Bitcoin Forum

12 months ago I donated 10 BTC to you to make a new forum. You have since then collected over 6000 BTC and continue to collect on a regular basis, under the guise of "creating a new forum", yet you have yet to create a new forum.

Please present a status report of your progress in the past 12 months with creating the forum. Thanks.

Unless he is waiting to buy google, $602,400 is more than enough for software. If he wanted to he could hire me at a salary and I will work 9am-5pm on developing this forum software.

6000 btc isn't enough? no implied racism, but you could probably pay a group of coders in China or  India (where wages are low) to build a forum software for much less than that. But you knew that already GOAT. The ironic thing is, the more i hang around here on bitcointalk the more i realize the hypocrisy of an adminstrative group that scams donators and promises a new forum in return, but just like BFL, its biggest supporter, never delivers. In my opinion this is no more different than a common scammer promising asic shares and never delivering on that promise

6000 * $100 = $600'000.

Yes if 0.6 million dollars is not enough to get the forum updated I dont think it will ever get updated.

hey there's another much needed forum update, a sarcasm tag and/or emoticon

There was a sticky once, but it seems to have disappeard.

To paraphrase the idea was to bootstrap a new forums software from scratch supporting a plethora of options no other forums software supports as of yet out of the box and getting it right on the first try. "Version 1 is the best version of any software."

It was pretty lulzy.

EDIT: Found it https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=50617.0

Pretty much this. It was a thought exercise on what would be the absolute perfect forum anyone could wish for. It didn't help that the amount on offer for development at the time was something like 3000 bucks, which is really just "Maybe I'll have a quick look at your specs and tell you what's outright impossible" kind of money.

In my opinion they should plan it out thoroughly and turn this forum into a sustainable business model. They can monetize this forum around micropayments and not have to worry about donations ever again if they take their time. There is no rush either because Bitcoins are only worth $100.

My opinion is Bitcointalk should integrate tipping functionality, it should integrate cryptocurrencies into the forum in such a way that clicking certain links initiates a microtransaction or costs a fee. Honestly they will have to take the code base of Bitcointalk and completely integrate cryptocurrencies into it so micropayments, trading, smart contracts and other functionalities can be built into the forum itself.

Then all they'll have to do is charge transaction fees, fees for access to certain threads, but also they can have lotteries for posting in certain threads, reward posters who have good karma with bonus coins, etc.

So much can be done here that I think they should take their time and work on it a good six months. I think 6000 coins is only 600,000, and in my opinion they should have 2 professional programmers working on it and hoard the rest. They already implemented a web of trust system which I think is cool, it's only a matter of time before micropayments but it cannot happen right now because Bitcoin itself isn't prepared for micropayments with the Max Block Size so it would have to be done where you can use any of the major coins to pay.

LOL
Why can not directly pay the organization SMF  ?
So fun.

600k for a forum?
Huh?
Good forum software costs 500 dollars at most.
It will need some modification. Plenty of mods are free, other will be made custom. Few 1000 at most.
Maybe some design work. 1 to 2k.
This can be done within 2 weeks easily.

So what will the other 595k be used for.
And who in its right mind donates all those coins for running a forum! Really, a forum??

Most of the 6,000 were probably donated when 1 BTC < $1

I understand at least a good bunch of those coins were donated when they were worth less but my guess is people are still donating.
I have nothing against the people who run this place. If you want to make sure they can buy a nice car then keep donating.
If you're doing it for a forum upgrade then don't send them a Satoshi anymore!
They have enough money to run the best forum possible for the next 40 years.

Looks legit.

To be fair I would rather everyone gets their donations back rather than a new software.

You could ask donators to prove they own the address they donated from and get their bitcoins back.

But you have to have kept logs of all donations and from whom. Wait, the blockchain does that automatically for you!

- More money is better than less money. I'm not going to turn down donations when people want to donate. (Though when asked, I often recommend that people not donate.) I'm not going to stop selling ads even though the forum probably has "enough" money. It's not bad for the forum to have extra money. It will be used on something useful at some point. If you don't like this, don't donate.
- More than half of the forum's money is from ads, not donations.
- During the school year, I am a full time student. I barely have time to administrate the forum.
- When I do have time, there are many interesting/important/fun things that compete for my attention. I don't spend all day working on the forum. I've certainly not been working full-time for 12 months on vaporware forum software...

I am still very interested in creating new forum software, and we probably now have enough money to do it. SMF works alright (definitely not perfectly), but there are two main problems with it that require more than just some modifications. Firstly, the coding style is generally insecure. It's very easy to introduce new security flaws, and it's likely that SMF has unknown security flaws. Secondly, modifications to SMF are somewhat difficult, and some types of modifications are so difficult that they will almost certainly never be done here. (Other forum software isn't significantly better, from what I've seen.)

There is unfortunately no magical machine which takes money and creates excellent software or hires a team of competent people. I'm not quite sure how best to turn the money into a good software product. I originally intended to give someone a bunch of money and have them handle the whole thing. I talked with dozens of people interested in doing this, but none of them made me totally confident. A while ago I decided that I will probably never be confident in any one person/company handling the entire project because I've thought about it much longer than they have (2 years), and I have many details about how it should work in my mind. So I probably need to get closer to the development process. My current plan is to write some detailed up-to-date specifications and do some of the high-level architectural work (DB tables, primarily) and then lead a team to do the rest.

I have a little more time now, but the forum software project is a somewhat low priority. I have several high-priority things to fix with the current software. If you want to help, I could use a very security-conscious PHP programmer to help me maintain/improve the current SMF installation.

Frankly, this forum software seems perfectly fine for the job it is doing right now  :)

How about using basic open source forum software, fork it, select a leader, and create bounties for features needed here.

-->

What about MyBB (http://www.mybb.com/)? I have used it before and it looks pretty good.

Why don't you use that CIYAMOpen site from the guy here (Ian Knowles) to have task based bounties Theymos? You could easily add any small features and fix bugs that way. There is plenty of money on the site for it.

There are a lot of big brains in this forum and it would be nice see some cooperation to bring a new forum to the table, especially if that can offer all the crypto kung fu, ratings, top security, and all. Descentralize the tasks, Theymos!

You'll be a millionaire soon just from donations and ads on a medium sized forum.
Congrats. Don't think i've seen that before.

Seeing as how the forum does not seem to be making use of the money, it might be a better idea to send it to /dev/null and make everyone holding Bitcoin richer.

Might happen by accident, you never know :P

Currently, if theymos loses control of his 3k coins for whatever reason, the forum is out of ~half it's funds. Obviously this is a lot better than the situation a few months ago, but ideally the forum should not be holding this much funds in reserve.

Technically money "unspent forever" and money destroyed have the same effect on the market.

Well i will advice theymos to use mybb (Free) or xenforo (Paid) and let someone modify it as per your needs and then hire a another team that can do test and check security.

Both these forum softwares are more secure than SMF and highly customizable, most features that you need in new forum software are already inbuilt in them. Later you can import this forums database into that final software on a safe testing server and then after all test and security checks again yourself, and then change this forums software.

and frankly it can be done in some thousands dollars, you don't need millions to do that.

Hmm, so Santa Claus will bring us a gift for the new year?
YES or NO ?

Wasn't there a topic a couple of days back about the add revenue being divided among the mods/admins based on performance metrics?

Sometimes you wonder how corrupt your government is when they spend millions building simple street or public buildings, and you think "they don't need that much money to do this". Funny how the same thing happened here so quickly.

Truth is Truth, you seriously don't need that much money to modify a premade opensource software or even to make a new forum software from scratch. However it will take alot time to build and make it 100% secure if you choose to make it from scratch.

I'm not saying it's wrong, but it kinda is.

Well to update to just another forum platform seems quite pointless, since this one serves the purpose of exchanging messages just fine. If something needs to be done it has to be a more radical change. But the problem is in which direction.
Crowdsourcing ideas seems like a modern way of evolution, so an idea and work rewarding modular platform is probably a good candidate. Users could post their own ideas and/or vote/give bounty to them. If the ideas can be planned into milestones, then users achieving those milestones could claim the bounty or at least a portion of it. Maybe smaller tasks that are more achievable would speed up the development of the project. But most importantly, the vox populi would steer the direction of development.

I'm still waiting for a response from Theymos regarding that task based system CIYAMOpen. I looked at thoroughly and it seems to fit into a fair model of development that everyone could agree with. There doesn't seem to be any reason not to trust it, or any reason to not begin development immediately. 12 months is long enough, don't you think?

I wish they would change the quote system so it behaves like 99% of the other forums out there.
The one they use here is horrible.

The main feature everyone is waiting for is one-click mini-donations to posts. Nobody can say this is a bad idea since it works perfectly for the Bitcoin subreddit.

This seems like a great idea to me. Hope Theymos responds.

I only would need two additional features:

Search for "threads started by user" and no search rate limitation. :)

Eventually that will be like.. billions of dollars lmao..  maybe instead of a new forum we should build a space ship?

The reddit tipbot works very well.
Reddit is open source and scales very well.

and also implement !bitcointip on IRC #bitcoin

Just an FYI the bitcointip works across ALL of Reddit, not just the bitcoin subreddit!

Has the discourse.org forum software been looked at? It looks brilliant, imo.

http://www.discourse.org/

http://try.discourse.org/

YES and discourse is horrible! It is written on RoR just waiting for a security attack.

What do you find horrible about it? I haven't used it in practice.

There is actually another reason for all this money, which theymos has been trying to keep under wraps. As bitcoin is becoming more popular, it is now being targeted by government agencies, like FinCEN, NSA, etc. and more government meddling is expected. There is expectation that main communication hubs, like this forum, will become major targets for governments to take down, in order to try to disrupt bitcoin itself. So the plan is to use this money to move the server into a location that will be impossible for governments to raid and shut down. Specifically, theymos is going to be buying a small drone that will be carrying a lightweight server, and will stay in the air almost 24x7. The large amount of money will mostly be used to pay for a satellite data connection, and refueling costs to keep it aloft.

RoR is a VERY bad choice at this stage if you want a secure site. You shouldn't need to worry about the language you're writing in suffering from underlying security concerns. I like RoR, but it's not ready for something like this.

While this is very funny, there is also good point to it - having funds to negate a legal attack on the forum could be very important in the future.

I don't know how the pirate bay manage their hosting, but they seem to be untouchable. If we need to go down that route at some point it could cost a fair bit, I assume?

Also having funds stashed for a potential legal defense is never a bad idea.

Please start forking an Open Source forum CMS project now.
Offer bounties for some work, public the github, let the community find bugs.

Open a thread to suggest features (bitcointip bot, etc.).

Find a secure host for the forums.
I would reccomend a system like Piratebay's one, one main server and dozens of vps in different countries proxying from main server to users.

If bitcointalk.org is ddosed only vps are ddosed, if bitcointalk.org ip is blocked only vps ip is blocked, if vps is shut down you dont lose any data.
People dont know real server's IP address, also setup cloudflare in front of that system.

So when someone conects:
User -> Cloudflare -> VPS -> Main server

VPS is a proxy only, only redirects traffic, like a load balancer.

 ;)

I have explained just below your post, thepiratebay uses vps with their O.S. running only in RAM (no HDD is used) and they proxy connections to the real server.
If a server is shutted down only the proxy (vps) is shutted down, no data lose.

Thanks, I just read your post and it's pretty similar to how I imagined it to work. It's pretty ingenious really and seems like a great idea for here. 

Actually, it was thepiratebay that floated this "server in the literal clouds" idea in the first place.

making an SMF database work with another forum software would be quite the undertaking in and of its self... just build from smf. even a rookie can do it. the trick is maintaining the security features and proffesional level of coding presented in the smf forum software.

This forum should have some donation options so you can give one satoshi to posts you like. Like reddit does it.

I'd be willing to look over PHP code for security bugs/holes. I used to program in PHP regularly, and even wrote a few exploits for IE/Firefox in my prime, but haven't been doing this stuff regularly for 5 years now that I'm a settled sysadmin. I wouldn't feel comfortable being the only one looking at it. Also, I don't feel comfortable taking money, which is probably why someone else ought to do it, but I would recommend more than one security auditor look at the code in order to keep each other honest given the extreme importance of just exactly what this forum contains.


Yeah see, it's ideas like this that sound great, but scare the living hell out of me given a lack of two-factor encryption and this forum being an out-of-the box PHP software package with pretty regular exploits.

What is ASICMINER's street address? Does friedcat even have a domain? People do know who I am / where I live, FYI.

Investments in bitcoin are quite different from investments in fiat. I'm not aware of any securities offerings on this forum that are registered and approved by the SEC or other similar regulatory offering.

Where did I say everybody? There is a couple of reasons why I hide my whois info, and scamming is not one of the reasons or something that I'd do. If I wanted to scam, I would actually use my identity, go to DEFCON (lol), and then run. I'd rather make CoinLenders last, even in a situation where cryptocurrencies are outlawed.

In case the new forum turns us all back into newbies I've started planning out my first 5 posts...

I'm pretty sure I know what one of those reasons is. (Libel suit anyone?)

I am not going to elaborate more on that.

sick

A legal attack on the forum because people talk about Bitcoin? Wth are you smoking?

There are a bunch of reasons for a legal attack on the forums.

1. running unregistered securities exchanges involving Americans
2. promoting illegal activities like online gambling to Americans
3. encouraging trading in amounts larger than $10,000 USD without SAR filings w Americans
4. promoting illegal banking activities like trade fortress offerings
5. promoting a possible mail fraud scheme like the one operated by BFL

it seems almost likely that some government agent would subpoena the operators/mods and records and database to determine who the specific players are in these illegal activities.

You forgot to mention:

• Various moderator sponsored/approved libel campaigns against businesses
• Promotion and facilitating in the transaction of known criminals, scammers and money laundering
• Having an admin who promotes and allows ponzi schemes, including those of Pirateat40's, as well as being a shareholder in things like GLBSE

Sometimes I second guess myself as being just naive, but jesus christ there is some epic naivety in bitcoin businesses. "They can't touch me because bitcoin!"  ::)

You are either very naive or how no idea how much business takes place on this forum.  

This can't possibly not be a troll

False. Theymos holds us all to high expectations, giving scammer tags to those whom he feels are dishonest despite no transactions of any kind having taken place (as with my bet), yet he is allowed to freely solicit 6000+ BTC from the community while claiming it's for something that has never been begun in 12 months, much less not yet completed. His standard is a double one at that and he should be called out on it.

Actually I was talking about this post

Oh, sorry then. Use quotes next time!

In response to their response, I think it's clear they just don't understand what happens on these forums. It's like calling congress a "big hall of just discussion of laws and stuff".

For now at least


Also, about the topic, I'm curious to know what theymos ever said about all this money because I never really followed all this drama
A very short sum up would be nice
Did he said anything about possible refunds?

With so many cultists defending his actions and not willing to take an objective look at the bigger picture here, it is likely entirely out of the realm of possibilities, or  at least as likely as giving BFL a scammer tag. I fully support a stand against this forum's revenue by creating the "better" forum Theymos never bothered to in 12 months time with all our money. I think the lack of progress should be met with a reaction fitting for a community that pretends to love the free market.

Was there a separate address for this "new forum" or everyone just donated to default one?

Also should've just get right quotes, find someone to take the possible job, and stopping accepting donations after estimated sum has been reached.

100 BTC is more than enough to employ team of 5-10 ppl for a month

Did he clearly state that?


That's also a pretty good question.

That there will be no refunds? Nope, not yet.

Seems all donations are bundled into the same wallet, even if the addresses may in fact be different. Donations made that also carried "titles" such as "Donator" or "VIP" were made to custom addresses I believe.

Are you a troll? You sound like Betty Bowers, a "better bitcoiner than us"

If not, you seem to be a bit overly concerned about Bitcoin's image. First, why? And second, sketchy ads are the least of your worries on a sketchy forum full of sketchy characters like this one.

Also, why are so many of you demanding regulations? Why are you demanding a successful forum fold to your personal wishes over the wishes of others? Why are you demanding that theymos work as a nanny for some other people you don't even know? Why do you think donations should be considered purchases? And why not just make a forum of your own? I know Bruce Wagner made one, as did BFL, so why not you?

I don't understand your answer. Is there a (some) 'New forum only donations' address(es)?


I kinda agree
But I can see reasons why theymos doesn't seem to move a lot about this:

• He can't find someone trustworthy enough
• He is afraid some big bugs/hacks happens that would lead to reactions like "YOU wanted this new forum! That's YOUR fault!!1!"
• SMF is not that bad
• He has many other tasks with higher priority to do
• He doesn't give a damn
• He wants to keep the money in case of emergency (not necessarily related to the forum)

He has other tasks to do worth more than $600,000? I'm not saying there should be a new forum, infact it would be a waste of time and money since no significant improvement would be made over this one. But it is a real shame for $600,000 to be sitting there with nothing accomplished.

If he wants to keep the money for a personal emergency, that should be completely clear to any donator.

+1  ;D

+1

Not that I know of, just a general donation address, however if you wanted a title like "Donator", you would tell him first and he'd give you a specific address to donate to that he could monitor to remind him to set your title, that's all.

$600k today is not $600k tomorrow. If we assume that an emergency happens, BTCUSD will likely drop a lot
I don't get why some people are so angry, if you want your donation to be used within 3 months (or for building a new forum) then make it clear before donating because a donation means that the money doesn't belong to you anymore
Also I'd want to state that I'm not a cultist, I personally wouldn't keep all that money doing nothing for so long but I don't know what responsabilities come with being one the head of the Bitcoin world

Realistically it will cost 10k Max to make a new great forum, a lot of users of this forum are willing to help out. If Theymos sees this he should post a thread where he will list all updates and seek assistance.

Oh he already saw it I'm sure, but as with all things involing Theymos it's like pulling teeth.

He saw it, he already replied.

I think the response is uniform, whoever donated cannot expect any great return. They are a little bit disappointed they donated $600,000 and kind of regret donating, but not enough to post about it here. Everyone who can't afford it easily wont donate unless it's necessary.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH

So, how do they check for compliance and what will they do in case of non compliance by one of their costumers?

I wasn't aware that BitPay bans merchants from advertising or soliciting on this forum. Where did you get that information? As for Bitinstant's terms, what does any of that have to do with this forum?

Oooh, I see. Yeah, I'm sorry, calling you a nanny was harsh, but it was kinda directed at everyone wanting to limit things here. I was thinking of "the nanny state" idea. I guess the difference is that BitPay chose to do what they do for their reasons - public image, regulatory issues -  and bitcointalk chose to do what they do for their different reasons - no need to attract customers, have a place for open discourse about Bitcoin and its economy and politics. Not censoring anyone allows for a place where we can truly experiment with ideas to see where they take us. For example
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=108778.msg1181838#msg1181838

Each has its own purpose. Besides, I like that with this forum's open nature, I can actually see who is who, and what people are truly made of, instead of only seeing the nice parts, and having someone trying to convince me that all is well and everyone is trustworthy.

Honestly, I'm still very much divided between

"We need as many people as possible nao!"

and

"Bitcoin is still in such early development, with it being so easy to lose bitcoins to hacks and forgotten passwords, and so many untested issues related to scalability, that maybe it's best to keep growth low. People will come eventually."

But back on topic, Forum! Theymos! Rabble rabble rabble!

For the new forum-

Has there been any thought to just using mailing lists that are custom tailored for us and a web gui for those who like to log into a forum site. A mailing list for each sub-category. The software would then parse the emails and format it for easy reading with all the data we are used to here. Then we could build identities into it first using Bitcoin signed messages for those who don't want to sign in and slowly adding features. It could also run parallel to this forum until it took on a life on it's own. An advantage is that it can be extended easily and doesn't depend on any particular software.

Let's put this in perspective, shall we. A tiny portion of that money could be used to buy this beautiful 2,176 Sq Ft home in Florida.

http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/3207-Pheasant-Trl_Mims_FL_32754_M58251-67114?row=1&source=web%2cweb#modal_PhotoGallery (http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/3207-Pheasant-Trl_Mims_FL_32754_M58251-67114?row=1&source=web%2cweb#modal_PhotoGallery)

Buy that house and rent it out to people for BTC. 1 renter per room in the house. Also all Florida Bitcoin meetups have to happen in that house.

How about changing the forum software to Xenforo/VB4?

I hoped you considered some of my ideas. I do think we need a completely redesigned forum designed for cryptocurrencies. SMF is not designed for making trades, or for tipping, or for microtransactions, all which could provide security and monetize the forum. Microtransactions would discourage spamming for instance. Lotteries could be built into threads for instance. Trades could be built into threads with escrow.

There is a lot which would be possible with a forum which is designed to handle cryptocurrencies. My suggestion is you should hire some contractors who have world class skill and put them to work on building a new forum. If you get this right you'll probably become a millionaire from the new forum technology. You have thousands of Bitcoins to work with so why not a contest to see who can come up with the best new forum design and reward 1 Bitcoin to the winner, then take it from there?

Or if you have the idea yourself why not just give us a white paper or specs and let us peer review it? If it has any weaknesses the community will certainly find it.


It has strengths and weaknesses. For debate and conversation it's nice, but for anything  business related or for cryptocurrencies it's not so great. People are having to use Google docs to trade and group buys aren't even efficiently handled.


I don't know how many hits this forum gets but it's big, big like MtGox is big. I think certain features would be in so much demand that people would pay for the development of the desired features. I know if you add trading functionality to this place it would be worth it to pay for it. When a new coin launches and people are mining it we should be able to have people buying and selling it on the forum, why not?

But this would make the forum an exchange so I can understand the legal implications.

I'm fairly confident that Bitcoin returns will beat asicminer returns. But it's his money to invest as he wants I guess.

By A LOT! Also, all the money that pirateat40 was holding wasn't actually his, unlike all the money that theymos is holding.

Yes I have. Non-legal just means you agree not to get government or the legal system involved. Non-legal agreements is how the vast underground black market has worked for thousands of years, be it drugs or counterfeit goods or whatever. It is also how the globalized business economy is just starting to work, where companies that don't work in any specific country can no longer pick which legal system to work with/within. You can enforce such agreements violently, or you can enforce them by letting everyone know that the person broke the agreement, and have others decide to never do any more deals with that person (no one would loan you anything, sell you anything, or do any business with you). Or you can resolve them in private arbitrage, and publish the results of the decision, letting everyone else make up their own opinion as to the outcome.

A thought popped in to my head earlier regarding all the complaints about theymos having not spent the vast majority of the ~BTC6000 from donations to improve the forum yet... where are all the people patting him on the back and thanking him for accepting (the vast majority) of donations when Bitcoins were trading at between nothing and $13... and waiting to spend the vast majority of it until after they have become steady at over $100?

Shouldn't we be praising him for making ~$550,000 for this community???!!!

He now has unlimited money to do any imaginable improvement as well as a large reserve to negate the risk of a sharp drop in the exchange rate, because he didn't spend it in haste last year when the bulk of it was given. Not to mention the fact that this forum is already wildly successful and extremely integral to a billion dollar market, directly facilitating millions of dollars worth of trades every month... perhaps changing things quickly and without extended analysis, discussion, and planning is not the best idea.   ;D

Three cheers for our wise forum leader. I imagine that this is quite an unprecedented situation in online forum history... and people are bitching? Only in Bitcoin... similar to the people who thought ASICMINER shares were overpriced because the dividend fell one week for obvious reasons.   ::)

Theymos, where do you study at summer time?

I have advice for you:

Do you hear about i2p project?
http://www.i2p2.de/bounties.html (http://www.i2p2.de/bounties.html)

They use "system of bounties". It looks great and looks work.

For example:
make I2P IPv6 native - €100 EUR and 50BTC
I2P package in Debian and Ubuntu mirrors - €113 EUR
Bitcoin client for I2P - €30 EUR and 118,34BTC

I2p is opensource, like bitcoin, that way this bounties for all of us.

Simple Machines Forum (SMF) - too opensource.

How do you feel this way?

Lolz.  I suppose that's why mafias, drug cartels & the rest of the real underworld are known for strict non-violence & peer arbitration through rational discourse & transparency. 
And that's why Pirateat40 never happened -- 'coz non-violent, non-legal agreements work great and never fail. 
And that's a fact, 'coz i'm always right & never lie 4realz.

Well, you ain't getting a ride 'coz you're brainy, that's for sure :D  
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosa_Nostra#Protection_rackets ?? -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosa_Nostra#Violence_and_reputation  
Yes dorothy, organised crime does use violence. Surprised?  Now GTF in the van, will ya?  
Edit:  And don't forget ;)

TL;DR but color me convinced -- the world run by organized crime is paradise.  I guess libertarian capitalism is ... what, close second?  :D

Edit:  Just skimmed through.  Something about Pirateat40 being 1 in whatever?  LOOOOL!!11!  Learn to history!  This forum is an excellent record of failure!  To this day, PMB are being sold & bought by people unwilling to do basic math.  Shilling is approved.  Sockpuppetry is the norm. Wake up & smell the frikin' coffee!

Point of law, courts generally reject privitave clauses 'eg non-legal" on the basis they seek to usurp jurisdiction, not always but often, and the default supervening jurisdiction is usually the one where  the service is offered or where the server resides

Fun topic, let's continue the discussion.  ::)

I haven't followed this in details, but I would just like to point out that this forum is partly responsible for the TradeFortress' scam, since he was in DefaultTrust list, so if there is a huge pile of unspent funds, they might be donated towards the people who got robbed...

6000 * 500 $ = 3 000 000 $  :o
that enough for build new forum from zero ?                  ;D

This would be enough to develop an entirely new forum platform, by an entirely new company...

A committee is being formed to get this done.

I'm getting awfully sick of people complaining about the forum's BTC... ~57% of the forum's money is from ads, not donations. Perhaps 20% is from people who donated when BTC had very little value, and they (and I) thought that the forum software would be forthcoming. I apologize for taking so long, but my waiting has increased the purchasing power of this money by 500+%. The rest is from people who mostly just wanted the Donator/VIP label, and knew that the forum software was unlikely to appear soon. This is only an issue at all because my good management of the forum's finances resulted in a gigantic stash of money.

Who's going to be on the committee?

And why a shady person like TF was in the DefaultTrust?
Why is there a DefaultTrust at all?

I'm pretty sure good management would have resulted in a small surplus not a 3 million dollar one, the money could very well have been spent both promoting bitcoin and doing all the things that people have been asking for as far as the forum is concerned as well as paying full time support staff(including an admin) long before we reached this point.
Also can I nominate myself to be on the committee?

Reddit is 100 times better than any forum software imho

Reddit is great for news.  It's complete shit for back and forth discourse over the course of days. 

Reddit and forums serve two entirely different purposes and one can't replace the other adequately.  Although some of the features of Reddit would be welcome here, for sure. 

Do you remember when I got you into Reddit Goat? ::)

Right now the value of the 5500 bitcoins for the forum is about 4 million dollars. As people have mentioned above, we could get an awesome forum for much less than that.

Assuming the funds aren't going to be returned to people who donated, I suggest that the money could be spent much more productively than by using it on all a 4 million dollar forum. In particular, if 3.5 million dollars of the fund were used to fund projects that strengthen the protocol, like CoinJoin, or solve technical problems, the community as a whole would get a lot more benefit than they'd get from the difference between a $500k forum (which is still way more than it's necessary to spend on a forum) and a $4,000,000 forum.

One proposal for how this could work is that everyone who donated would get a vote in proportion to how much they contributed, as to whether they still want their contribution to go to the most expensive forum in history, or whether they want the majority of the money to fund bounties to improve the Bitcoin network itself.

I seriously doubt Theymos meant he will be spending the entire 6,000BTC on a new forum. From what I'm guessing, some small ("normal") amount will be spent on the forum, and the remainder will be kept as a huge pile of money as a sort of a "bitcoin defense fund." Like if we needed to buy a politician, or fund some project to fix a recently badly-broken bitcoin bug, or something.
Since I look at the pile of money as "someone who is a huge supporter of bitcoin has a ton of money for 'just in case' scenarios," I'm all for it. Besides, I think theymos is trustworthy, and at this point, much of the money he holds isn't even in his trust.

You're right, last time I read he (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=24589) held some, too.