Bitcoin Forum

I'm leaning toward having no explicit rules, unless it starts giving us too much trouble at some point. The forum won't go down because of somebody selling drugs, it's just a matter of reputation. Sex and drugs are very good for publicity and grassroots marketing, but possibly a turn-off for brands that want to avoid association. I don't think the association thing is a problem, but we can change the rules later if it becomes that way. We can of course have the unwritten rule to keep controversial stuff low-profile like it is now.

edit 19.2.:
Illegal goods are now banned on the marketplace (rules (http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3629.0)). The decision is based on the notion that there's no need to keep that kind of content on this particular forum. The cost of having to go somewhere else is smaller than the cost of possible bad reputation on this forum.

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



That is all.

Bitcoin is money of the free, let this place be its forum :)

I'm strongly against any rule other than "be respectful to others", and I'm willing to support that by hosting a mirror in case something goes wrong.

If it won't cause the forum to be shutdown then I see no reason to ban anything. With the exception of childporn. There are some things that people wont tollerate and thats anything to do with childporn.

If that were being discussed in the forum, aka "selling wild pics of kids for btc" sort of thing then thst will bring large groups in attacking not just bitcoin but the forum too. That would make us a major target for politicians, the media and others.

At least until the forum is hosted as a tor hidden service and accessed only through a tor inproxy or someting.

What is our goal here?

Is our goal to destroy fiat money?

Or is it something more radical than this?

Obviously, the community is made of individuals with differing perspective on politics. How should we handle this political diversity? Should we let the philosophy of the members guide bitcoin's development?

market will do its job :)

If you ban illegal goods here, another place for them will appear.

Remember guys, this forum is backed up. We're like hydras heads.  8)

I think that's the whole point of the discussion - to keep it away from THIS forum if at all.

I have probably another opinion that many of you. I think this forum should be about project development and comunity. Not about selling Romanian women, drugs, child porn or <anything>porn. If anybody want to offer this, let the separate forum appear somewhere around. But I prefer to keep Bitcoin "clean". I just don't want to send link to Bitcoin to my grandma, when big horse dicks appear on first forum page...

I'm not scared that somebody shut down this forum because of illegal content, but it can damage Bitcoin reputation ("Did you see their forum? Bitcoin is just for drug dealers").

This wouldn't interfere with bitcoin at all. Users can still spend them on what they please. The question should be, what is the forum's goal? And I don't think it's to grab any attention possible.

That's the point. I could care less where else they appear. Why risk government involvement and bad business reputation with providing it here?


I'm sure we could all agree to prohibit child porn. That's already an exception to our freedoms on this board, but because it's believed by the majority, it's upheld and accepted. I don't care if drugs are sold with bitcoins or porn or other things, I just don't see any point whatsoever in having this done here, where businesses will come to gather information of the user base and where users will first look to gather an opinion of the community. Majority of users will be weary in a place that openly sells drugs, and majority of businesses would think three times before even allowing the notion of bitcoins if they saw that happening in the forums. Why bring negative attention? The whole internet is a big open field. Run free and express yourself however you want. Make a black market forum using bitcoins. Sell your drugs. I just don't see why it has to be done here. There's always limits to how much freedom you can have, the child porn being a perfect example. Focus on what the forum is most important for.

the shutting down of the bitcoin forum (in 6 or so months,) will probably be the best thing that ever happened to bitcoin.  Many, many times in history when a group is prosecuted, they decentralize and spread out.

Providing we get the bitcoin foundation strong enough to survive an attack before then, the bitcoin community will emerge much, much, much stronger and hardened.

This is the same kind of debate we have on wikileak.

After reading the posts here, my final opinion is : no rules, no CP, mirrors :)

Heh yeah, scared people VS people who feel that no matter what happens, bitcoin or one of its clone will free humanity a little more :)

Creating a separate "black market" subforum will just give it more exposure.

I think you should ban child porn, assassination offers and similar things related to aggression on other individuals, but not drugs or consensual porn, because it's just peaceful trade with no victims.

No rules. Might revisit that if CP starts to pop up, but I'm not expecting it any time soon. Overall I don't think the forum is a very good place for trade of any kind. It's OK for now, but as the economy grows the sheer volume of announcements will make a forum unsuitable for trade. I suspect this may happen before controversial trade becomes a real problem, so the problem may well solve itself.

Things like CP and spam are already forbidden by unwritten rules (common sense).

Little close minded. It's not about being "scared", and I do agree bitcoin will live on if the forum dies. Doesn't mean common sense isn't needed to preserve what we have and grow it to the utmost potential and best reputation possible, especially considering it's infancy.

I suggest that there should be no fixed rules on this forum, but ad-hoc decision on specific cases.

In principle I am for total freedom of speech and no bans, but I can see why we want a clean image on the _official_ Bitcoin forum. Of course, if others want to advertise illegal trade in Bitcoin, they will do so elsewhere.

I don't have a problem with such things. I only have a problem with them attracting bad attention to Bitcoin and causing its greater mission to suffer. I don't care if they are on another website. I just don't think they should be on the official Bitcoin website.

Bitcoin is too important to get slowed down by easily-avoidable police attention.

There should be no rules on content beyond common sense. Correct categorization is necessary, though, so people don't see content that they don't expect. "NSFW" tags are fine now, but maybe later a sub-forum will be needed.

Stuff all the p0rn stuff in the NSFW section?

I put no bans, but I don't think it matters much either way.

Your grammar is a bit sketchy, but I agree with you 100%.

At the moment, there is really no illegal stuff on the forums, so this is not a problem (yet).

Perhaps this poll should be repeated in few months - after/if such goods become a "major issue"...

Force and fraud.

+1
it is needed to at least ban illegal stuff here
otherwise its bitcoin suicide at least midterm

+1
let's at least ban things that are illegal in most regions (cp, heavy drugs, violence etc)

+1

I'd like it to be at least moved to another section called Questionable Behavior or something. BTC4LSD type of things would blend in somewhat with a section devoted to random/funny posts, and really the prior seemed like an obvious scam anyhow. I think that the rigorously obtained libertarian legal position is to not outlaw things like drug use, calling for the assassination of a "Pol Pot" type of leader, or even some forms of softcore child porn being shot (or anyone viewing images). This doesn't mean that our political position has to actually advocate any of those things or begrudgingly give them a forum and feel a sense of obligation. Doing so is both a theoretical and practical error IMO.

That might not be a terrible thing, look a /b/ on 4chan

Could have our own /b/ board

What do you ban when bitcoin itself becomes illegal?

+1

There shouldn't be any need to ban something between two consenting adults.  What is "illegal" for two consenting adults in one place is "legal" somewhere else.  Is this not a worldwide community?

I don't think bitcoin should be taking sides or aligning with certain political forces over others for sake of popularity.  Hands-off would be better.


I like the idea of banning force and fraud.  If someone is taking money and not doing what they promised, then don't let them post here.  Remove their fraudulent website from the list.  If someone is advertising force services (eg. send me btc and I will beat someone up for you or send me btc and I will kill someone for you), that should also be banned.  Anything to do with children, and we can leave that up to forum admin on what age/maturity/etc is considered a child, can be banned.


Don't try to moderate the open market and what two consenting adults want to do.  I think bitcoin is about a free open market and free choice.  Limited choice is what spawned bitcoin's creation in the first place.  If you don't approve or wish to participate in some product or service, then don't.  How can you judge and say something between consenting adults is immoral?  On what grounds can you say something shouldn't be allowed here?


+1 for force/fraud/minors

-100000... for banning anything else.

You're the first one to bring up any argument of these being "immoral". No one said that and I doubt many feel that. As others and I have said, it's about keeping the integrity of the forum and focusing on what is important.
Let's say months down the line, a third of the market of filled with drug dealing. Do you really think a website/community like slashdot would even want to write about it? How would we gain publicity if websites don't want to cover something involving drug sales? Do you think if a big market like, say, amazon, was to look into bitcoin and saw drug dealing was openly happening on the home site of bitcoin, they would even bother?

Silly. I understand everyone's want for integrity and open freedoms, but this forum is integrated into bitcoin.org, where everyone will come to check out bitcoins and learn. Where the majority of people will disapprove of drugs, especially of the anonymous sales of them online. Again, I'm not implying this is me, I don't care what you do with your bitcoins. But putting drug sales right next door to the bitcoin homepage and FAQ, gives the wrong idea, especially to the majority of internet users who do not fully understand bitcoins, the technology behind it, nor care about it, and are just looking into a "paypal alternative".

Stop taking it so personal. I don't care what two consenting adults do(who's to say your transaction is with an adult anyway?). I wish we had a marketplace forum separate of bitcoin.org where rules weren't an issue, because having it tied to bitcoin.org is my ONLY problem. Bitcoin.org is the face of the community, and there's no sense having things like this plastered on the walls. If the no holds barred ruling stays, I hope it doesn't bite us in the ass concerning publicity.

It seems there is a problem with the definition of "illegal": some people here disagree that certain types of light drugs should be illegal.

A possible solution is to ban items which negatively affect more people than just the user: things such as spam, CP, ddos'ing services all majorly impact someone outside of the buyer-seller relationship.

But it's not the case, so let's not worry about it in advance. You don't know what will happen.
For example, maybe it will actually start global discussion about drugs and help stop the so called "war on drugs"?

Throw caution to the wind or proceed slowly?

That's the crux of the debate, isn't it?

I know a few people that were interested by the bitcoin stuff and, after visiting this forum, told me that "hey, this is just a project for junkie and anarchist retards that hope to defeat the governement".

So, yes, the current forum has already turned away 2 people I know.

And when I first read the "Heroin thread", I nearly gave up completely for the whole bitcoin thing.

I find this forum definitely not friendly in that regard and I believe that Bitcoin reputation is already suffering because of this.

I know I was surprised when I saw the heroin thread, and reconsidered my involvement with the project. However, I know that cash is used for heroin as well, and I don't stop using cash because of the use of the currency. I do know that it would bother a few of the people I've introduced to bitcoin if they ever wanted to read the forums, as they are strongly against supporting something that allows discussion on illegal topics. The amount of anti-establishment talk on here surprised me as well, but I assume that the early adopters of a crypto-currency would be those who want to be outside the establishment.

Just a thought, the last website I saw which allowed discussion about anything and everything was Anontalk, and that website doesn't seem to be doing very well, and is continuously attacked.

+1

Would it though? While its true that it wouldn't be tolerated by the world at large, how many here would really "tolerate" it. The "girls for btc" got a few sneers and accused of being fraudulent, and talked about as over the line as it was.

Recently, after reading about the whole HBGary debacle, I decided to go check out 4chan. Heard of it many times, but never actually checked out the site before. On there I ran across a thread where someone posted some sick, sick, evidence of the torture of dogs. The response that this ilicited was interesting, people were, trying to figure out who he was.... trying to... do something about it.

Do we really need to ban anything? I would like to think that if such activities come here, the community will act accordingly. The police and media will not need to stumble upon such things themselves, because everyone has lines they don't want to see crossed, and even if not everyone, there will be enough who will point the thugs in the right direction, and look the other way.

Truth be told, just as everyone has lines, not everyones lines are that extreme, I wouldn't be shocked to find that an (admittedly smaller) segment of the community will do it for drugs and adult voluntary prostitution too.

Banning it just means that it goes elsewhere, drives it under ground, I don't see how that is preferable.

++20

This is exactly what i was walking about when i argued that allowing of trade of such materials is bad for Bitcoin's publicity. We - anarchist/minarchist/libertarian types don't have any problem with freedom of speech & freedom of trade.
But most of "normal people", when they see something like "heroin store", they just run away and don't look back.

So selling stuff like drugs/arms/other illegals on this forum will be viewed by general population as proof that "Bitcoin was created for evil" or some other bullshit. This makes it extremely easy for governments to delegalise it, and kill mainstream adoption for next few years/decades.

How is possible to fight government while simultaneously putting weapons into his hands ? As i said before, this is a childish strategy (which is no strategy at all actually).

Yes, as even a basic standard of professionalism nothing that is not intentionally being made part of the "bitcoin brand" should be allowed on these forums or anything else officially connected with the project.  If people want to use bitcoin for these things they can do it in a back alley somewhere like they do with any other kind of cash.  I know that some of the users here are big libertarian/anonymity etc. fans but there are plenty like me who don't have that as a priority at all and just want to use bitcoin as a much more efficient version of paypal.  To be frank, if the world market for bitcoin is libertarian techies we've probably already saturated it.  Bitcoin adoption on any significant scale will be more to do with people like me--people who want to conduct normal, above-board transactions and build businesses based on the economic model that it enables.  It's perfectly fine for anarchists/libertarians/whatever to appreciate particular aspects of bitcoin, but I think it's quite smallminded to think that any particular community or philosophy, especially outside of the mainstream, is "what bitcoin is about."  Just think about it for a second:  What is cash about?  Who uses it?  Particular forms of cash have advantages and disadvantages from different economic and philosophical positions, but in real life cash is something that people from every aspect of life use for purely non-philosophical reasons.  If the current users of bitcoin can get that into our heads we will be much better positioned to actually make bitcoin successful, which depending on your particular slant might have those particular benefits you are looking for.

eMansipater

While I would love to see the illegal content and scams blocked out completely from the system. However, would something even be possible to accomplish given the anonymous goals and nature of the system?

really I think the best we could do is a community wide blacklisting/boycott of these services. (i.e. remove the adult sites from the Wiki trades listing.) I pick on adult content mostly cause I work at a k/12 school and think theres too much of it in society as a whole.

So we cant ban for technical reasons. Boycotting 'offensive' material becomes a matter of culture which would fall on the side of more restrictive rather than less. I'm not an economic mind nor do i even pretend to know what would actually be required to make a new economic base work (a-la bitcoin) but If what I've gleaned from the boards and other reading is that more trade is good. Be it illegal goods or donating to a major/minor charity the more the currency changes hands the stronger it becomes.

Much as I hate to admin it the gambling/adult/illegal will probably be one of the first broad range adopters to the system as they have been for so may other advances in technology. First microtransactions - hand of poker, webcams - adult chat, etc. now if the community were to collectively take a political PR approach we can change how some of this is perceived.

Would I ban it if I could? yes, but I would also live in a utopian world if the potion were there. its not, I've looked. the really sad thing is that people will probably blame bitcoin for making this possible. Which it didn't, It's just made it a little easier.
if someone wanted to run a drug deal then all they needed was a backpack and a couple of train lockers. anonamity would still be possible just requires people to get up and do it rather than use an existing system.

I'm tired and ranting. I should stop before this turns into something involving the 7 dead-lies.

The controversy is caused by bitcoiners with different goal in mind, not just what they think will be effective/ineffective.

Nonetheless, I think there's a goal of bitcoin we all could believe in:

Destroy and replace fiat money, and facilitate the economy toward human prosperity(material wealth, health, etc). That's it.

I believe this is what Satoshi would have wanted. He thought all those trusting we must do are unnecessary and harmful to our economies. He designed bitcoin to fix the flaw inherent in fiat money.

We should achieve his goal without compromising its very principles. When we get down to it, the government will never and should not have power to dictate the monetary policy of bitcoin by mere decree.

The forum and community here may ban drugs and illegal goods for the pragmatic reason of protecting and growing the bitcoin economy, but we cannot compromise the system that Satoshi laid out for us, nor can we compromise the integrity of the community dedicated to achieving this goal.

Remember, we must make bitcoin prevalent in the world, without compromising its power as a cryptocurrency, if we were to have any chance of changing the world at all.

+1 and Amen!

Bitcoin is a replacement for cash, do what you will with the forum, but the entire point of the thing is to be able to trade it like cash.  No control on what it can be spent on is possible, by design.

No. I don't have the goal to destroy anything. I only want to have an easy and decentralized way to buy stuffs online. No, we are not all against the system.

On a forum where I posted a link to bitcoin.org, somebody explained to someone else that "After reading the forum, he understands that Bitcoin was made to allow drug selling on the internet". No irony there.

No one here is suggesting we can or should stop trades from happening in the world at large, we're only talking about banning actually offering them on this one forum. I don't think it matters much, but at least make sure to allow a link to the site where we can talk about it :)

Not to repeat myself too much, but I still think the entire trade forum will need to go away sooner or later. Maybe now's the time to figure out a better place for trade announcements?

Bitcoin wasn't designed to bring down the current fiat monetary systems, they are failing under the weight of their own false premises. After they have failed, bitcoin cryptocurrency, or its descendants, will replace the failed centralised, fiat monetary experiments.

Libertarian techies have bought this currency to the world, you can do whatever you like with it, so will they and they have every right to say "what bitcoin is about", they invented it and bought it to life.

As for branding, if it don't work nobody wants to own it. But when skunkworks, everybody wants to drink from the well ... who cares what it smells like.

This is about functionality, confidence and branding are now but a small part and will become less so as the substance of performance trumps the BS.

"Failure is an orphan but success has many parents." - some wise-guy.

Agreed. Does the website for Visa - or the Federal Reserve - list every single merchant that uses its currency?

Its understandable in this nascent stage to have a place to announce what you can buy with these new BTC, but really bitcoin.org should be reserved for technical, philosophical, strategy, general discussion.

It would be best to have a separate domain (bitcoinmarket.com or whatever) be the place where merchant wares are pimped (pun intended).

Perhaps there should be several sites to discuss new merchants.  Maybe a separate site for some of the more controversial subjects available on i2p or tor would be a good idea.  Honestly, trying to market illegal items on here seems like a bad idea for everyone involved, that sort of thing should be done more discreetly.  I just don't want to see some sort of unwritten rules become written ones.  For example I can sell ammo, legally, even online, without a license, but no payment processor will touch it.  So if I wanted to sell ammo I would have to go to a gun show and do it for cash, not because I'm breaking the law but because I'm at the whim of paypal if I do business as a small merchant on the internet.  Bitcoin is designed to be the perfect online currency, and it's a niche it will fill well.  I don't really care what's allowed on the forum, but don't see bitcoin as a brand of payment processing please, it is a peer to peer virtual commodity, nothing more nothing less.  Trying to modify what people do with bitcoin will only hurt it's acceptance.

This forum is growing very quickly and soon will be too big for one person to follow. It's inevitable that the rapid growth will spawn other forums, and each will develop its own character.

Because this forum is the main one, the one linked from bitcoin.org, it will be the first port of call for many mainstream bitstream users. It won't be long until we have the AOL crowd here, and the Fox News crowd, the Oprah crowd, and all the other mainstream crowds.

With this change in demographic, it's natural that the marginalized elements of the bitcoin economy will drift off to other forums, for their own interests rather than because they are pushed out.

For now, I think every aspect of the bitcoin economy should be welcomed here. Very soon, each subculture will create or find its own niche anyway, so the "problem" is self-correcting.

Well i hope you're right since we already have a Marijuana sale thread in the "Market".
It won't take long before new threads will start appearing, and then some "authorities" will start bugging our asses about it.


Agreed. I also think this may happen.

I would agree, with one difference--rather than leave this to some future anonymous person, consider the following.

Either there are people present here who think it is important to have a place to offer "questionable" goods/services for sale or there are not.  If there are, now is a good time for them to create some sort of Bitcoin Alt forum somewhere else due to ribuck's second paragraph above, and we can get any such activity moved over there.  If there are not, then we can probably agree it is time to intentionally narrow this forum away from illegal goods and other things that you can be sure are already stopping some people from using bitcoin. 

I'm not going to pull any punches in stating my opinion here:  these forums are linked directly from bitcoin.org, and anyone who doesn't think branding and image don't matter has never tried to launch anything of popular scale on the internet.  Bitcoin's underlying technology has already been proven sound--the hard work is now popularizing and implementing it among the masses.  We are in that stage already.  The leap from early adopters/technophiles to the mainstream is no accident--it takes a lot of hard work and requires appropriate and timely decisions on matters of precisely this kind.  I think anyone with a question in their minds needs to take a good look at the comments on Slashdot, etc--bitcoin does have an image problem right now, and it's causing people who should be the biggest bitcoin fans in the world to dismiss or even attack it.  Not what we need.  A 5 million dollar value base is a good start, but we are going to need a lot of enthusiastic people to take this all to the next level.  Personally I'm investing a lot of time, interpersonal trust, and mindshare into growing the bitcoin economy.  To me the idea of having that thrown away just so that some faceless person can sell drugs on the official forums is kind of ridiculous.  The difference between bitcoin's success and failure is a lot of hard work, and I'm willing to do my fair share of it.  That's something a lot more valuable to the future of bitcoin than merely being able to brag that these forums don't have any rules.

sincerely,
eMansipater

seriously if bitcoin is destined to go mainstream then it's bound to happen regardless of 'image'. quite simply because it's so unique and there's nothing else like it.

i say allow the freedom of expression. it's the best way to develop ideas to strengthen bitcoin. you might not see the value in offering drugs for bitcoin, but neither did people in the past at other outlandish ideas.

nothing has to be done. just sit back, ride the wave and work like beavers. the types of people easily put off by these things aren't that valuable anyway (rats jumping ship at first sign of trouble).

I think it's likely that the authorities will bug people's asses much harder about the monetary aspects of bitcoin than the illicit substances aspect.

I doubt it. Noone's knocking down Neopets for their Neocash... It's the tax-free trade that will bug the federales.

Of course, What can they do about it?

Still, the less bugging, the better for us.
It's a better strategy to avoid confrontation to get more strength and battle later.

Every single day, Bitcoin is getting more and more powerful. At some point in the future, it will be not only unstoppable, but it won't even be possible to slow it down.

----
EDIT:
Also, every single day, fiat currencies are getting weaker, so delaying confrontation is a winning strategy for Bitcoin.

If you buy drugs off someone on a public forum you deserve everything you get for being so stupid. It is either a fed honeypot or some other kind of scam.

 Remember the economic hitmen like to find useful idiots and use them for their own twisted gain. Be smarter than the feds and deal only with those you know in person .

tl;dr assume anyone selling drugs,child porn , weapons or stuff states dont like is a FED . If you want that stuff find a local to trade with in person .

 If someone spouts violence or tries to lure you into illegal activity they more than likely  a FED.


We know how they operate and it is actually good that they post these things so its easy to know who to avoid. Its better to have an enemy inside your tent pissing out then outside your tent pissing in.

 :)


Dont ban anything so we know who the feds are lol.

This. Smart man, this noagendamarket. Speaking of which, you would be a fan of the crackpot & buzzkill, then?

emansipater seems pretty big on telling others what to do ... emancipation only flows one way eh?

I believe that Satoshi intended to replace the failed system with cryptocurrencies, if not to destroy fiat currency.

Side effects and intent are indistinguishable in this case.

Even if you're giving something for free, if it's illegal then it's not a matter of us deciding if it's on the marketplace rather than it's the authorities that are going to do something.

Of course. Im surprised with all the problems with paypal they get that they dont jump on bitcoin as a solution .

Has anyone suggested it to them? I'm sure Adam, at least would love it, And John is smart enough to see it's uses. If not, I'll email Adam Saturday and hope he spots it.

I emailed them ages ago but they didnt seem interested. Maybe an 'incentive' might help . Bitcoin could be an executive producer or something lol.

I really don't think "bitcoin has an immutable destiny therefore we shouldn't try to avoid problems" is a great philosophy.

http://silkroad420.wordpress.com/ (http://silkroad420.wordpress.com/)

There is already a black market site behind tor.  :)

In principle I don't advocate for banning anything, however I have serious concerns about advertising contraband on this forum.

By doing so, you paint a target on the exchangers.

Too few of you understand what exchangers have already been through. It was police action over gambling that caused every exchanger in the USA to quit or flee.

What is the FBI and RCMP going to do now that some of you have openly advertised sale of drugs by mail? Gambling got exchange people imprisoned, exiled and even murdered. What is police reaction going to be now, offering illegal drugs for sale and naming exchangers in the same posts?

In the past few weeks I've noticed links to illicit offers in my referrer logs. In all my years of working as cashier to the internet I've never seen such blatant disregard for the principles of discretion.

The men who run the bitcoin markets and the exchange services are not anonymous ghosts. We are real people in meat space with reams of law to obey, ID documents, bank accounts, offices and licenses. We can very easily be tapped by the lawmen.

Do you jokers really think exchangers will work for you when you have such little regard for their liberty?

Shut the hell up already.

Very good point, i didn't think of it this way.
So trading illegals also introduces extra risk of police intervention among exchangers ? Interesting, indeed.

However, do you have any links to support this ? I would like to read more.

About half of the community want to ban illegal activities, adult content or HYIPs.

This should be enough for a decision to ban these. Even 30% voting for illegal activities to be banned is enough. Noone could ever want to have a thrid of the bitcoin community leaving beacuse of this.
It even seems that some got so nervous and sold a lot of bitcoins over the past 24 hours. I think it's time to act.

Who can finally decide and execute this ban? Sirius?

Rule #1: We aren't invincible.


Rule #2: Don't endanger men who have nothing to do with your dangerous exchanges.

If you guys want to be agorists, that's fine. Please, for the love of Eris, be a lot more cautious. People like me are above-ground persons, not a real agorist.

By the way, don't tell me and everyone else your illegal activities. I don't want to be forced t to be a police witness to some illegal activities that's taking place but nonetheless consensual(drug, sex for hire, etc). It is wrong to force your friends into ethically impossible situations.

New marketplace rule: http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3629.0

Illegal goods are now banned on the marketplace (rules (http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3629.0)). The decision is based on the notion that there's no need to keep that kind of content on this particular forum. The cost of having to go somewhere else is smaller than the cost of possible bad reputation on this forum.

Finally.


Exactly what i had in mind.

Agreed. This is not the place. There are places, and that is good, but not a good idea to draw heat down on bitcoin itself.

So you ask for input, start a poll, and then ignore the results? What is the purpose of this rule, exactly? Are links to alternate forums that allow or specialize in the trading of illegal goods banned as well?

The problem with banning "illegal goods" is that....  Almost everything is legal SOMEWHERE.    No?

The other problem with banning "illegal goods" will arise if Bitcoin itself becomes illegal. But in the meantime, I think Sirius' policy is workable.

Don't know mean you can't be forced to testify against your friend who did nothing wrong but run afoul of the law.

Add this link to your forum profile info.


http://silkroad420.wordpress.com/ (http://silkroad420.wordpress.com/)

A wise decision. No need to keep questionable content here: let other people provide those secondary markets and be responsible for the consequences.

This is not a question of legality or morality, it's a question of PR for the bitcoin project. Regardless of personal beliefs and ideologies surrounding bitcoin, it's harmful to the image of Bitcoin to be associated with such things on the "official" forums, and could harm adoption or even be the catalyst for a government's response to the system itself.

I think the scenario depends on type of country. For example:

- "Full stop": In muslim countries, penalties for using such technology can include stoning a person to death (or cutting a hand, flogging etc), so Bitcoin adoption will seriously slow down or even stop there because people will be seriously afraid of consequences.
- "Little or no slowdown": In a "western democracy" type, little will happen. People will keep using Bitcoin as they keep using P2P. Adoption may be slowed down a little
- "No effect or speedup": In post-communist democracies, governments make rules, but people break most of them every day. Nobody gives a fuck about law and curruption is very high. So it will have no slowing effect whatsoever. Even a little speedup is possible, because government banning something will create a free advertisement for it. How do i know this ? Because i live in such a country.

It was a tough decision to make and I wanted to hear bitcoiners' opinions on this. I didn't ignore the results - this is a poll, not a vote. 1/3 of people don't want drug dealing here, and that's not a small minority. The purpose of this rule is to keep the forum a place that you can present publicly.


Anything that is not forbidden is allowed, using common sense of course.

The rules forbid trading of goods that are illegal in the seller's or buyer's country.

No. Pedo-porn with young children (<10) is banned practically everywhere.

----
Also, i don't believe a country which would allow legally producing (not posessing) heroin exists, however i may be wrong there.

Portugal has decriminalised ALL drugs.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html (http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html)

Age of consent around the world.

http://www.avert.org/age-of-consent.htm (http://www.avert.org/age-of-consent.htm)

I fear this ban will open up a can of worms in that governments make arbitrary laws all the time and you cant possibly know all of them . All the banks have to do now is lobby a few politicians and bitcoin itself will be illegal.

the article says:


So it seems that PRODUCTION of heroin may be illegal. Production != posession. They can still jail you for producing large amounts.



So I was right: there is no country in the world that would allow sex with (< 10 years) underaged children.


Which won't help a lot as i already pointed out. Most governments in the world are either too corrupt or simply powerless to stop people from using P2P, so how can they stop them from using Bitcoin ? Death penalty ? That won't pass.

And by the way, the governments work too slow to ban Bitcoin before it reaches critical mass. Unless of course they have another argument like "Bitcoin was created for evil", which is the whole point of banning  stuff on this forum.

Personally i believe that Bitcoin will gain critical mass in maximum 2 years, after which it will be virtually unstoppable (unless of course some serious technical weakness comes up). Global domination in progress.

My suggestion - split the marketplace from the development discussion and host it on a different forum altogether.
It has been suggested before that the official forum be for discussion of the code only and everything else separated . Maybe now is a good time to do that de-linking before bitcoin goes mainstream.

Then people can agree to the new rules when they sign up rather than have it imposed on them.  Then lock the marketplace from the official forum and start anew where everyone can agree to the groundrules and terms of service voluntarily - let the market decide imo. I have no doubt a forum behind tor will spring up for anyone who really wants to engage in activity governments dont like . In fact I urge someone to do that right now as a business model   :D

This might need moderators who have a set of guidelines to follow on what is allowed and what is not.

It is already too late to start deleting content and censoring it. Thats not how we roll as a community and its not fair to impose rules on new users when old ones have had free reign .  I have no problem with joining something as long as the rules are made clear upon signup .

Let the developers concentrate on the code not on censorship .  As the owner of the bitcoin.me domain I offer that as a place for the new marketplace forum.

On the plus side a forum dedicated to trading can be more organised than what it is now with a built in web of trust ,ratings (karma) and other features. Does anyone think this is a good idea and would you be willing to contribute to get it done ?

I don't want to delink the marketplace from the community. In fact, I think it's the central point of the community. I mean, what kind of a cryptocurrency community would we be if we have no official market to trade in?

That being said, I think the trend is toward a decentralized forum community. The wiki editing is already decentralized in any case.

I enjoy a good ribbing, especially one that puns on my nick ;) so no worries moa.  But since I'm still relatively new to the bitcoin community, I thought I'd take the chance to comment anyways.

As a person who runs my own 3D printing business, has been involved in several tech startups, helped to start a national political party, and has run for public office with a modicum of success, I've spent a lot of time trying to promote cutting edge ideas among the general public.  The potential for bitcoin to be applied in creating a microtransaction economy, provide unprecedented access to financial security and services in the developing world, and increase the competitive pressure on financial services powerbrokers everywhere makes me pretty passionate about it.  But my experience has taught me that there are two types of communities:  one that remains fundamentally detached from an understanding of the world beyond its subculture, and one that retains and leverages a broader perspective to become truly successful on a meaningful scale.

Because I believe in bitcoin I've invested my real world identity, interpersonal reputation, a great deal of time, a meaningful amount of money, and not insignificant business interests into the community.  I've been successful in notably increasing the level of bitcoin adoption within my social network--financial commitments and real-world use, not just running the client hoping to get lucky with a block.  I just touted bitcoin unofficially at TEDxManitoba (http://tedxmanitoba.com/) with some pretty innovative, influential people.  I'm working on two large bitcoin-related projects.  I convinced a rural Manitoban policeman nearing retirement to accept bitcoin for a real-world purchase (he's pretty happy that bitcoins are worth 2-3 times what they were when I did that).

If there are other people out there who are as serious about making bitcoin succeed as I am, I hope they would share their experience and opinions just as strongly and clearly as I have.  Without that, there wouldn't be much of a bitcoin community.  And without a bitcoin community, bitcoin isn't going to have the chance to provide freedom to anyone.  So yes, they're just words, but I'm going to use them (like everything else I have available to me) as effectively as I know how to try and make bitcoin succeed.  Right now that means getting as many people here as possible to ask themselves if having bitcoin associated with drug trafficking, HYIP's, and other illicit headline fodder is really a battle they want to fight.  And a huge +1 for the marketplace rules--simple, not overdone, and an important move.

sincerely,
eMansipater

I find it highly unlikely that Bitcoin itself will be declared illegal in the US or any other similar nation. What might happen is it will attract IRS attention and lead to a crackdown on people who make undeclared income in Bitcoin.

Highly unlikely? Really?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-gold#2007_indictment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_dollar#FBI_.2F_Secret_Service_raid

I wouldn't mind a split marketplace for things that are borderline illegal or questionable to government but I think the truly illegal stuff should be done by someone else and not created or even endorsed or linked to by this site. I'm not saying this because it could get bitcoin in trouble but because I find it as a turn off to engage in illegal activity and I'd rather not be a part of that. I think that's mainly why a lot of people voted no for that.

I would really prefer this forum to be kept more clean than we actually have to, the nicer we appear the easier to point fingers at the evil government for shutting the forum down.

No sex, no drugs and rock'n'roll might be tolerated on Saturdays only :-)

hm, try the silkroad420 link in noagendamarket's signature
read the discussion below the main page info and you will find links
to the nanaimo exchange website in the same posts as solde, sent, works great etc.
there are only 30+ posts, should not take too long to read.
that is a nice example of the worst context for a legaly operated exchange.
i'm sure shane could send you more examples. but this one should be enough as a proof of work
yes, bitcoin pun intended.

I just did, and i didn't find any links to press articles about Government raiding currency exchangers.

ok, i misunderstood the request as to "show me, where they link exchangers to drugs"
here's what you asked for
http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3176.msg45198#msg45198
 ^^ arrests & raiding articles compiled, please choose

Did you even click the links? Almost every one is either dead, or points to an article about exchangers/payment processors getting shut down for being unlicensed exchangers/payment processors. I don't see anything about use of their money for illegal goods being the cause. The state doesn't fear drugs, but they do fear losing control over the supply of money. So go ahead, play their games, but just wait and see what happens to Bitcoin when they realize its potential.

i'm reading them right now. opened first 9 links. all of them working.
exchangers raided, closed, jailed, 1 murder. one notice of being closed & out of business.

the illegal use is mostly gambling related or money laundering. what they have in common is internet.
bitcoin can be used for both.

gambling in the US is mostly illegal
and some exchangers were busted for being unlicensed or non AML compliant or any combination of those
some were busted for being linked to gambling. link to drugs is not the topic anymore, see ShadowOfHarbringer's comment

So...?

Where any exchange points raided - had any problems with gov?

The issue seems to be them changing the rules when they see fit.  E-gold, bitcoin, LR, whatever, is not a currency, it's a virtual commodity backed by gold/scarcity/dollars.  In the case of LR I guess you could claim it *is* dollars since it is supposed to be backed one to one with dollars.  E-gold and bitcoins are definitely commodities though.  Saying that selling gold or numbers is currency exchange is specious at best, but apparently the feds don't like it when it gets popular.  That puts exchanges in a bad place, since it doesn't really matter if you are acquitted, the feds can put you through years of misery just by dragging you through the courts and arresting you periodically.  No one seems to worry about selling WoW gold online, and from a technical legal standpoint I don't understand why that is any different from bitcoin.

Right, i need something more specific - 1 to 3 links maximum.
I don't want to struggle going through all of the links.

Anyway, it's nanaimogold that should answer the question. You don't have to.

Owning bitcoin is probably taxable (capital gains).

Income in bitcoin is probably taxable as well, I'm sure there is an IRS publication on how to account for barter transactions, that would be the applicable set of rules I think.

And you SHOULD NOT attempt to tell me what to do. I am not your fucking secretary.

Back in the old days people had to travel to libraries and wait for information to come by mail. You can JUST GOOGLE IT.

There is so much written on exchangers being harassed and jailed and even killed you could fill an entire library.

Disregarding what I have said because you simply don't want to believe it indicates an immature thought process.

Do YOUR OWN HOMEWORK.

The difference being? If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck... It's probably a duck.

I feel like we've gotten off topic. I seem to recall you supporting a ban of illegal trades in this forum. This doesn't make sense given that you've just stated exchanging fiat for non-fiat is enough to bring down the wrath of authorities. Bitcoin is inherently incompatible with statist central planning and control over the monetary system. Do you really think disallowing discussion and trading of illegal goods on this forum is going to keep the heat off?

Reputation to the public and reputation to authorities can be two entirely different things.

Jesus, where did all that aggression come from ?
Did i offend you in any way, did I rape your daughter or kill your little kitten ? I mean WTF dude, i just asked a question politely.

I think you just lost a possible customer.



If i wanted to google it, i would just google it.

I didn't want to google it, because i wanted to hear it from you.
It was kind of "what did you mean by this exactly" question.

Maybe they would claim bitcoin is a ponzi scheme.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme)

Well, actually, Bitcoin investment is a Ponzi scheme, and that also includes mining, working for BTC or gifts/donations. You as an early adopter profit because you have a share of 21 Million that you got much cheaper than people after you.

When this Ponzi scheme fades away, BTC will be an established currency.

That is simply not true.

Yes, Bitcoin has certain characteristics of Ponzi scheme, but it differs from it in everything except one thing.

The only thing that connects Pyramid schemes & Bitcoin is that early adopters get the most profit.
But the same applies to gold. Early miners mined greatest amounts with minimum effort. The more gold was mined out of the ground, the less profitable mining became. (as it became harder to find gold & harder to mine large amounts, because gold veins were more dispersed)

So, is gold mining a Ponzi scheme ? I see a lot of flawed logic here.

BTC get more valuable if more people join the "investion scheme". If you place your bets on this (and a lot of people do), I see no difference to a Ponzi scheme. Also, this is not only limited to Mining.

I did not call Bitcoin one. Bitcoin itself is not a Ponzi scheme because it also has its own value which increases over time. It’s up to you to determine that value.

Again. Not true.

The same applies to gold, and ANY valuable bullion.
The more people join the "gold bandwagon", the more cash early miners (or early buyers) earn.

If the people (or their families) who mined (or bought) kilograms of gold during the gold rush hundered(s) years ago waited till today with the sale of the gold they own, they would probably earn thousands (if not tens of thousands) % of their first investments.
Exactly as with Bitcoin.

What is the difference ? No difference. Bitcoin is almost exactly like physical bullion with one exception: it is not physical.

No difference to gold at all. I didn’t claim there was.
But the mechanism of investments in Bitcoin is that of a Ponzi scheme, that’s all I’m saying. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

In so far as anybody who save in bitcoin win. In as so far that bitcoin encourage wealth creation instead of wealth destruction, everyone win.

If everyone on the planet basically use bitcoin...well you got one hella of a global economy.

No, this is wrong way of thinking. You should not compare Bitcoin to Ponzi scheme, because that automatically creates bad assumptions.

Ponzi scheme is about few people winning, and everyone else losing.
Bitcoin/Gold/Silver/Any non-inflating currency is about everybody winning.

You should seriously stop comparing Bitcoins to Ponzi scheme - that is just false, wrong and detrimental.

I’m not comparing Bitcoin to it and this will be the last time I’ll try to clarify this point: Investions in BTC follow this scheme. Bitcoin itself has value. Also, you forget to mention that everyone could lose everything (if he keeps BTC). Early adopters will lose less than those coming late as they will have invested less.

Also, we just derailed the thread.

Bitcoin investment is sort of the opposite of a ponzi scheme: in a ponzi scheme, the buy-in stays the same, but the payout diminishes. With bitcoin, the buy-in increases, but the payout stays the same. (should bitcoin become the only currency, each will be worth 1/21000000th of the entire economy. Note that I don't see this as likely, or even desirable. BTC will instead become the first of many competing digital currencies, much like Magic: The Gathering started the TCG genre of games.)

Sorry, but you are still wrong.
Yet you keep shifting/changing the actual topic so that it seems that you are partially right, but that is not correct. You are completely wrong at all points.


No, they do not. If they would, you would be likely to lose everything once you invest (big investment risk).
And in Bitcoin/bullion evertybody is winning.


Incorrect. The only way in which everybody will lose everything is if Bitcoin gets destroyed/shut down.
Still, that is in no way similiar to Ponzi scheme, because in Ponzi scheme few people always win.


Doesn't matter. Still no resemblance to Ponzi scheme. In Ponzi scheme, few win, rest lose. In the situation you are describing, few lose small money, the rest loses bigger money.
No similarity. In investments or whatsoever.


It doesn't seem as if anoyone cared about that on this forum.
90% of threads gets derailed.

Ponzi scheme = early adopters make most profit, early adopters carry least risk
Bitcoin = early adopters make most profit, early adopters carry most risk

That's a fundamental difference.

Don't put words in my mouth. Read the post again if you are unsure;
http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3535.msg51193#msg51193

My concern is that certain clowns, who blab nonstop about privacy and security can't recognise what is a secret or how to keep one. Bozos who are so self centered that it never even dawns on their dim mindscape that their actions put their intended cashiers in jeopardy.

I don't see much of a discrepancy between what I wrote and what you wrote.







First of all, I don't appreciate you putting words in my mouth - I have as much regard for your liberty as you do mine. Second of all, yes I expect they will work for the community because it is to their financial benefit.


I would invite you to do the same.

> I think you just lost a possible customer.

Oh, that's just so typical of the TV audience. You actually believe that's your decision to make.

Consumerist clowns like you need a case study. Ever heard of ING bank? It's popular in places where men are mostly responsible for their actions, where the population is not all soy addled followers of fashion. Anyway, they annually identify the 10% or so of their account holders who cost them the most in support issues and just FIRE THEM.

Sorry, you are too stupid to bank here. Go cost our competition. Thanks!

That concept is just so foreign to you isn't it? The idea that a business would decline to service you - you just can't get you head around that can you?

Wah wah! I am the consumer - I am always right - it says so on my TV. You have to do as I tell you. I am the consumer wah wah!

These are not the people I do business with. Frankly, they have no business to do anyway.

See there? Stated in plain English? The first line of my post?

Here, lets quote that yet again, with bold this time:

> In principle I don't advocate for banning anything, however I have serious concerns about advertising contraband on this forum.

It's my PRINCIPLE. How much more rock solid can I state that?

Do you have any principles? Do you just waver on the breeze? On the whim of fashion? Do you stand fast on any issue?

Do you even understand what the word means?

Contempt for your opponents does not help them understand your position.

I don't think you're communicating as clearly as you believe you are. Let me give you an example...

"In principle I don't advocate killing anyone, however I have serious concerns about letting criminals live"

Is it clear whether or not I am arguing for or against the killing of criminals?

You win the wishy washy word-wanking award.

This is nonsense. This is a private forum and we're a bunch of guests. The owner get to do whatever he wants.

That's precisely why I never vote in these polls.

For BitterTea to declare that I did vote is annoying however.

Again, you are the one who said "In principle I don't advocate banning anything, however...". Explain how this does not show that you are willing to compromise your principles?


Show me where the fuck I said that you did. I love that you keep calling me out for putting words in your mouth when you are the one doing exactly that. Between this and it taking a month and a half (so far!) to get my coffee (all while telling me nothing more than "don't worry"), you've ruined your reputation in my eyes. I just want you to know that I will not be doing business with you in the future and I can't recommend that anyone else does either.

> Show me where the fuck I said that you did.

Right here;

>> recall you supporting a ban of illegal trades in this forum

Anyway, you have already won the wishy washy word wanking award. I know that changing the subject is classic wanking, and you really do have a flair for it, but it's not necessary because you are already the undisputed champion twister.

> Explain how this does not show that you are willing to compromise your principles?

No. You deserve none. Anyone can use a dictionary. Anything more I can say would only be repeating myself.

It is my principle to not advocate banning anything.

Damn, there goes that repeating myself again.

I would have voted on "don't ban anything that won't result in significant risk of having to put down the forum."

1. I have no idea WTF are you talking about and why the hell you keep attacking me without reason. I don't know, "IS THIS SPARTAAA" or something ?
2. For the record, i haven't watched TV (that includes internet TV) in about 4 years, because I noticed how endlessly manipulative medium it is...


I will simply stop discussing with you, because i don't have a habit of discussion with mad people.

You better stop discussing with him, that man is a lost case.

Really ?  :D

Well, i should watch my words :P
However he is way more mad than you are. For once, it is possible to reason with you.

You yelled at me and attempted to boss me around. Now you say you have no idea? Did you just forget that or what?

You consistently fail to answer the questions I put to you, yet I don't yell or get bossy about that failing.

This all stems from the fact that you can't accept the truth about the owners of the government directing the police against alternate currencies. Perhaps some lessons on critical thinking are overdue?

Um...What people are arguing about?

Nothing important; just look at the poll results for a tl;dr version of this thread.

Yeah, whatever.

If some people from the underground source forums start public sites there could be public forums that sell drugs with no feds selling. It is all a matter of screening, not publicity. If one hundred screened people publicly sell drugs on a forum that anyone can access then there is not much risk. A public and free-for-all forum would be a horrible idea though.

Related:

"This topic has been moved to Trashcan, because advertising products or services that are illegal world-wide is not allowed here."
  http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5361.msg78384#msg78384

Assassination and murder for hire is illegal, for obvious reasons.