Bitcoin Forum

I posted something similar in off-topic.  I seriously mean what I'm about to say, and I hope you listen.

STOP using the word "troll."  It's used entirely too often, it's thoughtless, it's unoriginal, it's a bandwagaon word, and it's used too often as a reply to people that have legitimate concerns about the current state of Bitcoin.  Only the super-nerdy use 'troll.'  Nobody on the street knows what this means except as a reference to bridge-dwelling creatures.  This is part of the reason the average citizen wants nothing to do with bitcoin.  It ties into Bitcoin's stigma as being a currency only used and understood by the super-techie and ultra-geeky.

This forum acts as a main hub for Bitcoin community users.  If you want Bitcoin to become more accessible to the average person, the community needs to become more accessible as well, not just an understanding of the Bitcoin software.

After I became jr. member, I posted a serious thread about the philosophical shortcomings of Bitcoin as a currency of the future.  I was slammed with "troll" claims.  A friend of mine read through the forums and because of that he wants nothing to do with Bitcoin.  His reasoning?  He thought everyone on here was a bunch of whiny teenagers and he would never want to do business with any one of you.  He wondered why you weren't all off playing Starcraft and jacking off to Princess Leia.

It seems more and more posts are filled with "troll" cries and, ironically, it seems that more and more often the "troll" is right.  Honestly, how many people were called trolls for predicting a rapid BTC price drop? 

Do you see the analysts on CNBC screaming "TROLL!  TROLL!  DON'T FEED THE TROLLS!" while discussing the NYSE?  No.  Why?  They understand what it takes to be successful in life, and being a bunch of name-calling children doesn't fit the bill.

Rant ended.

There has been an ongoing attack against this community for quite a while now. Everyone is on alert...

People gotta wise up.  This is a new currency.  It ain't fuckin' Pringles.

Should add the term Bro to your rant as well. Hate "bro" as much as troll. People are going to start using the term "mint" as much as bro and troll. Someone needs to make an addon to blank out words you don't want to see.

I can see why you would be slammed as a troll: That should have been posted in the Newbie forum, because the "philosophical shortcomings of Bitcoin as a currency of the future" have been discussed to death already.

This was the original thread.  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=34921.0  Check out the response by NothinG.  I almost threw up from ignorance.  His IQ test came back negative.

It's not my fault that people don't get that Bitcoin isn't perfect.  There's just a direct correlation with how perfect something is and how invested in it you are.

Edit:  I actually like Bitcoin.  I even stated in that same thread that I thought it was better than all traditional currencies to date.

Edit 2:  New users having concerns about the theoretical workings of Bitcoin?  Surprising?  You don't say...  If Bitcoin becomes widely accepted, expect a million and one similar threads. 

That's what the Newbie forum is for. It's the only forum where you won't be insulted by longtime members for posting a common thread. It's really sad that some people don't realize that, and think that their thread should be posted on the main forum instead.

It's equally sad that hundreds of posts and 2 years involvement in a brand new currency gives people a monopoly on truth and understanding.  And this get's back to the whole idea of general acceptance...I see people with 1000+ posts making idiot assertions all the time.

Edit:  Actually, I doublechecked.  It was actually my 4th post and I made it in the Newbies section.

Well, I apologize for letting that slip by, then. Moderators have considerably more power there.

+1

The chance that you get labeled as a troll is much smaller if you do a little research first, as to what has already been discussed. If you start the same discussions that 100 people have started before you, and which are simply undecided (really only the future can tell), people might call you a troll. Troll because you essentially waste time and add nothing new. Also, you are contributing to the "short term memory loss" problem this forum has.

TROLL! go away! :P

The same could be applied to what you just said.  Just because a thread discusses "philosophical shortcomings of Bitcoin" does not mean that the argument is the same.  If you'd research the argument I made, I can guarantee that you wouldn't find another one like it.

I wasn't talking about you personally, but tried to explain why the community responds as it does.

I have no opinion on whether you are a troll or not as I don't follow stuff like that. I am not interested in philosophical debate at all, I think what this community needs is more practical people that build stuff, not debate.

Well, to some extent I agree.  My most recent posts have been focused on the need for Bitcoin infrastructure growth.  But, at the same time, I think intelligent debate is important.  Less debate leads to less critical thinking and questioning about Bitcoin and Bitcoin-related sites.  If newbies get shut down when they try to bring up legitimate points (the number of times these points have been discussed is irrelevant to whether or not these points are valid) then they are more likely to blindly accept generalized ideas about Bitcoin like, "Bitcoin is just better!  So...that means safer!"  And that can lead to more people getting scammed.  

How many people were called trolls because they kept bringing up security-related issues post-Mt. Gox?  How many people were screamed at because they happened to start another MyBitcoin thread?  There are literally thousands of threads on this forum and to expect that every individual will know that there is a specific thread dedicated to a particular issue is ludicrous.  You're going to be hearing about the Mt. Gox crash and the MyBitcoin debacle years from now from newbies who continue to join.  And then what?  Are the completely-awesome elite members going to continue to berate these people from brining up legitimate concerns?

And, more generally, debate about Bitcoin as a currency in general is healthy.  You aren't interested in it because that is not your interest.  Bitcoin is surrounded by complex issues and to think that anybody on here has the whole damn thing figured out is nuts.  In my opinion, for example, Bitcoin is clearly a get-rich-quick scheme for Satoshi.  That much is obvious.  Whether or not his motives also encompassed something virtuous and whether or not Bitcoin is a good thing independent of his motives is something entirely different.  

For example, doesn't Bitcoin inherently cater to the already-wealthy and marginalize the poor even further were it to become widely adopted?  In my opinion, yes.  OK, so, that is now a point of debate, and it's a point relevant to site construction.  How do we build sites that take into account as many of these philosophical issues as possible and implement means to address them?  Debate simply helps to identify areas of general concern, and intelligent merchants will recognize these concerns and implement ways to help alleviate these concerns in their site construction.  The more citizens use Bitcoin, the more concerns there will be, and vendors will need to keep listening if they want to increase their customer base.

From a forum moderation standpoint, I see nothing wrong with raising issues such as these.

One thing I would like to see is for more people to start taking the more important and useful information and adding it to the wiki. I'd also like to see a few index threads on the forum pointing people to threads of interest, since you can't possibly sticky everything.

If there was only some type of official forums that have representation for all these things mentioned.  A place where a community can happen.  Where networking among like and unlike minds can help build Bitcoin to bigger and better places.

It better happen soon, as we did have one of those, but once it was taken away, the market has gone down lol.

The problem is that many legitimate points that have been brought up a zillions of times already don't change anything. They have literally been discussed to death. There is nothing new to say about them. People are wasting their time typing the same answers again, having the same discussions, the same anger about the same things.

I'm not saying that calling them 'troll' is a good response, by the way. There is no need for personal attacks. It's just as much a fault of the users as of the moderation.

In my opinion such topics should simply be closed as soon as possible with a helpful link to the wiki / reference to a duplicate thread. That's how all major QA forums work.

Also if there are 10 topics about the same thing (price going up/down, a site being hacked, a site being back up) they should be combined into one. Again, having 10 threads that go exactly the same way is a waste of (cognitive) bandwidth.

I'm having quite some hope for the Bitcoin stack exchange site (if we manage to cross the thresold for it being created). It has a much better structure and incentive scheme than a chaotic forum such as this. People kind of moderate themselves and the search is much better...

What about a Bitcoin chatroom with different subcategories for those who feel like voicing their opinions?  It may help to alleviate the volume of such opinions on the forum itself.

"The Forum" is done.

People using these forums at this point are just old members for the most part until the next update in the SERPs.   Bitcoin.org does not wish for it's users to voice their opinions in the same place most development takes place.   Makes complete sense, separate the users from the makers so no one gets what they want.

These chat options are still linked from the official site though:
Guess not enough people used them or knew about them.

I hadn't a clue.

I bet there's a bunch of trolls shitting their pants laughing hard at the reactions to people being called trolls (i don't doubt many of the accusers are calling people trolls to troll them)