Topic: We need a new global moderator. (Read 1226 times)

More or less:

Alright well I'm just gonna suck it up and start reporting all/more shitposts as "zero/low value, pointless, or uninteresting"... is that the exact verbiage from the rule?

And I thought newbies could be banned for spamming if they had a certain enough posts deleted. Maybe that's an area of penalization that could be re-invigorated.

Frankly this put a damper on my enthusiasm, which is why I didn't respond earlier:


Except surely the all-time low for unhandled reports was previous to the filing of the forum's first report.

This is perfect example of a negative value, off topic effort from a corrupt campaign manager and ex garbage collector.... well I say Ex but is collecting more garbage continuously on his campaigns.

Are you sure you posted on the correct thread ?

You've made no attempt to stay on topic or even debate the merits of a new global mod?

This is a debate for anointing another global mod ? Your post seems off topic and irrelevant?

Of course no mod will delete it because their dust could depend on it.
Hence the mess of  allowing mods to have a clear conflict of interests.

Come to my Roobet thread ( which I have a feeling could get busy over the coming weeks )
I guess that's what has rattled your cage really scumbag.

When I'm global mod you and your campaigns are in for a shake up. Everyone will get a fair crack at sig spots, except proven scammers. The rest will be measured fairly against objective standards, not just let my pals and those that give me some backhanders on the gravy train.

Now pick specific on topic points and tackle them, debunk what I've said or just run away like usual and keep milking the forum with your parasitic pals.


@ the pretend The-Mod-Above-All  

Now that's what I call effort and appreciation. I wasnt going to spend any further time here for a month or two but since you've gone that extra mile put in that effort and attempt at humor.  I'll stick around and help the forum a lot lot more.

Hi, it's me. Make me a mod now plz thermos.

P.S. cryptohunter is a twat.

With all due respect laudanum or ch or whoever-the-fuck, suck a dick and get a life, loser.

Ah, the new global mod pipes up.

I don't know why anyone here including notildah believes that anyone who's not a not a broke down no coiner bum that needs to eat DT ass cares at all about your ignore list.

So once again mr prospective mod why don't you pick something I've said and try to debunk it or even form some semblance of a rebuttal rather than running away hiding behind the old mental Illness, trolling etc

Another mod? Let's get one mod that actually dares to present a robust case for their actions that can withstand transparent analysis and probing without collapsing to reveal it is just the actions of a person looking out for their own financial interests and just doing what is required to remain part of the meta human centipede riding on the merit = trust = darkstar hhampuz yahoo self serving gravy train.

How about some objective standards that are transparent and clear to which all members are measured equally ?

The examples given by nutildah are clearly not even realistic.
That bot generated post is clearly not sneakily weaving it's way through loop holes in the rules.

It is low value meaningless rubbish and would be deleted instantly.

However the post to which i refer is not as low value as many that get merit, many of the posts by DT, mods, merit sources are provably false and have previously been conclusively debunked. I mean their posts are trolling and in many cases a form of scam facilitating.

You don't need more mods, you need independently wealthy mods that dont need to spam sigs, dont require payment and are objective and honest and under no pressure to befriend or side with scum bags to continue eeking out their dust here.
Mods that can field robust, credible and  transparent arguments and reasoning to justify their actions.
If their actions are not based on objective and robust reasoning that stands up to scrutiny they are not suitable as mods.

It really isn't that difficult.

The best part for the objective and discerning reader here is that whenever there's an independently verifiable but inconvenient truth or any form of argument they cant cope with the DT fools start boasting they will place you on ignore?  as if that makes them appear anything but pathetic and corrupt. Then say oh its lovely and peaceful in our provably corrupt and pathetic echo chamber. The back slapping human centipede just continues to entertain.  

The best mod would clearly be the person that has been challenged the most but has never had any of their points regarding the trust system, merit system, permitted flow, DT etc debunked even once ever.
Clearly that type of person is the supreme and credible selection for The-Mod-Above-All.

Anyway, that's all the time I can donate to helping the forum for this month.
Unless I see some special effort, appreciation and incentive to hang around.

Those kind of posts are easily covered by rule 1 - zero/low value, pointless, or uninteresting. I've reported thousands of posts like that (literally) with the simple comment "Low value spam", and my 100% accuracy suggests that the mods don't often disagree with my assessment of these posts. The problem is I could spend all day reporting such posts, and sometimes did, and by the time I woke up the next day there would be twice as many new spam posts to work through. Reporting the same user 100+ times and seeing no action taken against them is a pretty strong indication that you are wasting your time playing a never ending game of whac-a-mole.

What I worry though is that we might see a tyrant GM rising that will probably Frodocooper a lot of discussions if you know what I mean. Probably it's that we do what @suchmoon is doing, ignore. It's a bliss sometimes.

That sounds good to me.

The problem is the rules need something between a slight adjustment and a complete overhaul. A lot of posts are empty calorie garbage but don't technically break any rules, thus they're not likely to be deleted and I'm not likely to report them.


Speaking of giving equal footing to the mentally ill. I was almost tempted to take him off ignore but nah. Can't recall ever thinking "that was a good move, glad I did that" as a result.

Hey dummy safe trip by the way.

Now just in case the worst was to befall you,  could you try to debunk anything I have said rather than hiding behind your bingo cards or other scam facilitating provably bogus negative value contributions?

No? Lol

Anyway I'm just here discussing the need for a new global mod and the fine proposals to fill those shoes.

So far we have quicksellout7 who naturally being an escrow scammer and proven liar agrees with your right to post lies and misleading demands rather than answering legitimate questions.  Already demonstrating he would be a great selection for admin.

I still think the solution is the one I've outlined above - ban the spammers, punish the campaigns, punish the managers.

Deleting individual posts in isolation does nothing. A sig spammer is always incentivized to make more, and can churn them out just as fast as we can report them. If you start doing something which will actually affect their income - temp bans - then they may be motivated to change. If after multiple temp bans they are still not motivated to change, then a permanent ban provides no loss to the forum.

Most managers similarly have no incentive to clean up their act. Properly moderating their participants and monitoring post quality takes time and effort. Why bother doing that when you can just put in the minimum amount of effort and get paid the same amount? There is literally no downside at present to them doing this, since they are never punished for promoting spam. Start handing out temp bans to managers not doing their job properly, and they become incentivized to weed out spam and spammers.

And the worst of the worst campaigns, such as Yobit, can be banned from the forum directly.

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Has anyone got a blank copy of my cryptohunter bingo card? I'm travelling away from home right now. This post might be our best result yet!

Always fun to drop by and read the self important non achievers and no coiners harping on about the " improvements " Theymos should introduce to the forum.

Lol, maybe theymos is now catching on, that the bunch of sig spamming greedy slime here, made up of escrow scammers, self defined willing scam facilitators for pay, and the rag tag bunch of trust abusing dumb fucks only give out suggestions that suits them.

I mean look at the pathetic 200 online total members here now? Take your serial sig spammers aka anything managed by hhampuz, darkstar and yahoo away? What do you have left in your echo chamber to moderate?

A new global moderator lol? What's wrong with hilarious selection you've got now. All you need to do is swap the text on hilarious and co's control panel to the inverse and you're good to go.

Of course you could add nutildah who like to delete his own post history when hes trying to hide evidence of his own willing to facilitate scamming for 300bucks
Someone begging for 0.02 btc not long ago.
I'm not joking when I say he could be the least damaging global mod from the current suggestions here.

Prime number 7 ? This is the worst possible choice, I would see suchmoon as global mod before that slimy snake cunt.
That devious skank would manipulate that position and is the least trustworthy person here I believe now.
So that could be an endorsement as far as Theymos is concerned.

Just look as what quicksellout7 is proposing ..that is perfectly fine and correct to slap lies and misleading claims demanding threads be terminated with dont feed the troll bullshit.

When

1. Oloeieo fails when challenged to present even 1 instance of trolling ever.

2. More importantly fails to even challenge the inconvenient truths being labelled falsely as trolling.

This is actually scam facilitating that PN7 is supporting here.
If you try to mislead people into believing independently verifiable evidence of financially motivated wrong doing is trolling in other words conclusively debunked garbage you are facilitating scamming.

Pn7 aka quicksellout for years was constantly claiming lauda was a proven scammer and produced evidence to corroborate that.
Then when lauda has also red tagged and flagged quicksellout and had claimed he was a proven scammer.

Then what happens ? Lauda tags PN7 and suddenly quicksellout7 and lauda at the same time that both are not scammers after all. Qs7 retracts and delete a bunch of evidence he has stood behind for years just to be able to earn some money on his new account without a red from lauda.

You would see this kind of weasel as global mod. You will make the forum a laughing stock more than it is now.

Sure hilarious and co is a totally biased scammer supporting parasite, but as far as I know is not actually a scammer himself. Lets not sink further than that for the admin level here.

What this forum needs is to delete all sigs and then you'll need less mods.

Or it needs objective clearly defined standards that are enforced equally to all members.

Maybe Theymos needs someone as global mod that has never had one of their posts regarding the trust system, nor a post regarding the on topic and relevant nature of a post debunked or successfully refuted even though they have been challenged 100s of times?  Someone who's isn't here to eat ass and chum up with other broken down scumbags to eek out some btc dust? Isn't afraid to do what is required to rid the forum of the parasites draining it and making it a deserted echo chamber.

No no that's just a silly idea... sorry.

The fact the forum can even take seriously what proven scammers and willing scam facilitators for pay have to say regarding the operation of this forum is hilarious.

Then when you look at the only people that respond to or engage with these proven financially dangerous scum you notice it is simply more of their ilk. Couple of exceptions myself being one of those.

The forum does not need more global mods it needs one global mod that can successfully defend all of their actions publically when a novel action is taken that has not been defended successfully before. When taking into account the rules. Whilst introducing a sensible permitted flow for everyone to follow.

No sigs for anyone will soon fix 90% of the spam, the rest can be taken out under the sensible " trolling " definition of posting previously conclusively debunked garbage as true or Visa versa.

Nobody would support such a global mod because most of the dregs posting in this thread would be either banned or sig banned for life by now. Couple or exceptions maybe

Keep entertaining me though no coiner non achieving dregs with these self important demands that will make all the difference to the handful of posters that are not just here to sig spam for dust.

Hilarious and co does a great job of ensuring nobody takes the mods here for serious enthusiasts trying to improve the forum. Rather just using multiple accounts to eek max dust whilst supporting scammers abusing their whistleblowers since they feel that helps them retain their sig dust spots.

Then the forum acts all shocked that other very well known members of the original bitcoin community go around reporting that this forum is a biased and broken echo chamber full of non achieving insignificant losers.

I mean feel free to debunk any points I've made.

I nominate The-Mod-Above-All

What theymos thinks happens in P&S:



What really happens in P&S:


A new breed of posters have managed to adapt to the rules where they can crank out a shitpost and not have it deleted because it does not technically violate any pre-existing rules. I'm honestly not sure what the remedy is but being over-run by cheeseball sig campaigners cheapens the forum and makes us all look like morons.

Honestly: if you were visiting the forum for the first time and didn't know that people got paid to post here, you'd take one look through Bitcoin Discussion and think "Wow, a lot of people write way too much about nothing."

I don't really mind the loud mental illness aspect of P&S, that's a byproduct of giving everybody equal access to a platform.

I don't know what the solution is either short of continuing to add people to my ignore list.

Although definitely not in need of a board report cleanup, I can moderate the Bitcoin Wiki subboard if there's any interest (all the current mods are inactive here).

One thing to note is that you can just set the promise interval less than 4 seconds, and it'll wrap around if you recursively call report_post on error. Adjust according to your latency.^*

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I typically report by the page, which means 20 replies x 4 seconds each: something like 30 to 40 pages adds up to 40 to 50 minutes of waiting. Or, an alternative metric: it takes a minimum of an hour of waiting to submit every 1,000 reports you make.

Taking a very rough metric as the stats page only measures up to 2017 (at ~50,000 posts/day), checking the delta of message IDs over the past month: 57699315 to 57465182, which is 234133.

I'll take 200,000 as a conservative measure: that's 8333 posts per hour, of which you want the equivalent of 8 people * (% of spam posts) constantly reporting, 24/7.

How much spam is there, then? 10%? One person? 20%? Two people? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

For every 1% of spam that is produced by the forum every month, you will waste at least 2.2 hours of waiting for submission^⸸. I can assure you that there are still enough posts of low enough quality to where you can find them faster than your queue finishes. One positive, though, is that you only need 2 people out of ~10000 in the active user base to act as report martyrs if say, 25% of new replies are spam. Fewer than the number of global moderators we have: surely, there's no problem.

I wasn't suggesting it was a popularity contest, but rather the community as the forum as a whole. Someone would have had to report my post and a mod would have to agree with the report. If that happens to me ten times, then it is obvious to anyone that it is me who is in the wrong here.

I don't think so. We make exceptions for plagiarism, no reason we can't do the same for spam. And even then, you could make the limit 50 posts per 30 days. There are very few users who would have 50 posts deleted for spamming in a 30 day period and actually be a net positive for the forum.

Actually wouldn't make much difference to me. I always use suchmoon's script which will simply queue up all my reports and send one every 5 seconds (if I set it to 4 seconds then sometimes it messes up due to latency). It does mean that sometimes I have to walk away from my computer for 10 minutes while it processes the queue of reports I have generated though.

What if - and stop me if this sounds like the craziest idea ever - reports weren't restricted by post throttling?

If it takes me 4 seconds to report a post, even if I can instantaneously decide "spam/not spam"...

How long does it take for a spammer to post a new reply? 60 seconds? 120 seconds? Divide that by 4 seconds: how many spammers do I cancel out?

So, how many spammers are there in total?

_Oh.

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Take my reports as an example and feel free to cross-reference the number of good reports (found in sent feedback and partially-filled in BPIP) against users. There have been some with multiple hundreds. And these aren't just posts here and there, they're every single post

The board is full of trivia but not precisely what you are thinking about.


So the election of Biden (Democrat) Johnson (Conservative) and Macron (something in the middle) shows the control of the elite.

I don't know which is the right alternative for you, as there couldn't be more variety in those people you have mentioned. It seems like if any politician had been elected instead of those, that would also show the control of the elite. If you want you can create a thread in P&S and we can debate.


Freedom of speech is highly respected in P&S, as it is in general in the forum. There you can discuss whatever you want, that's why even some trivial threads and posts are allowed out of respect for that freedom.

To say that it is difficult to discuss the topics you want because people disagree with your views is another thing.

What the community thinks doesn't matter. Moderation is not a popularity contest, and the only consideration that should be used when moderating is if a post follows the rules.

As I noted in my previous post, it is my belief that an exception to the rules should be made for your posts I described. I believe the benefits to both my those specific posts outweigh the negatives. I don't report posts I believe should be allowed to remain.

My point is that if we were to implement a strict policy of banning people after x number of deleted posts, it becomes difficult to account for making exceptions to rules, as I advocate to in your case.

I believe that political discussions and debates on social changes should be one of the most important boards for cryptocurrency users and innovators. Unfortunately the board here is full of trivia, and governemnt and pharma misinformation. The use of vaccines as "cures", the election of people like Biden, Macron and Boris Johnson shows the control the elite dynasties have over countries. The promotion of paedophilia and drug and alcohol abuse is changing families, and mass migration is destroying countries. The rising tide of debt will cause a massive transfer of wealth. It is difficult to discuss any of these topics in the political forum, and that saddens me.

That's why I think a regular of the board who can proactively keep it clean with some help from user reports would be better than having global mods taking care of mod-less boards on a 100% reactive report basis. Someone who is actually hanging out there would know immediately who's truly disruptive and who's just occasionally trolling.

And all this talk about numbers... it's not really a math thing. Someone can have 100 posts deleted out of 1000 and still be a valuable member. Shit, someone could have 15 out of their 20 first posts deleted if they didn't know some obscure rule - which by the way is not an easy thing for a newbie to figure out but that's a whole different discussion - and they could still be a valuable member, just may need a little nudge in the right direction. Mod discretion FTW.

What gets my goat is persistent willful spammers and shitposters, who take enormous numbers of reports to get even a temp ban.

I often reported users with a comment along the lines of "I have x number of good reports against this user for spam in the last 30 days, please consider a ban", which was easy to do by simply visiting my reporter stats page and searching for their username. Even when I the number of reports I (never mind anyone else!) had against that user was in the order of 50+ or even 100+, they did not get banned.

Because when it comes to reporting spam, there is no point. I don't care about gamification, or rewards, or badges, or anything else. All I care about is being able to have an intelligent discussion without spammers. But as I said in an earlier post, I could spend nearly every waking hour doing nothing but reporting posts (and indeed, it felt like I did do this in the past) and see next to no difference. If you delete a bounty hunter or sig spammer's post, they are simply incentivized to make 3 more to make sure they definitely hit their quota even if other posts get deleted too. If we aren't going to take any real action against the spammers, then you might as well be asking users to use a cup to empty a bath, while refusing to turn off the faucets.

If I though my thousands of reports would actually lead to change, rather than only cleaning things up for a matter of hours, I would be back at it in a heartbeat.

So then you would be well within your right to report it. If I had my image deleted, I would know the community thought it was spam. If I posted it again and it was deleted again, then there would be no doubt in my mind. If I did it another 8 times, then I can't really complain about a temp ban. If that's still too lenient, then increase it to 20 posts or 50 posts in 30 days. Even then we would find no shortage of accounts hitting the threshold.

Global moderators will now be aware of the issue where they can decide whether to take action, and to what extent.

Looks like we might have just found a bug. In the handled reports section, it most certainly points to a different thread, giving the illusion it was removed. However, it hasn't been, and I've just checked a few others, and the exact same thread number is given. Not sure if this is intentional, but some of them work as intended. Not exactly sure why its behaving like that.

I'm assuming its caused because the user themselves is deleting it rather than a moderator.

Actually, we can verify it using modlog: this user hasn't had any posts deleted by a moderator, and indeed the reports are marked as Good.
He also bumped both threads 3 more times since my (failed) report. I've now reported the first post of those topics:

Nope, they still exist.

Absolutely, I don't think we should be relying on reports from the community, but it does significantly help the process, because multiple eyes is better than one. I do believe most moderators remove content they come across that hasn't been reported, and also report posts that they can't remove.

Last going off; theymos stated it was harder than initially thought to implement, and as a result went down on his to do list. I am paraphrasing a bit there, but I'll look for the quote soon. However, I would think theymos is aware of these discussions, and questions about the reporting badges, so I guess he'll update the community when its appropriate.

Here's the quote:

While the community could play their job, I believe mods do have to be proactive as well. Most of us don't hang out at the local boards so spams might be overlooked there.

About the badge thingy, it's an interesting addition ngl. Any way to check with theymos about its progress?

In regards to acting upon external evidence; It's a hard one to say really, context applies. Moderators obviously act upon external data, because we have to verify plagiarism via off site sources usually. However, other external data would probably have to be considered on a case by case basis since it could easily be manipulated.  

However, as far as I know if the user deletes the post before a moderator actually handles it, it'll move to the handled reports, and a moderator likely won't see it. This is something I'd have to verify, and actually be on the look out. Moderators can look at recent handled reports, which means they could potentially verify if this has happened. For example, I just searched the recent reports, and have verified that the user was definitely reported twice, and either it was deleted by the user or another moderator. We can't verify without an admin, whether it was deleted by the user or another staff user.

If a user is abusing the bumping system, and bumping more than 24 hours it you mention that, I tend to put these lists on a little note, and just observe it in the future. If I can verify that then I can escalate it. Obviously, this sort of behaviour is more common in the marketplaces sections, but I do see these reports every now, and then due to them being newbies. Though, I'm not sure what the dedicated moderators or global moderators do in these cases. The user that you reported at least on the thread that it was reported, the thread seems to have been completely removed, so that was probably the punishment that the staff user handling it deemed appropriate.

You will need to report a post that will not get deleted. If you report a post that gets deleted, your report will also get deleted.

This is actually really common from my observations. They bust their gut to actually get into the signature campaign, however once they are actually in it they get complacent, and just focus on getting to the required amount of posts. It's a pity, since they've demonstrated they can actually put a good amount of effort in. I think campaign managers should probably be a little more strict on this after all they hired them on the premise of their past posting quality.

Talking about complacency above; I've probably become a little complacent in moderating, relying too much on reports coming in, rather than actually reporting outside of my sections. Like I mentioned I've started to kick into gear again in the Altcoin Discussion section, but I might have to make a little more time for a concentrated effort on Bitcoin Discussion, and other sections.

Its a good shout, I didn't really put much thought into it before this thread was brought up. I was always aware of that little niggle of deleted posts not showing, however never saw it as a big enough issue. Obviously, the drawbacks I see from including it on forum is it might influence moderators to take more drastic measures that need to be taken, because they may feel pressured by the fact that this user has x amount of deleted posts. Its probably worth moderators escalating these cases to global moderators though, since a temporary ban might be better depending on the context.

Anyway, back to your point; user scripts could definitely be a individual fix, but it would probably be beneficial if this was available on the forum directly, as not everyone wants to sort it out with setting up a user script    

Ah, I was only kidding anyway I thought it was pretty cool.

Nah, hence why I didn't say a specific number of reports since it's not public, and there might be a reason for that. However, for sure reports have gone down dramatically over the last few months at least.

Loads of reasons, some of which have been given in this thread by various users. I didn't want to specify exactly what, because it varies from each user.

What is clear to me is; there was a real community drive a few months ago to concentrate on removing the spam as a community, and that was fantastic. However, recently as outlined above in this thread there's been a shift in mentality. I think reporting badges are more important now, than when they were proposed so I would like to see these implemented sooner rather than later, however I don't think they are a permanent fix, and rather patching an issue up for a little while until the regular reports have achieved the highest level offered.

This was made two years ago for 10th anniversary art contest, I never posted it in public and I found the picture few days ago when I was cleaning my hard drive (because I though it's going to die).

Sure I can do that, unfortunately cherry is not making ₿ symbol yet  

Is there a way to see some public statistic for total number of reported posts and it's historic values?

Back then the malware wave was just insane, that was some real work for you guys.

It's crazy because almost every time I report those bots, another one pops up real quick.


Could be them trying to maintain their accuracy scores, who knows? :p

Do Mods act on external evidence? I've just reported 2 topics for bump spam, showing loyce.club link 1 and loyce.club link 2 as evidence. The user has no posts deleted by Mods, but bumps his topics about 6 times more than allowed.
What happens to such a report? If his latest bump gets deleted, he'll probably just continue. If he deleted his own post before a moderator sees my report, does that invalidate my report?

Here's a challenge: Make theymos without € sign

If there are red lines in which bans, temporary or otherwise, must be issued, moderation overall must become more strict for everyone. This means if I am relaxing and having a good time in a thread, I might have my post deleted (and risk getting banned), even if the post is borderline okay, and it is well known that I usually put a lot of effort into my posts. If rules are not enforced evenly, and strictly, those who are banned will have legitimate complaints when they do get banned.

I have seen you (I believe it was you) post a single image that says something along the lines of "don't feed the troll" in response to, well trolls creating troll threads. Do I agree with these posts, do I think these posts are necessary and do I think these posts should be removed? Yes, yes and no. Do I think these types of posts should be removed under a strict reading of forum rules? Yes, it is a low effort post. As I mentioned above, I don't think these types of posts should be removed because their benefits outweigh the issue of it being a low-effort post. However if someone is banned the same day they see this type of post, that doesn't get deleted, they will legitimately think they are being treated unfairly. On the other hand, if individual judgment is used, and the circumstances are weighed, someone who is banned will have less of a leg to stand on.


I think part of the problem is the lack of readability of some sections, such as bitcoin discussion. Some sections are so bad that users who report posts won't even read certain sections. If modest improvements can be made to certain sections that result in increased readership, the number of reports may go way up as more people read these sections.

This should be a fairly easy fix. It should not be difficult to create a userscript that show the number of deleted posts within x timeframe. However, I think it would probably be better for this to be something displayed to moderators via the forum. The public modlog does not show when a post was made, or the reason for deletion, so a mod deleting 100 old bump posts from 5 years ago is treated the same way as 100 low effort posts made within the past two months. If these two details can be added to the modlog, any userscript will be able to provide far more context to any information it displays (ditto if the forum displays this information to the moderators). If the moderators are not currently being asked to justify their actions, a dropdown could be added to either reports, and/or to posts themselves. There could even be a default "none" option for justification for mods who (semi)automate their moderation (and have not yet updated their scripts) or otherwise don't want to justify their actions based on the available options on the list. Keeping track of the "why" moderation actions are taken can also provide additional insights to the administration in managing the forum. For example, if a certain section has a lot of posts deleted for excessive bumping, the administration might want to implement the "new" bump system for that section. Or if a lot of well-established forum members are violating a particular rule, the specifics of said rule may want to be re-evaluated.

The issue with re offending users is likely because a limitation to SMF. Moderators can't see if a user has been reported or had x amount of posts deleted recently, unless they manually check via the modlog. On a very busy day of handling reports, a moderator might see several hundred, and at its peak of reporting probably thousands of reports a day, and therefore potentially thousands of users. Now, because of the way reporting, and the report queue works, multiple moderators might be dealing with those reports at the same time, and therefore that's where the consistency might be lost.

For example, mprep might delete a post from user1, and I might delete another two from user1, but because there's no clear indication, at least without manually searching the recent modlog data, then there's no easy way of seeing if a user has had a number of posts  deleted recently. You could potentially look at the modlog or previously handled reports, but this is a rather messy way to do it.

It would probably be beneficial to include recent number of deleted posts by a user using the existing modlog already in place, and put that information on the profile page or potentially within the report queue itself.
 
You have too much time on your hands .

Gamification works, as demonstrated by various industries. For example, universities now offer badges as motivation for completing certain tasks, and courses. Other learning resources like Coursera, and Edx also do the same.

I wouldn't be particularly motivated by things like this, however I know others will. Some people enjoy social status more than others.

The reality is a few months ago reports were either around this value, or exceeding it. However, recently its been much lower than that figure.

I'm going to be dedicating a little more time to the areas that I can moderate within the altcoin sections, but I've also recently delved back into reporting inside the Altcoin Discussion section, since that place is rather over run, and by accounts that I can't handle due to their rank. Although, I know that there's a lot of work that goes on within the Altcoin section, and while it might not seem like it there's multiple staff contributing to moderating there.

Also, I do get the frustration from reporting, it is at the best of times a thankless job. However, it is absolutely vital to the community, and I know that I'm always grateful for people throwing reports my way. I've got to echo hilariousandco here, but I think the reporter badges will at least help revitalise reports again, however it would probably only be a temporary solution until everyone has reached the highest obtainable badge. Judging by theymos' update though, it hasn't been cancelled, but rather its more work than anticipated.  

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As I see it the current issues we have are:
 
- Slightly cumbersome UI when it comes to the reporting queue, and additional information between moderators e.g displaying recently deleted posts in a intuitive way.

- The community seems to have become tired with reporting, whatever the reasons that may be.

- There probably isn't enough moderators, however because of the lack of reporting, how is theymos suppose to determine a good candidate. Obviously, there's other factors, but I think it's safe to assume that reporting will be one of the primary factors considered.

Personally, I'd love to see the community operating towards a common goal again, like a few months ago, and making a real concentrated effort to get spam dealt with quickly, and efficiently. However, it would be unfair to ask that from everyone, and the best option we have is offering an incentive, without it being problematic. The reporter badges was a fantastic idea, and its probably the best solution to our problem, albeit likely a temporary one, unless some very high, and frequent reporter badges were added.

With the amount of reports increasing, it would likely mean the possibility of moderators being added would be higher. I can't speak on the behalf of theymos, and whether or not its in his vision for new moderators, but at least with the data being there i.e number of reports, there's at least a little more to work with when it comes the time he wants to add more.

If mprep is not verbose, this does not mean at all that he is not coping (although you didn't say that), I have never seen that he would not answer when it was really necessary (including PM), the same goes for hilarious. In any case, since Theymos ignored the discussion regarding the appointment of a moderator in the Mining section, in particular, the appointment of philipma1957 as a moderator, (despite the fact that this section really needs a moderator), then I definitely would not expect any job changes among the global mods.

Either way, the deletion of posts is even more inefficient than the locking of threads. Shut off the tap rather than draining water while the faucet is running. Opening up new threads is one thing, and filling them with spam posts is another: if the same thread keeps cropping up, does that mean we stop locking? Here's a similar question: if users continue to post spam without slowing down, do we stop reporting posts (or instead create a new section because the spam is too much)?

Not mutually exclusive! Doesn't it make it easier to both read through the forum and target spammers by locking away useless threads? What we lack is streamlined, efficient moderation: I have personally seen users post waves of spam and be unpunished for them, sometimes even despite having been reported dozens of times. An increased volume of reports relative to the content would help in that measure, fitting well within a smaller space of topics. If it is so that we find the same spammers posting the same redundancies, locking away similar thread topics will bring attention to this behavior much more quickly than a loose collection of posts from assorted users and boards.

Besides... you write as if current threads aren't unbearable.

---

And for the sake of the forum, can somebody handle the altcoin boards?

Of course still the poster, the campaign manager has nothing wrong and already doing their job pretty well.

The mininum merit usually just a rules to apply, it's not guarantee if you receive 5 or even 100 merit you'll not spam. Because I still see some user like that, he get a minimum merit to apply in a campaign but after got accepted he spamming to earn signature quota or burst posting.

The one reason for the merit system to be implement was to remove the spam as the spamming accounts won't be able to rank up and those already ranked up will get no current merits. Most bitcoin signature campaign require you to have at least 5 merits in last 120 days.

Even then we see the spam from those poster who have gained the minimum merits requirements. Now whom to blame this? 

I know Altcoin campaign allow Jr members / Members and no merit conditions but lets just try to first find the root cause through bitcoin signature campaigns.

If you really think that would help, then we are really in big trouble. If the members of this forum have to be motivated in this way to do something good, then at this moment it is crystal clear how much they care about this forum. "I'll clean up the spam if I have a badge, and if not then I don't care", how low someone can go to get one more dot in their profile?

If every active member reported at least 5 posts every day, so let's say at least 100 members do so - 500x30 = 15 000 fewer spam posts per month.

I have few of those cherry Delete keycap buttons, along with bitcointalk, satoshi and theymos, just waiting for a challenge  





There isn't a day when I don't report several posts, but problem is that I ignore more and more users every day, to be able to function as normal as possible in this forum.

Yes please, and I think that Bitcoin Discussion thread should be priority right now, along with adding Lightning Network thread.

I'm not against more mods and certainly think there's a few people who have earned a place on staff with their report counts but I think it's a lack of reports that is the main issue. There's far too much spam but no real incentive for users to report it so staff aren't going to go out of their way to find spam to remove. I'm not sure how much tinkering theymos wants to do with this current software but I still think we should considering adding those reporter badges that come with a few small perks as I certainly think that would help boost reports and clean up spam.

Maybe it would be best to add some dedicated sub board mods for the boards that are lacking one but the P&S section is going to be a notoriously difficult board to mod and it's probably one where it's just best left up to globals rather than have someone who is going to be a focal point to put the blame on or attack when something in there doesn't go their way. Blatant spam can and should obviously be removed but everything else should probably be left alone and people can either argue why they disagree or just ignore that person if they're too annoying or crossing the line of decency/sanity.

It's the internet, you can always argue
I'd love to see that board cleaned up though, and if theymos would give me a Delete button, I'd take on the challenge.

I’m just an occasional guest on the Croatian board so I don’t even consider myself nearly qualified to be a moderator there. In addition, there are other much more active members who are suitable for the job, if it ever happens that the admin decides to give someone a chance to moderate that board. It seems that on this forum it is much better to come to terms with the old rules than to try to change something for the better at all.


I have already read an almost identical statement several times, which only confirms that some people just give up before others (including you). Such statements only make the situation worse by letting others know that they should leave that board to spammers - because if LoyceV says something is a lost cause, then there is no point in arguing.

Which is why I suggested escalating levels of temp bans first. If you've been temp banned four times already for spamming, and are still continuing to spam, then you are never going to change and banning you permanently is a suitable "last resort". Exceptions can be made as they are with the plagiarism rule for less black-and-white cases.

I don't disagree that spam/repetitive/redundant threads need locked, but this does not address the underlying cause of the problem. There are always more threads to post in and spammers can also open new threads faster than they can be reported and locked. Spammers chasing a paycheck will always find a way to reach their quota, whether or not 90% of threads are locked. It will just make the unlocked threads even more unbearable. The only solution is to starting handing out real punishments to the spammers and the campaigns which encourage them.

I would agree with you in this case, but moderators are not doing that very often or not at all, even with obvious case of spamming like for Livecoin dead thread that is still active in similar way.
I reported several times and asked for locking of that thread but my reports are still unhandled so I gave up doing that.
Other more thing that should be locked or moved to trash is duplicate topics, so we have multiple topics with exactly the same title and content across the forum.

Being a moderator can really be a punishment and not everybody could do it, but I think that Croatian board is probably the only active local board that don't have local moderator, so Cyrus is doing out work even if he doesn't speak out language.
We are not in emergency state yet, but we could end up like any other board and we need some cleaning up and reorganization.
 
PS
I don't argue with person L, I just ignore him.

All you need is someone to start locking up threads so that you don't get waves of redundancy. We have a search feature and commonly mention it, except for some reason we only seem to talk about it when another thread with the same topic pops up and not beforehand.

Spam threads with generic content can entertain discussion for a few pages before the substance becomes meaningless. Even longer threads that go on eventually splinter into subtopics which would be better reserved for new topics, for arguments in PM, or will diverge from the original topic in a way where the first page has little to do with the last.

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More often than not, I would rather have a topic be locked rather than have dozens of posts from it to be deleted. Cut the problem from the root instead of chasing spam posts, because you know that spam will come from multiple users.

What if you had someone that focused on this, rather than working through the bulk of the report queue? Efficiency matters, and moderators' time is not infinite. I don't see how we would need the Serious discussion section if we properly moderated our boards. It's basically an ad-hoc solution that screams, "forum is a shithole, this is where we have real topics"

There is not anyone who does not have any bias on a subject. What is more important than not having a bias, is the ability to remain neutral, despite said bias. For reference, I have a 99% accuracy rate in reporting posts, and this includes some reports that were marked "bad" in error, such as those reporting double posts.

There are a handful of threads in which actual debate takes place. There are also a decent number of threads with extremist viewpoints and interpretations.

Structurally speaking, I believe what you are describing are two different concepts, rather than an inter-connected one:

(1) A new global mod to pick up forum-wide moderation slack
(2) A local mod for P&S and other sections that require moderation

A global mod shouldn't be wasting their time moderating non-moderated sections, as I am certain there are more than enough mod reports to get through, especially from those types of sections.
Furthermore don't expect a new global mod to be picking up slack elsewhere from badly moderated sections, unless you want a global mod to become quickly exhausted.
I like the ideas of what you are suggesting to improve forum moderation, but to me they are two distinctly separate proposals it seems. Just my two satoshis.

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I've read worse ideas. You can be annoying, provocative, as well as irritating with attention to detail, but otherwise well-respected by many here. Global mod material basically, I definitely wouldn't put you in charge though


This sounds like the most sensible solution. In my opinion appointing local mods should be based on accuracy of their mod reports, rather than anything else. Reward/punish those making those reports is the obvious choice.


Working in pairs or small groups is definitely the way forward to avoid the dictatorial control from a single mod in a particular section (especially P&S I imagine).
Appointing a single mod to a "controversial" or problematic section would be a disaster. They would also just get harassed by PMs I imagine.

If I were in charge - that's a scary thought, isn't it - I would probably appoint a couple of moderators to each of those underserved boards. For example nutildah and DireWolfM14 for P&S, LoyceV with o_e_l_e_o for BD/Press, dkbit98 and Lucius for Croatian boards, mainly to punish them all for complaining so much but also to give a bit of a proactive push to clean those boards instead of waiting for reports, which could be a good deterrent without banning. And I'd hope that having two mods work out some sort of agreement between them could help with the inevitable bias accusations and moderation complaints. If they start slacking a year or two from now, pick someone else from active users.

I'll admit that I thought FlyingHellFish was a poor moderator of the P&S section because he was too biased, and I was of the opinion that his bias influenced his moderation duties.  For the same reasons I think QuickPrimeSeller7 would also be poor moderator of that section, even if I do agree with him (in political terms) more often than not.  If he's volunteering, my (presumptive) vote is "NAY."

---

I actually enjoy a political debate from time to time, but I find the P&S section to be more of a troll show than anything.  There are very few rational debates, and both liberals and conservatives end up reverting to trolling one another.  I often find myself succumbing to the trolling as well when I engage in those topics, which is why I tend to steer clear of most of the threads there.  It takes a lot of effort to remain calm and rational when most participants are engaging in such BS.  I don't envy anyone who tries to moderate that section.  

Speaking of reading, I didn't say you're abusing the trust system. I said "misusing", which is a weaker word than "abusing" in this context and can include unintentional usage, whereas abuse is typically intentional. However if the shoe fits feel free to wear it.

Anyway, those ratings are soft negatives, and putting such a chickenshit label on a user for expressing their opinion is a dick move, totally incompatible with your declarations of "[encouraging] everyone to have a well-reasoned debate" and "[making] well-reasoned counterpoints". This is the intertubes equivalent of throwing a rotten egg at your opponent and running away when you lose the argument.

But hey, if those are the qualities theymos is looking in moderator candidates, you're definitely a frontrunner.

I enjoy reading about politics, and I enjoy talking about politics. Everyone has their own biases. I would however be fair to everyone.

You must not be able to read.
Banning someone, means that someone is being removed from the community. Theymos wants to remove someone from the bitcointalk community, only as a last resort, even for people who cause problems for theymos personally.

There was a time in which I used to look for threads/posts to report and acclimated a decent number of reports doing so. I don't think that is the intended way that reports should be made. I think it is best to report threads and posts as you are browsing the forum as if you would be if you were not going to report any threads/posts.


I think the businesses themselves should be called out publically when they employ (via crappy signature campaign managers) people who make a lot of low effort posts. If a business wants to stop criticism about the harm their advertising is doing to the forum, they will need to get their campaign manager to do a better job at policing campaign participants, or if the campaign manager is unable, or unwilling to do so, the company will need to find another campaign manager.

I sympathize with this feeling - I think that the frustration that is created within members who actually care for this forum content and well being is far greater than the "consequences" of those same abusers. I'm not diminishing the work from the mods who delete these threads, but I'm sure that it's also tiresome for them to be always deleting the same kind of threads/posts created by the same user(s), especially when the rules being broken are constantly the same.
I fully support free speech - I'm from the opinion that one of the most powerful and beautiful things of live is free speech. People can say whatever they think about a certain subject and it's up to the listeners to make a critical judgement and determine if they're are either against or aligned with that vision. That works well for Facebook/Twitter because they are (supposedly) un-moderated platforms and if I don't like the person I can simply block him / move on with my life. The problem in communities such as our is that that we can't keep "forgiving" the same user over and over again by continuing to break the forum rules (and most of the time the same rules) - if he/she doesn't respect the forum rules, why do we have them in the first place? Just for them to be guidelines of correct behavior?

I totally understand that newer members may occasionally break the rules and a couple of warnings should show him that perhaps he should think twice before making future threads or at least re-think his way of posting. But when that fails, why should we just continue to erase his threads ? If he/she continues to show a lack of effort or the rules, why should we continue to increase the load of work for mods regarding his/her threads?

Also Good Luck with the reputation section lol
the topic was for the global mod so expect that already  

+1
but I think if this will be a possibility, 1xbit will surely be on the number one spot.

Edit:
I say, Dabs should be back on the position. despite of having issues on the past of soliciting.

Pretty much. I was doing 100+ good reports a day pretty consistently for months. Now I only report the most grievous of rule breakers - malware, phishing, selling stolen credit cards, that kind of thing. After I've reported the same spammer 50+ times and they are still getting paid to churn out more one liners as fast as I can report them, then what's the point?

I get that, and you'll know from previous discussions that I'm as staunch a defender of free speech as you are, regardless of how much I disagree with that speech. But your right to free speech doesn't also give you a right to destroy the possibility of having an intelligent discussion on Bitcoin Discussion because there are 10 nonsense replies for everyone 1 meaningful one.

Another opinion I share, and upon searching, discovered I said pretty much exactly that to you in another conversation 3 years ago. We are sounding a lot like broken records here.

Completely agree. The worst part is that we already have very clear rules regarding signature campaigns and spamming, but they have gone completely unenforced for years.

But the forum still has rules, unofficially official as they might be. And between altcoin boards, off topic, and other crappy boards there is definitely no lack of opportunities for shitposters to be free. I don't think we really needed to sacrifice Bitcoin Discussion to the hordes of shitcoin spammers.

I think that many of mods/global mods have left and none of them have been renewed, so this claim seems logical. The question may be who will be and whether he has enough experience in identifying low-quality posts.
I don't visit the political department but definitely the politics, off-topic and altcoins need more mods.
In general, my activity in the forum is no longer the same as before, so I do not know whether the spam level is normal or not, but in general we need more global mods.

I like this idea.  I don't want to throw all campaign managers under the bus, there are some who are quite diligent and respectful of the forum.  They are the ones who are quite critical of the users they allow in their campaigns, and don't tolerate spam.  It doesn't take much to figure out who they are.

But, there is very little accountability for spamming by many campaign managers.  Most of the guilty ones tend to be new.  They accept managerial positions for shady campaigns that are intent on spamming the forum, hiring as many accounts as possible, at meager rates, and send them out to flood the forum with low quality posts.  It seems like the only thing these managers care about are the blatant violations of the rules, like plagiarism, but when it comes to the quality of posts they are completely oblivious.  They tolerate low quality posts and spam because the rules are vague and they know they can get away with it.

Those campaign managers are earning money for their tasks, but their employers are the ones who are really responsible for the spam.  The managers themselves have an obligation to preserve the quality of the forum, but they don't seem to concern themselves with the preservation of the opportunity, the opportunity that wouldn't exist if wasn't granted by the forum, not the shady outfit for whom they work.

That doesn't work with the forum's mission to be as free as possible.

I report much less than I used to do. I've given up on automated searches to find spam, and I don't want to spend my time going over topics in which almost all posts deserve reporting.

AFAIK, user receives temp ban only when their post got deleted in mass number lets say 50 or above, to increase the quality of the forum the number can be decreased upto 5 times so when someone receives 10 good reports against them then it is better to impose a temp ban just as the above suggestion says. But there are also people claims that their posts are getting reports just for personal vengeance against them so its kind of confusing as well.

I totally agree with the suggestion, it would really send a clear message to those who are on the forum just to make money without caring about anything else. I don't know what is the reason for such a mild forum policy towards spammers, is this about some human freedoms or is it a matter of the staff not being able to implement such rules in practice because there are too few of them?


Maybe it’s a matter of who moderates the posts, because I have pretty good experiences with the ones I reported for spam. I have been following three profiles (1, 2, 3) that spam one-line posts for a long time, and since 5 days ago I see that all three are inactive - BPIP does not show a ban, but it is possible that it is a temp ban. I know these things are time-consuming, but it makes more sense to me to sacrifice a few minutes of time each day than to ignore everything.

The number might be misleading. It looks like quite a few users have given up on reporting. And I can't blame them, if it takes 100s of reports to ban clearly malicious spammers. It's an unwinnable fight.

Also where are the damn reporter badges?!?

I think what we actually need are some hard rules for how much you can spam before you are banned.

I have dozens, even hundreds, of good reports against some users. I've reported users stating as such and pleading for a ban. I've opened threads in Meta about obvious bot accounts from crypto news site which spam the Press board constantly, pleading for a ban. I've opened threads in Meta about accounts which post literally the same posts every week, deleting them and reposting them each week to max out bounty/sig rewards with zero effort, pleading for a ban. It never happens. I recently discovered one of these accounts which was kicked from its sig campaign for this behavior had happily enrolled in a new one.

Why should I continue to waste hours of my time, which is far more valuable than that of a chronic spammer's, continuing to report these users, when they receive literally zero punishment?

I would propose that if in the space of 30 days (rolling) you have more than 10 posts deleted for spam, then you automatically receive a one week ban. This increases to 2 weeks, 1 month, 3 months, permaban, on subsequent offenses. (Replace numbers as you see fit.) Every signature campaign that has a member banned for spamming receives a negative point, and after x number of negative points that signature campaign is booted from the forum.

How many senior members even venture in to Bitcoin Discussion anymore? I know several that have that entire board on ignore it is such a spamfest. I could sit on that board 18 hours a day doing nothing but reporting spam and not even make a dent, because we take literally zero action against the spammers or the campaigns which pay them.

Once again, and in view of what he says, I will agree with suchmoon, and PrimeNumber7 will not be able to say that I repeat left-wing propaganda.

The problem is that we all like to think we are more objective and unbiased than we are.

Leaving that feedback to Cnut237 is anything you want but unbiased, PrimeNumber7. I with Cnut237 usually have differing opinions, after debating sometimes we come to common ground and sometimes we don't. Precisely on the issue of structural racism I disagree with him. For me it is much less than what is painted, but to say that he simply repeats left-wing propaganda when Cnut237 is a person who always defends with detailed arguments what he says is completely misrepresentative. With that background, I don't trust you to do a good job as a moderator.

There is plenty of evidence. You are not supposed to like it, but you can't just wish it out of existence.


You're misusing the trust system against users for expressing opinions different from yours. I don't think you would have any qualms about misusing a moderator's position.

A new moderator is asked many times for P&S, Beginners & Help boards and there is no new specific moderator for that board. Some other moderators co-moderate that board as well as other boards even they are not global moderators.

Adding new global moderators are only neccessary if theymos sees the forum need new ones to support current three global moderators. If current global moderators are not overloaded, and can complete their assigned works well, I don't think theymos will consider a new one.

Ethnics, religion and politics are areas that hard to discuss and find consensus. I saw good friends become conflict with each other and almost keep distant with each other just because of difference in politics.

At the moment, the number of unhandled reports is at an all time low, so don't expect much change there (but a surprise is always possible).

Maybe we do need some fresh moderator blood and not only global mods but some new local moderators would also be a good addition to have.
Croatian local board is asking for new Local moderator for years, after theymos himself asked us to propose someone to replace the old moderator.
Here is the topic we started in 2020 and we are still waiting for answer [Request] Theymos we need moderator again in Croatian local board.

I am doing the same thing and my Ignore list is getting bigger every day.

I am pretty sure I've reported posts in the P&S board and have been dealt with. The only thing is, I am quite lenient when reporting, so if I report some post it is because it is a huge nonsense crap, not because it expresses some weird idea.

I'm not sure I like your idea of a specific moderator for P&S. To me there is an essential difference between what you call spammers in P&S and in other parts of the forum like Bitcoin Discussion or the Gambling Section. BaDecker-like forum members and others who write outlandish posts on P&S are not doing it to make money from signature campaings.  They write those posts because they really believe in it no matter how odd it may seem to a rational mind.

I understand that if moderation is not harsher in that section it is out of respect for the freedom of speech that exists on this forum. As I say I'm pretty sure I've reported posts there that have been deleted, which I can't verify because I haven't reached 300 reports.

I would be concerned that posts in that section would start getting deleted because they are considered conspiratorial, as is happening especially in social media.

There was a time when if you believed that the invasion and war in Iraq was for oil instead of WMD you were a conspiracist. The same if you thought that COVID had come out of a laboratory in Wuhan...

Whoever supports censorship because it suits his political ideas should not complain tomorrow if they censor him too.

I'd go full Switzerland on the board, but I don't want to waste my time reading political discussions.

The more you log in, the less you see the forum moderators, and the more you read about them, the less you comprehend.


You are doing a great job!! more than the few avatars wearing moderators I know^{[ they are extremely active on the games and round board only]},  the likes of @lovemayfamilis @timlord2067 and few others are getting their hands filthy to keep the forum free of spammers and cheats; I'm not sure if the present Mod/staff were as excellent as these people before they were given the role.

If you are not Quicksy then you are not Quicksy you don't have to feel guilty whenever you come across the name "Quicksy" except something is hanging up!!!

You have alledged that I am "Quicksy" (without evidence), so I will respond here...

If I were to become a moderator of the P&S sub, I would not moderate as Twitter does, but rather would moderate as a neutral party "down the middle". I would continue to express my opinion but would encourage everyone, regardless of their opinion to post their opinions and encourage everyone to have a well-reasoned debate with those they disagree with. I would split topics as they go off topic, would remind people to remain on-topic, and would make well-reasoned counterpoints when someone makes an argument I disagre with, in order to allow for others to debate

In sum, I would do what I can in order to make P&S great again!

Probably we can see someone new if the existing moderators and global mods can't handle the number of reports are getting generated so they don't have time to handle all of them but until now there is no such thing happened even I remember that theymos mentioned that he is not interested to hire anymore staff for this forum a long way back.

This would likely just go down as another suggestion that the admins would not take any action on. Granted, there are quite a number of boards and sections on the forum that would do well with more moderation to try and salvage them. As @Pharmarcist pointed out, there has been no particular change in the level of spam on the forum over the years.

Theymos has opened threads about needing new mods for a particular board when the need arises, so he possibly has not seen the need for a global mod as yet or anyone willing and able to fill that position.

I'm not so sure the old wave ever left--for good, that is.  There's always been a baseline level of crap posting being done by various members of the forum, covering most sections (with the exception of perhaps Mining, Ivory Tower, and Serious Discussion).  Also, I haven't really detected an increase in shitposts, but I'm not saying you're wrong.  I've got a lot of sections on ignore, so I could be missing a wave of spam if it's happening....but I guess that's the point of having those sections on ignore, so it's a win for me if true.

Neither one of those members are "new blood" and I don't think OP would consider them what he's looking for.  Nor do I know how good a job hilariousandco and mprep are doing as global mods, since I don't know how to determine that.  I haven't seen the former make as many posts as he used to, that's for sure.  And as far as mprep goes, I never did see many of his posts at all--but that doesn't mean he or any other global mod isn't doing their job.

Yeah, but you can still see when those members post, and that's still a scrolling hassle sometimes.  I still like to report shitposters just to fuck with 'em and perhaps get their posts deleted, though I don't know how often that really happens.

I'm at my 50 merit/month limit with you, else I would have gladly merited that post.  I don't know when that limit expires, but I'll resume giving you merits as soon as it is.

This was already suggested not too long ago and as far as I know it did not get any response from theymos so I'm assuming that's not an option.

To be fair, P&S is an exceptionally shitty shithole even by Bitcointalk standards, so (1) finding someone willing to spend time there wouldn't be easy and (2) a person with sound judgement would be smeared relentlessly by copypasta lemmings there and in Meta too.

While I already recognize staff members more easily than I did a couple of months ago, I wasn't sure what the full list was. Your thread made me search for some sort of page where we could see who, in fact, is actively part of staff as of today (or at least very recently). I've found this thread - List of the forum's admins/ global moderators/ staffs - by @tranthidung that was recently updated (at least May 2021). I think it gives everyone who reads this thread a full scope of how the "board" of staff is actually composed of.

Ever since I've came back more activelty to the forum I've been doing my best to report every kind of thread / spammer that I see "being born" in the new threads - and I must say that albeit I have a very small number of good reported posts (around 370ish) I do have the feeling that if I dedicated a full day to the activity that number would for sure increase (the overall nº of reports, without saying that it's going to be for sure a good report). If we take a look at https://bpip.org/ within the past 3 months we've got 93,102 active profiles. If we assume that 5 % (don't know how accurate this would be, sadly I don't think it may be this high but I would like to be wrong on this one) of those users - +-4,655 - dedicate some of their time to report threads/posts, I can't even imagine how does the moderation inbox looks like for the previously mentioned staff members. Add to that task the needed attention/dedication that they have to take in account regarding other activities (like you said giveaways and such) and they can be, indeed, few when compared with the overall work that they must have at hands.
I honestly don't have a clue in what the optimum number of global moderators should be - mainly because I don't know what KPI's one should follow in order to justify the addition/removal of them. Here's my brainstorming of ideas on this subject:

• Should we look for daily number of threads being created vs. the amount of reports being generated?
• The nº of days/hours that it takes to handle unhanded reports?
• Time that it takes to reply to a staff message from a member? Extend this to the time that it takes to solve the issue/problem that the user lifted?
• Number of active discussions/threads being generated per day?
• Number of replies to threads so that one can understand how each thread is evolving and if it could be derailing in some point (this is a shi**y KPI I think)

Again, if I was a moderator of a forum, I would base the decision to add a new member if I though that the KPI's that I and my team had established for it weren't being satisfied - which would have a direct impact on the well-being of the community. I think that an interesting question would be : What do the moderators/staff feel? I think that we often have so much discussions about everything, that we often may overlook (not on purpose of course) the "burden" that they must feel from time to time regarding the effort that it takes to run this forum. It's a similar feeling to being a merit source I believe - one has the power/responsibility to distribute merits to good threads / replies but I don't think it's an easy task. What I do believe is that the actual constant search for those same threads/replies can also be exhaustive - on one hand we have the amount of merits to distribute, but on the other we can't simply give them blindly - that's why I also think being a merit source isn't all lights and whistles. I've had at least a conversation about this with a merit source that feels like this, but I believe he/she isn't the only one.

So yeah, jumping back to my conclusion, I think it would be interesting to have a feeling of what the staff feels. Like having a "State of Affairs bitcointalk 2021" - nothing too fancy, just an overall of how the community has grew in the past year, the challenges that were faced and so on.

Would it be better to get a moderator for the Politics & Society sub forum instead?

Maybe a april fools joke?

Careful with what you wish for. The way things are going, you'll have BADecker or Quicksy moderating P&S.

I'm mostly clicking "Ignore" instead of "Report to moderator" these days. Makes everything 100% "Good". Doesn't leave much to read though.

I'm not saying I'd do a better job than them, and for the most part I think they both do a good job, but we need some fresh blood in the moderation department. Both hilariousandco and mprep have been mods during my entire 7+ years on the forum. I can't help but think that, with the exception of dealing with giveaways, moderation is loosening to the point where it is encouraging a new wave of spammers on the forum.

A new global mod wouldn't be such a bad idea as they could pick up slack in other areas without a moderator, like P&S. I really can't think of a downside to adding new blood to the administration... things seem a bit stale up there.