Silk Road forums

Discussion => Newbie discussion => Topic started by: sk0rt on May 30, 2013, 07:32 pm

Title: The absurdity of putting a value on a post count
Post by: sk0rt on May 30, 2013, 07:32 pm
The absurdity is realized completely in this sub-forum (Newbie discussion) as it's the only place we (people with under 50 posts) can talk. So we've been put in this jail right, and we have been given no topic to discuss, just a general overriding "theme" of drugs and newness. And that's it.

Now there isn't anything wrong with an introduction forum, especially for new vendors - it would actually serve as an interesting place to raise questions with new vendors and a great start for new vendors to get their product out the door, give it a little boot as it were.

The massive issue I have is with the fact that you have this absurdly high 50 post limit on a sub-forum that is 100% aimless. This has turned this sub-forum basically into a replica of 4chan but somehow actually managing to contain less original content and more stupidity than you would find on 4chan. I mean I count 4+ threads with 50-500 pages in them with titles like "Newest get your post count thread" and that one about $1BTC to the person that is the last to post in it, a brilliant excuse to post a million times in a row with inane bullshit.

It has been proven (in fact this is proof) that this is a stupid thing to do, and yet you (the moderators, administrators) can see this and have done absolutely nothing about it. Why on earth would you constrain people to here? It's actually ridiculous. You can see the end result for yourself, people posting 10+ posts that are garble, may as well be "lorem impsum" or a binary blob, and this actually raises their post count which is something they need to do to progress on to the higher areas of the forum.

I cannot believe that you actually haven't thought of a better means to "testing" new users. Now I can completely see the original thinking, and that you may not have foreseen what a load of crap it produced, but yeah sure: make people post some so we can gauge that they're not idiots and should be allowed onto the rest of the forum. Simple, no? Well why not have the first ten posts go through a moderation queue? You could still have an introduction forum, and a newbie forum! And people could still ask questions in the newbie forum that are suited to a forum for people new to forums (or that want to ask things about SR in general). But with that you could also only have quality posts coming through as 90% of posts here I would flat out drop from the DB, if for no other reason than to reduce the number of hash collisions searching the primary key of the posts table.

There isn't even a point to posting good content here (this, ironically, may is an exception as it's attempting to change things) because the signal to noise ratio, if you will, is so high that you'll be completely drowned out instantaneously by the fuckloads of what can only be classed as spam. Spam that is not even frowned upon, but is genuinely encouraged by having post limits and no repercussions for those that have simply spammed.

It simply serves to frustrate me as it means I have to make these super long posts in an attempt to spark some kind of discussion in order to break the sea of piss that this sub-forum is as I'm not going to sink to the level of retardation that's achieved purely as a result of having a post limit!

I don't even blame the users taking advantage of this, not at all. They've been given a challenge and see a fast way to solve the problem so they're going to take it. I should be doing the same - you're an idiot if you *don't* fall to the level of posting inane bullshit.

Anyway rant over, I'd appreciate an answer from a moderator or administrator.

¡Cuídate!
Title: Re: The absurdity of putting a value on a post count
Post by: Libertas on May 30, 2013, 07:52 pm
The absurdity is realized completely in this sub-forum (Newbie discussion) as it's the only place we (people with under 50 posts) can talk. So we've been put in this jail right, and we have been given no topic to discuss, just a general overriding "theme" of drugs and newness. And that's it.

Now there isn't anything wrong with an introduction forum, especially for new vendors - it would actually serve as an interesting place to raise questions with new vendors and a great start for new vendors to get their product out the door, give it a little boot as it were.

The massive issue I have is with the fact that you have this absurdly high 50 post limit on a sub-forum that is 100% aimless. This has turned this sub-forum basically into a replica of 4chan but somehow actually managing to contain less original content and more stupidity than you would find on 4chan. I mean I count 4+ threads with 50-500 pages in them with titles like "Newest get your post count thread" and that one about $1BTC to the person that is the last to post in it, a brilliant excuse to post a million times in a row with inane bullshit.

It has been proven (in fact this is proof) that this is a stupid thing to do, and yet you (the moderators, administrators) can see this and have done absolutely nothing about it. Why on earth would you constrain people to here? It's actually ridiculous. You can see the end result for yourself, people posting 10+ posts that are garble, may as well be "lorem impsum" or a binary blob, and this actually raises their post count which is something they need to do to progress on to the higher areas of the forum.

I cannot believe that you actually haven't thought of a better means to "testing" new users. Now I can completely see the original thinking, and that you may not have foreseen what a load of crap it produced, but yeah sure: make people post some so we can gauge that they're not idiots and should be allowed onto the rest of the forum. Simple, no? Well why not have the first ten posts go through a moderation queue? You could still have an introduction forum, and a newbie forum! And people could still ask questions in the newbie forum that are suited to a forum for people new to forums (or that want to ask things about SR in general). But with that you could also only have quality posts coming through as 90% of posts here I would flat out drop from the DB, if for no other reason than to reduce the number of hash collisions searching the primary key of the posts table.

There isn't even a point to posting good content here (this, ironically, may is an exception as it's attempting to change things) because the signal to noise ratio, if you will, is so high that you'll be completely drowned out instantaneously by the fuckloads of what can only be classed as spam. Spam that is not even frowned upon, but is genuinely encouraged by having post limits and no repercussions for those that have simply spammed.

It simply serves to frustrate me as it means I have to make these super long posts in an attempt to spark some kind of discussion in order to break the sea of piss that this sub-forum is as I'm not going to sink to the level of retardation that's achieved purely as a result of having a post limit!

I don't even blame the users taking advantage of this, not at all. They've been given a challenge and see a fast way to solve the problem so they're going to take it. I should be doing the same - you're an idiot if you *don't* fall to the level of posting inane bullshit.

Anyway rant over, I'd appreciate an answer from a moderator or administrator.

¡Cuídate!

Hi sk0rt,

You mistake the Newbie discussion forum as a place for "testing new users" whereas its actual purpose is to minimise the impact of the mass-spammers that post their "bitswing / btkoin / mtgix" etc. spam / scam. The 50 post rule was implemented to keep that spam in one area until a moderator can delete it so as actual discussion can take place on the main forums. If that spam were allowed to get out of hand and be posted in the main forums (as it used to be before the 50 post rule was implemented) it would make such discussion impossible.

I quite like the Newbie discussion forum due to spending so much time in it answering questions and I feel it has much to offer the community. I opened up discussion some time ago with the rest of the moderating team and the administrators with a view to cleaning it up and perhaps limiting the "spam to 50" posts to one or two mega-threads but there has been no consensus agreed upon as of yet. Perhaps this will change in the future, perhaps not, but the reason for the Newbie discussion forum is to corral the mass-spam into one area to keep the rest of the forums relatively spam free.

It also serves a second, unintentional purpose of keeping new users confined to one section until they have a chance to learn how things work on Silk Road, meaning they ask the questions (that there are already answers to posted all over the forums) here instead of filling up the main forums with the same repetitive questions, something that would hinder proper discussion in the main forum areas.

I understand that it can be quite frustrating when you are attempting to have a serious discussion in this forum and users come along to post spam in the thread, but you will see the benefits of 50 post rule once you begin posting in the main forums.

Libertas
Title: Re: The absurdity of putting a value on a post count
Post by: sk0rt on May 30, 2013, 08:29 pm
Well thanks for the reply, I just hope you can see that for people like myself it is frustrating to have to go through even just the 50 CAPTCHAs to get access to the rest of the forum.
Title: Re: The absurdity of putting a value on a post count
Post by: goldenone on May 30, 2013, 08:39 pm
Libertas is right, if 50 posts is the price to have a decent forum running, i think is a very cheap price.
Title: Re: The absurdity of putting a value on a post count
Post by: sk0rt on May 30, 2013, 08:48 pm
You could say if 10 dead people were all it took to have global happiness forever then it would be 10 deaths worth having, but if you could do it with 5 deaths, or no deaths then it would be significantly better.
Title: Re: The absurdity of putting a value on a post count
Post by: Libertas on May 30, 2013, 09:01 pm
You could say if 10 dead people were all it took to have global happiness forever then it would be 10 deaths worth having, but if you could do it with 5 deaths, or no deaths then it would be significantly better.

Indeed, but unfortunately due to the way that Tor works there is no other way to limit the abilities of the mass-spammers. We can't I.P. ban them, and if we reduce the 50 post requirements to 25 posts, for example, they'll reach that in a matter of minutes thereby completely negating the point of confining them to a single forum in the first place.

The fact that they must reach 50 posts gives us a chance to react before they can get out onto the main forums.

Libertas
Title: Re: The absurdity of putting a value on a post count
Post by: DarkBeauty on June 05, 2013, 05:36 pm
I agree, it causes new users to have to do things like post on old threads.
Title: Re: The absurdity of putting a value on a post count
Post by: sk0rt on June 17, 2013, 04:58 pm
You could say if 10 dead people were all it took to have global happiness forever then it would be 10 deaths worth having, but if you could do it with 5 deaths, or no deaths then it would be significantly better.

Indeed, but unfortunately due to the way that Tor works there is no other way to limit the abilities of the mass-spammers. We can't I.P. ban them, and if we reduce the 50 post requirements to 25 posts, for example, they'll reach that in a matter of minutes thereby completely negating the point of confining them to a single forum in the first place.

The fact that they must reach 50 posts gives us a chance to react before they can get out onto the main forums.

Libertas

A chance to react to the "Hey post "saoetuhaonseuhtaoenst" 50 times in a row as fast as you can" you mean? Because that's not a good way to detect unwanted people, since they are unwanted by default (I know of no forum (save this one) that accepts spam as a valid input method).