I'm going to keep this one short, you convey two big points that I don't agree with, and that are two opinions that could obviously split off a lot of people:
The forum has decayed to the point of unusability because the board has slowly morphed into a place for people to earn money rather than being about a place to talk about bitcoin.
"...earn money,
and trade rather than being..." I'm going to add that part to your definition, because yes : I probably agree that posts involving either trades or signature campaigns make off the majority of the posts on this forum.
What trades are these? I don't see any trades going on in Bitcoin Discussion or Economics but a whole lot of noise being chatted about things people don't really understand but are doing so just for payment. Go into any thread and read some of the replies in those two subs. It's embarrassing, just like it would be embarrassing if I tried to talk about Lamborghinis in mandarin. Regardless of how much trading is going on it is obviously dwarfed by signature spam and this is the issue because it ruins discussion for everybody.
Just look at this post for example, or any big post where anyone feels like they can shove a +1 post count. It's as clear as day.
What's as clear as day? I don't understand what point you're trying to make here.
What I don't agree with, is your opinion on this "problem". EVEN YOU have a ChipMixer sig. I DONT have one and am still committing to this argument with you with absolutely no profit.
I don't get what relevancy my signature has to do with anything here, and certainly isn't relevant to my argument about people making dreadful posts, but let's not be hypocrite here. You might not be on a campaign
yet but you've literally just reappeared after quite an absence to apply for the very same campaign:
Hi, I noticed there's a user with low quality posts on your spreadsheet. Maybe you'd want a replacement. I can write high quality posts.
Username: KingZee
Post Count: 437
BTC Address : 1KingZeeW97uLvngcUA3R6QJx18Fn78ddb
To even have a chance of getting onto that campaign you're going to have to make some decent posts in the meantime so let's not pretend that isn't in the back of your mind here and is probably your only motivation for even engaging with me right now.
THE MASSIVE MAJORITY wouldn't give a single fuck in my shoes, because behold, the rule of not just this forum, but the internet: No one has time to waste on arguments with anonyomus avatars online.
Really? Not sure I understand you right here but isn't the exactly what you're doing now? I think people do have time. Too much time. On 99% of forums people post or troll for free, but there is financial incentive here so it makes things unique and exponentially worse because greed and laziness become motivation. I have no issue with people getting paid to post if people are actually contributing something of substance, but people shouldn't be able to get paid for regurgitating the same sentence over
200 alt accounts just to get paid and that's what we're trying to solve.
So, the fact that you want to implement every draconian measure to completely shut down people from making money? You need to be extremely oblivious to not see how biased your situation is.
None of what I've suggested is draconian and claiming so seems to be a gross exaggeration or being overly dramatic just for the sake. Requiring a few merit is nothing. Do you think requiring a drivers license to drive is draconian? I'd say it's logical. Not everyone is qualified to drive, just like not everyone is qualified to earn via posting.
I said it once, I'm going to say it again, see both sides of the coin.
I do see both sides. I'm actually trying to make things better for everyone. People shouldn't be able to get paid to destroy the forum so I'm saying earn that right. People are literally getting paid for writing junk and I don't think that's acceptable, just like I don't think it would be acceptable for someone to do a job that they're not qualified for.
Unless you're willing to completely ban out sig campaigns as a whole and only keep classic banner ads -that would be a fun sight, wouldn't it!-, kindly stop referring to anyone other than hero or legendary as "leeches".
Please kindly stop making stuff up. Where did I refer to anyone who is not a high rank as leeches? I don't think people should be able to get paid for merely banging their head against a keyboard or writing something like "bitcoin is good because it's profit and profit is good because it's bitcoin and I can buy my daily needs with profit". All I'm asking is for some minimum standards because clearly things can't go on as they are, and without doing something about it now then the next step would be to remove signatures completely. What would you and all the shitposters do then? The spammers would leave as fast as they came and to never return and thus having ruined it for everyone else in the process. I don't think they should be able to ruin it for everyone else and that's why we need some standards before the ultimate solution is to get rid of signatures.
It's this opinion you have about people making money off the forums, that isn't objective. A few people might agree with you to completely stop campaigns from recruiting newbies. (BECAUSE they're heroes or legendaries) Others might not, like me! Because I'm a senior that can make good posts and don't want more baseless rules that make it harder for casual posters like me to make money.
You mean you want to easily be able to get paid for doing nothing? If you can make good posts then you shouldn't have an issue, but you're basically just complaining that you can't earn money easily and straight away.
I mean fuck off, over a 1000 words written the last 24 hours and still barely at +3 merit, which brings me to your next point.
What exactly is your point here? I write long posts and barely got any merit?
You can't on word count or rank, but why not merit? It somebody writes a really great post it's almost certainly going to get a merit, and probably quite a bit of it, and merit is a pretty good indication of a quality post or not as users making generic nonsense will go unmerited.
This second point is also not objectively true. What is a great post? An ICO accouncement or sig campaign giving out free money that gets showered with merit? A well known user that can use a paintbrush and draw "bitcoin art" to sell to the community? Jesus man, PLEASE try to look at it from my perspective, and the perspective of a lot of above-average casual users. I could spend fuck-all months discussing like I'm doing now to barely make a 1/10th of what a legendary user would make taking a picture of a bitcoin tattoo on his ass.
So I said I was going to keep this short, and I think? I did. We're never going to agree because both the points above are always going to be biased. And I mean let's face it, this system isn't going to change even if 70% of the forum voted it off. Cheers.
What is and isn't a great post is subjective, but my point is that if you're a decent contributor who puts thought and effort into their posts then you will almost certainly have no issue in getting the required merit to move up ranks over time. Spammers wont though and that's why the merit system is here.
There are just WAY TOO MUCH junks in the forum.
Thank god for the merit system, hundreds of hours are saved to decide what/who to trust.
(Also I like the system where meaning less posts like jus saying "Hi" get deleted immediately.)
I've been dealing with tremendous amounts of information every day just like everyone else.
So WHO said the info is sometimes more important than the info itself.