Bitcoin Forum

Drugs are illegal, porn is NSFW, and gambling is a scam. Is there anything that can be done to reduce the impact of these things on the reputation of the community without outright banning their discussion? Perhaps a no-rules subforum not indexed by search engines and "not affiliated with the project" could be added?

Ummmm, no.

If you want freedom for yourself you have to let others be free.



That is all.

Hiding what activities go on in the community at large seems to me to be a dishonest way to maintain a reputation.

True, that's not a good solution. I'm just a bit worried that Bitcoin's current maintainer will get in trouble for LSD being purchased, or the bad publicity that may occur. Maybe the whole forum should be flagged as "not officially affiliated".

Bad publicity?

More like polarizing publicity!

True.

+1

I suggest an official disclaimer/whatever saying that the creators do not approve of using Bitcoins for these purposes and that instead they prefer it to be used as a safer/secure/private currency, but allow those uses anyway due to technical/moral/practical reasons.

The core users of Bitcoin tend to be some flavour of libertarian, so the fact that we don't censor non-violent, consentual activities will not bother them.

The average joe user is never going to get as far as the forum anyhow. He will more likely use a web wallet provider than download the actual client.

The only danger that I see is that some tabloid journalist stumbles upon theses things and sees an opportunity for an outrage piece.

Bitcoin being so popular that it gets attention from tabloid journalists, that would be a nice problem to have.

Yes. You can work to get people to offer enough services of the kind you like that the kind you don't like start to seem marginal.
As for any disclaimers, you could say bitcoin.org takes no responsibility for anything said on these forums. I don't see that it would do much good. The trade section here is destined to become obsolete anyway, if bitcoin trading gains any real traction. It's simply not a very good format for large numbers of traders to conduct their business.

What's that old thing about every $100 bill has traces of cocaine on it ....? Let's here the outrage piece on that ... probably many have been down a hookers bra and across a few illegal poker tables too.

Get real, money is money, it goes wherever people go ... what's with the Victorian prudishness in year 2011?

No. Nothing like this can or should be done.
It's called freedom of speech, bro.


What for ?
Whole Bitcoin forum is already like that ;P


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However, the only reasonable thing that can be done could be banning illegal arms, drugs & explosives trading on this forum, because there is probably no country in the world which will lawfully allow hosting of such content.
So letting whole forum die (or making it TOR-only) just to allow few people trade some illegal stuff is IMHO not very smart.

the forum isn't that precious, if it dies, it dies and a new one will emerge. the market is more precious.

Again: This has nothing to with morals. It is about reputation & mainstream market penetration.



Hey, stop. If "no morals", then why not theft, murder ? What's wrong with it ?
[/irony]



Disagreed. This forum is the central hub of community - meeting place of everything that relates to Bitcoin.
If we ever want this currency to go mainstream, we should not let it die.

If it becomes TOR-only, market penetration will be serveral times smaller than otherwise, and it can take decades for BTC to become mainstream.

Stuff happens on IRC.
This forum is nice to have but definitely not critical.

Well, surely not critical. But still, very nice to have :P

So, If IRC is so good (or even better than this forum), then why not trade arms, drugs etc there ?

I'm willing to bet over 90% of those who use the internet don't use IRC, and will never want to.

I agree with Shadow here. My stance has nothing to do with morals, and I think it would be pretty silly if we let the board go up in flames because we allowed sales of drugs or other illegal goods. I've seen forums shut down for this exact reason before and the host doesn't give a damn about "freedom of speech" if they think it's going to come and bite them in the ass.

Porn and gambling can be legal. I could care less about those topics. But if someone up high catches wind of drug sales going on here, it will bring a lot of unneeded attention and problems.
This board is important for the long haul of the bitcoin community and the continued technical development of the system, and it would be foolish to lose that because we couldn't make a few rules on what can or cannot be sold here.

"Human trafficking? Murder? Have no fear your coins are accepted here"

Firearms are legal in the US, some drugs in the netherlands, prostitution is legal in some countries.
Bitcoin is money for the free, the forum just reflects that, the way it's run is not mine to define, but I nonetheless agree with its rules.
There is always a starting point to censorship, but there's never an ending point... Why not ban everything remotely controversial ?

I'm not saying IRC *replaces* the forum, neither am I stating that simple communication means accessible to most internet users are useless.

The forum would just change host.

Drugs and fire arms sales can be too. It's all relative.

Attention is always in favor of bitcoin.

Technical development mostly happens on github and IRC, and that's only counting the main client.

To people who are unhappy, uncomfortable with the way this forum is being run, it is your right to feel that way, but you'll always get better results and general satisfaction by using your own freedom to make something that suits you (start a new forum with your rules, emphasize on what *you* feel is important, have links from this forum to yours etc.) instead of asking for other's freedom to be limited.

Exactly. This is the "mainstream factor".
Just to be clear: IRC is not mainstream. It's viewed as a geeky thing by majority of people.

If you destroy the main forum, people who don't use IRC or TOR, simply will not use Bitcoin.

1. Yes, but you are not going to find a host which accepts arms, prostitution AND drugs at one time, because such host does not exist.
Every country in the world bans either some drugs OR prostitution OR pornography OR illegal arms OR gambling.


2. It is relative but not everything, at one time in any single country. Check #1


Yes, it is always in favor of bitcoin becoming an underground currency.
But i doubt that everyone here wants it to stay being underground currency for the next 3 decades.


Still, technical development does nothing without publicity & "mainstreamness".


Very short-sighted statement.
- If we ban sale of something, only the freedom of a small group of people will be limited.
- If this forum is closed, then EVERYBODY's (who uses Bitcoin) freedom is limited.

How come you cannot see that ?

In many legislations (Scandinavian countries for example) server admins aren't responsible for illegal forum threads.

davout:

Let me explain in detail why your stance is wrong for the future of Bitcoin.

There are many levels on which you can fight for freedom and fuck government. However you are not fighting on the correct level. The levels are:

LEVEL 1 "Script Kiddie" : <- You are here
- FUUUUUUUUUU GOOOO DIE GOVERNMENT, WE ARE SOOOO GONNA KICK YOUR ASS WITH BITCOIN. BRING IT ON, BITCH ! Attack government in a frontal assault, and lose (governments are prepared for that). Bitcoin stays underground currency for the next 30 years.

LEVEL 2 "Patient soldier": <- I am here
- Devise a basic strategy. Be cautious, careful, patient. Work slow, don't attract too much attention, popularize bitcoin among various traders & exchangers, and later, before government(s) realizes, there will be no turning back from Bitcoin becoming a world currency.

LEVEL 3 "General":
- Devise a "masterplan" for popularizing Bitcoin. Have a net of highly organized group of people, who do the promotion of Bitcoin in background in different countries. Have lobbysts, contacts in press & some PR guys. When you gain enough critical mass, attack with full power and consistently march towards absolute victory.

1. Perhaps in theory this may work, but i want to see it with my own eyes to believe it...
Especially after the US government pushes to the "Scandinavian countries" to do something , like they did with Assange.

2. Still, this will be extremely bad for the publicity of Bitcoin... it will be like saying "hey, we think trading XXX, YYY and ZZZ is OK, and this is what we created Bitcoin for".
You are pushing weapons right into governments' hands...

I stated clearly that IRC wasn't a replacement for easier communication means.

I'm a host, I offered to host a mirror, check the poll.

See the mirrors thing.

Christianity started by being underground, has been illegal too, did it kill it ? or did it make it stronger ?
Check a history book.

Check the technical state of Debian against your claim, acknowledge failure :)


See the mirror offer.
Check how the "hurr durr terrorists hate my freedom" argument leads to more and more control, more and more regulations, that it is a process that does not stop, and realize how much you can do with your own freedom.

I really dislike this "i know what's best for you" kind of attitude, which often goes together with "if you disagree you're short sighted/stupid/childish".

You have the option to open your own forum with your very own rules and make it politically correct if you feel it's the right thing to do.
And these are not just words, one day I found out that mtgox would start charging trade fees, and now we have an open source exchange. Freedom is what I preach, and it's what I do.

OK, I used all the time i had for this discussion, so the same as last time - nobody is convincing anybody here.
After this forum is destroyed (which will surely happen the way you are thinking now - no doubt about it), I will start my own with rules against trading prostitution, drugs, arms etc.

BTW,
I also offered to host a mirror, so i know what I am talking about - mirror is not the same thing as the real deal.

Peace.

you are funny.
let go a bit off of things, of the control-freak attitude, you'll feel much better and live a much more peaceful and happy life :D

You are not even childish.
You're mad. This is madness.

If you think that Bitcoin is ever going to take off with "I am the fraudulent currency used by mobs, sex-slave traders, drug & arms dealers" label written all over it, then you must be mad.

I was hoping to save for my retirement in Bitcoin, now i see that was a stupid idea.

irc was good 10 years ago. silc is the right thing.
silcnet.org (http://silcnet.org) secure internet live conferencing

==
People who think they know everything really annoy those of us who know everything

Nice, but i was expecting that.
So no surprise here.

most people don't use forums either, or even know what one is.

Yes, but this are mostly the same people who do not know what internet is.
If you are using internet, sooner or later you are going to stumble upon a forum.

i wish this was true, sadly most people stay within the comfort zone of facebook and youtube. in class we had to say our hobbies and a boy said he liked going on forums, the whole class was like, forums, what are they??? (and this is in the uk, i think we have one of the highest number of computer users in the world)

Forums seem to be a matter of finding one that makes you stick. I've seen plenty of examples of people who didn't know what forums were signing up for "this thing at the website" that let them talk to others about a topic they are all interested in. Those who are interested in bitcoins as a concept will find this place and read, and those who want to use them, won't.

That's right.

They may be using a forum not even knowing that it is called "a forum".
BTW, Facebook & Youtube have forum systems of their own - comments is kind of a forum (but simplified) too after all.