Bitcoin Forum

Franky1 gave his honest opinion, and whether you agreed with him or not,

you could always tell his underlying goal was the improvement of bitcoin.

Banning him does nothing but decrease the knowledge that this so called tech forum is in dire need of.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjJN08uqt70


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Note that I was not involved in the decision to ban Franky1.

I do not think that it is unreasonable for him to be banned from the Development and Technical Discussion forum. While he may have "gave his honest opinion", he frequently posts in threads that are largely not related to his opinions and instead almost always starts talking about blockstream, segwit, "core censorship", etc. when those topics are irrelevant to the thread. He just repeats the same things over and over again. Ultimately, his participation in the Dev & Tech forum causes those threads to become derailed and devolve into flaming and mudslinging which results in those threads having to be locked. His posts in any thread that mentions the Lightning Network or segwit inevitably results in any meaningful discussion to be lost and eventually stopped. Due to the negative effect that he has had on actual technical discussions, I find that it is reasonable to have him banned.

Errr I don't understand, are you talking about this user (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=65837) ? If he has been banned, he is no longer banned. Because I don't see him banned and there's nothing in the modlog (https://bitcointalk.org/modlog.php) (except deleted messages) and nothing on BPIP (https://bpip.org/profile.aspx?p=franky1).

franky1 was not and is not banned. I see that some off-topic posts of his were deleted recently, though normally his posts are pretty substantive (even if I usually disagree with him).

I think the OP is referring to this topic.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5192937.0

According to this post, Franky1 has been banned from "Development & Technical Discussion" board.

theymos probably hasn't seen that thread posted by gmaxwell yet
yes, gmaxwell puts franky1 in a "ban" list on Dev & Tech discussion subforum
since he is a moderator for that subforum, I think gmaxwell has the right to do so

Thanks for clarifying that--I saw this thread and almost slapped my head in amazement.  Even some of the worst trolls here don't usually get banned, much less long-time members who frequently go off-topic, go on rants, or state opinions that aren't popular. 

I didn't realize members could be banned from specific sections.  That's good to know.

I always got the impression, based on responses to his posts, that he isn't well-regarded here.  My technical knowledge of a lot of what makes up the bitcoin ecosystem--bitcoin itself, wallets, hardware, miners, etc.--is pretty sparse, so I never felt able to pass judgement on what he writes, but he sure seems to know what he's talking about and I have found a lot of his posts to be interesting.  I think I've merited him a few times, too.

I disagree with much of, if not all of what he says, but I do believe there should be competing opinions and viewpoints in every sub, especially one such as the Dev and Tech sub.

If his posts are off topic, or otherwise break the rules, they should be removed, and if necessary, his posts could be closely monitored/moderated. If his post follows the rules, and is on topic, but you disagree with what he is saying, you should challenge him, present your side, and facts to support your side, and others can judge for themselves. When there are competing viewpoints, you can say with more authority that you are correct. When you start preventing certain people from posting in certain subs that have opposing viewpoints, all information presented in the sub has less credibility.  

Yes, the OP is almost certainly referring to that thread:

Can someone technically be subforum banned on SMF? Would like to have clarification from theymos regarding this.

But he doesn't just present a different view point. He repeatedly flames other users and creates off topic posts. The fact that his posts often result in the locking of threads is pretty telling. Many people have challenged him and presented their side. His responses are usually some twist of words, snide remarks, or insults and they further drag the thread off topic. There are numerous personal and direct insults in his posts.

Many of his posts begin slightly on topic, e.g. in a thread about lightning he might mention something about lightning, but then start talking about segwit (which is somewhat related) and later block sizes. People will then respond correcting the incorrect things he has said about lightning, segwit, and block sizes. Then responses begin focusing on the incorrect things he has said and repeated back and forth. So the topic goes from discussing lightning to people arguing back and forth. Such a thread has now be derailed and taken off topic. Eventually insults are thrown and people start flaming, at which point it is necessary to lock the thread.

Now consider that this has happened to multiple threads, with largely the same catalyst (same set of posters, which includes franky1, making posts that result in thread derailment and locking). Given that this repeatedly happen, I, and apparently so does gmaxwell, finds this to be in  violation of the No Trolling rule.

It has nothing to do with preventing certain viewpoints from being posted, that's perfectly fine. It's that the same user constantly does it in threads where those opposing viewpoints are really relevant to the topic.

I don't think SMF really allows that. It's just that gmaxwell has decided to delete any post that franky1 makes in Dev & Tech, and has announced that decision publicly. It's close enough to a ban so that's what he called it.

I like Franky1 personally but can't speak to their posts so I have no input on the validity of the ban, but I think its pretty nice to be given the consideration of a single subforum ban rather than forcing a forum ban. It'd be easy to apply a regular ban, it takes effort to enforce a non software supported "hey we don't want you posting here anymore for the reason given, but we don't hate you enough to go the easy route and just hit the ban button"

Freedom of speech is such an overused and misguided term. Its about being free to speak your mind until you impose on others. That doesn't mean having unpopular opinions, but if you disrupt other people's "free speech" yours gets limited. Check out the handful of P2P forums that have popped up and failed amidst the viagra spam and bots.

It's highly debatable if his "knowledge" is a benefit. I'm sure some of it is, but when three different people have a discussion with him about how something as basic as mining works and try multiple avenues of showing him how what he thinks is wrong, even dumbing it down to an example of a foot race, and yet he still doesn't get it, one has to wonder how much value he adds to the section he's alleged to have been banned from. I don't know what's recently happened but if it's anything like that previous one, then he adds zero value as all he does is derail people from having a real discussion. There are plenty of other sections here for that sort of thing.

Except in that case, if what he was saying was true, all these coins wouldn't work the way they do.

It's not censored. Follow the rules. Don't be a disruption. Don't think you have the right to infringe on others people rights cause you're somehow "special" cause you're not. Why is it that people get warnings over and over again and think they can ignore them. He was given a chance and decided he was above it all. He made his bed and now he can lay in it. Course now I suspect he'll play the martyr even though it was his actions that lead to the "ban".

He was "banned" after being warned to not disrupt things and yet he persisted.


We're all "stupid" a hell of a lot of the time and this forum just shows how many "adults" act like self absorbed entitled children.

Has nothing to do with "thinking" but him being a disruptive influence that adds nothing to many conversations.

Anyway, there's no point continuing this as you're just one of the many cry babies that throw out "censorship" when you don't get your way. Carry on and good luck to you.

it's not about being right or wrong, but facilitating honest and worthwhile technical discussions. "bitcoin discussion" is a bit of a cesspool so franky1's anti-core trolling is tolerable, but he shouldn't be allowed to monopolize the technical board. it's not a place for political trolling.

Remove posts that are off topic or derail conversations. If others start posting off topic posts in response to his posts that are off topic, remove those posts, and add a mod note to his post to not respond to the off topic portion of this posts.

Remove posts that are personal insults, or even remove portions of posts that are insults and flames to prevent a flame war.

If the underlying question has been answered, and there is a substantiative, but off topic discussion, either split the thread or let the discussion go off topic.

It is my strong belief that opposing/dissenting viewpoints are very important, and they should be accommodated. I don't think the status quo is the long term scaling solution (the long term solution will probably look something more like LN than the bcash bs), and opposing viewpoints is one of the best, if not the best way to improve upon the status quo.

It shouldn't be necessary for moderators to babysit particular users like that. Such off topic posts have to be removed or edited (it's generally frowned upon to edit posts though) because posting off topic is against forum rules. Starting a flame war is also against forum rules. Why shouldn't we ban people who repeatedly violate forum rules? I don't think it is fair to other posters and to moderators to have to let people violate forum rules and then just clean up after them.

As we see here,
The Detractors of Free Speech rail against Franky1 like he has committed all sorts of various rule breaking,
I have read his posts and even argued with him on some topics.

However as far as breaking any rules , I have seen him break none.
His civility has always been far greater than the majority of posters here.

Greg Maxwell , the cohort of the banking cartels , blockstream, & Axa Group,
the guy who got rich off of limiting transaction capacity in bitcoin and forcing users on the Lightning Network
where they immediately create an fractional reserves by going below the 8th decimal point.

Greg Maxwell decides on his own that Franky1 posts no longer pass his OWN PERSONAL CENSORING.
That is not a rule system, that is a corporate dictatorship.

Now I leave this conversation as I started it.
Anyone that does not yet realize we have all been damaged by this , one day will.

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