phrase "I messaged theymos and cyrus but didn't get response" and it's usually always about things only they can do. Usually creating these sorts of threads is the last resort and only option left to get his attention. In fact, I even had to do it a while ago and it even worked.

Well, I'm just happy that /probably/ this request has made him respond even in his laconically style, it should be enough to know in which direction we can put more effort and find "solutions".
Thank you theymos.

The quoted answer, for reference. Follow the quote to the full post.

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As I have nothing more to ask and already got my answer, I'm locking this thread. Thanks everyone for the collaboration and fun

Honestly I can see why people want answers or information. It's hard to sit back and wonder if all your work will come to fruition. Here's the kicker though, all these discussions and great ideas are just another part of being on this forum; that's what Meta is for. When I come up with one, I put it out there because I like the back and forth or the conversation that comes out of it. Even if it's called out as stupid. I must say I am surprised to read that there is a lack of back and forth behind closed doors in the MODS forum.

If/when Theymos gives us an update it will probably be in the form of implementation. Seems to be their style. This doesn't mean we need to stop having the conversations, because in all likelihood they are being read and considered. Maybe that will be the cherry on top to see something you've suggested implemented. Any idea put out there or considered is likely to leak out, why speculate on the final plan when you can just keep going along and implement the final project when it is ready.

The fact is we all fill a role in this forum, some paid most not. We should probably just take the advice we give newbie whiners and work within the constructs and rules of the forum, until it changes. Keep using meta for these discussions but not with the expectation that something will change immediately  or that we are entitled to receive an answer to all or any of our questions.

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I did here somewhere though if you say SirThermos 3 times in a dark bathroom while spinning around SirThermos will appear.

Edit- Just noticed after I went and did this he appeared in the thread OP linked

You forgot to mention "sir", so brace yourself to get ignored forever.

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The new forum was live, at least its beta was(from 2014 something) and it was disabled recently, or perhaps 6 months or so before. The link to it was: beta.bitcointalk.org. People could even create accounts on it(?), and to find the bugs in it.

I heard sometime back that in the Mods forum that moderators suggestions stay without any reply too, so....



You need to make a scandal to get something here but when it's done, it's done once for good and no double spend

I agree with this, but I have to say I'm grateful that Theymos introduced the merit system.  That was huge and, if I'm being honest, unexpected.  I really didn't think he cared all that much about how bad the shitposting problem had gotten, though I admit I don't think I've read all of his posts and could have missed it if he acknowledged it.

Sometimes I do think it's a waste of time when somebody sparks up a discussion with some great ideas about how to improve bitcointalk (hilariousandco often does this, but there have been others), and then eventually that discussion stops without anything having been done.  And the reason nothing was done is because those discussing it have no power to change anything--it's Theymos who has the power.  Even if Theymos discounts the suggestions, at least it would tell the community that he's not going to consider something and then we'd know not to bring up the same things in the future.

So yeah, I'd love it if Theymos would join in on these threads.

How dare you post to Theymos that way??!?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1pX359pQQQ

I don't think all of those ideas are good.
For example "Implementing a redirect notice/landing page for when users click an external link urging them to double check the url for phishing and possibly warning them of the dangers of buying things from autobuy links and that they should likely use a trusted escrow etc)." would really slow me down.

If you have an issue with clicking bad links, download firefox or an adblocker and it'll show you the links you're hovering over before you click them.

Can we stop making threads that have @theymos in the subject, I have spotted two and I'm already really annoyed.