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Title: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: Jet Cash on February 17, 2019, 09:48:13 AM Bitcoin Talk was created by Satoshi Nakamoto ( and others ) to promote awareness of Bitcoin. It was extremely successful, and Bitcoin is now a major force in banking and the Internet. Unfortunately it doesn't seem that BT has grown with it, and many of the major names seem to have abandoned the forum, or have never joined. This was brought home to me when I watched this video -
Satoshi Nakamoto: The Mysterious Founder of Bitcoin (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Mlw_jVHq7U) I found the video interesting, although it includes a number of items with which I would disagree. It includes a reference to Reddit, but no mention of Bitcoin Talk - the forum that started the Bitcoin revolution. Is this because mainstream Bitcoin users and developers are not aware of the forum, or that they feel it is no longer relevant? I'd like to see Bitcoin Talk regain its position as a significant contributor to the growth and acceptance of Bitcoin. What can I/we do to achieve this? Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: Angel of Death on February 17, 2019, 11:38:02 AM Bitcoin Talk back to the Bitcoin community?
Very important: Bitcoin talk and Bitcoin It is the belief of every strong member, in this discourse the community must be supported by meaningful goals and the Forum, Bitcointalk and Bitcoin have a special purpose, namely both in trade and community. What is Bitcoin: Bitcoin aims to be a revolutionary form in bringing Bitcointalk communities and cryptocurrency together. Community goals: brings together the bitcointalk and cryptocurrency communities in one place for example Forum. It contains unique characteristics and special objectives compared to other Forums out there without intrinsic value or real purpose. Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: friends1980 on February 17, 2019, 12:04:18 PM Maybe the right conclusion is: BT has reached its goal. What remains on the forum are the people who are interested in the more detailed, "specialized" parts of blockchain, trading and new projects. And of course the classic bounty hunters.
I think it's safe to say that everybody around the world who opens up a newspaper from time to time, has heard about Bitcoin right now. This is thanks to BT because this is where it all started. Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: mprep on February 17, 2019, 12:45:28 PM Niche communities being spread out across the internet in their own little forums and chat rooms is rare sight nowadays. Ever since Facebook started gaining popularity around the mid 00s, internet communities, small and large, started congregating in these massive media platforms. The aforementioned Facebook, Twitter, Reddit (alongside some other ones I might've missed) have largely replaced regular niche oriented sites. Such is the nature of the internet turning mainstream.
However, even if we were to put aside the ever growing centralisation of social / public-driven media, Bitcointalk always drew in a specific type of crowd when it comes to it's regulars (with a few exceptions) - hardcore cryptocurrency supporters. Hence if you are just starting to get involved in crypto or are aiming to reach a more casual crowd, participating here really doesn't make sense. In addition, quite a few people outside the forum have a negative view towards how the forum is run, be it through first hand experience or through stuff they read about it online. The fact that the forum's running on an extremely outdated piece of software (both design-wise as well as functionality-wise) has definitely turned some people off. The general lack of manegerial attention (fostering the community through events, some level of basic marketing, actively working on solving pressing issues such as sig spam) is definitely turning away both new and old members alike. The forum is growing every day and theymos (and to some extent Cyrus) can only do so much without any professional help. Some may dislike theymos himself. theymos' ban on BitcoinXT on /r/bitcoin (as well as his subsequent comments on the situation) have left some members on Reddit (and 4chan) perceiving theymos as a despot who censors dissenting opinion. While there's no concrete evidence, it's not a stretch to assume that some users have avoided participating in and promoting the forum due to this situation. In the end though, IMO many perceive forums like Bitcointalk as a relic of a bygone age. And unless all major social media platforms suddenly imploded, I don't think the situation is gonna change any time soon. However, if Bitcointalk upgraded it's software, supercharged it's attention towards effectively managing the community and put in effort into marketing itself, it might be able to regain it's position as the premier platform for crypto-related discussion for everyone. Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: Jet Cash on February 17, 2019, 01:14:52 PM I'm probably giving away my age by saying that I am quite comfortable with the current forum layout. Of course there could be some minor changes, but in the main it is holding up well.
I don't consider Theymos to be a despot, quite the reverse in fact. I think he could do with adopting a few of Trump's approaches. Not the hair, but draining the swamp, building a wall, and reducing the immigration of non-productive members would be a start. For Bitcoin to survive, it does need a bit of protection, and this will have to come from an informed global population. In my opinion, mining is a possible vulnerability in the future. Whilst we have zero interest rates, and fractional reserve banking, it would be possible for the bankers to take control of mining by using public funds. The creation of hobby mining pools could be one way to help reduce this risk, but it requires many of the smaller users and investors in Bitcoin to learn and understand mining. There is no possibility of this in the current Bitcoin Talk environment. Another potential for Bitcoin is the provision of rewards for content producers. Brave and Steemit are trying this. Where could one discuss this in relation to Bitcoin in the current forum? The Lightning network is another important development for Bitcoin - should we have a Lightning board? Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: tranthidung on February 17, 2019, 02:07:15 PM Thank you, Jet Cash for creating the topic.
The video in the OP is great, I have not watched all the video, but I will do watch all of it. Your topic also raised a ideas in my mind. You will know what it is soon. By the way, have a nice weekend, all bitcointalkers. ;D Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: poptok1 on February 17, 2019, 02:46:17 PM -snip- Then it will stop being bitcointalk, at least for me.In the end though, IMO many perceive forums like Bitcointalk as a relic of a bygone age. And unless all major social media platforms suddenly imploded, I don't think the situation is gonna change any time soon. However, if Bitcointalk upgraded it's software, supercharged it's attention towards effectively managing the community and put in effort into marketing itself, it might be able to regain it's position as the premier platform for crypto-related discussion for everyone. There is this thing about relicts, they tend to gain value with time. I think it will happen here also. Even in today times we can see how people react to old satoshis posts. Ton's of merits, threads are still active and links to his words are still being interchanged, discussed. This won't stop, you are right, its like fuel in perpetual motion machine. I think bitcoin needs this place to stay a little archaic, out of time, mostly because it needs backstory. Some sort of a background. In modern era conservative nature seems old-fashioned, pase even but nevertheless rock solid. Most stable constructions are built on bedrock, not sand and that's why this place is still alive, thriving in fact. There also this; don't fix, what is not broken; rule, so in my mind this place is bitcoin :) the other side of the same coin, in some sense. People just don't seem to realise this. Is this because mainstream Bitcoin users and developers are not aware of the forum, or that they feel it is no longer relevant? IMO normal people actually don't know about this place, because it became competitive due to sig.campaigns and in the interest of members is to keep it obscured. Devs... idk, they should at least be aware but remember the times when almost every new project was called a scam and hyena feeding of original idea? ::) might be the reason, I guess. Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: friends1980 on February 17, 2019, 03:45:53 PM IMO normal people actually don't know about this place, because it became competitive due to sig.campaigns and in the interest of members is to keep it obscured. Devs... idk, they should at least be aware but remember the times when almost every new project was called a scam and hyena feeding of original idea? ::) might be the reason, I guess. I've noticed many devs have switched to Telegram, and even Bounty Campaigns use Telegram channels for their communication. I am not sure this is a good evolution. Of course, it is an easy way to get rid of FUDers and spammers (which is a good thing for BT, too), as you can block whoever you want, but then again it avoids critical voices and opinions from being heard. Maybe it wouldn't be a bad thing if BT evolved (again) to a technical forum, seeing less and less spammers joining the forum. That being said - and not wanting to go off-topic but: does anyone have any idea if the number of new members is stagnating (significantly), or not? Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: theymos on February 17, 2019, 04:01:03 PM Quality and usefulness (which compete with freedom) are things that are always on my mind, but I'm not bothered by popularity. Most people will always use the big, popular platforms, and bitcointalk.org will never compete with them. Trying to compete with them would require totally changing how the site works, not just tweaking around the edges and adding a fresh coat of paint. (Our next-gen Epochtalk software works fundamentally the same way as the current software, just better.) I tend to agree with poptok1's post.
does anyone have any idea if the number of new members is stagnating (significantly), or not? We're at a local minimum, but registrations jump around a lot: Code: +---------------------+---------------+ Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: angel55 on February 17, 2019, 04:02:44 PM I agree with what mprep said, all the forums I used to visit on the internet are dead or extremely inactive. Everyone has moved over to reddit, there is a category for everything on reddit. It is much easier to just create one reddit account and discuss anything you like.
Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: madnessteat on February 17, 2019, 04:05:53 PM Try to compare forum usage and for example Reddit. It is more convenient for many people to communicate in social networks, and not on forums. Today, there are many other platforms where cryptocurrencies are discussed. The forum will be competitive if it is here that new information will appear.
Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: Theb on February 17, 2019, 04:14:12 PM I don't think Bitcointalk as a forum could regain something back to the way it was 10 years ago, by now Bitcointalk will be competing a lot of websites for its members. We have users who are loyal to specific Facebook groups, Subreddit pages, Telegram/Discord Channels, and of course other crypto-focused forums as well. To top it off not all people at this day in age are into forum like interactions, I don't know but I myself is not comfortable on using other forums because of their layout, luckily BCT is not one of them.
Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: mprep on February 17, 2019, 04:38:10 PM I'm probably giving away my age by saying that I am quite comfortable with the current forum layout. Of course there could be some minor changes, but in the main it is holding up well. I'd say the issue isn't with the layout, but rather functionality. If one was able to choose (or create) his own layout for the forum, everyone could be satisfied. Technically, SMF 1.X supports custom themes but, as with many other features, it's been disabled for security reasons (possibly unsafe implementation or at least a massive attack vector).Another potential for Bitcoin is the provision of rewards for content producers. Brave and Steemit are trying this. Where could one discuss this in relation to Bitcoin in the current forum? The Lightning network is another important development for Bitcoin - should we have a Lightning board? AFAIK any Bitcoin-related tech discussion should reside in "Development & Technical Discussion". As for the Lightning Network, unless discussions on it are pushing down every other type of topic in one of the forum's boards, it's unlikely it'll get it's own section. In most cases, boards are only created when a subset of a board's topics pushes down the rest of them.Then it will stop being bitcointalk, at least for me. A relic that gains value over time is a static object. A community is a living organism. If a community website doesn't adapt to the ever changing landscape of both the internet and society at large, it'll suffer a slow and painful death. I'm not saying Bitcointalk should do a 180 and change it's entire identity, but feature-full (as in by today's standards), easy to use and stable software as well as fostering a community are probably 2 of the few objectively beneficial things to strive for in an online forum. There is this thing about relicts, they tend to gain value with time. I think it will happen here also. I think bitcoin needs this place to stay a little archaic, out of time, mostly because it needs backstory. Some sort of a background. It's not a backstory if it's still the same as it used to be. A backstory is a tale of progression and change - how an object / person / event / platform evolved, not how it remained the same for eternity.In modern era conservative nature seems old-fashioned, pase even but nevertheless rock solid. Most stable constructions are built on bedrock, not sand and that's why this place is still alive, thriving in fact. This place is alive because it was the first and only official Bitcoin forum. In an alternate universe, if this forum wasn't the first one and thus in competition with all the other copycats, it probably wouldn't fare as well.There also this; don't fix, what is not broken; rule, so in my mind this place is bitcoin :) the other side of the same coin, in some sense. As someone who moderates the place as well as an active user of the forum, there are many, many broken things about the forum. There's a reason I barely venture outside Meta if I just want to chill and read some interesting content. Or maybe that's just me.People just don't seem to realise this. For quantity (just like r/bitcoin), Bitcoin Talk UI/UX should evolve just like Reddit. Reddit's threaded structure tends to water down discussions, splitting them up into numerous sub-discussions, as well as making it harder for the reader to easily read through a topic. It's upvote / downvote based comment and topic sorting and filtering essentially introduces censorship by democracy - unpopular opinions get pushed down and filtered out, while regurgitated popular opinions consistently get pushed to the top. I'm not particularly fond of Reddit's social media like site design either. As for quality:For quality, spam should be eradicated and less strict moderation. But i don't see both option will happen anytime soon. 1. less strict moderation 2. spam eradicated 3. not spending massive amounts of money and effort on numerous staff, machine learning based detection systems, etc. Pick 2 Quality and usefulness (which compete with freedom) are things that are always on my mind, but I'm not bothered by popularity. Most people will always use the big, popular platforms, and bitcointalk.org will never compete with them. Trying to compete with them would require totally changing how the site works, not just tweaking around the edges and adding a fresh coat of paint. (Our next-gen Epochtalk software works fundamentally the same way as the current software, just better.) I tend to agree with poptok1's post. The point is not to compete with social media but be the best you can be in the category you're already competing in - online forums. Epochtalk's development is coming along at a painfully slow pace (see: code frequency (https://github.com/epochtalk/epochtalk/graphs/code-frequency); similar patterns in other repositories) with no end in sight for many onlookers. There's a clear systematic issue of incentivized spam, especially in the altcoin sections. Both of these situations indicate that there's a lack of manpower in tackling these issues, be it through oversight, coming up with intelligent and thought out solutions or preparing and applying detailed implementation plans. I'm not saying there are easy solutions (that keep in mind the core values of the Bitcointalk community), but there are many really smart people around the world who, when given sufficient compensation for their work and time, can sooner or later work out the way to properly mitigate these issues.approximate tl;dr of the entire post: keep core values at heart and improve within the framework they've set up. Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: Jet Cash on February 17, 2019, 04:52:13 PM I can't get on with Reddit's format, and I think that Facebook and Twitter users are either kids, tossers, or politicians.
I really like the structure here, and there are some great members. I'd love to be able to interact with them, but it is pretty difficult at the moment. I think it is sad that more of the senior members don't use Serious discussion,and Ivory Tower. I'm not sure where to discuss Lightning - would Bitcoin discussion be a good place? I want to start to use it to accept payments. Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: ABCbits on February 17, 2019, 05:00:07 PM Reddit's threaded structure tends to water down discussions, splitting them up into numerous sub-discussions, as well as making it harder for the reader to easily read through a topic. It's upvote / downvote based comment and topic sorting and filtering essentially introduces censorship by democracy - unpopular opinions get pushed down and filtered out, while regurgitated popular opinions consistently get pushed to the top. I'm not particularly fond of Reddit's social media like site design either. I agree, even though AFAIK there's sub-reddit option to remove downvote option. As for quality: 1. less strict moderation 2. spam eradicated 3. not spending massive amounts of money and effort on numerous staff, machine learning based detection systems, etc. Pick 2 By removing signature and bounty child board, 3 of them can be achieved (or partially achieved) at cost forum activity significantly decreased. Using Machine Learning to detect spam sounds good even though it's expensive, but it's possible if deleted posts because spam is preserved as training data, there's category option when report post and few people with such expertise. I'm not sure where to discuss Lightning - would Bitcoin discussion be a good place? I want to start to use it to accept payments. Not bad idea if you self-moderated the thread. You also can check https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4638321.320, but it's technical oriented discussion rather than general discussion Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: Upgate on February 17, 2019, 05:04:48 PM Although I think bitcoin talk is popular to an extent it has more than 2million registered(i stand to be corrected) but compared to bitcoin it's lacking behind.
What if bitcoin talk can have it own social media accounts on social media platforms. Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: Jet Cash on February 17, 2019, 05:07:16 PM @ETFbitcoin
Thanks for the link to that thread. It's massive, so it will have to wait until tomorrow for me to read it. :) Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: Indamuck on February 17, 2019, 05:20:23 PM I prefer the old look of bitcointalk and I don't think it is an issue. Craigslist still has the same layout from years ago and looks like something out of the 1990s, yet it is still one of the most visited websites on the internet for commerce.
Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: poptok1 on February 17, 2019, 05:48:36 PM A relic that gains value over time is a static object. A community is a living organism. If a community website doesn't adapt to the ever changing landscape of both the internet and society at large, it'll suffer a slow and painful death. I'm not saying Bitcointalk should do a 180 and change it's entire identity, but feature-full (as in by today's standards), easy to use and stable software as well as fostering a community are probably 2 of the few objectively beneficial things to strive for in an online forum. It's not static, metals cover with patina, paintings get pale and so on. Sure maintenance is needed but custodians have this iron rule to never repair, only conserve. Of course it's a bad idea to apply this to computer code however preservation of the original experience can not be a bad thing... right? I do agree that it needs to stay on par with the technology, period. Only solution seems to be emulation :) New soft, old looks.It's not a backstory if it's still the same as it used to be. A backstory is a tale of progression and change - how an object / person / event / platform evolved, not how it remained the same for eternity. It is a backstory to me. Not only words but also those old obsolete signature codes, that link to non-existent places. Would be a shame to loose all that as it is a story. Sotory of change because of the medium, because it wasn't changed 5years ago in to something else. Call me sentimental but I truly believe in the power of traditions and those can't be built of liquid-like changes. This of course if preserving any satoshis spirit is our goal...This place is alive because it was the first and only official Bitcoin forum. In an alternate universe, if this forum wasn't the first one and thus in competition with all the other copycats, it probably wouldn't fare as well. That's true. I don't know where I was going with this ;_pAs someone who moderates the place as well as an active user of the forum, there are many, many broken things about the forum. There's a reason I barely venture outside Meta if I just want to chill and read some interesting content. Or maybe that's just me. Obviously you know better. I saw this pattern couple of times though, owners decide to refresh UI, users complain, small part of them leaves never to return. Owners perform more updates to introduce fancy stuff -> dégringolade, downfall etc. In my opinion this is the purest, most legible classic-forum around, basically the last page that does not make my eyes tired after 15 minutes of reading and so, I'm a little worried when I hear some staff member mentions drastic changes. Eh...can't stop progress, I guess, emulate 8) Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: theymos on February 17, 2019, 05:50:44 PM I agree, even though AFAIK there's sub-reddit option to remove downvote option. There isn't, some subreddits just use CSS to hide the downvote button, which is stupid because it advantages the people who "break the rules" by turning off custom CSS so that they can downvote people. Reddit, like all popular social media, sucks for real discussion. It strongly promotes a groupthink/bubble mentality, and furthermore people/organizations are constantly manipulating the system in order to fabricate a "groupthink". But people find it easy and satisfying to use, so they use it. Using Machine Learning to detect spam sounds good even though it's expensive Current machine learning tech is OK at answering questions like "does this <specific thing> contain <specific something>". So it's OK at detecting clear-cut things like spam and obscenity (though dealing with an intelligent adversary makes the task much more difficult), but it's nowhere near being able to answer more abstract questions like "is this post off-topic?". This is why Twitter & friends keep failing to reliably detect things like "hate speech", since that's too abstract a concept for current ML tech. I don't think that the hardware costs would be particularly expensive for any plausible bitcointalk.org usage of ML, but I don't think that it's worthwhile currently. Maybe if there was a massive influx of blatant spam. When you hear about big companies pouring tons of money into machine learning, I think that's almost entirely them trying to make the tech less terrible by hiring either ML experts or people who help produce training data. Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: Jet Cash on February 17, 2019, 06:41:02 PM Can some of you guys start some profound threads in Ivory Tower. At the moment the top 4 threads were started by me, and I haven't bumped them. It's a bit embarrassing really.
Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: TECSHARE on February 18, 2019, 12:45:38 AM IMO the meat grinder of scams and trust conflicts has been a large source of these issues. I know a lot of really good people this community could have used that just bailed because they got tired of being at the mercy of bored little OCD children with police hats running around often inventing crimes where there was none, punishing rivals, selectively enforcing, and just general childish control seeking behavior. If you have a community where some idiot can take your ability to trade on a whim, that doesn't exactly foster an environment people want to dedicate much time to, and just breeds general contempt.
Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: tranthidung on February 18, 2019, 03:24:08 AM As I promised yesterday, I made some quick descriptive analysis today.
Notes: It's not exact intra-month registered accounts over years due to days on which theymos scrapped data. However, we can assumed those figures are for intra-month data. ABSTRACT (1) 50% of observed months have intra-month registered account range from 2311 to 27790 (the interquartile range); (2) 50% of observed months have intra-month registered account above or below 10432 (the median); (3) The intra-month registered account fell 91.6% from its all time high in 2017 at 238400 to 20046; whilst the bitcoin decreased nearly 83.9%. (4) The demotion on Junior Members in September 2018 probably caused intra-month registered accounts fell considerbaly later months. (5) The difference in means of before and after periods (cut-off timepoint is Sept. 2018) is -63.6%. Time-series plot I don't know where I snapshotted the image, due to lack of thread's author, LOL. Still found it and will post link of the thread later (if I can find it). If you can help, please help me to find the thread. I actually spent around 15 minutes or more to check back the first 80 pages of Merit & new rank requirements (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2818350.1620) topic. 80 pages made within 3 days after the start of merit system, most of them are pyramid quotes. Honestly, my fingers got hurted due to over-scrolling computer mouse, so I gave up for now. Wholy shit, pyramid quotes! Scanning pages again, still not found on page #130. ::) Someone else's thread similiarly describes what the time-series plot above shown. ;D As the chart shown, total monthly registered accounts in recent months dropped dramatically to the median and mean of the year 2015. I believe that it is right time to say "Thanks theymos, merit system works and actually effective control spammers!" Basic statistics: - Mean +/- standard deviation: 22200 +/- 34774 - Median (interquartile range): 10432 (2311 - 27790) - Min - max: 3 - 238433. Interquartile range (from p25 to p75 in raw result table) Data interpretation: - 50% of observed total monthly registered accounts (just assumed the dataset is for exactly monthly data) ranges from 2311 to 27790 (the interquartile range); - 50% of observed months have total registered accounts above 10432 (the median), whilst the rest 50% of months have figures below 10432. Code: . tabstat regacc, s(n mean sd p50 p25 p75 min max) c(s) Data source was dumped by theymos there: We're at a local minimum, but registrations jump around a lot: Code: +---------------------+---------------+ Statistics over years In both medians and means, the year of 2018 has been the highest year with its median and mean of monthly registered accounts are 66895 and 64782, respectively. - The median means that 50% of months in 2018 have total registered accounts above 66895 or below 66895. - The interquartile range for 2018 is 38393 to 88373. It means 50% of months in 2018 have figures in range from 38393 to 88373. I always use median and interquartile range for descriptive statistics because they automatically exclude effects of outliers data points. Code: . tabstat regacc year10 year11 year12 year13 year14 year15 year16 year17 year18, /// Percent changes of intra-month registered account: The figures decreased 91.6% when bitcoin fell 83.9%. It gives us a potential causal inference that implementation of merit system and new rank requirements have bigger effects than the falls of bitcoin. One more finding, the intra-month figures after September of 2018 (Junior Member demotions) fell significantly than the before period. I think it make sense. Detail calculation presented below. Code: * BTC price The means of before and after Sept. 2018 are 80179 and 29190 (respectively) The percent of difference is 63.6% Code: . tabstat before after, s(n mean sd p50 p25 p75 min max) c(s) Code: . di (80179-29190)*100/80179 Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: Quickseller on February 18, 2019, 03:36:36 AM Bitcointalk was something that helped get Bitcoin off the ground and sparked adoption from near zero levels. While Bitcoin was very new, most people involved in Bitcoin (and the forum) largely valued their privacy/anonymity and had high levels of technical expertise. Companies had a fairly small customer base and as such did not need to communicate with customers as efficiently as possible.
Today, many Bitcoin (and crypto) users have much less technical expertise and value privacy less. Being that Facebook, Twitter and reddit are already used by many, newer Bitcoin users are likely to already have accounts on these platforms, and as such, to interact with others in regards to crypto. With bitcointalk not being very good to communicate with customers efficiently, companies will not push their customers onto bitcointalk to communicate, but rather to platforms such as FB, telegram and zendesk. Having many people labeled as scammers by people who are not held accountable, and are labeled as scammers for arbitrary reasons, often unrelated to being a scammer is not helping anything. If bitcointalk is going to grow, there will need to be better tools for companies to interact with customers. One solution might be to allow multiple people access a single PM inbox without having to share a single password. For example, "cryptostore" might have their customer send a PM with a problem, one employee might respond, and when the customer responds, a different employee could respond. This could be done by allowing multiple login credentials to access a single account, with different access levels (such as the ability to post, send PMs, and add/revoke access to either of these). The "mother" account could be a premium (paid) account and PM limits to these types of accounts could be lifted. Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: vit05 on February 18, 2019, 04:50:28 AM It is difficult to find good topics and good discussions in the forum. Social Networks seeks to offer something that will grab the user's attention within the first two minutes of their visit.
They do this by using algorithms that expose what the supposed user will most like to see or read. Many people complain, say they prefer chronological order or something close to it. But this works. In Reddit, the function of downvote and upvote serves to offer you what is more popular and that you would probably like to see. Social networks work by turning your visit into an addiction. And they do this by creating a sense of urgency. You need to comment or share that immediately. Also, in cases like Twitter, when you're an influencer, you're always on some kind of stage. It's not a discussion. This for people who work with their image, whether they are speakers or members of important companies, is much more rewarding than participating in a forum. The forum is the opposite of all this. It is a place that allows continuous discussions, which can be extended for years, in a single topic. It is a place where the moment is not as important as in a chat room. But if there is a will to attract more users, it need to be simpler for the person, who does not participate in the forum with some frequency, to be able to find good topics and good discussions. Perhaps an "all" or "popular" section where a list with no more than 30 topics would be organized using some algorithm. Gathering topics from all over the forum. Of course, this could attract spammers to those topics, but that's another problem that also needs to be solved. Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: YOSHIE on February 18, 2019, 06:27:58 AM I'd like to see Bitcoin Talk regain its position as a significant contributor to the growth and acceptance of Bitcoin. What can I/we do to achieve this? Hello, Jet Cash, there are many things that can be done to convince the Bitcoin Community, for now you can start the extent to which this community has been running :Bitcoin_Wiki:Community_portal (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bitcoin_Wiki:Community_portal)this really helps you where you are,As you mentioned: BITCOIN COMMUNITY, which was created in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto. The name is linked in software that he designed, as well as peer-to-peer networks which are connected all of them. With a database, when transactions spread to P2P, I make sure that bitcoin can be spent by people who have it. Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: CryptopreneurBrainboss on February 18, 2019, 07:50:06 AM I found the video interesting, although it includes a number of items with which I would disagree. It includes a reference to Reddit, but no mention of Bitcoin Talk - the forum that started the Bitcoin revolution. Here's the catch, reddit and other social media needs publicity that's why they get mentioned in bitcoin related video as the video you saw above did. Bitcointalk doesn't need a promotional helps from those video because it promote itself. If I'm not mistaking, BT has over 2million+ registered account and they got that without a single advertisement. Any new investor/user interested in bitcoin will end up hearing about bitcointalk one way or the other that, this was the forum everything started from. Therefore i think the forum is doing good although there's some wisdom for improvement, lets leave others medias to enjoy the spotlight while we focus on maximising the potentials of BTC Bitcointalk is already holding her position as the major contributor (as the growth ground for bitcoin) what else are we asking from the platform, she is doing great the way she is. That's just the fact. Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: Jet Cash on February 18, 2019, 08:42:09 AM They do this by using algorithms that expose what the supposed user will most like to see or read. That is probably why I don't like them. I like controversial opinion, and novel ideas. I don't want to read a load of post by the sheep agreeing with the unicorns that are leading them into slavery. Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: MainIbem on February 18, 2019, 08:49:15 AM The driving message on BT today is price, bear run, bull runs, smart contract, ICO and the like. Hardly you see participation in serious discussion, Technical development, project development. If you can find a way to attract more members to these sections of the BT, it will reshape the mindset of members away from looking for monetary gains only.
Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: Jet Cash on February 18, 2019, 10:27:51 AM >..< I agree with your comment about the driving forces, but I'm not sure that they are the most important factors for the future. Things like the rise of the cashless society, the transfer of wealth, and the fake banking crypto-currencies are the things that really matter for long term economic survival. It's really difficult to discuss these topics, as most people are obsessed with the technical analysis of past trends and events, and we are moving into a completely new economic environment now. Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: Crypto-DesignService on February 18, 2019, 12:02:00 PM I agree with what mprep said, all the forums I used to visit on the internet are dead or extremely inactive. Everyone has moved over to reddit, there is a category for everything on reddit. It is much easier to just create one reddit account and discuss anything you like. I am certain that the forums you used before has no source of income on the site. If you compare bitcointalk to any forums there is a big difference on them as we're like a land full of oil(Altcoin sections). You can't compare reddit to bitcointalk because Reddit = More users because of wide selection/category of sub-reddits. For entertainment/informations Bitcointalk = More users because there is a source of income(ICOs) Try to move Altcoin section on other forum site and you will see a sudden amount of inactive users moving to the new forum that the altcoin transferred to. If you are going to look at it, all the services we have on the forum is somewhat related to coin projects Escrow services = huge amount of funds being escrowed is thru signature campaigns, bounty, ICO funds. Design = Most of the designs are related to ANN thread, ICO visual site designs, ICO banners, ICO logos Development = development about coin creation, website creation Campaign manager = most of campaign managers source of income is about managing ICO signatures, bounties We can't deny that around 70%(my estimate based on user engagements around Altcoin section) of users are here because of Altcoin section that bitcointalk has. I also admit that aside from being in support to bitcoin I am also in to the jobs that is available around the forum. sorry if my English is not that good. Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: Rambotnic on February 18, 2019, 12:19:37 PM How to turn back the forum to the community ?
Remove the things that people can abuse: Trust score, Merit. Provide easy access to the newbies (post and send pm's without restriction count per day). Make the access to the community more easy to everyone, not only to the old members. Remove from your brain claims such as suchmoon's "guilty until proven otherwise" because in the real world it is otherwise. Do not let group of 20 people "DT" to ruin people profiles, jobs, time spend on this forum based on their own drug addicted opinions. Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: Jet Cash on February 18, 2019, 12:35:55 PM I am certain that the forums you used before has no source of income on the site. All forums where I have been an active member have provided me with a means to gain an income. There is one exception, and that is a private hosting forum, but even that has a public board where I can display a signature. That forum has a very low activity though. The best quality forums seem to be those where members' rewards are related to their post quality. For example, signatures that contain affiliate codes that reward posters by results. Bitcoin Talk has a lot of signature campaigns where the quality and competence of the poster is not relevant. The only thing that matters is the volume of posting. It also seems to act as an employment bureau for the deprecated social networking sites. Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: hilariousetc on February 18, 2019, 01:05:14 PM Bitcoin Talk was created by Satoshi Nakamoto ( and others ) to promote awareness of Bitcoin. It was extremely successful, and Bitcoin is now a major force in banking and the Internet. Unfortunately it doesn't seem that BT has grown with it, and many of the major names seem to have abandoned the forum, or have never joined. This was brought home to me when I watched this video - Satoshi Nakamoto: The Mysterious Founder of Bitcoin (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Mlw_jVHq7U) I found the video interesting, although it includes a number of items with which I would disagree. It includes a reference to Reddit, but no mention of Bitcoin Talk - the forum that started the Bitcoin revolution. Is this because mainstream Bitcoin users and developers are not aware of the forum, or that they feel it is no longer relevant? I'd like to see Bitcoin Talk regain its position as a significant contributor to the growth and acceptance of Bitcoin. What can I/we do to achieve this? Bitcoin is bigger than this forum and it has obviously outgrown this place, but it's still an active hub (though arguably probably fuelled more by sign campaigns and ICOs than anything else right now). The video isn't a comprehensive history of bitcoin either. Sure, bitcointalk was there from the beginning and it wouldn't hurt to mention it but it's not something to worry about. Besides, it's not like the video is wholly factually accurate: https://i.imgur.com/74I3xPj.jpg lol How to turn back the forum to the community ? Remove the things that people can abuse: Trust score, Merit. You really think removing these things would make a difference? Merit doesn't stop anyone from posting here but it certainly curbs spammers rising through the ranks, but rank or merit is meaningless really other than those who want to earn from posting here. As for trust I wouldn't be against scrapping the entire thing as people rely on it too much and assume negative or positive feedback from dt is is the be all and all of who is trustworthy or not. Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: slocker on February 19, 2019, 08:10:00 AM I dont know what could anyway say or add to this topic. I'm not long into crypto story at all and to be honest I'm little late found out about this forum. From some time I could say that i read here and learn much more then on some social media (reddit for example). Never found anything useful there on anything. But believe that this can be solved. Probably there are good and bad sided like everything in life. Then think that maybe its better to have some serious brainstorming here. Many member are still active here helping one way or another, dont think that this can be some major step but can be start.
Bitcoin is bigger than this forum and it has obviously outgrown this place, but it's still an active hub (though arguably probably fuelled more by sign campaigns and ICOs than anything else right now). This is true, but like everything in tech world that is growing by the minute now, can be solved and be good again. What was main reason when this forum was created to be place for all, big paying signatures campaigns or community with multiple solutions and answers for every question, maybe this could be staring point on how to take some steps on this. Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: Cøbra on April 09, 2019, 12:03:45 AM A lot of prominent members in the Bitcoin community started out on bitcointalk.org, then migrated to Reddit, and subsequently migrated from Reddit to Twitter. Many of these became "thought leaders" on Twitter, and no longer are active on Reddit or bitcointalk.org. I don't think it's because of the format or feel of the forum, I think it's more of an ego thing. The thing with Twitter is that if you have a minimum of a few thousand followers, you can write a good tweet and watch the likes and retweets pour in. It does give some level of satisfaction, something that can't quite be replicated on a forum. Eventually over time you find that people start trying very hard to be liked, so rather than stopping to form an opinion, they end up trying to fit into the group think. You see it in Bitcoin Twitter especially when everyone has the Lightning emoji in their name, the whole "UASF" in the bio/hats thing, absolutely toxic hatred of altcoins, and other examples of people trying desperately to fit into what everyone else in the community is doing. Everyone is always organizing to rally against something, and that's where the problem with these platforms shows itself, it enforces conformity. Conformists are easy to control and manipulate.
See the thing with these platforms though is that they intentionally trick you to seem bigger than they actually are. How many people on /r/Bitcoin post and contribute each day? It genuinely isn't that many, and on quiet days you can see a handful of very active discussions, and even those don't have very many unique new people. But the way the content is structured masks that. This forum has an insane amount of discussion taking place each day, across many different aspects of Bitcoin and periphery topics (economics, politics, services, etc). If you want price memes and surface level discussion, Reddit and Twitter are great, but this place has more variety and people are generally open minded, if you know which topics to post in. Twitter is also quite a small sample of Bitcoin users, for example Andreas' account, one of the most vocal and well respected Bitcoiners on social media only grew by ~60k followers in the past year, nothing compared to the type of numbers this forum achieves with new users. There will be many forums and many places to discuss Bitcoin, many social media sites and many Facebook groups. But how many of those will have been something Satoshi created? A hundred years from now, nobody will give a shit about Twitter, Facebook or Reddit. But there's a good chance they will give a shit about Bitcoin (and one can hope they will be using it). You can be sure this forum will be in the history books. Little kids will look over archives of our threads as they dream of one day owning 1 BTC. Threads like "we are the new wealthy elite" will be discussed in classrooms. Homework assignments will ask kids to go and research how the HODL meme originated. If Bitcoin does take over the world, you can tell your grandkids you were in the place where it all began. We have something that can't be replicated elsewhere: history. Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: darklus123 on April 09, 2019, 04:05:24 AM I was a part of the social media groups as well who discuss this things and I can personally say that it is too far from what people are discussing here. What they focused there basically is how to "earn" and that's it.
They are just sharing numerous sites or links where you can have or guides in getting one(which are obviously scams). That is why taking pride is very important if you know this community and you know that the information that other users were getting is wrong then educate them by leading them here. The problem is that they will not because they don't understand it and there is no easy money scheme in here. Plus if you are an asshole you won't be targeting people who knows that you are actually scamming. Instead go to those people who absolutely do not understand what they are actually doing. Lastly, you can easily post what you want on those platforms regardless of how bullsh*ts your post are there are still some people who believes in you because of their ignorance. Therefore I can easily say OP that we are still leading people the right way when they come here. If I am not mistaken those people who were lead in here by their curiosity actually starting to understand the technology Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: slocker on April 11, 2019, 06:01:31 AM @Cøbra has good point in this. But I dont understand why they left, to gain personal gain or more popularity of followers. This forum is live with many member good and bad, seem many forums that try to be like this one but failed and they are struggling to survive. Here you can find anything ask anything ans answers for anything. So far here I read anything from serious thing to funny ones, and this is the point. We also have disputes this is normal but I also believe that this is not just place to start but to get well informed and to learn something or to read something interesting. Here we have everything every topic that you can think about and all in one place. So my thinking is that those who left will some back but they wont be respected as they were before.
Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: lobcmt2 on April 11, 2019, 09:21:29 AM The issue is a major one, and out of my ability to contribute. However, I saw theymos wrote about his ideas to build up (changes on current system) merit system, to make it a decentralized merit system there:
This thought occurred to me recently: I created two topics in Meta, relates to the forum, so if those topics are helpful, it's good.If you wanted to implement Merit in a decentralized forum (ie. one in the vein of Freenet's Frost or FMS), you could do it in this way: - Everyone can, from their own perspective, give unlimited merit to posts, and these merit transactions are put into files which each user publishes via the decentralized system. (Like a merit.txt.xz which every user publishes.) Unlike on bitcointalk.org, you can also give people merit without an associated post. - For everyone who has merit, you download their merit-transactions-list, but scale down/up all of the numbers so that the total merit that they send is equal to the actual sMerit that they own. It might or might not be useful to do this via some sliding time frame scheme so that merit transaction amounts aren't just continually diminished over time as they increase in quantity. - Apply the above step recursively, creating a web-of-trust-style merit network Then every user has a subjective merit score for each post (sort of like the bitcointalk.org trust system, which was inspired by FMS). And if you wish, you can assign people to be merit sources from your perspective by sending them large amounts of merit directly; these might or might not appear in the merit-transactions-list which you publish. Steps to check potential phising links (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5130231.0) List of scam / fake bitcointalk sites (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5130480.0) In my opinion, somehow those topics can spread the forum's popularity and reputation out if we can better get rid of phising sites aim at bitcointalk.org forum. Hence, it might be one of way to bring the forum back into the Bitcoin community. When the forum has become better by merit system, it might become even better, and old users might come back if they look at the forum and have a feeling that bitcointalk.org changed and returned to its nearly originally pure forum. Unfortunately it doesn't seem that BT has grown with it, and many of the major names seem to have abandoned the forum, or have never joined. Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: finaleshot2016 on April 11, 2019, 03:56:42 PM The legitimate pro's on bitcoin evaporated already to another dimension(platform) when they gain the knowledge here. That's the kind of people I wanted to control the bitcoin talk community because they prioritize the development of the blockchain rather than some people here who literally do bounties. The introduction of this forum to others was very dirty, I can clearly say it because most of the new members here are just directing towards the income without thinking the origin and purpose of this forum. Some of the higher-ups are trying to be kings but don't really have any contribution to our bitcoin community. They're self-proclaimed king because of being the first one who discovers the forum and trying to wipe out some low profile members.
I'm a tech-related course student and trying to make some innovative research about the blockchain. I'm tired of seeing repetitive concepts like for example, about the mining section, companies are just copying the algorithms and adding some extravagant features to have investors and users of their product. Intel, AMD, and other semiconductors company are good at making hardware, components to build-up and calculate algorithms very fast while the other mining companies are just trying to take advantage of it for the growth of their platform. No one didn't try/create any innovative invention that can also surpass the current device for mining. It's very similar in here, some of here are just trying to pump their business without trying to contribute anything good for our community. My point is, what if we create or think something different for our bitcoin community? I know someone will get offended easily but most of the people are now focusing on a good reputation but they really lack about bitcoin. Bitcoin is a very powerful masterpiece that can exist for a hundred years, maybe its name in the future is Bitcoin v.7892, like that. Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: tranthidung on May 12, 2019, 11:47:14 PM ABSTRACT I would be nice if theymos dumps additional data for last three months, since 13/2/2019. It's interesting to see what's going on last three months when general market, and bitcoin in particular recovered very well from their bottoms.(1) 50% of observed months have intra-month registered account range from 2311 to 27790 (the interquartile range); (2) 50% of observed months have intra-month registered account above or below 10432 (the median); (3) The intra-month registered account fell 91.6% from its all time high in 2017 at 238400 to 20046; whilst the bitcoin decreased nearly 83.9%. (4) The demotion on Junior Members in September 2018 probably caused intra-month registered accounts fell considerbaly later months. (5) The difference in means of before and after periods (cut-off timepoint is Sept. 2018) is -63.6%. Time-series plot I don't know where I snapshotted the image, due to lack of thread's author, LOL. Still found it and will post link of the thread later (if I can find it). If you can help, please help me to find the thread. I actually spent around 15 minutes or more to check back the first 80 pages of Merit & new rank requirements (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2818350.1620) topic. 80 pages made within 3 days after the start of merit system, most of them are pyramid quotes. Honestly, my fingers got hurted due to over-scrolling computer mouse, so I gave up for now. Wholy shit, pyramid quotes! Scanning pages again, still not found on page #130. ::) Someone else's thread similiarly describes what the time-series plot above shown. ;D As the chart shown, total monthly registered accounts in recent months dropped dramatically to the median and mean of the year 2015. I believe that it is right time to say "Thanks theymos, merit system works and actually effective control spammers!" Basic statistics: - Mean +/- standard deviation: 22200 +/- 34774 - Median (interquartile range): 10432 (2311 - 27790) - Min - max: 3 - 238433. Interquartile range (from p25 to p75 in raw result table) Data interpretation: - 50% of observed total monthly registered accounts (just assumed the dataset is for exactly monthly data) ranges from 2311 to 27790 (the interquartile range); - 50% of observed months have total registered accounts above 10432 (the median), whilst the rest 50% of months have figures below 10432. Code: . tabstat regacc, s(n mean sd p50 p25 p75 min max) c(s) Data source was dumped by theymos there: We're at a local minimum, but registrations jump around a lot: Code: +---------------------+---------------+ Statistics over years In both medians and means, the year of 2018 has been the highest year with its median and mean of monthly registered accounts are 66895 and 64782, respectively. - The median means that 50% of months in 2018 have total registered accounts above 66895 or below 66895. - The interquartile range for 2018 is 38393 to 88373. It means 50% of months in 2018 have figures in range from 38393 to 88373. I always use median and interquartile range for descriptive statistics because they automatically exclude effects of outliers data points. Code: . tabstat regacc year10 year11 year12 year13 year14 year15 year16 year17 year18, /// Percent changes of intra-month registered account: The figures decreased 91.6% when bitcoin fell 83.9%. It gives us a potential causal inference that implementation of merit system and new rank requirements have bigger effects than the falls of bitcoin. One more finding, the intra-month figures after September of 2018 (Junior Member demotions) fell significantly than the before period. I think it make sense. Detail calculation presented below. Code: * BTC price The means of before and after Sept. 2018 are 80179 and 29190 (respectively) The percent of difference is 63.6% Code: . tabstat before after, s(n mean sd p50 p25 p75 min max) c(s) Code: . di (80179-29190)*100/80179 Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: BlockchainBoyyy on June 16, 2019, 03:28:26 PM Bitcoin Talk was created by Satoshi Nakamoto ( and others ) to promote awareness of Bitcoin. It was extremely successful, and Bitcoin is now a major force in banking and the Internet. Unfortunately it doesn't seem that BT has grown with it, and many of the major names seem to have abandoned the forum, or have never joined. This was brought home to me when I watched this video - Satoshi Nakamoto: The Mysterious Founder of Bitcoin (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Mlw_jVHq7U) I found the video interesting, although it includes a number of items with which I would disagree. It includes a reference to Reddit, but no mention of Bitcoin Talk - the forum that started the Bitcoin revolution. Is this because mainstream Bitcoin users and developers are not aware of the forum, or that they feel it is no longer relevant? I'd like to see Bitcoin Talk regain its position as a significant contributor to the growth and acceptance of Bitcoin. What can I/we do to achieve this? The first thing we can do is not ban people unless they are clearly spamming or scamming. ::) How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? (DELETE THE MODS) Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: Coyster on June 16, 2019, 04:31:26 PM The first thing we can do is not ban people unless they are clearly spamming or scamming. ::) No one gets banned for scam or spam, those offences are corrected by the trust system(flag system),as such users are given a red trust(trust flag),while excessive spam leads to the account being nuked or temp ban, 7 days or so. How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Mods are not topics or threads that gets deleted, they're humans. (DELETE THE MODS) Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: OgNasty on June 16, 2019, 06:32:23 PM Support Bitcointalk community Bitcoin projects.
Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: Gyrsur on November 06, 2019, 08:06:40 PM release the new forum software and everything will get fine. ;D
Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: amishmanish on November 20, 2019, 10:07:21 AM Everyone is always organizing to rally against something, and that's where the problem with these platforms shows itself, it enforces conformity. Conformists are easy to control and manipulate. This isn't just a problem with those social media platforms. Even the forum enforces conformity. For example, everyone just keeps praising and keeps saying good things about the Lightning Network despite the fact that LN is still not finding any users and is becoming over-engineered all the time.There is desperate lack of genuine criticism even here at the forum because most of the older members wearing the sigs aren't discussing technical details but just commenting on the validity of LN at all times. These people have no idea that how actually bitcoin will scale. The ideas that get thrown around now simply do not have the same weight as they are more philosophical than technical. That is where the answer to JetsCash's question is. If you want to bring the mojo back, you have to make it worthwhile for the devs to contribute. Most of the earliest devs are on payroll with Blockstream or other organizations. Nothing wrong in that. The lesson is that people who actually benefited from the forum should contribute to projects that aim to further bitcoin adoption. Form a hierarchy of committed and technically sound people to guide projects. The funding should come from people who have benefited from being early adopters. Most of that crowd has moved out of the forum and are busy with their businesses etc. like Cobra pointed out. Find the champions. Title: Re: How can we take Bitcoin Talk back into the Bitcoin community? Post by: Cøbra on November 22, 2019, 07:20:56 PM Everyone is always organizing to rally against something, and that's where the problem with these platforms shows itself, it enforces conformity. Conformists are easy to control and manipulate. This isn't just a problem with those social media platforms. Even the forum enforces conformity. For example, everyone just keeps praising and keeps saying good things about the Lightning Network despite the fact that LN is still not finding any users and is becoming over-engineered all the time.There is desperate lack of genuine criticism even here at the forum because most of the older members wearing the sigs aren't discussing technical details but just commenting on the validity of LN at all times. The forum doesn't enforce conformity. On social media platforms if you express the right opinions and cater to specific echo chambers, you get followers and build visibility as a reward. You delude yourself into believing you are leading thought, when in reality you are just a slave to the opinions of your followers, who will destroy you without mercy the moment you deviate from allowed thought. On the forum your opinions are always visible to readers. You don't need to have users on the forum following you to see your posts, much to the dismay of everyone if what you post is nonsense. Now internet communities trend more towards self-censoring filter bubbles, with people getting even crazier and intolerant of each other because they've gotten so used to being around like-minded folks that different opinions are especially more offensive and egregious than before. LN is technically impressive, but its success depends on people seeing Bitcoin as cash, which nobody seems to want to do because Bitcoin is just perceived as a tool for speculative investment. There was a period where if LN was ready and practical, maybe around 2014, momentum could have picked up to have LN succeed in payments largely due to the Bitcoin community at the time being much more supportive of spending Bitcoin and companies being interested and open. But since then the community has become way too greedy to be able to create an actual Bitcoin economy. |
