Bitcoin Forum

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I'm sorry to whale on the noob BUT the title of this thread is both idiotic and provocative.


Perhaps we should have special section of the forum set aside for idiotic noobs to post provocative questions, and we don't have to read the titles at all?

I admin another technical Forum and that has been a thought of mine for some time.

Forum groups assigned ~3 levels - 1.Newbie, 2.Experienced and 3.Guru.

Newbies can read 1, 2 and maybe 3, but can only post in group 1 initially.

After while (certain number of posts, time since joining or similair), an admin reviews their last X posts for signs of maturity, comprehension, manners (being nice/helpful to other newbies) etc, and if they look like they have half a brain, they get to post in the 2. mid-range groups.

If they want to participate in the 3.top-level groups, where the coders, network guru's, and people who have a real understanding of what "money is" discuss topics that are not benefited by having some n00b throw poorly considered opinions in, then they can PM an admin and explain why they think they are qualified or should be allowed to disturb/participate in high level conversations.

I realise it sounds a bit elitist, but you wouldnt expect a group of professionals or specialists to be able hold a useful discussion in a public place where anyone can interrupt without a moments thought.

In the case of bitcoin, which is a deeply technical system requiring some serious education/learning to understand, that also interacts with a topic that everyone has an opinion on (money), I think it would be a good idea.

+1

I'd prefer a solution where there are clearly delineated newbie zones and pro zones (i.e. separate boards.) Newbies can initially post in the pro zones, but will be temporarily banned from posting if they post crappy posts.

I don't personally enjoy the type of elitist segregation that a "pro zone" implies, especially on a project that purposefully puts us all as equals.

We already have the Development & Technical Discussion sub-forum. Is that not good enough? Mods are free to move irrelevant threads out of that sub-forum and into Bitcoin Discussion or Technical Support.

+1

In the areas where there are a lot of dumb questions (Bitcoin Discussion, Economics) I haven't seen much pro involvement other than wrangling noobs.  Discussion and Economics have a very low signal-noise ratio, but all the valuable signals usually fit better in other areas anyway.

Agreed.

What about a sticky in the Bitcoin Discussion section titled "BITCOIN FAQ: NEW MEMBERS, READ BEFORE POSTING".  This thread could contain answers to common newbie questions.

that would probably be good enough. further discussion here - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=6155.msg90223#msg90223

eMansipater offered to write up an OP. We should try to keep it ontopic and uncluttered with discussions like these.

we should do this ASAP

I'm working on it now.  I'm doing a first post with an intro that every newcomer should read, and then follow up posts on specific questions linked back to an index in the first one.  I'm just going by my own experience, but people are welcome suggest specific points that should be included.

Thank you!

Would you have the time to prepare some PPT/Google Doc slides for Bitcoin group presentations? I think it would be very beneficial to presenters (Plato initially) to have a well thought out slide presentation to utilize during lectures. A public set of slides available to the community to utilize as needed would be fantastic.

If you can't fit it on your plate I may take a stab at it or start a bounty for it. Could we plagiarize some of your text for it? :)

Holy shit.  You're speaking my language.  Are you a comm engineer?

Feel free to plagiarise away--I don't believe in intellectual property.  Attribution does help people find more quality information, though, so it's nice.  I would love to do up some slides as well.  The primary constraint is my time--bounties or donations, especially for work already done, definitely helps to justify the time away from other projects (I work for myself).  If you use something I've done or want to support it, then even a few coins lets me know I'm at least on the right track.  With the intro post I'm going try using different donation addresses per question so people can have a way to tell me which ones are the most useful.  I'd work on BitCoin usability all day if the community wanted to support it!

BUY CARROTS!

Hardly anyone reads FAQ posts, and even fewer people read giant walls of text not organized into sections. Just post a link to a "canonical topic" in response to repeated questions.

It would be cool to set up a bitcoin.org newsgroup server for serious discussion. Possibly this could also be attached to a mailing list system.

To prevent spam there should be a 0.002 BTC fee to post. ;)

That's a common expression among educated people, you don't need to be a comm engineer.

Here's an out-there idea.

We use something along the lines of a rating system as described below :


and then have one of those pages like the s/ware user agreement spiels with the tick box at the bottom but instead have a short multi-choice that the reader has to get correct before they move to the next level ... doesn't have a need for human monitoring for something growing so fast and only needs to be a basic question/answer on material/topics like those that can be picked up at the wiki, sticky or more commonly discussed topics.

I rarely hear it used by non engineers. That probably says something about the company I keep...

Precisely.  Individual, bite-sized responses to specific questions, indexed mainly for our own easy reference.  When someone asks something that's been asked a trillion times, they just get a link to the canonical thread and (if necessary) their thread frozen for off-topicness.  Having a stickied post that explains this will happen doesn't mean everyone will read it write right away, but it does mean they won't feel too hard done by when it's brought to their attention that a "standard policy" of the forum has pre-addressed their specific situation.  People feel that there is an organised, professional mechanism in place rather than just a bunch of frustrated "oldies" trashing newbs.  That difference is important--and in the canonical threads there can be a "don't post here unless you're either a newb or helping one out" rule.  People frustrated by newbs can just ignore them.  I think this would drastically improve the experience of first-comers.