Bitcoin Forum

I recently came across these giant <gentlemen!>:

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I was wondering; isn't it ironic for a forum like this to advertise altcoins? I was also wondering; doesn't this forum have enough funds to be a little stricter with the advertising rules, if not to disable them completely?

I get it for ICOs, but why should there be an intention to advertise things like Litecoin or any other altcoin that operates in a peer-to-peer way?

One week left for me to become Hero and disable them completely!

I don’t see anything wrong with that too.
Altcoins are good if they are good in infrastructure. There are many coins out there but very few of these are good enough.
If you are not going to allow altcoin ads, you are likely to remove everything related altcoin including thr ANN board, service board.
The purpose is not to keep bitcoin alive (My opinion). It should be creating room for a greater project which can change the world. I don’t see anything wrong here.

Well, not these two in the OP. I noticed Eloncoin ad while browsing WO, so that's quite ironic, but their website is down so can't even figure what it's about. I'm guessing it's a stupid meme shit of some sort. Bitgesell seems to be a fast block / fast halving altcoin with no redeeming features that I can see.

I wouldn't mind the forum advertising e.g. a privacy coin but let's face it - it's unlikely that a properly decentralized altcoin would have an entity willing to pay for ads.

Not at all, IMO.  While this may be a forum focused on bitcoin, the reality is that altcoins are intimately tied to bitcoin itself and letting an altcoin or an ICO to advertise here is a way to keep the entire crypto space alive--assuming what's being advertised isn't some sort of scam, and one never knows with some of these shitcoins (yes, there are some bad ones out there) or ICOs/IDOs/whatever.

I'm assuming that if the forum let everyone disable advertisements altogether, that fact would make it much less appealing to projects potentially wanting to buy banner space here.  And while I'm sure the forum currently has enough money to do anything it wants to, would you ask that of any other business?  Bitcontalk no doubt has expenses, so it wouldn't be prudent for Theymos to just throw up his hands and say "Well, that's it!  We have all the money we'll ever need.".  That just isn't realistic.

What's wrong with the ads? They aren't scams, at least. I think the forum should have enough cash but I also don't think they should draw from their reserves primarily. Hosting is already quite expensive by itself and there are other miscellaneous costs as well.
More exposure simply isn't bad. Same can be said for almost all the signature campaigns on the forum, and some are just blatant pump and dumps. There is nothing wrong with advertising for an altcoins, the two that I see aren't as terrible as those that I see in sig campaigns.

The fact that we have a category called “Alternate cryptocurrencies” makes me feel that it already allows other projects to show their abilities. I mean, if this forum was exclusively for Bitcoin, then Altcoin discussions would be considered off-topic.

But, if you create a thread about a coin that has no potential and everyone knows that it'll sooner or later be dumped, I won't encourage anyone to use it. Imagine advertising it. Nowadays, lots of self-considered “geniuses” create cryptocurrencies that are then pumped and sold by themselves, with main motive profit and not provision.

It's another useless crypto with PoS mechanism that bootlicks Elon Musk.

It depends on the way you look at it. Should a forum be a business?

This is bitcointalk, not twitter. The purpose of the forum is to allow open and free discussion, not create an echo chamber full of propaganda, and censorship. The forum is run by theymos, not Jack Dorsey.

They're both linking to an ANN thread, not a website with a call-to-action to invest in ICOs or buy tokens. I don't see why they should be removed since an announcement thread just has general information about a project.

At least on this forum we get semi related things right? If you go to other websites that usually use Google ads then you are served ads based on your search history which might not be useful at all.

I do not see the big deal in allowing altcoins to be advertised and I do not get the kind of elitist attitude that this forum has to be Bitcoin and Bitcoin only. I get that this forum is called Bitcointalk but it has evolved into much more than that.

No, it's not about ann or website, forums don't allow ICO ads, but those two projects aren't doing any ICOs or initial coin offerings, So that's why theymos might have selected them.

Also, it might be another reason that forum isn't getting many good bidding from non alt projects. And as all, you know the forum is in always need of funds for developments  ;D

You are right, I didn’t have a look. Although it’s not very hard to check out whether a project is good in structure and offering somewhat good utility for the world, theymos may be checking out whether it's a obvious scam or not. If it’s not scam, he has no problem advertising it through forum; he didn’t state so many things in the auction thread.
And the ads are not asking directly to invest on them. If someone is interested, they are fine to check out and decide. For me, I would only look on a practically experimented coin which has some good future. People must do their part of analysis perfectly.

If theymos is to stop altcoins ads, their will be same question arisen for the gambling sites as well. At the end of the day, it will be controversial whether X ad should be allowed or not. However, it would be nice to allow everyone LOGGED IN have a choice of disabling ads; not only for Hero member+ (I didn’t know that, thanks OP).

exactly: I think something is missing about: Topic: Advertise on this forum - Round 337 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5327163.0)

At least @theymos, ever said about ads and Altcoins on this Bitcointalk.

I think that Theymos is personally choosing what ads are going to show in forum and I don't have anything against showing some altcoins if they are willing to pay the price.
OG member lightlord is involved with some of this projects and that probably helped pushing theymos to allow those ads.
This is totally centralized process and there is no need to create new religious belief system around bitcointalk ads.

This forum is mainly for discussion of bitcoin and altcoin related topics. It's just only for bitcoin alone. And since altcoin topics are discussed here it's therefore means altcoin ads can as well be allow here. So I see nothing wrong with the ads here

It was quite surprising once I see Eloncoin ads in the forum banner ads. As you mentioned in the thread and also read before admin was quite strict to run altcoin banner ads. Admin mentioned Litecoin means he indicated an established coin run their ads in the forum. Here is why I was surprised, how can say Eloncoin is an established coin? Running established altcoin in forum ads isn't a problem for me at all as long as it's not a scam. But if not established then the admin should choose a project carefully.

However, I believe forum ads are handled by direct theymos, so he is satisfied with these two projects. I believe at least he will not choose a project that would harmful for overall forum users.

It's like Google, they don't care what ads being showed as long as you getting paid, why should it be different here? Majority come here for bounties, if those visits can help forum with some monetary gain (I know it's different from what topic is about), it's good for both parties.

Certainly not. Through google ads, you can run an ad on ponzi scheme, a scam site, a phishing site even sometimes. Would you be able to promote them here? You can't. I believe theymos would never allow a scam site or a ponzi scheme. There are other projects too which want to advertise here, getting money isn’t the only factor.

These two sentences of yours are contradictory. If the forum is meant to discuss bitcoin and altcoins, then it can't be for bitcoin alone. You are missing a "not" in the second sentence.

You are wrong. I remember that 1xbit had ads on the forum a few months ago. theymos probably didn't know about their reputation when he handed them some ad space. Someone created a thread how that casino shouldn't be advertised here due to various threads showing their scams, so theymos refunded the money they paid for the ad space and deleted the ads.

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I don't mind seeing altcoin ads on the forum, but I do find it peculiar that the forum allows that type of advertising considering how strict they are regarding altcoin giveaways. If someone created a Litecoin giveaway, he would be temp banned together with all users who participated on the grounds of incentivized posting. But the same person can rent out ad space and advertise a project in that way.

Unless I am missing something, I don't really see a connection between those two. If anything, I would compare allowing altcoin ads with altcoin signature campaigns, which are allowed of course.

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Regarding this, I am more surprised that someone decided to pay for altcoin ad than forum accepting the offer, given the treatment altcoins usually get on this forum ( in the vast majority of cases  deservingly). So yeah, I can imagine how "popular" this useless memecoin Eloncoin gonna get around here. :D

The currently visible forum advertising revenue is also intended to pay moderators although the amount is small due to the large number of moderators and is also used for hosting fees. So I also don't have any problem with those ads as long as theymos has done their own selection. But there is always a warning right under that banner for whatever site is advertised. So for anyone who is interested, they still need their own analysis before investing in the project or site being advertised.

It does seem odd the forum is so loose on advertising yet so willing to censor other areas. It’s almost as if money talks. The strange thing about that is while the forum is clearly selling out it’s morals for ad revenue, it simultaneously left millions of dollars in claimable crypto like HEX unclaimed because of an inability to take responsibility instead of burning a scapegoat.

not everybody's as quick as you to enter the treasury's private key for a shitcoin redemption I guess. remember when you did that?

I remember when I claimed altcoins using my own private key on behalf of the forum as that was my fiduciary duty.  Then, I was gifted the alts and later called tacky for taking them.  Now we have a situation where the forum is actively leaving millions of dollars unclaimed.  That's a hell of a price to pay to justify calling others names instead of admitting you made a mistake.

Oh, and congrats for making my ignore list.

My observations is that right from inception, this forum have been promoting altcoins directly or indirectly in the altcoin board, through forum signatures, how are about the many ICOs, IEOs and other form of fundraising campaigns listed on the altcoin announcement section of this forum, what difference does this ones make from the ones the forum is specifically advertising???
@op, go around the whole boards on this forum, you will find altcoin advertisements pasted every where through forum users signatures, what difference does those make from this two altcoins ads the forum decided to specifically promote? I see no difference, and I see nothing wrong in this.

See the latest Auction, If the forum didn't allow ICO-related auctions, soon this ad revenue will be going to end. As per seeing the latest few auctions and if we compare them with the previous ones, the forum isn't getting as much fundings from ads as it was used to.

Edit:

My vote goes to "Start accepting ICO projects advertisement." If ever theymos inquired.

This is yet another statement that's accusing somebody of something, and apparently one just has to be in the know to understand what the hell you're talking about.  I'm not even saying what you're claiming is false--I'd be unable to because it's just some backhanded slap against an entity that for some reason you refuse to name.  Can't you stop it with the waffling and just call out the person you're referring to?

See, that's the way to do it.  Nutildah was clearly addressing you and the issue, all within two sentences. 

I'm sure nutildah is curled up in a corner, weeping.

The altcoin advertisements aren't really much of an issue, as I previously stated.  Nor do I really care what the forum does with its funds, since it isn't my forum and I have no stake in it--but I do wonder occasionally how those funds are actually used, as I know bitcointalk holds a lot of crypto (bitcoin and whatever fork coins were claimed, and who knows what else).  Didn't Theymos or someone else release a summary of that at one point?  I thought I recalled reading a thread that looked like an accountant's ledger a couple of years ago.

i would take the position of "all altcoins are scams" and that would put me in that echo chamber someone was talking about, but instead i just installed an adblocker and don't see what you all are talking about...  8) (and i disabled signatures and avatars)

Some time ago I made a thread how much btc were collected from ads through auctions, and the number is really impressive. After that i didnt get time to update it.

Total funds/btc collected:    6583.374133BTC
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5247630.0

too bad that not everyone is a good hodler