Bitcoin Forum

2015 is coming soon,and I remember that they said new forum would come online in 2015,so,just want to know if there is anything update about the new forum. ;D

Keep calm and wait for the new forum. It will come when anyhthing is running and safe.

Safety and security is no one concern so before implementing the new forum DEMO is good to be tested by hackers.

Yeah, but there also evil hackers who can abuse the vulnerabilitys.

You are so close to the proper place to post this...

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=167.0

I don't think theymos has made any update since February. Feb update: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=455867.msg5069851#msg5069851
Looking on the bright side, no news is good news. :)

heared that beta coming out at the end of this month?


Sorry vod,didn't mention that we got a new board for new forum.

An upgrade is defiantly needed, running some pretty old technology this place

None the less still easy & useable.

this is the tirdh thread i read who talk about the new forum...

but all threads are unofficial!

maybe can you share some official thread to follow deploy timing an news?

thanks!

Not sure about the updates , I know that we will be able to make Avatar once again , also the forum should be available on Feb. 2015

Hum... No news is good news???
Do you think could be a lot of problem for the new forum?

i am really very eager to see a new forum
maybe will suprise in the new year

hope all goes fine...

especially in the migration of users !!!

this is the most delicate task!!!

did anyone test the newest version of forum ?

is it good ,and is it safe? :)

if there is somewhere a test forum, i will give it a try!!!

just let me know the url

 ;) ;) ;) ;) ;)

It's not released yet, there is still plenty of work to be done

But you can always see all the work done so far at the github repos

waiting for the new forum will be realese :D

May I know the link of the GitHub repo ?

Github repo: https://github.com/epochtalk

This forum needs an upgrade, it looks like a website that was made in the 80's lol.

It's coming. Data migration + server ops setup these days.

no deploy yet?

any alpha deploy site?

thanks to let us know it!

Some screenshot please, we need it! haha

Maybe you spend too much time checking your Facebook page!  ;D


Great! I'll be looking for any release  with the new features, etc.  :)

It will be upgraded , I'am pretty sure ;D and nicely designed.
I don't know if the official release will in Feb or just the Beta version , because they said Beta version should be in December or something but we didn't see anything at all

but no beta releas yet?

if yest can you give us link??

thanks!

Public beta hasn't started yet, but it shouldn't be long now.

Cyrus,

but to see the new layout on git hub i need to install souce code!!!

and i do not have a lunux server...

i ask you if already exist a beta url or some screenshot,
for this!!

 ;D ;D ;D ;D

But it is very easy and fast. And the ubiquitous colorful avatars do not distract.  ;)

@unsoindovo : A few!!!




   ~~MZ~~

The editor and just about the whole interface looks different now, those screenshots are from December.

when the forum website was down yesterday i thought the new forum will be released or something then i saw on reddit what happened :(

Can't wait see what the new forum looks like,any other preview screenshot?

And it would be perfect if we have a forum App for the cellphone.

No other pics were posted in the repo. They might post a few more soon as there miht be a alpha/beta release.


There is an unofficial release of android app : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.elbandi.forum.bitcointalk&hl=en

   ~~MZ~~

There was a time I was longing for the new forum software to give me an option to add avatar, gives better search function, and a new trust system. I have been waiting for so long now and reached the point of not caring when it is going live. I have accepted that "soon" means next year. Don't hold your breath for it.

 :-\ soon means a lot of things , however I think the new forum will "appear" by the end of this month (or at least I hope).

hi muhammed!!

i don't understand...

but this is the new forum version??

i mean the android release..

are you using bootstrap for developing new forum???
hope yes...
really nice CSS framework....

if you want.. take a look to ckEditor too...
really nice editor frameworl

Actually we're using foundations. Bootstrap is awesome but a little to recognizable and a little hard to customize. As for the editor, we built our own since most other editors don't support BBCode.

Hi! No, new forum hasn't released yet. The android forum app is for this forum. I mentioned it because I thought you asked for a forum app for this forum.


I am not the developer. theymos, teasup and a few others(atleast one more but I forgot the name).

   -MZ

Its clear that something new is coming i tried to change some things in the profile .... and noticed several options turned off for changing.
I am not impatient at all its better to have it done proper with the least issues for the users.
Testing needs to be done as well, so we will see when its ready :D

i don't know foundation..
framework...
but i google a few and it seems really well done and very used!!!!
can you give me sone website developed with this framework?

many thanks!!!

I'm not so sure about that. What was/is turned off aside from avatars?

http://foundation.zurb.com/

It you go to their site above, toward the bottom of the page you can see the high profile companies that use foundation. Some notable examples are mozilla, National Geographic, and the washington post. It's a little bit harder to pinpoint any specific site because foundation is so customizable that most times you won't even recognize a site is using it unless you open up the dev console and poke around. Usually with Bootstap, you'll land on a site and immediately know they are using it.

Hey taesup ,

can you "upload" the betaForum and give us the link  "view-only" so we can see how the new forum software will be ?  Thanks.

Atleast updating images in Github repo would be good. Thanks!

   -MZ

thank you for the tips tae!
it seems very powerful...
but the license it is like linux?
free GPU license???
can i use the framework in my projects?
thanks!

It's a MIT license so feel free to use it as you wish.

thank you for the good news!!!

have a nice day!!!

Yeah +1 the idea. would you please mind to post the images at least so we can see how its look like  ;D

This is 2015  ::) when will we see the new thread ? I heard that it can be just a dream ^___^

I didn't understand why people things like these. It is almost finished, an alpha/beta release will be coming soon(1-2 months maybe).

   -MZ

personally i dont think we should rush with it, the forum needs to be completely secure. I'd wait, rather than rush.

Dont worry YOU WILL GET THE FORUM full secure with all the security measurements  ;D theymos will not release it until its not completed

It's March now, is there anything update about the new Forum? I'm eager to see it.

I think they will say now the end of March is the last date  ;D ;
No need to be fast the Forum should take time to make sure everything work fine .

Ive grown to like it actually.  Something like bitcoin reddit isnt as clear on the eye but it does have a cool advantage of the upvote system.  Mixing the 2 is probably best idea.

I don't like 'upvote'. If it is added, 'down vote' need to be added and both doesn't work in this forum layout. There is discussion about 'like' button going on. That will fit in this forum.

   -MZ

One of the slickage member told  this :


so I think we "have" reached the end , maybe only a few months and the new forum will be released.

Same. It did and does look a little dated but it's grown on me and I've got used to it as I'm sure many of us have. I hope the new forum isn't too different but just slicker and modernised otherwise it could be quite jarring though new upgraded versions of websites or forums usually are and take some getting used to.

The only thing I would consider a valid change will be ability to pick skins for this forum. It would be great if we could pick certain color schemes. I got accustomed to bitcointalk and I do not want big changes simple look is an advantage rather than a flaw.

I think the idea of having multiple skins is a good idea , maybe we could even make a way to change it ourselfs? cant be to hard , just have to make a page for it where you can edit it with any colors you want :>

There is already an option to change theme in your profile^* but it is currently disabled. I think it was because the exploit in uploading. We might see it enabled in new forum software.

* https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=profile;sa=theme

   -MZ

I have seen it return "disabled 45" when I press change and I do not think it is related with the "avatar hack/bug" of couple of years ago.

Thanks for telling! I didn't mean just the 'avatar hack', I meant 'exploit in uploading'. A user can upload a script which maybe used for hacking. So to prevent it, the forum may have disabled it.

I think uploading it to browser data(local) would be safer.

   -MZ

I wanna change or delete my current avatar, since I wasn't involved in feathercoin for a long time(1 and half year) I hope the new forum will be coming asap.

Anyone knows when will be possible to change or delete the avatar? I know it doesn't work because some hackers found the exploit.

You can contact theymos and ask him to delete your avatar, this is the unique possibility. I'm also waiting the new forum software (but I think we should wait another couple of months).

How long do we need to wait?

the wait is not a real problem. how about the status of accounts?
newbie, member, full member, hero, legendary amongst others??
will the account be implemented directly or everybody will restart as a newbie???

It has been answered many times. Everything(status, trust feedback/rating, posts, threads etc...) except password will be moved to Epochtalk. Passwords might also be moved but there is no confirmation on it.

They should, how are we gonna login to our accounts when we move then?

Most probably the slickage team will create a sort of confirmation email, and it will send to the actual email address... after we can recover the password. They will not transfer the hash of al the password, because it is more easy to recover/create new password through the reset email.

any news here? release?

when is this forum going to be coming out?

The last I heard it should be released "early 2015" although we are already past that. I believe most/some of the code is available on github so it is a good ways there now.

If I were to guess then I would say it will probably be available for everyone to use as bitcointalk around 4-6 months from now or so (although I have zero inside knowledge about the progress)

when the new forum software will be ready, all the current accounts will be transferred to the new forum or we have to register again?

Now I think the forum will be released very soon due these previous attacks, but something make me thing that the new one will be attacked more than the actual  ::) (it is only a sensation).




The entire DB will be transferred >> new forum software, the unique thing that 'we' should do is : change the pass (using the email address, or in another way).

I think we need to wait another 1-2 years for this.

I sure hope not. I've been waiting for the new forum since I joined Bitcointalk.org in 2014. I hope that they will implement alot of new patches to this software for its completely outdated for the times. We've been waiting to long now! Bring on the new forum already!

Unfortunately, with recent events here, I highly doubt we will see a new forum in the near future.  :-\

How are the two events relatable? Surely we need a new forum more than ever now, or at least to make sure it is going to be as safe as possible. The forum will be here when it's ready and fully functional and not before so it's utterly futile speculating or asking when it's going to be ready every day of the month.

Bitcointalk NEEDS a mobile version.

IMHO, just like how you get used to the forum design, I've gotten used to the mobile feeling of the website. It's not the most mobile-friendly website there is but it does its job.

But I think they're adding a mobile-friendly version...possibly.

Well Bitcointalk has a lot of room for improvement. It definitely needs a mobile friendly version.

There is no need to waste time and money to make a mobile friendly version of Bitcointalk.org in its current state. The reasoning behind this is that the forum is just around the corner. While we are not likely going to see it before 2016, waiting 4-6 months isn't really a lot of time. I'm assuming that the new forum is going to have a friendly(or friendlier) mobile version. One can track the development of the forum and it is going to be a huge improvement in comparison to SMF.

Agree or it should be made available on TapaTalk or similar

Bitcointalk is slow on mobile devices, it is also annoying to browse. Bitcointalk will have more users if they made a mobile version. This would positively impact the bitcoin community.

Epochtalk is a long way from what SMF offered back in 2009. I don't know if there will be an official mobile app(maybe somewhere down the road perhaps?) but the Epochtalk mobile ux compared to SMF is better by a large margin.

Mobile app for Bitcointalk has been talking about for thousand times, but looks like no one responses for this. Anyway, Hope the new forum will come to us soon.

I don't think we will see a new forum this year or the next year...

Any news or updates for the new forum? Can we expect it in next year?

An ETA exists, but it's up to theymos or wangbus to make it public.

Why not just use the same SMF update to the most current one and get everything secure on it and not have to worry about having to develop a whole new platform and software to be used that will take a lot of man power. Forums are fine the way they are. Just needs a good update and improve features that SMF can and do provide but using such outdated version does not help matters. Maybe updating and making progress with what everyone likes and uses am sure is the winner.  The new design and forums have seen are ok but needs a lot of work doing to it to get me to use in the future. Just hope that bitcointalk keep old and new and have both options to use.

It doesn't matter now because it is already too late. I'm pretty sure that theymos stated why (somewhere).

So with that said am amusing they are going to be doing some form of an import to it and user status or it going to be a wipe out and fresh start. Any details or information relating to old to new migration if to take place?

A fresh start would probably make 99% of the users unhappy so that is not going to happen. All the data from this forum will be transferred to the new one.

It's a database. All this place ever needed was a professional and some experience. We aren't launching rockets here.

Is there any more updates on when the new forum software is coming? I thought it was coming this Feb, but now at the end of December this is nothing. Lol.

You should watch what theymos posts. A public beta should be available, possibly even this month. This is what he said recently IIRC. It is better to spend more time on the project than to push something that is partially working.

Wow possibly this month. I'll be watching :)

Would be great ;D
Who knows maybe on this 25 ;D Christmas present to all member here to move new forum.
Cant wait for this. Hopefully very soon ;)

I don't think it is going to happen by Christmas. People just need to be a tad more patient and hopefully it will get be available this month (or the next). Also, there won't be a instant move to the new forum (although previous data will be migrated) because it is going to be a public beta (not a final release) IIRC.

i'd like to see a like or dislike button with a small number counter like on Disqus.
Don't get me wrong i hate Facebook Twitter etc..
But the good thing about that is i can show guys on Disqus i read their post.
AND not have to comment.. possibly creating less garbage posts overall.
See what i mean ?

Implementation may be tricky though.
But take Rutracker for example they have a Thank you list on their forum.
And XDA has some similar type of features.

I wouldn't mind it as long as it were to be properly implemented. Before releasing it we would have to make sure that it is not possible to abuse it in 99.9% cases or else this place might become a living hell for some.

I just meant a mechanism of some kind to tag a post publicly that a user has read the comment would be cool.
There is many times where i don't want to say anything but i want to let the person who commented know i seen it.
If this could be done some how i bet it would lower the garbage post count.

Hell.  Could you imagine what trolls like Spoetnik would do with that information?

This forum would be filled with even more of his garbage.

Will the new forum software have the same accounts as we have now? Or will accounts will be locked and start a new forum from nothing?

-BWC

The new forum software will have the same accounts as we have now. Everything will be transferred over to the new forum software including all our posts, and our activity rating. Cyrus is a member of the bitcointalk staff and has confirmed this.

Well looks like we got what we asked for.

2050: New Forum?  ;D

Behold! https://beta.bitcointalk.org/

not sure if its a good idea though. 
there are number of popular forums that changed their forum software like digitalpoint and users lost interest to it after.
this could be because signatures aren't the same anymore and the forum turned out not business friendly.

The new forum is not user friendly with low end devices. I checked https://beta.bitcointalk.org . It is not working on a low end device or with poor connectivity.
edited : Not working with Opera 12.0 or below.

I can't login in this Beta version.

Same.

I think that only certain members are permitted to login, and you have to reset your password in order to.

Register a new account and behold. As easy as that

Edit: I'm Lovebeta BTW

Please don't create new accounts to test the beta forum. Try resetting your password, or just wait until it becomes public.

Why not? Seems like the easiest way right now(yeah being lazy)

I think what he really meant is that you should not use a new account there permanently. Registering a new one is redundant, but okay if you really need to satisfy your curiosity. You should be able to use your current account after a password reset (done to ensure security). If this isn't the case then wait theymos announces the open beta, by which it should be working properly (several moderators are using it with their actual accounts ATM).

The beta isn't officially launched yet. If you use it, expect lots of problems and downtime. Also, throughout the beta, posts made on the beta will occasionally be cleared, and stuff done there will never be transferred back here.

Some people have landed? Or the link is just a joke?

copy that,I think the current forum is quite good

Beta forum looks good, needs to be faster while surfing thru the pages. Theme is currently (well at least for me) hurting my eye. Orange on white... Well, could be better.

I don't like it either but that is a minor issue as it can be easily changed (possibly even implemented already). There are other things of higher importance ATM.

Just took a look at new forum.Fast and Sleek Design!The End of Signature Campaigns ?

Signatures are going to be added back in at some point. Maybe the height limit will be smaller than here, though. I thought about removing signatures, since that'd really clean things up, but I decided that signatures (and especially sig campaigns) are too important to the culture here to remove.

The final theme definitely won't be this orange color. I think I'll probably start out with something vaguely blue as a callback to this forum, and see how that goes.

I think the culture would evolve just fine.  It certainly would help control all the spam posts.   :-\

An option to change themes would be great as well. BTW should we discuss the bugs, new features etc on the beta forum(couple threads created by mods, dedicated to that subject)?
You'd be surprised how long it takes to slowly get off from being paid for posts, something like a drug really

Yes, maybe a test it's the better thing. Block the signature or limit the characters and see if the spam will end or not.. (I guess  : yes of course !).

On the other side,most of the Gambling sites or any new bitcoin related Start-ups approach the forum for advertisement of their products.Vaguely,Signature Campaigns are the easiest ways to do it (apart from promo giveaways).Do you think such Start-ups would still approach if they're unlikely to get as much exposure after stopping the signature campaigns?

True, I'm generally unaware of a site which doesn't have signature campaigns running on the forum(Not a sarcastic comment).

Yes.

They can buy one or more ad slot instead using the sig. campaign 'method' to promote their startup/site, I'm sure the spam will end ...

Or they can spend their BTC more effectively by running a sig campaign , where they get thousands of posts per BTC, or spend a relatively less amount on faucet advertising etc. Forum advertising(or even sig advertising TBH) is a waste of huge amount of money for nothing.

Ignorant statement right here. The money was well spent and theymos had every right to use it for whatever he wanted to. The new forum is much better than what we have right now.

---

---

Pretty small amount if the group of developers that you're hiring isn't half brain dead.

+1 Totally ignorant.
Not "hundreds of thousands of dollars," MILLIONS of dollars.

Ofc, any statement coming from an anti-theymos shill is true /sarcasm
I have one question though, when did theymos learn Croatian and a bunch of other languages? I guess he used the BTCs for language classes. /sarcasm
Did the donators sign an agreement/were promised in any way that theymos would not be in charge of what use he finds for the money?
He did what he thought was best, i.e making a new forum software.

Edit: You do know the difference between donating and paying someone to do something right? Anyway most of the BTC were donated at times when the price was very low, which is why everyone could afford donating the BTCs, pretty sure if the price had been that low none would have any argument about how theymos managed the money, but wait for few years, BTC price goes up, everyone starts screaming how unfair it is that theymos is handling the money

And this purpose is? All that is said on the Donation page is that "all profit is reinvested into the forum and the community". By having a new forum made, he's fulfilling that.

What personal enrichment does theymos get out of paying for new forum software to be made?

I also like that you removed the part about the theymos shill. At least you realized you were being an idiot there.

losing the add bonus is a bigger problem to take care of than spam,which is already handled by bear.

Yes ,the spam will of course get reduced by a significant amount but why would you advertise on a site which has lost 80% (or more) of the original (at present) traffic ?

when there is nothing you can do bout it while not knowing every bit of it then it's better not to post bout it, unless you want to troll.

Just find out my very old thread become to the No.1 thread of "New forum software" section. But year past, do we have any time schedule of the New forum?

The beta is up(not public yet) , so some more months and you can have the new forum you've been waiting for.
The beta is beta.bitcointalk.org , if you want to test it out, you have to reset your pass to be able to access it though

There aren't too many ad slots available. Plus they are expensive.  :)
I can promote my own site in my signature. That can't happen if signatures are removed and I have to look at an ad slot.

Waiting to see when the new forum will be 'released/opened'  :D.... I think the software will be better then the actual (SMF).

Haha, I wondered when people like this would show up on the thread.
Seriously, talking about embezzlement? Come on...
What happened, happeneed. The new software was made, and it was publicly announced that the money from the forum donations will go towards the development of the new forum software. Why aren't you ranting about moderators getting BTC from the donation fund?

FTFY

what's wrong with beta.bitcointalk.org? I've tried visiting it few times since few days ago but I always get 502 Bad Gateway error. this site (http://www.isitdownrightnow.com) and this site (http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com) is giving me different results too.

I don't know but today this was posted:


So if you really want to test the new software, it's still possible :P

Mayne it looks cool. Still don't know why everyone is listed as a Hero member though, is it because the member rank limits have not yet been set? Or is it because "Activity" is not implemented yet?

Yes, on http://epochtalk.org/map.html "Activity System" is under "Planned Features".

Down for some updates. Should be up soon.

Yea the "HERO" member stuff is just a placeholder for now. We should be moving into the trust/activity work some time this week so that'll be functional soon.

Also Beta was down because we were in the middle of updating the beta DB with the latest from this forum. We're trying to keep up to date and making sure our importer can handle staged imports (so we don't have to rebuild the DB each and every time). We found a bug so we had to shut the site down for a bit while we addressed that bug.

1. collect money to cure cancer
2. commission your dog to do cancer research; pay Dog $100k US/mo
3. ? ? ?
4. PROFIT!

Substitute "forum" for "cancer" & "Slackage" for "Dog."

So, according to you, theymos' personal gains with this is basically him giving perhaps more money than he needs to for the development of the forum software?
If so, I don't particularly see how this is any sort of enrichment for theymos.

Except, our code is open source and hosted on Github. You can track the progress of the software in real time, as we're writing it. And no, we're not doing this for free.

link: http://github.com/epochtalk/epochtalk (http://github.com/epochtalk/epochtalk)

You mean you don't understand how having cash he can spend is different from having donations to bitcointalk, which he can't? What, exactly is unclear to you?

@taesup: Cool beans. Best spent ...what's it up to now, $2.2? $2.3 million US? And it still isn't done? Color me convinced.
*though does make solid gold toilet seats sound reasonable -- can always sell those for the price of gold, while this pile of ...whatever it is? Not so much.

Since you clearly are trolling, here, go and f*ck off.

If you're not. Why the heck are you questioning whatever the heck theymos does with the donations? Thats exactly what they are, donations. theymos promised a new forum or an improvement to the current forum with the donations and thats exactly what he's working on.

If the person who recieved the donations under the premise of reinvesting them into the forums cannot then spend them investing in the forum's software, then who can spend them and for what reason?

By "investing in the forum software," you mean launder over 2 million bucks by allegedly giving it to an Anon he purportedly never met in person, at a rate of $100k a month via an open-ended nonviolent non-contract without a noncompletion clause, who, in turn, proceeded to not complete it?
How about you drop the sarcasm, Buttercup, hmm?


Donations to the forum are not donations to theymos. Just like the donations for The March Of Dimes you collect are not donations to you. If that's hard for you to grasp, don't shit up this thread & go play some vidya, K?

Taken from the donation page.  Try twisting the words, go on

Also, did you actually donate some money or are you just being butthurt that you are not the one receiving the BTCs?

He has not completed it as it is an ongoing project. By saying he has not completed implies there is some sort of deadline that he has not met, when you acknowledged in your post that there is no given deadline. Development can be tracked on the Github or the project's website.
I don't understand when you distrust the developers so much, especially when they are running an open source project where all development can be tracked publicly.

I'm not being sarcastic. I'm unsure why you think that.

TL;DR: Nothing is saved; the money's gone. But, technically, you're right -- since he is a part of the community & reinvested the money into himself, he did nothing wrong.


Lol no, I haven't. Did you lose money with every scammer you gave negative trust to/bother to discuss on this fine forum?

You're confused. I said the non-violent non-contract had no noncompletion clause. Theymos has set and blown multiple self-imposed deadlines, see end his [moved to /archived/, lol] reply.

As far as not trusting the developers, my cat could have learned to code & written better forum software in 2 years.
*Sorry Cat, didn't mean to insult you, I know you wouldn't write new forum software from scratch when so much tested open-source & free to use software is available.

Those were deadlines, those were estimates (IIRC). There's a clear difference between those two.

It might be best to just ignore the troll. You're feeding him and you should know how that usually goes.

That was more than 3 months/$150,000 ago :)

But I guess you're right. Non-contractual, nonviolent, nonbinding non-agreements preclude the very possibility of missed deadlines. I mean, what would that even mean & why would anyone care?

Yeah, just two more months 'til new forum releases, right?

There isn't a exact date. It could be tomorrow, or it could be in 10 months. You never know. It will be released when it is ready.

Seems like some people are just envious of the money.

Mixed feelings, won't lie.
Would I stoop this low for $2.5 million US? Hope not, tho pretty hard to say.
But I'm mainly driven by incredulity -- think people shouting "bravissimo!" at a woman getting raped in the isle of an opera house.
But then again, 2.5 mil is a nice sum :-\

Funny, you said in December that it would be ready by February, at latest. I don't know much, being a Computer Science student in Guatemala, but I would think over a million dollars and about (over?) a year's worth of software development would suffice for a forum. Call me ignorant, but looks like there's been little to no product produced by those million dollars.

Just my two cents.


Hey, having to deal with a handful of angry donors (30 is my best guess-timate by taking a quick look at the donate page that a 16-year-old could have coded), and a few people accusing you of being a scam artist... isn't that big a risk. The risk/reward assessment for simply running away with the money and assuring people that there's a new forum right around the corner... is pretty damn sweet, if you were to ask me to go along with it. For me, it would be more like scamming a sweet old lady out of all her money, you know, like televangelists.

I would personally take $300,000 to do that. Well, help cover up for that. I would be rationalizing left and right that my partner in crime would have taken a moral action by using that money in any way (s)he pleased.

I guessed and I was wrong (as by ready, I mean a open beta). There's not much that I can do about it.

You should have heard about this in a CS major (this is just a singular example).

Actually you can see the beta  (https://beta.bitcointalk.org/)already. However, it seems to be down at the moment due to a 502 error.

I would have thought a forum software that had been in development from January 2014, with a budget of over one million dollars would have been done by now. Shows what I know, huh? So... how is the timeline of new people joining the project go? I'm very curious about that, because I thought the staff was on this since the beginning, therefore Brooks' law wouldnt be that applicable...

I hope we get to test out this new forum sometime soon. I'm most interested in different theses and I guess 'modernization'.

Being that you're still a student, I'll give you the benefit of doubt. Most software projects, especially of this scale, can easily go over 1MM. And to take a project to completion (although really there's never an end to any real software project), usually go over a year. Were we a bit naive with the initial estimate? Yes, we had the same thought you have. "It's just a forum, it can't be too hard, and it definitely shouldn't take a few seasoned devs more than a year to make."

Boy were we wrong. And I'll be the first to admit that. But rather than just call it quits and move on. We decided to stick with the project and see that it gets done. Here's a quick list of things you need to consider while making a forum and problems we've run into. Not all of this information can be found online and so we had to experiment until we found a good solution. Hopefully you can use this list to see what it's like to build a larger scale software project.

• What Programming Language do you use? This is going to be an open source project so you want to choose a language that's widely used and avoid esoteric languages like Haskell.
• What DB do you use? PostGRES? MySQL? Oracle? SQL Server? NoSQL? Remember to balance costs vs. performance vs. ACID compatibility. Atomicity and Transactions are key here. There are very nasty bugs to be found if you don't do your homework.
• What should the interface look like? Should it look exactly the same? Should you improve upon the old interface?
• Write your own BBCode Parser? Alternatively, how do you handle other parsers at the same time?
• Plugins. Make sure you balance extensibility with security. Also, how do you handle extensibility while making custom plugins a breeze
• Security! Are you making sure you're follow the latest OWASP?
• SPA vs static page rendering? Balance client performance vs server performance
• How do you handle large DB table sizes (over 10 millions rows)? How do you handle querying that data? Which indexes do you build
• To add on to the point above, what is a reasonable fetch time? Sub millisecond? 10 milliseconds? 100 milliseconds?
• Banning users. IP level bans? Username Bans? Temporary bans? Then do iterations of all those combined
• Notifications. You need to let the user know if they have a PM or else that page is just a wasteland. But what about other interesting items? Like letting the user know when a thread they posted in has more posts? Or if they were mentioned in another thread they haven't viewed yet.
• Additional Requirements. Theymos doesn't want a clone of SMF, if he did, he wouldn't have asked us to build new software. So how do you use your codebase to solve some of this problems? Better Mod Reports, highlighting admins and mods, etc. Do you take requests of the user base as well, things like spoiler tags and nearly every other suggestion in this board (They have insight on what works and what doesn't for them.)

By no means is this list exhaustive. There are many more topics to cover but I think this gives you the basis to form an idea of what it takes to build forum software. It's not as easy as a collection of posts under a collection of threads under a collection of boards. There are users, messages, custom pages, reports, moderation, administration, and many more things that need to be built along the way.


Also, being that you're a CS student, you should really take a look at Github. That's pretty much where all the open source code you'll be using the in future is going to be held. Oh and EpochTalk is on there too. You can keep track of all the work we do on a daily basis. https://github.com/epochtalk/epochtalk (https://github.com/epochtalk/epochtalk)

I think your issues stem from the fact that you don't quite understand how software is made. I can understand that to you nearly 2 years, and a 1+MM dollar amount seems absurd. No, really I do. But have you taken a look at how much it cost to build some of the other forum software out there?

All I'm asking is, before you go and make a forum post, consider if what you're about to post, is a gut reaction to some numbers or an informed rant. I encourage you to go and search for how much is costs to build software. This might shift your perspective a bit.

We can wait more, as long as it finishes without any trouble and open for public. It's better to wait than use with a lot of glitches and bugs. I'm not an expert, don't really understand github repos but I'm sure you deserved that BTC.

100% true, the reasoning behind this is really simple and I've experienced it first hand.

My game for example. I've done the majority of the work and then brought in another developer down the road. I know the code and what I changed, what does what, and where to find it. The new developer doesn't know this. They have to basically learn the code themselves, learn what does what, and learn what is found where before they can begin to start making their own changes to it.

If by that you mean "don't understand why new bbs forum software needs to be written, from scratch, when shitloads of better open-source software -- tested/updated/used by millions for years, already exist and is free," I guess I got nothing.

Of course, Bitcointalk is a completely unique, special snowflake, and its moderation requirements are also completely unique and special. Which begs the question: why didn't you write your own OS, from scratch, while you're at it?
And maybe commission a SoC to run the whole thing?

Bonus points: Make sure to commission the SoC from Anon you never meet in person.
Combo FTW: Make sure the deal is sealed with an open-ended nonviolent non-contract, with no noncompletion clause because no completion date specified.

Because that's not what I was paid for. If you'd like to front the money, I could build those things too. Although I'll admit right here that those things you ask for are not my specialty so they may not be built to the highest standards. Web Applications though, is what I've spent my entire career on. So while you ask why I don't write those things, you might as well ask an Electrician why he didn't build his own electrical grid for your house to be on while he was wiring up your house. Do you understand the gravity of your question now?

Trolling aside, if you're more concerned about the why. Then I'll leave you with this. When this forum is done, it will be bitcoin that built this forum. That's point 1. Point 2 and probably more of interest to theymos, the forum software that is already out there did not meet the requirements that theymos wanted. The key reason being that he wanted more control over what could be done to the internals of the forum. This approach allows him to build specific tools that are not found in other forums tailored to the needs of this community. Some of these tools are more comprehensive moderation tools, more expansive reporting tools, and more precise banning tools to deal with spammers and scammers.

To be fair, he did have a number of these tools that he wrote himself. We've just rolled them into the new forum so they act and feel as if they are a part of the software and not just an after thought or mod.

You also missed one more thing. The fact that we're building this from the ground up means that the community can have an active hand in the building of this project. I've already listened to those that are helpful and integrated some of their ideas into the forum. Things that the current version of this forum does not support (spoiler tags for one, highlighting admin/mods for another).

With that said, it's all been paid for already. Why not help make the forum better than all the rest by giving it a try when the next beta comes back up and giving some constructive feedback?

Also, the reason why there are so many "other" forum software is because there is more than one way to use a forum, and often times more than one use case that determines how that particular software is going to be built. This is a use case for the bitcoin community. To go back to the house analogy, it's like having a say in the blueprint as you are building your house. Do you want higher ceilings? A marble staircase? French doors? You can make those suggestions and if they are within reason, we can just build it.

>When this forum is done, it will be bitcoin that built this forum.
*If. If this forum is done.

In the meantime, I'll point fingers and say
"bitcointalk software hasn't been updated for SEVEN FUCKING YEARS, which would have been trivial to do & cost exactly 0 dollars and zero zero cents, if not for a brilliant Thermos cobbling himself some super secret special tools he felt he really needed to haz.

But hey, due to the magic of blogchain technology, he found an excellent solution: He just paid TWO-AND-A-HALF MILLION FUCKING DOLLARS to Anon going by "Wangbus," who was recommended to him by another anon, to code him up another extra-special snowflake of a forum.
Need I tell you the fucking thing is still not done?
Much like every fucking scam "project" in Bitcoin?

TL;DR: At best, this will show that Bitcoin enthusiasts don't have a smidgen of common sense between them; are not to be trusted with money; will spend 2.5 million dollars US for shit that is free. Scratch that, "an unfinished, untested version of what they could have had for free."

But you can watch the code being written here: https://github.com/epochtalk/epochtalk (https://github.com/epochtalk/epochtalk)

Also, you really should lookup who these "Anons" are. They actually have a pretty long list of accomplishments. Warren in particular.

Joy! $2.5 million US well spent! :)

I'm glad you finally agree!

Doubters will be doubters. I personally can't see 2.5mil being worth it, but whatever.

The TSA just paid IBM $1,400,000 for an iPad app that randomly chooses left or right.

https://kev.inburke.com/kevin/tsa-randomizer-app-cost-336000/

So you're telling me that a government agency might have paid too much on an iPad app*?
And got, at least, a working app?*
For roughly half as much as Thermos "spent" on an unfinished, non-working version of software which is available FOR FREE? :o

---

*from linked article by intrepid journalist who wants to be the Julian Assage of Transportation Security Administration:
"Unfortunately we don't know everything the TSA got for that $1.4 million. They might have just gotten the iPad app; they might have gotten iPads, or work on multiple different apps, including the TSA Randomizer. We only know it's associated with the TSA Randomizer based on the FOIA request that returned this document."

While the forum might not be finished, it is certainly working. You don't know what you're talking about.

The envy is strong.

It is just money, right?

I suppose. In the same sense that a junk Luger is working: it don't shoot, but you can still hit people over the head with its butt :)
Don't get you. Are you asking if I'm envious of two and a half million dollars, US, being wasted? Does doing that require special, enviable skills?
Or hinting at ... something else?