Bitcoin Forum

It looks like Rugatu is having some serious troubles:

- Earlier this week in the thread below, majority of forum users agreed the valuation was too high.  Rugatu owners/employees disagreed.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=87390.0

- There have been allegations of unfair moderation and moderators manipulating rules to win a question's reward, then banning the user who they allegedly stole from for publicly discussing it
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=86551.msg965892#msg965892

- The sum of all bids on GLBSE is about 1.29BTC at time of writing.  This means selling EVERY SHARE wouldn't even net two bitcoins.  Ouch.

Now the Rugatu Mods have locked every thread they created, so I wanted a place to discuss their situation without censorship.

Can Rugatu recover from this?

Actually, Gweedo was ironically suspended after I pointed out that Gweedo was, in fact, excessively down-voting virtually everyone, particularly casting down-votes in questions that he answered.  Furthermore, he was down-voting answers that were 'strong' and had received up-votes from others.  I think he deserved a suspension.  You will see my complaint about it in the announcement thread and my proposed solution to the problem.

Ah, missed that, thank you.  Updated OP to strike that.  Please keep your quote for continuity, though.

that is bizarre.  about the only time you see that happen around here is with a scammer or from someone who has issues.

Yeah, I was happy with Rugatu until they locked their own Q&A thread. It's a shame, I stopped bidding right after that. I feel insulted as a shareholder.

The personality of the issuers have a real impact on whether a business will survive or fail.  If you look at many of the bitcoins companies or just companies in general that survive, they are filled from a person that goes out of their way to teach its potential users or even detractors.  Locking their threads is a big sign of a future problem or current problem.

TBH I can't think of a good reason to lock a thread. If trolling becomes excessive, moderators will delete posts. Otherwise, it seems to me it's your duty as a business operator to answer any valid questions posed.

I haven't been following this particularly closely, though, all I've really seen is the name "Rugatu" spammed around the forum in various irrelevant threads. Rugatu/the_joint, can/will you provide an explanation for the thread-locking?

I have no affiliation with Rugatu.

You linked it in your sig and seemed knowledgeable, so I assumed. Thanks for correcting me.

Don't be so fond of thinking so graciously, but rather we're getting paid for it, maybe you'd like to join in on the earning.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=86633.msg952529#msg952529

Nevermind, offer closed now.

Thanks, but no.

Ah, I was wondering why they locked their threads.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=87390.msg961062#msg961062 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=87390.msg961062#msg961062)
As I said here they were not ready or even had a plan for IPOing. I am calling this a functional scram they thought they get on the exchange and they would be rich, but they are so very wrong and I think the market can sense that.

Replying to another thread since this one is more on-topic.


Here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=86551.msg974234#msg974234) they claimed that it's related to workload (I don't see the connection though), I got back to say "thanks" and the thread was closed again. That very same thing had happened when I went there to ask a follow-up about a share/dividend issue. What I get from their remark is, they are actually doing it to stop people from posting opposing views in their threads.

First of all, that is the reason this forum exists in the first place. We are here because we can voice our opinions. You don't get to come here and advertise publicly without any public feedback, that's contrary to the reason we are on this forum. I won't chase you around to ask a question which I want to do in public anyway (Collaborative feedback, remember? Like the idea behind Rugatu?) and closing your thread is just forcing people to create new unnecessary threads and nothing more.

If you want people to use your feedback mechanism to reply, why don't you move your threads to your feedback mechanism? The only people I've seen here who close their threads are self-described trolls.

Also, I get that people may spread FUD or lies about your service. However, you can't assume we can't be the people to judge what's true or not while assuming we be the judge whether your service is worth supporting or not. You are manufacturing a drama where there wasn't one before. This raises zero confidence in your management abilities, not only PR.

I was actually waiting for such a system for some time, but Rugatu will likely destroy it with this kind of attitude. I'm humbly suggesting they find a different PR guy who knows what he's doing.

+1

+2. This is a shame, I was hoping this kind of service would flourish.