Bitcoin Forum

Not a serious request but at least one thing I think is worth commenting on.

There are a lot of threads in the Bitcoin Discussion section that are probably made up, some simply by analyzing the OP's post history are proven false, and those that are not proven false due to lack of evidence at least smell made up. They are threads along the lines of "I convinced xxx to buy Bitcoin and today he is a millionaire" "Bitcoin has changed my life".

The latest installment of this saga is someone who claims to have sold his family's land, without their permission, to buy Bitcoin, and if we take into account that the Bitcoin was kept by him, he is confessing to a crime.


Most of these threads are more or less crude attempts to get merit, which sometimes backfire on them. That's why I think it would be worthwhile to create a "Likely made-up stories" board and move them all there.

 ;D

Serious response: The made-up stories in Bitcoin discussion section didn't receive a merit or only receive few merits, which means many users already use their common sense before meriting someone. So I don't think there's should be a necessary move for this case except the moderator to lock the topic.

Fun response: Yes, there are so many made-up stories, so they deserve it's own section. :D

The truth is that posts like that should fit well in off-topic board since they are obviously not real and we’re made up, but the fact that forum members can easily make their weekly signature posts quota from such thread they have all decided to turn a blind eye towards it and still reply as if the stories are true. And as long as users still reply to thread like that without proper analysis then more of it will definitely be made.

These made up stories no doubt are meant to get some merits but usually these days everyone knows this and they have to come up with some new plan  ;)

By the way, what is the purpose of moving all the made-up stories here. These stories are almost similiar and no more interesting to read.

You can leave links of made-up stories in two topics
Announce your story with Bitcoin, first purchase, sale, business, education ... (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5433429.0)
Announce your rank up, merit or any achievements that makes you feel great! (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5391471.0)

I want to tell my dad, my mom, my friend, my children about Bitcoin. I teach them how to buy, sell bitcoin. I buy, sell my first Bitcoin. I want to sell my land, home to buy Bitcoin. My family was broken because of Bitcoin heritage. My friend lost bitcoin because of carelessness.

All are made up stories but how those topics received many merit, it's a secret that I can not understand.

Well, I must say, I wholeheartedly agree with the OP's request.

But before that, I think we need to have a separate board for the "Request for a board" topics.

Please, theymos.

We could name it:

Request for a Board Request Board
A place where users can put in their earnest requests for a board, specifically designed for requests about requesting boards.

Please don't.

Although we adhere to very careful handling of tags, a neutral tag with the wording “fabulist” would probably discourage many storytellers from creating similar topics. Moreover, even those who may have a drop of truth in their story will think a hundred times about creating such topics. Today, managers are attentive to neutral tags, although sometimes tags do not carry anything dangerous for the user, and the fabulist icon will also play a certain role for each manager and his contact with such a user. :)

Sounds like joke. Hopefully it is.

Let us assume this board request is granted for moment, still most of those would go to Bitcoin discussion only, for you these stories may be made-up but for them they are trying to get it across as legit.

Make-up stories are baseless and I believe we share value on this forum, even the thought of it should have been resisted by you. Let the conscience judge anyone who cooked up stories and you may leave and laugh over the supposed such and go your way if you come across them.

Frankly, you are not a perfect person, what if what you term "make-up stories" are the actual events? This is why what we can't be 100% convinced of, see or prove without a reasonable doubt shouldn't be labelled as we believe it.

I understand that since we are not there with these people who create such threads, we are left with no option but to believe it, right? But what I think he is saying is there are some that are so obviously a lie that just looking at it will make you cringe, those are the ones he's saying should have a board so that way people who want to exaggerate things for which Bitcoin made them do, they can just go on the board.
You've got a point. But I feel @Poker just enjoys poking fun at things or people just for the fun of it, right? You too could have just read and passed on if it were that disturbing but you chose to reply eh, well thats the freedom we are talking about. It's a free country and if he wants to do what he wants to, it's his choice and don't take it too seriously.

You mean true life stories. Stories that have no evidence of existence. If there is a board of bitcoin true life stories, it will only open more ways for other people to read and form their own false stories to narrate.  ;D

Still it is about bitcoin and that is what bitcoin discussion is for.

Sometimes I wonder why people reply when they do not have anything meaningful to butress, perhaps didn't understand what they reply to. A typical example is you, instead of you to add your opinion directly, you are here correcting. Who is taking anything seriously here? The OP itself made it clear that it was not a serious opinion, so why are you making it look such?

People like you who are ill-informed or just want to reply could be so annoying.

Almost all of them exploit emotion, as the popular topic Bitcoin and Me^[1] continues to get attention and views. Therefore, creating such topics will make it easier for the individual to either obtain merit or donations (this is rarely the case). Therefore, as long as those who create these topics obtain merit, they will continue with them.

I also believe that such topics are created by accounts that have armies of alternative accounts, as it is easy to create replies to such topics and difficult to delete them.

[1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155054.0

You have a unique way of expressing your annoyance at the repeated pitiful stories in the Bitcoin discussion section, everyone agrees with you There are tons of such tired stories in the Bitcoin discussion section.

Many members have written previous topics about this problem, but what is the solution? Since the forum is open to freedom of expression of opinion, no one can stop these people, whether they write in the Bitcoin discussion section or in any other section, so perhaps ignoring them and not giving them any merit is the only solution to reduce this widespread phenomenon.

Sometimes how an op construct his story could make it sound like a fabricated story to the reader even when it's not, especially when it's related to the teaching of someone about bitcoin, selling/buying their first bitcoin or in this very case of selling a family land to buy bitcoin which sounds weird and hard to believe in spite of it been possible and a stupid thing to do.

The problem with these stories is that the fakes stories are much more than the real ones which makes it hard for anyone to actually decipher which is real or fake and that's where the mix up is coming from. 

These topics are getting support which is why they are always on top of the discussion, if you just ignore them and do not comment on them, they will lose their value and it will be buried.
I don't support the creation of makeup stories board, people who are new to Cryptocurrency might think that people's stories about Cryptocurrency are just made up if we have a board like that, we already have an off-topic section to move posts that are proven to be made-up.
And it's hard to prove the story is made up compared to the scam section where you need to upload your evidence to prove your case.

I don't think so:

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Playing devil's advocate here: what if made-up stories are part of someone's OPSEC?

You are, obviously.

  Except this is how you sound when you are not serious, then my bad since I may have forced you to sound serious. Listen, since it's obvious I should explain what I wrote earlier to you.
I believe that over what I quoted, you were trying to suggest the best approach to such posts instead of what the Op did right(you are welcome to correct me if I'm thinking abstract). And this is me telling you that everyone is free to do whatsoever he wants since this is a free world and there's no restrictions to airing your views on here just as you are free to ignore what the op posted and you're becoming defensive. Hey! I'm not your problem, bruh. I just feel you need to take a chill pill and before you write down whatever thought you got in your head, first of all understand what is being written.
It's easy to notice that which you have in you in someone else. But friendly advice? Remove the log in your eyes before you can focus on the mole in someone else's.

I was worried for a minute that you're suggesting to create a special board for BADecker. This would devastate the P&S board.

Anyway, no one cares about Bitcoin Discussion, it's not like this forum has anything to do with made-up internet money. It's a great place to pour all signature garbage into because any sane person has given up on reading it a long time ago and mods have given up on spending two seconds trying to determine if a post is "low value".

I do it regularly, but what I noticed is that the mods usually delete the topic if there are only a few posts in it, but if the topic develops into several pages, then it is more likely that only the topic lock will follow. In addition, not all mods have the same standard when it comes to "low value topic".

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That's your opinion, but I wouldn't agree with it. Mods are very responsive to reports from that board, the only problem is that most of the members engage in these pointless discussions because it is more important for them to write a post than to click on the "report to moderator" button. The latter has been pushed into the category of "wasted time" for too long that it has finally become a rule, at least judging by the number of monthly reports.

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Reward question - has anyone noticed where the members who serve the most stories like this are from?

I agree with OP that there are so many such stories in Bitcoin discussion board but I believe some of those stories might be real and they might not be for merit fishing purposes. Well, it's better to have a separate board for such threads so the users who want to share their experiences with Bitcoin can post their thread on that board instead of positing it on Bitcoin discussion board.

I just read the thread you attached. And it seems really crazy, selling land for bitcoin even though he just read the bitcoin whitepaper 2 months ago. That's a completely fake story, I don't think anyone would dare to speculate like that just because they knew about bitcoin 2 months ago. It turns out it's not just the reputation board where there's a lot of drama. Lol

But just agree, if there was a board for stories about bitcoin (real and fictional)

I don't think it's worth giving a separate board. There are other boards request that are more important. Since we have one for off-topic then this one is not really necessary. I think this situation or type of topics can be managed from now on by the moderators.

This group of individuals has closed their minds to the idea that merit distribution is based on emotional attachments to posts, especially those related to Bitcoin and daily livelihood.

Opinion it may be but it is supported by facts and experience. I tried reporting a lot of posts in BD, the utter garbage kind that contains some paragraph(s) of words, some of which may be vaguely related to the topic but it adds nothing to the discussion and/or just regurgitates other vague useless crap that's been posted multiple times earlier in the thread (often I would report in threads past 3-5 pages in length). Eventually it became abundantly clear that while I was spending time reading and actually trying to follow the thread to a point where I could see the uselessness of those posts, the moderator(s) didn't spent even a small fraction of that time and would just ignore most of the reports, particularly if the post looked like it had substance (e.g. was a couple of paragraphs long with some punctuation and grammar).

The fact that this issue comes up again and again and again clearly shows that the level of moderation in BD is out of touch with what many reasonable users expect BD to be. Ultimately it wouldn't be complicated to moderate that board without any reports... just spend an hour a day, possibly a lot less once it gets cleaned up and spammers realize it's no longer their playground, to read and follow the threads and delete the garbage, including responses to garbage posts/threads by otherwise not-totally-garbage users. How hard can it be. It looks like lack of will more than anything else.

I find that part highly disgusting and it tells
a great deal how the user in quote, Justbillywitt, treats their family. How someone would sell what was collectively owned and made that type of statement, is simply unbelievable. It's appalling to say the least, and really saddening.

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Those who start up incredible stories like that should've realized that there are now many threads for merit giveaways if they spent some time on the forum to peruse it enough. They should take up such offers than labour in vain to amaze us with their lack of ingenuity.

Good point, lol.


You're right, I hadn't thought about it.


Well, I am one of the insane persons who visit the section and my reports for low value are usually handled quickly, deleting the post. What happens is that I am quite lenient in reporting and if I report for low value I am actually reporting for 0 value, because what is written in that post is a big mountain of horse shit.


I would say mostly from Nigeria, but that is not to say anything, we have a large Nigerian community on the forum with quite a few members who are great assets. The questionable stories come from lower ranked members, but I hope as they stay longer on the forum and rank up they will drop these stories and will find other legit ways to earn merits.


Yes, that is a good example.

I'm going to lock the thread because I had no intention other than to have a little relaxed conversation on the subject. If anyone feels the need to comment, PM me.

I would like a separate board to read fairy tails. Moral of the stories will be how bitcoin came to the earth and embraced the human beings. Make the centralized monetary system the bad guy which they are of-course. Teach the kids not to chase the job but to offer the job.

The question is, will theymos ever agree with adding anything new to the forum? He is still busy with the new forum software, don't forget that 😉

They can just be moved to the trash can. I don't see how such a board will ever be created, when more serious boards are facing long delays.


I really don't think anyone (well, I guess 99% just to be on the safe side) posting here is smart enough to play 4D chess with anyone who is trying to track them down, so my take is that they are just crude attempts to gain merit.

Some of these stories can be simply identified as fake because they are not factual, sequential or meaningful. The original poster usually comes up with poorly written blatant lies concocted to earn merits. But I am glad that the community have started to identify that the target is to fish merit and many of these posts only get few or no merit. The number of these make-believe posts has reduced to some extent since these merit fishers are no longer getting merits.

Tagging these accounts might not be proper since there are no standard mechanisms to check the truthfulness or validity of these stories. We all know that it will reduce the number of these stories but it can also lead to wrong judgement. Some of these stories might be true because people can act in some strange manner or cannot express themselves in a readable manner. It will also discourage members from sharing their stories because they will be scared that it might lead to punishment.

For me the best solution should be to choose between ignoring the post, don't give merits, giving your comments or reporting the posts. A separate board is unnecessary because it will be filled with junk.

If I noticed it, you and many others did too, and if we know where such things come from, then we can ask that community (at least those older members) to influence beginners not to do such things. It's not just fictional stories, but also alt-farms created by members of that community (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5471896) and a very strange attitude towards the use of AI when creating posts.

If a story/post does not seem important, we can just ignore it.
Some stories only need a "congratulations" as a reply, so we can skip those. Someone might have already said congrats to the OP.
We should reply to Threads/stories that seems real and helpful to the OP and other forum members which will help to increase knowledge or teach something new.