Bitcoin Forum

IDEA: A forum where only people who have actually contributed something to BitCoin have write access.


This current forum is way too noisy. There are many smart and decent people here, who are putting their personal time and money to create something for BitCoin.

Wouldn't you like to see a place where such people could have a discussion without having to deal with all the noise, all the scandals and freemason bullshit, same newbie questions over and over again, etc.?

Well, as usual, if you want something done – do it yourself  :)
So here it is – I’ve installed an SMF 2.0 forum for this:

http://forum.qbizy.com

(If this project takes off I will move it to a separate domain and hosting).

So if you think it's a good idea to have such a place – register with an email from the site where one can see your contribution or drop me a line at bitcoin@qbizy.com.


You're probably thinking "what, some schmuck with less than 50 posts will now judge my contribution and decide who’s in and who’s out?"  :)

You're right I am not a hero member here, and I am in no position to determine how valuable your contribution is. I will just try to check that there is a contribution, that's all.


I love the BitCoin idea. I want it to succeed. Workers of the BitCoin world – unite!  ;D

Seriously. Go register.

Adding to the list

http://reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/
http://bitcoin.org.uk/forums/
http://www.anoncoin.org/
http://www.bitcoinforums.net/
http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/
http://tweetforum.com/bitcoin

Please add the GuildMiners forum to the list.  We're not competing directly with Bitcoin Forum traffic, as most of our users are going to be bitcoin newbies that we draw in via offline advertising.

http://forum.guildminers.com/

Thanks!

So this is going to be like a Soviet of Bitcoiners?

I am not sure what you mean :)

I just thought a place where all the people are guaranteed to have contributed at least something to Bitcoin is a nice idea.

This simple check alone can cut lots of noise and bullshit.

So, we extend the "proof of work" concept...    ;D

Seriously, though, this is a good idea. Especially if by "contributing" you mean contributing over a significant period of time, and contributing something significant. I am not a developer, nor do I run a Bitcoin business, but I will definitely be lurking if this takes off.

I more than welcome any ideas about what to consider "contribution".

Obvious cases, like big-shot sites, is a no-brainer.

Simply mining should not be a contribution :) , but operating a mining pool should.

All real-life merchants that accept bitcoins is probably a no-brainer too.

Overall, I promise to apply my best judgment and ask the community for advice in difficult cases.

Ok, here's my first question about contributions:

If a person did some clearly non-trivial projects, but didn't actually contribute anything to Bitcoin (yet?) - should such person be entitled to join?

On one hand - the forum is clearly for "Bitcoin Contributors". On the other hand - if a person is an able developer, maybe he will do something soon.
On yet another hand - there are plenty of developers out there, so it can dilute the forum and add some off-topic posts :)

This is tough one for me to decide. Personally, I lean towards strict "bitcoin contribution is a must" policy.

What's your ideas?

There are plenty of people who offer useful contributions to the discussion but who don't actually write code or have merchant sites.  Make it invite only, with a team of moderators that you trust to do the invites.

And we have our very first member.

Also, as a precedent - if you have organized a successful Bitcoin meet-up - that is, I think, a sufficient contribution to be entitled to join.

Organizing things is hard :)

Come on, guys, don't wait, join!

This is a chicken and egg problem, you know. For this to be useful we need people and people won't join unless it is useful.
Let's jump-start it!

Yes, I thought of it. Some form of invites by voting or trusted mods will be implemented, of course.

But for now it just basically needs ordinary members to solve the chicken and egg problem (and also to have a voting quorum about who to invite).

What if it was a forum section where hero member are the only ones who have write access? I know there are some users who have hero member status that spam but we could use a strict set of rules to prevent spam. There could also be a white list where people who have proven themselves to be knowledgeable and helpful to the bitcoin community can join.

I'll bite, but if you want active participation you'll have to provide some reason why we should expect this forum to be more successful than all the other alternative forums.

Does a meetup where 3 people show up (including myself) count?

I kid, my contributions to Bitcoin are overwhelming, as is my humility.

Being a hero member is a very bad proxy for making useful contributions, both ways. I don't think it will be good to start with this and then add exceptions.

Do you know how long it takes for something to be done here?

They can't add a simple Announcements section for months!

I promise one thing for sure - I'll be damn more responsive.

Is it possible in whatever smf version / mods / whatever you are using, to remove a thread from the list of threads that show up in "Show new replies to your posts."? That this is impossible is one of the major problems with bitcointalk. If this is impossible with smf, I recommend using a different software (though I've never been as active in a forum as here, so I should be careful what I wish for...)

Meni, the major reason is the whole idea of restricted access. I don't think I need to do anything special, except to provide a place for discussions and don't get in the way :)

Those, who contribute, are smart and mostly good people :)
This place is bound to be better. Useful stuff will happen automatically.

Also, guys, it's much faster for me to approve you if you use email form the site that is one of your contributions, so I don't have to send you an email and ask for links to prove your contributions.

Nothing is impossible, if there is no such feature, I'll code it :)

I'm just not sure what you mean. I am not very familiar with version 2.0 myself, so it will take some time to properly configure it.

This seems like a better requirement. The problem with a new forum is getting that critical mass of contributors. Better to invite more people and then uninvite them if they don't meet the community's standards than have an empty forum.

We need more. Mostly an indication of your level of commitment to promote the forum and proactively contact prominent figures about joining it. Chicken-and-egg problems don't solve themselves without strong intervention.

Whenever I post in a thread, it is added to my watch list. By clicking on the "Show new replies to your posts." link, I can see a list of threads in my watchlist to which a new reply was added that I haven't read yet. It is impossible to remove threads from the watchlist, so if I made a youthful mistake of posting in slush's pool thread, notifications of new replies clutter my view pretty much every time I look at my watchlist.

td;lr:

"Dissenting opinions inflame our sense of worth, let's create a insular place where we won't be exposed."

Andrew, this is a centuries old problem, how to select such people and who will be selecting them.

History tells us that all such attempts have failed so far :)

That's why I proposed a simple criteria that doesn't require any judgment on my part.

It's a simple fact check - whether or not a person had actually contributed something - no judgment is needed.

Wow. Good to know the thousands of USD I have spent on equipment and my $800/month electric bill do not contribute at all to Bitcoin. Let the price fall below $5 for a month and you will find out exactly how much miners contribute to Bitcoin. Miners are integral part of Bitcoin, yet everybody who isn't a miner wants to treat them like red headed step children. You will be hard pressed to find non-miners that have spent $10k on the Bitcoin project, or even $5k. Bitcoin can survive without another exchange, or another merchant site, or another pool. Let the miners turn their rigs off, and Bitcoin dies. Mining is the very fabric that Bitcoin is made of. The crypto part of the cryptocurrency. But apparently miners don't contribute to Bitcoin.

Its your site, run it how you want. Good luck.

I don't want to start going "door-to-door" and invite people privately yet. Some might not like it :)

Better wait some time and see, maybe the critical mass will gather by itself.


Got it. I will look into it.

Isepick, the reasons for that are:

a) anyone, who has a modern GPU can mine.

b) you mine so you can get money. It's not exactly an altruistic work you are doing here.

If anyone thinks different - let's discuss it.

Most of what people do for Bitcoin (or for anything else) has an altruistic component and an egoistic component, and mining is no exception. While most miners do it mostly for the profit, participating in the security of the network is usually also a consideration.

That said, quantitatively, a miner's marginal contribution to Bitcoin may be smaller than they think. By mining, they are increasing the difficulty, thus discouraging others from mining. Thus this is only a moderate shift of the equilibrium towards higher security. If many people stop mining, the difficulty will decrease to the point that others will easily come to replace them.

Also, for the purpose of the new forum, mining with a single GPU isn't indicative of sufficient involvement and understanding of Bitcoin to expect higher-than-average-quality posts. Mining with 20 GPUs might, so this could be treated as a sufficient contribution for entry.

Find a creative way to promote the forum without being too spammy. That's the kind of thing I expect you to do if I am to participate in your forum.

The more important question is whether those who qualify really want to post there.

Who wouldn't want to post in a think tank that closes itself to external ideas.  ???

Non sequitur. There is some memetic variety among Bitcoin contributors, and detractors should be invited too if they can demonstrate they have a clue what they are talking about.

Would I be allowed to post?

I'd like to think admitting me would be a pretty good litmus test for the truthful open-mindedness of it...

As soon as we have a quorum of ordinary contributing members we will organize voting on invites.

An ivory tower - how quaint

And every single GPU that mines makes it the network that much more secure. Bitcoin has the world's largest amount distributed computing power. Any attacker has to overcome that.


I'm sorry, you never mentioned altruism before this post. If you are looking for people that have made altruistic contributions to Bitcoin, then your site is going to be very small my friend.


I meant the more immediate effects of a large portion of the hashing power suddenly dropping off the network. Greatly increased block times, etc. until the difficulty adjusts. We see how well that is working for Namecoin right now.

Also as someone who has 20 GPUs at 6 GHash, I know I work a little harder at maintaining the equipment than someone mining with a single card.

Sorry, altruism is probably indeed not the word I was looking for :)
I'll take it back.


No offense, but just buying a bunch of GPUs for mining doesn't mean that a person will be a valuable contributor to discussions, does it?
Anyone can do it. Where's the creative part? :)

Anyway, I can't verify how many GPUs a person has.

Sure you can, that's kind of what the whole Bitcoin protocol is based on. Give them some random number, and see how many difficulty-1 hashes they can generate in a given time frame with this number in the extraNonce.

 ;D I never thought of that!

I've added BTC price display for logged in users.

Look in the left-upper corner ;)

Good idea. The sad reality is that public forums inevitably rot if they get popular.

So, what about invitations? I ask, because there are people, who want to participate, but have no tangible contributions currently.

How should we do it? Anyone can suggest a candidate with a brief description and a poll?

75% votes to invite, 50% to ban?

Also maybe some tag or a special user group that will mark a person as not a direct contributor?

What do you think?

You're making it too complicated: just invite a lot of people who you would like to participate. Getting a critical mass of participants is hard. I speak from experience. Banning people who misbehave is comparatively easy. The point of your forum is to maintain a higher-quality discussion, not vote on things and form committees. The easiest way to achieve that is for you to lead the way and invite people unilaterally and then enforce the standards on the forum. Later, if necessary, appoint other moderators to help maintain the community standards.

Ok, then.

Me hereby entrusts meself with ze right to issue ze royal invites  ;D

Oh, boy, it's 3 AM here, I should be sleeping...

See you all tomorrow.

Do Bruce W. or Tom W. qualify as contributors?
They've certainly have done their share...

After the scandal - obviously not. Before - unfortunately, yes.

It's impractical to perform extensive background checks on all members and it doesn't even guarantee that a person is not a potential scammer.
This forum isn't built for that, there are other sites for trust checks already.

---

To motivate contributors to join, I am thinking about building some web service(s) around the contributors forum.

So if you have any ideas you want to see implemented - shoot.

Here's what I thought this morning:

Bitcoin Ad Exchange network.

Every contributor can place an adwords-like text ad block on his site and start earning virtual credits, which he can then spend to show his ads on other contributors sites.
Something like a Bitcoin Ring. To make customers be more aware of various Bitcoin-related projects.

Now, I am operating on 5 hours of sleep and can't be sure I'm sane enough today, so what do you think? Is it a good idea?
Are there people interested in this or is it just an outdated hogwash from the times when rings and link exchanges were popular? :)

---

Also: contributors, don't wait. Join the forum and start talking in a quiet place today.

I think you should develop clear understanding about what you want to achieve with this project and then select people who will contribute to your vision.

Somebody(team) just need to make a digest version of the bitcoin forum, e.g. /r/Bitcoin works fine, where only the important and relevant threads/information gets posted, if it's not correct or plain out troll it'll quickly fall off the front page and become dust.

I hear some one from /r/BitcoinMining is putting together a knowledge base (stackoverflow clone) to aggregate a lot of the repeated questions that's being asked there, which I think it's a great idea. (imo wikis aren't suited for this type of rapid information cycle.)

Cheers.

I thought I had a clear understanding - to create a place for people, who have actually done something for Bitcoin, to hang around.


Now, about the Ad Exchange idea.

I thought about it and it seems that a bigger idea would be certainly good - Bitcoin Adwords (BitWords? :) ).

It would be a great way to introduce bitcoin to people, because currently there are very few ways for a newbie to acquire bitcoins.
If there would be a service that says "Show ads on your site and get money (in the form of Bitcoins)" it may revive somewhat the Bitcoin economy.

This is, of course, a much more serious and difficult project than a simple Ad Exchange between contributers.

What do you think?

will you add a good post system like I proposed here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=25593.0 ?

Yes, I think it's a good idea. I turned on Karma, but rating individual posts is also useful.

But the mod you linked doesn't look very slim to me, I am currently browsing all the SMF mods, looking what to install, so if I find anything better - I will install it.
Otherwise I will install the mod you pointed to and maybe modify it a bit if needed.

Thanks for the idea!

jippieh! looking forward to that or something similar. I would consider it best to only have the possibility to upvote but not to downvote, at least to start with. Downvotes only create bad atmo = noise.

Due to breach of trust and gross negligence by Sirius and Theymos who recklessly transferred my private and personal data on this forum to a Japaneze company without my permission I am leaving this forum and deleting all my posts. Goodbye.

This forum is not "by invitation only" it's "by contribution (or invitations) only".

There's a difference. You don't need invitation - just prove your contribution and you are approved instantly (when I am around the computer :) ).

Besides, I find your forums unusable, but it's a matter of taste.

Due to breach of trust and gross negligence by Sirius and Theymos who recklessly transferred my private and personal data on this forum to a Japaneze company without my permission I am leaving this forum and deleting all my posts. Goodbye.

I've installed the voting mod and disabled negative votes.
So far it seems working Ok.

Is there a BIG sign at the entrance door that reads "Please Leave Your Drama Here" ? If so, at some point I would like to join.

Thanks.



-ST

Of course it's not useful. That's why there are all those numerous foundations, clubs, professional guilds, etc.
They just want to create an ivory tower, right?

What's wrong with the idea of building a sort of informal foundation for all the people who contribute real work to Bitcoin and not just talk?

We can add it to the rules:
"No drama here please."
:)

The IPB Forum (which GuildMiners uses and Vladimir's forum also uses) has a Facebook "like" feature and many mods to allow distinction of above average posts. 

Just wondering, would Bruce Wagner be allowed in? Or Tom Williams?

Take a look at the beginning of this very page. This has already been answered.

What's the big deal with that question?

hmm something does not seem right. can not see any boards after logging in.

The big deal of course is that it is extremely elitist to make a board "only for people who contributed" and have the owner of the board be the judge of what a contribution is.
Everyone posting here has contributed in a way. That way might not be what the owner wants to see or hear though, so he will "censor them away". But technically speaking everyone posting here should be given access. (not that they want to probably)

Really? Do you really think so? Give me a break...

---

phelix, it was a permissions problem - I forgot to add boards to the Contributor group :)

Anyways, reported this elitist-topic to be moved to off-topic, since it contributes nothing to bitcoin-discussions.

And by doing so, I have contributed to bitcoin. But don't bother... I have no interest in elitist forums ;)

No, you guys should come to my fort forum instead.  It's totally better, but you have to make out with the old lady down the street if you want in!

Cool off, guys.

There are plenty of groups in the world where you are not a member.
Do you get pissed off about each and every single one?

How about Microsoft's board meetings? Elitist bastards, don't allow everyone in!

Relax. Think of it as an informal foundation of merchants, developers, exchanges, etc.

People have the right to organize into any form of organization and decide who will be included.

I proposed a simple criteria, which precisely removes practically any judgment on my part.

As a customs clerk at the airport doesn't pretend it's his airport, I don't pretend it's my forum. It's community's forum.

I am just a guy who checks your ticket.

Due to breach of trust and gross negligence by Sirius and Theymos who recklessly transferred my private and personal data on this forum to a Japaneze company without my permission I am leaving this forum and deleting all my posts. Goodbye.

Vladimir, your derogatory remarks here don't look very nice, you know?

You clearly have a conflict of interest - you have your own forum and want people there.

Personally, I wouldn't go to a thread that announces another forum and start bashing their idea to create a separate forum.

But it's just me.

Yes, and you probably wouldn't wear purple-tinted glasses in public either. Vladimir is evidently a man unfettered by banal social norms such as taste and decency.

;D

Yeah, you're probably right...

I'm just nervous a bit this whole idea gonna sink long before it gets any chance to start :)

So much negativity is floating around...

Just saw this:

http://qbizy.com/bitcoinMascot1.png

Made me laugh out loud  ;D

To lighten the mood.

Problem is that there's no set price at which to purchase the ticket. And even after you've purchased it, the price can be changed at any time, because the plane was just upgraded to "Elitist-level-2" and you have not "contributed enough"  ::)


Maybe you're worried you haven't contributed enough to be allowed in your own forum? ;)

It is a problem. It was discussed. I am doing my best.

So far contribution cases were pretty clear and people were approved very quickly - just a basic fact-check.

Too many people here talk without any real work.

Less talk, more work :)

The irony of this thread is that you would exclude the people who have pretty much saved you from further scams at the hands of Bruce Wagner.

+1

Saved from future etc.... Do you know the future by any chance.

Lol,

Did you happen to find that gem in the "DEER AGENTS" thread?

I don't remember, I've already closed that tab. I was searching for the bitcoin logo pictures and this was one of the results :)

Somebody should make a cartoon about this character  ;D

I've created an intentionally minimalistic bounty system:

http://forum.qbizy.com/index.php?action=bounty

So if you need something done - post it there.

You can be sure that at least one professional programmer who cares about the fate of Bitcoin will keep an eye on it :)

content has been censored by myself.

Of course we don't need another forum! Instead everybody should hang out in your social-thingy-whatever.

Another one came here with conflicting interests... Welcome to the party, what can I say?
 
Can I go bash your idea in your topic now? :)

if you feel its worthy to bash please do. And I am sorry to put down your idea specifically it honestly has nothing to do with competition certainly, we are talking about different things.

In all truth this is a subject I feel passionate about, and I why I created the "social network thingy" you were talking about, We really need to make Bitcoin open to the world. This is what is necessary to succeed yet there is this terrible superiority disease that seems to have infected everyone.

I do want to bring awareness of this, but I do not want to bash your idea personally so I will remove my comment and post a main thread on this topic instead. Sorry to have offended you that was not my intention.

cablepair, I am not offended in a any way :)

But I don't want people to feel that I am working on this forum out of what you call "superiority disease".

I want Bitcoin to succeed and I want it to be open.

But a) this forum became unusable, b) there are many professional guilds and foundations that limit members by a certain criteria.

I don't think it's fair to accuse them all in doing it only to feel "superior" to "regular" people.

Just wondering, did you get inspired by my job, or we thought of it in the same time?

You forgot c)This forum is now owned by K.K. Tibanne...

I didn't check your work because you had no online version, sorry :)

It would be interesting to see it. Once you install it somewhere - let me know please.

that sounds very nice, and I hope it ends up that way, but by the way some of the posts in your thread sound it is for some people more about getting out the riff raff then creating a guild of Bitcoin contributors.

in any case I started my own thread on the subject and I thank you. Good luck with your forum.

Could you elaborate please? English is not my native language, so I might have difficulties in communicating.

It would be nice if you could point to some examples. And also explain what "getting out the riff raff" means :)

hehehe

Getting out the riff raff is a term, meaning getting out undesirable people.

For instance in poker, someone will Bet a high bet to "Get out the riff raff" or cause the undesirable players to fold their hands.

and I really do not want to quote individuals right now, I am trying to have a less confrontational day right now. Please disregard me from this point in the conversation I really never meant to try and attack you and put down your idea. I realized I was using your thread to express my own agenda (bitcoins agenda) and it did not have much to do with you particularly so I moved it :)

good luck

So, does anyone have any comments or suggestions for the bounty system?

EDIT: Let me repeat the link here: http://forum.qbizy.com/index.php?action=bounty

Answer the question in my topic (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=42284.0) and I can run you the online version any day running on my very own PC.

Not. A single. Comment.

Are you fucking kidding me?!

Are you telling me I've wasted another 3 days on a project nobody needs?

Apparently you guy don't need any of my shit.

Well, I'm out of ideas (and motivation) about what else I can do for Bitcoin, so I'll just sit here and wait.

Maybe one day some fucking miracle will happen and things will be different...

Oh. So you're telling me no one sees the benefit of a forum where only people can come in whom the forum's owner deems worthy enough to join? Weird. You'd think the interest in such a project would be massive!  ::)

So are you new to the internet or...?

... to life?

Hey guys,

Check out btclog.com !  Lots of good stuff coming down the pike and we raffle a bitcoin everyday. Use your Twitter or Facebook to register and grow some "portable" street cred.  Or just reserve your existing bitcointalk handle!

Fuck you all.

I've put an effort, my time and my heart and you have taken a shit all over it.

Good luck with your toy currency. Good luck with attracting developers.

I'm out of here.

I have more productive things to spend my time on.

More and more I understand why Gavin Andreson lists 'a thick skin' as one of his primary qualifications for being a bitcoin dev.
I think that quality is probably required for any community endeavour around here... and judging by the epic trollability of many - it's just not widely possessed!

Can I have your stuff?

+1

The Tower (ivory) XVI

Forum is down :/

It appears that the website is blocked to the outside world. I get an HTTP 403 Forbidden when I try to open the page :-(

 Please send all your BTC to the address in my .sig, on your way out.

 Thanks !

Maybe you could start a forum for people who have turned their back on the community. You can select only the people who you feel have "turned enough" to be worthy. Maybe you can call it "bittercoin forums"?

Oh, boy, you fuckers sure like to gloat, don't you?

You're like a pack of vultures, being losers yourself you want everyone else to fail, so you can gloat and feel better about yourself.
Feels nice, doesn't it? Warm, cozy feeling of self-worth, ah… And since you are, unfortunately, the ones who speak the most, you become the face of any large community. Parasites, destroying, instead of creating.

Isn't this the real reason you are pissed off about “my little ivory tower”, huh? That you haven't done anything creative? You can only sit here and yak, yak, yak all day. And nice people are too fucking scared to even open their mouth in the environment like this.

So, fuck you personally. I narrow my “fuck you all” range.

And guess what? The moment of weakness has passed. I talked to some people who matter, and they talked some sense into me. Not you, Meni, I haven't seen an iota of support from you. “Oh, I'm so big, important and busy, I myself have no ideas or time to help you, but you better come up with some creative ways to attract people quick or I quit”. You wanna quit – quit. If you want to delete your account – I'll be happy to oblige. All the negative naysayers are just a dead weight.

Grow a thicker skin, you say? Let's fucking try it.

So you, fucking vultures, bring it on! Bring everything you've got. How I am stupid and elitist and how I will fail and how nobody will ever be on the forum and how all my projects are small, stupid and pathetic.

I am fucking listening. Entertain me.



P.S. To all the sane people – there is a closed section on the Contributors Forum, so you can talk freely without looking over your shoulder.
What are you gonna loose by joining? 2 minutes of your time? What if the idea will work? Don't you want a better place to talk?

Wow. Way to miss the point of my comments.

I want people to succeed. I even tried to tell you that your plan was not a very good one, giving you the chance to do something else that might work better. But you were blinded by the possibility of being the cookie in an elitist circle-jerk to listen to advice and/or criticism.


I don't think anyone was pissed off. I think people were mainly amused, surprised at the ignorance and perhaps a tad annoyed at the idea. Other than that, I have a highly creative job at which I am very successful. I have very little need to establish some e-peen with a virtual currency project.


Oh, ok.  ::)


So someone managed to talk a stupid idea out of your head? Props to them!


You want to delete accounts from your elitist "super contributor" forum? You call those people "dead weight"? So even after someone has done enough to join your golden section of shining eliteness, they can still be demoted to "uncool" status?

wow...


 ;D
Now I not only think your idea was bad, but also that you have anger management issues and maybe a split personality. Can we speak to the calm Alex please?



We'd love a better place to talk. We just don't believe your idea is a particularly good one. :)

Maybe it's because people miss the point and automatically get pissed of that somebody will judge them, though I've explained more than once, that it's not my intention to judge their contribution, but to make sure that there is a contribution.

You have a better idea? Let's hear it. Invite everyone in? You will get exactly the same place like here.

What's wrong with the gathering of people who did some actual work for Bitcoin? What, all the other gilds and foundations of, say, beer brewers are stupid ideas too? Maybe they should invite steel producers and carpet cleaners too?

--

On a side note - if anyone has an idea for a 3-day project they want to see implemented, but have no resources to do so - you can post it here or contact me directly: bitcoin@qbizy.com.

I am ready for my next failure  ;D

Have a look at https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=42556.msg518237#msg518237 and see if you can help :D

Next!

also http://forum.bitcoin.com.au

Sorry, wrong topic. It's not "Collecting all the other bitcoin forums in existence". Read the title please.

No, we got your point. We just think it is not a good idea. Is that so hard to accept for you? You have an idea, someone else feels it is a bad idea and does not want to join in it.


Maybe some people feel it is not such a bad idea to have both sides of the story on one and the same forum. Maybe some people prefer that over a forum where only yay-sayers are allowed in. The fact that you have such a problem accepting that someone does not agree with you is a good sign of what you would to a forum you'd be in control of.

Assuming that you feel there is too much trolling going on (and please keep in mind that disagreeing with someone is not trolling, however saying "fuck" 10 times in one post could be seen as trolling...) then I think this would be easily solved by getting some more moderators on board and making sure people stay respectful when posting.


Nothing.
But that is not what people were protesting against. Funny how you are quick to shout "you didn't get my point" while you obviously didn't even understand the point of the people protesting against your idea.
It is not the *kind* of people you are trying to select for your forum, it is the way in which you were planning on *selecting them* that bothers people.

May I ask what are you doing here then? It's not enough for you to disagree, you want to convince other people to agree with you?

Couldn't you just ignore this thread?



I have no problems with accepting that people don't like this idea or prefer a forum with "two sides".

What I do mind is a forum that is not functional. And in no way I advocate closing this forum.

And I was tired of speaking into the void. I got no constructive criticism or ideas. Mostly no useful replies at all. Like I am speaking Latin or some other dead language and people just look at each other: "What did he just said?" "I have no idea." "Yeah, me neither".


I speak like I feel. Don't tell me you're a toddler from a kindergarten who can't handle ten fucks in a single post.



Explain please. So far all I've seen were cries about elitists trying to create a place for themselves.

What's wrong with my method of selection? You need a panel of members to do a, usually simple, check that there is a contribution?

Again, do you have a better idea?

Also, there are hell of a lot of members here. So when you say "we", who exactly do you represent besides yourself and on what grounds?

If you guys want to tell me why you don't like the idea I would like to see individual posts from people with their reasons.

There's a lot of things in life that I *can* do, but don't. Ignoring this thread is one of them. When I see a bad thing happening (or an attempt to it) I feel tempted to post my opinion about it. That is one of the purposes of these forums I think.
I understand that you'd rather not get any negative feedback on your ideas, but that is not the idea of a public forum.


What exactly is not functional about this forum, and how would your forum be more functional than this one?


No, it was more like people trying to tell you that it was a bad idea and you going: "huh? what did they just say?"


Oh I can handle it. It just makes *you* look like a 13 year old brat who doesn't get all the candy he wants.



It has been explained to you ten times already. The fact that *you* are going to decide what criteria are set for "a good contributor" or not is what people don't really love.


Also not perfect, but already ten time better than just you.


I think we don't need a better idea than this forum. Maybe a bit more moderators, thats all.

You've just demonstrated that you have missed the point again. I don't intend to decide whether you are a good contributor, I will try to decide whether you are a contributor at all. That you have some real Bitcoin-related work you can show.

Anyway, I see that the main problem for you is that you have some sort of personal grudge against me and it bothers you that I personally will be checking the contributions.

All I can say: when you find Jesus - invite him to do this job. I will gladly step off.

Until then I've put an effort of installing and tuning the forum, adding Bitcoin price ticker and the bounty system to it and volunteer my time to do contribution checks.

I don't see anybody else volunteering and I am pretty sure that whoever steps into this position will have the same negative attacks from everybody else.

Especially people that have nothing to show. They seem to be the most vocal opponents of the Contributors Forum.
They want in, but did nothing for Bitcoin, so they can't, and that pisses them off.

Now I know your personal reasons not to join and that information was valuable, thank you, I appreciate it.

Now can you start ignoring this thread? I know you said it's hard for you because you think I am doing something evil here.

But how much damage can a single outside forum do? Come on. You can relax now and stop guarding the interests of Bitcoin :)

I want to add that so far none of the people who registered has been denied membership, so I am not quite sure what all these screams are about...

And to return the discussion on productive tracks:

A programmer/webdev is idling! Chuh, chuh, chuh...

Is that the sound an idling engine makes in English? :)

Shoot me your ideas. If they target general public the project won't be tied to the forum, don't worry ;)

And another thing - you don't have to be a member to subscribe to new bounties or reply/claim them.

Ok, I get that so far... and now:


So can you now explain for all those people who have not been rejected on which grounds you made this decision? If I go through the members list, you vouch that for all of them I can find some kind of tangible work by their hands?

All, whose username is orange, has tangible contributions and usually announced them in the Announcements section.

There are 2 members who didn't have direct contributions.

I've read all their posts to make sure they are not simple trolls or SA spammers. Basic sanity checks, nothing special.

I know that this is controversial and I am sure you will attack it.

In my defense I can say that some pages ago we agreed that at this stage it's a good idea to be more open and invite some people in at my own discretion.

Now, let's not get ahead of ourselves and start solving non-existing problems, Ok?

When such members start causing troubles on the forum we can start dealing with it.

So far (besides the small number of members), I optimistically dare to call this project a huge success  ;D

Ok, so if I set up a PHPBB of SMF on my hosting server, announce that I am opening a forum that is only for coding experts who have written some code for a bitcoin project that I consider well-coded... then I can get an orange name on your forum?


Ok, good. You seem to understand some of the issues with what you are trying to do. Saves me some typing.


When you say "we agreed" is that the same "we" that you accused me of using earlier? Or are you the only one here who is allowed to speak for others?
You of course realise that it's the whole "my own discretion" that "we" have a problem with, right?


Ah ok. So you open a forum that is only for people who have created something tangible for bitcoin. But not really, because it's also opened to others. When you like them. And then when these others cause trouble, you will moderate it.
So what is wrong with just using bitcointalk and get some more moderation on it to make sure posts stay away from personal attacks, trolling and swearing (such as excessive use of the word fuck for example)?


lol, now you sound like Bruce ;)

You raise valid points (but I see some sprinkles of trolling there too :) )

What I don't get is why are you trying to solve non-existing problems? Your points may, or may not, cause troubles in the future.

Why are you still here? :) We know you don't like the idea of me doing stuff at my own discretion for whatever reasons. That's fine.

But you're like those guys who stand in front of bars, grab people by their sleeve and ask them not to go in, because evil is happening there.

Don't you think most people here are more than capable of deciding for themselves whether they like the idea or not?

As you already have a basic bounty thing and http://www.bitcoinstarter.com/ (http://www.bitcoinstarter.com/) seems to be constantly delayed, maybe you could step up to do something like bitcoinstarter (which as far as we know, wanted to be more like kickstarter and less that of a bounty website anyway). IMO necessarily things:

• standalone web site (own domain, own user system)
• open source the whole thing
• anyone can start a bounty (will be displayed public as soon as it is funded with lets say 1BTC)
• everyone can anonymously increase a bounty by sending some bitcoins to the public bounty address
• deadlines - when the bounty target will not be reached, all funds are returned to their respective sending addresses
• by using public addresses for everything, all displayed funds can be verified using blockexplorer
• while I like you "in progress" state, it should contain more details
• maybe add gradual bounties,  100% until some date, 50% until some later date, unpaid funds are returned to the senders
• a defined mechanism how it is decided if a bounty claim is valid or not
• funds have to be secured somehow

While partial outdated https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=35905.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=35905.0) contains some discussion about such a site.

This thread is a good example of why people no longer want to bring up ideas to help promote bitcoin.

I think people need to take a good hard look at themselves and ask why they troll new ideas so much.

tl;dr SA forums behaviour is so similar its scary....

I was thinking about doing whole freelancing-for-bitcoins site, but it's a rather big project.

Judging by how well my projects have been accepted so far I would wait until investing several months into it :)

Another problem is that there are multiple, how to put it, areas involved into such projects.

You have donations, bounties, joint bounties, freelancing, crowd-sourcing, microcredit etc. with various parameters, like whether to use escrow or not, progress track, whether to return funds, like Kiva does, who will have the final say in releasing the funds and so on and so forth.

So it's problematic to create a single and consistent vision of a useful service that is properly positioned.

Trying to implement everything and cater to everybody's needs will create a mess and a sure failure.

At this point I would rather limit myself to roughly 3-day projects and see how it will go.

And I did my current bounty system intentionally minimalistic, I've tried hard to make it as simple to use as possible and without the need for people to trust me with their money.

Since every member goes through the basic "face control" checks, workers can put more trust into published bounties.

AlexZ, with the forums being open for a little bit now, could you give examples of some of the services or products created by some in your community?  Obviously not stemming from the forums themselves, I know there is still that new forum smell, but some of the users that have contributed, would you mind saying some of their contributions?

I think this may give a little more positive spin on the things that could come from your forums (ie "Some people using the forums include the people behind that bad ass Bitcoin National Radio spot!")

^The above is true any readers btw, I noticed MemoryDealers on the boards.  

That's what the Announcements section is for :)

I encourage people to post about their services there and some did.

Besides, all the people use the same nicks they use here, so there should be no problems in identifying "the brave ones", who became early adopters (and got themselves nice low-digits user id's :) ).

You could break it down into smaller intermediate steps. Once could argue that you are already at step 1 with the current bounty site.

I would say that reception depends on the actual project. Frankly, opening a competing forum, while a great idea, is probably not the easiest task to establish. Just look at Vladimir and https://bitcoin.org.uk/forums/ (https://bitcoin.org.uk/forums/), and he even "pays" people to post there.

That is why I suggest doing the whole thing in smaller steps. After each step you can adjust your target.

Fair enough. However, do you know why MtGox is as huge as it is? Just one reason: it was there before anyone else.

That's a good point.

I will go drink my evening tea and think about it :)

Thanks for suggesting!

Ok, here are my thoughts so far:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=44044

The ones about your selection criteria is already existing. The other points would be a problem as soon as the forum gets even slightly popular, since you'd be too busy personally screening every applicant's posthistory.


Because I find it interesting that some guy is trying to set up a restricted forum for something that is a completely open source project which is supposed to liberate us from restrictive organisations like governments and banks. It's an interesting paradox, all the more because the restriction will be completely enforced by one person.


I'm not sure where you come from, but where I have been, I've never seen any guys like that :O


I do. Which seems to be confirmed by the numbers on your forum. ;)
But that doesn't mean we shouldn't discuss and debate the topic here.

I think voting, both up and down, should be implemented, allow us to silence the spammers. And as an added plus, people won't spam topics with posts that are just quotes with +1 attached.

I, on the contrary, see no point discussing it the way you do.

If people think the same way you think about that "paradox", they won't join. Problem solved.
No need to cram your philosophy down their throats.

If people do like it and will vote in favor by joining then, maybe, there is some flaw in your reasoning.

So I am not sure what are you trying to achieve here.

The easiest thing for you is just sit back, watch and gloat about "my forum numbers".

You, on the contrary, are trying to grab people by their sleeve and tell them not to go in.

I have no preferences on that, but somebody here mentioned that it wouldn't be a good idea.

Maybe he could post here some more info about it.

Not supporting/having-a-lesser-opinion-of miners is a little bit myopic, and you're somehow failing to recognize a fundamental backbone of the network.

Opportunity lost as far as I'm concerned.

This was discussed before. Since anybody can easily become a miner there is no reason to expect any correlation between simply being a miner and providing more meaningful posts or creating a better discussion atmosphere.

We could impose some "power limit" in terms of megahashes, but there are no practical ways for me to check it, short of asking to perform some complex cryptographic task :)

That said, operating a big mining pool is certainly a contribution.

If you feel that you have made valuable contributions to Bitcoin besides having lots of GPUs - contact me and let's talk.
Instead, you've just said "never mind", asked me to delete your account and came here to complain.

On a side note, I think it would be best for miners to have their own forum, but they may be comfortable here.

 Yeah, silly me remembered after-the-fact that you didn't have a high regard for miners, so I didn't feel like justifying my piddly 4ghash.

 As for verifying hashing capability, it should be simple to ask someone to link you their pool stats at the various pools; not difficult to verify at all.

How can I check that the account somebody points to actually belongs to the email they are trying to register with?
I.e., how can I prevent identity theft?

Also, the "power limit" is not a very reliable measurement. Difficulty changes all the time. And since I am not a miner, I can't define what limit should be appropriate to be considered a valuable contribution.

It would be nice to hear ideas about that from others.

I am not sure what your clip exactly refers to...

Should I read it as "you are so dumb!" or "you don't know a thing about mining" or "allowing miners creates rather complicated problems"?

Personally, I am not even sure why would miners want to share a forum with, for example, merchants.
Do you think there is a big overlap in the areas of interest for those two groups?

I bow for your wisdom, Otoh. Now I see everything with such clarity! You re-posting that clip made me realize how wrong I was and how to solve all the Bitcoin problems... Wait, it's fading... fading... Could you re-post it again please?

np

Now tell me, Otoh, honestly, how old are you?

I mean, physically.

I know how old you are mentally, so I just want to see the discrepancy.

Just charge people 1 BTC to join, and 0.01BTC to post. Problem solved.

That clip probably was posted because of your dumb question on how to verify if someone owns an email address...
Maybe send them a verification link to the email that they need to click to verify thyat they indeed control the address...
It's really a facepalm question, and if you didn't knew the answer to it you really shouldn't be running any kind of website where people need to register and verify shit...

If you'd actually took a minute to read the words, you would realize that I asked how I can verify that somebody used the same email to register in the pool as they are using to register on the forum. Do pools show emails openly?

So before you go around calling people "dumb" and telling them what they should and should not do, maybe you want to take some reading lessons.

and you should take some anger management lessons...

Why? I am not angry. I am not the one who suddenly jumps into the middle of conversation and starts bashing people based on a single sentence taken out of context. Good job, mate!

I didn't say it was because of your answer to me that you needed anger management lessons, but if you feel entitled to tell me that i should take reading lessons I can also start giving you advice about what kind of lessons you should take.
Now i guess you can also have some compreension lessons together with those anger management ones.

PS: I'm not your mate and I didn't said you were dumb i said it was a dumb question, which is different. I also wasn't the one to tell people to go fuck themselves in this thread...

Yes, I do. When people say something like:


based on the fact that they didn't bother to read.

You basically accused me of being too dumb to even understand how to verify an email address. And you felt entitled to tell me what I should and should not be running.

That was a dumb statement.

And that, of course, is entirely different from calling you dumb :)

13

The Contributors Forum now acts as an OpenID provider, so if you have an account there you can use it to login into any site that supports OpenID 2.0.

More info:

  http://forum.qbizy.com/general-discussion/the-forum-is-an-openid-provider-now/

If your have a Bitcoin service that supports OpenID - please post the link here and I will test logging in.

Any new bounties?