Bitcoin Forum

This one single person holds absolute centralized control of the two largest communications platforms for the community to discuss the future and evolution of bitcoin.

This is both a difficult and simple problem to solve at the same time. It is difficult in that the two largest forums for discussion of bitcoin are under the centralized control of a single individual. He exercises absolute power of what is, or is not, allowed to be discussed; including complete and total censorship power over the narrative in the two largest media outlets.

...

Bitcoin-xt is not a ‘threat’ to bitcoin. It it is an option, a choice, a candidate to be voted on. One where the community can vote on which features they want to see in bitcoin, versus those which they do not.

https://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/confessions-of-an-r-bitcoin-moderator

More dirty agenda getting exposed.,.... well well well we never see that coming do we ?  ::)

This is everything that BTC was not meant to be ... shame on you (I bet Satoshi is rolling over)

Well, it is moderated by the same person, yes, but in the end , there is no power that could stop mass of users that want to say something against core version.
I also don't like centralization, but it is highly unlikely that we can avoid it in every form. Not without scattering bitcoin into 100 different versions and backers anyways.
I'm just trying to say, that opening up the gate to every "option" bitcoin can fork into isn't the answer either.

This has nothing to do with who open the gate because the system is designed to find consensus. Thats the fundamental of bitcoin and for a long time bitcoin experts have explained the best defense mechanism is the network comes to consensus to ignore or nullify the attack.

My point is forking is a feature not a bug.

You should be grateful that theymos has been able to keep these forums up against all the DoS attacks and basically allowed anyone to say anything they want.

Otherwise you'd have a bunch of fragmented communication sites and no economy-of-scale for us to speak to each other efficiently as a global community.

He allowed all that block size debate to go on and on and on.

You are free to compete and make your own top Bitcoin forum. Even Google refuses to link to this forum any more, because TPTB don't like the free speech that theymos provides. They'll probably take down his forums somehow eventually.

Come on just admit it. You love politics, communism, and a big government dick up your ass as a result.

You must learn that mentality from RPC.

Without Chairman Mao China would never be united. the Chinese people would not be living a freedoom life .

Am i right?

You must learn that your politicking instead of competing is Communism. Duh.

Indeed. Which is why it is reasonable for those who oppose it to stand their ground, in hopes of a better solution. The block size limit doesn't need to be raised in a day; XT is not the only option. The block size limit will inevitably be increased (and if not, we will simply pay more fees). So I won't support XT and I will keep running a Core node until XT is stripped down to a simple block size limit increase (I don't really support the 2x per year increase either but whatever), or a better alternative comes along. In the meantime, those who oppose XT should continue to voice their opinion (after all, who votes without context?) -- certainly with so much baseless vitriol coming from the other side.

Yet another thread about "censorship" in the wrong section. It's like, after a single decision that people do not agree with him, everything that theymos has done is being ignored.
This is wrong. I could even call it FUD. The domain name is owned by Martti Malmi aka Sirius. He holds more power related to the forum than theymos.

They should just pause moderation on this forum for a single day, and you'd see what would happen.

The joke just went right over your head.


Just because Theymos is the chief operator of the forum does not mean the forum would not be running without him.

Did you know Satoshi created the forum and gave Theymos admin right ? Without Theymos it would have been someone else.

Time to step back and re look at your flawed logic

I am aware that some have stated that Satoshi annoited Theymos.

Again you want to use politics to steal someone's asset thus Communism.

You act as if the forum is owned by the users and not by the owners of the forum. Capitalism not Communism.

You weren't there where Theymos was. Don't be jealous of his foresight. Go create your own foresight. Do NOT steal.

Wait what did i steal? Idiot I'm simply countering your point regarding what theymos have done. You must have comprehensive problem

Yeah Communists never do figure that part out. Good point.

Retard i compared Theymos to Chairman Mao, and you think i'm a commie

lol

anyone is perfectly free to start their own bitcoin forum and moderate it however they chose  :o

But, you're wrong. It is easier to complain about the non existing censorship in addition to spreading misinformation.  ::)
AFAIK things are getting out of control. This is like the 5th thread I've seen where people complain about "censorship", while there is none. If there was real censorship, we would not be seeing such threads nor would we be ever hearing from those members again.

i'd agree i think the mods are being too conservative with their moderation atm. just look at the threads, insults and misinformation left right and centre.

but forum moderation is up to the forum owner and their moderators, tis a big internet out there you can post anywhere you like if you don't want to follow the rules at any individual forums.

some seem to think its their god given right to post anything they want anywhere they wish  ::)

in the history of this forum i've had many a post deleted, when it happens i don't think "censorship"., i think "sorry my bad for breaking the forum rules"

Or even post here in the altcoins section. 

I agree the  reddit post and moderation  (https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3h9cq4/its_time_for_a_break_about_the_recent_mess/) on reddit seemed heavy handed, but I don't spend much time there to see how bad it had gotten.  I was surprised many of his posts there get massively downvoted, so he's not all powerful.

As to here, after reading about it, it's pretty clear that bitcoinXT is not bitcoin as I've come to understand it and so I'm fine with him saying it needs to go in altcoins.  It may one day overtake bitcoin, maybe it should replace bitcoin, but it isn't bitcoin.

By that logic, we all are not using bitcoin right now and it died long time ago

 ::)

"Bitcoin is already ridiculously centralized because of mining pools. Whether the block-size increases or not will have hardly any effect on this major existing problem. If we want to have a serious discussion about centralization, then it should be 'what are we going to do about mining pools'?"



No problem my friend... Mr. Gavin "to the rescue"  ::):    http://www.coindesk.com/gavin-andresen-rejects-bitcoin-centralisation-concerns-web-summit/  (http://www.coindesk.com/gavin-andresen-rejects-bitcoin-centralisation-concerns-web-summit/)


He said:

"Centralisation of mining is going to go in waves. Now you see economies of scale for companies that create huge mining farms where electricity is inexpensive. Once those [ASIC] chips become commodities and inexpensive, you'll see it decentralise again."


Oops!!

that is not that easy because there is a network effect.

you can also say: anyone is perfectly free to start their own bitcoin.

Fantastic article OP.

Theymos has too much power to control discussion by himself, for someone that supposedly supports bitcoin, he sure likes centralization...

that was a great, and interesting read.

It certainly is hard for anyone on this forum, or anyone who supports btc to read that and still think as positively about where btc is headed.  seems like all the "positives" about btc are seemingly going away.  miners, btc "high ups" and the companies are becoming centralized, anonymity is not exactly guaranteed, adn its legal status still seems to be dubious at best, depending on how the gvt wants to get you.

and, now there are apps/companies offering similar money sending features that far exceed the ease of use of btc (and confirmation time)

You should start your own forum to stop all this terrible forum centralisation.

did you not read the article?  his whole jist was sure anyone could, but no one should have to.  The community should be able to discuss and make decisions based on consensus, after hashing out the pros and cons, and how it will affect all btc users.

Sure he could go start one, but migrating 100's of thousands of users, probably wont happen.

Are you saying that we all should bow down and thank Theymos?

You do realize that the main source of funds to run the site are from users yeah? Donations and ad space auctions.

I don't think that's the main source of funds, I think it's the only source of funds.

There is almost no censorship here at all. Theymos is the most liberal forum admin I've ever seen. Hell, if I was doing his job, I wouldn't allow me to say some of the things I say. He took harassment from people like Matthew over and over and over again and did nothing. He banned Matthew and Atlas time and time again but always allowed them to return to do the same shit. There are people still using this forum that should have been (on any other forum would have been) permabanned years ago. OP give up, you're stirring an empty pot of shit.

I also do not like censorship, but with all the XT brigading that was going on in the \r\Bitcoin sub Reddit, I was actually relieved that he temporarily banned such behavior.

You cannot have a small percentage of people disrupt a communication platform for their own benefit, and think moderators will not act on that.

Brigading is frowned on in all of Reddit, not just in \r\Bitcoin. You are free to create your own forum, if you not satisfied that this forum or \r\Bitcoin serve your need.

It's just not that entertaining if you have 20 members.  ::)  :P

small percentage of people? 70% all the worldwide hashingpower - 14 % of all nodes, experts like Gavin, Mike and other people. that is not a small percentage.

Your username says it all...  ::)

Audio:

John Ratcliff reads his recent article Confessions of an R/Bitcoin Moderator which talks about the "is BitcoinXT an Altcoin" controversy that was used to justify banning discussion of the proposed fork from several prominent community hubs.

https://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/lets-talk-bitcoin-240-as-they-see-it

I went and re-read the article and thanks again for posting it.  I fully agree that most would like to see a sensible compromise in the core implementation.

If XT is an alt-client as he suggests then moving discussion of it to the client section rather than altcoins here on bitcointalk would have made more sense.

While I can see that starting a new subreddit is difficult due to network effects, it may actually be very worthwhile, after all, that is the only way to break free of theymos's control of the discussion of bitcoin, which seems to be his core complaint.