Bitcoin Forum

I was reading the thread by Cyrus for TheBitcoinTalkShow^[1] and got inspired about how other tools, like blogging, can be used to spread the word about Bitcoin, directly as seen here on bitcointalk.

Here is my question - Who would be interested in reading a weekly or biweekly blog (mini-series) about what goes on here on the forum?

As I imagine it, the blog would comprise notable posts within that week, summarized into a quick read. It would be presented in a fun way, with some featured series posts about certain members, as well as historical content for posts not as publicized as popular ones, like the BTC for pizza or Hodl thread.
On this blog, members who missed out on the forum for that week can have a quick resource to know what went down, without having to read through the entire forum, and with links to the highlighted posts there, for those who wish to read more about a particular story.

This can also help people who are not on the forum, or who find the forum layout off-putting to find out about what goes on here.

Expected Cons:
1. Compiling dozens of posts into a blog post could prove challenging and if not done well can exceed the attention span of most readers.
2. Majority of frequent forum users may not be interested.
3. How to include local languages in.

Hopeful suggestions:
1. What platform would be most appropriate to use.
2. What sort of content should be highlighted more.
3. Any idea on how this can work better.

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This is just a spur of the moment idea, and I would not be surprised if some are not in favor of it. Whether or not I go ahead with it is dependent on the response to the poll.

[1] TheBitcoinTalkShow (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5351302.msg57552909#msg57552909)

- Jay -

It'd be a nice idea to have a emailed newsletter every month or so maybe, a Web based version could be a good addition too.

I'm around the forum quite a bit and don't think there's that much that goes on to be reported every two weeks. You'd have to be careful about not feeding trolls or giving them a platform too which might be hard.

Local languages could probably be included by asking someone if they'd help you translate posts from the popular sections or speak for them and give you a summary (especially mods) - but it might be something that could be arranged by the community for that section too and not included in the initial version - it could be placed on the local board itself then too.

The idea is interesting. Everyone has their favorite section to post and read. Most of us only read what we are interested in. That's why sometimes we miss exciting things. For example, I do not visit the project development board and Bitcoin discussion that much. Most of the time, I miss some exciting discussions on those boards. If Bitcointalk blogs cover those, sure! It will be awesome.

BTW, You will need a whole separate blog just to Cover reputation sub-board dramas. A lot of Drama is already happening there.
WO is another thread. You will need another blog for WO.

That'd be cool, but is there really an advantage of creating a separate blog, versus just creating a typical topic(probably on the Meta section)?

Instead of having a separate blog for your ideas, let me show you where your ideas can be implemented.

Visit Statistics Center (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=stats), there are some points that have been shown so far as forum statistics, then think about a development where your idea can be incorporated into the next point after a few points that have existed so far:

• General Statistics
• Top 10 Posters
• Top 10 Boards
• Top 10 Topics (by Replies)
• Top 10 Topics (by Views)
• Top Topic Starters
• Most Time Online
• Your Idea
• Other Think > example like Drama of the Month
• etc

I think this is the best advice if many people have the same idea as you. I'm not against it, but if it's done on a third party platform outside the forum then I might not like it. Think of something that can be implemented in forum, it's much safer for every user.

I have subscribed to some newsletters before, but never created my own list. I would explore that option, or maybe not, as the poll is not overwhelmingly in support of it.

Much of the drama would be uninteresting to a non forum user, some of which I hope to reach with this idea.

Users who are not on the forum can follow up on it.

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Also, I just noticed that if I create a poll and set it to Only show the results after someone has voted, even I, the poll creator cannot see the results without voting. I am not sure if this is an SMF feature, but it would be best for the creator to be able to see results without contributing to the results.

- Jay -

If the point is to spread the word about Bitcoin as well as this forum, then it should be done somewhere else and not here. It seems weird to talk about Bitcoin and Bitcointalk in a new thread on Bitcointalk.

If the idea was to summarize the events that occurred in the last week, I would agree with you on making a new thread on Bitcointalk and talking about it there.

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I would focus on a few boards only.
One segment could be about the most important things that happened in the Bitcoin technical boards. If a new interesting Bitcoin-related project pops up in Project Development, it should definitely be mentioned. I would stay away from Reputation and Scam Accusations. If you want to bring in some new people, you don't want them to read how we have plenty of scams on Bitcointalk, come and check them out. Discussions from Meta and B&H should also be considered as well as important stuff going on in the local subs.

For someone like me who spends a lot of time here anyhow, I wouldn't be all that interested in reading the blog. I think the target audience therefore should be changed from existing users, and aim to bring new users in. Since, this sounds more like a newsletter for existing users, but I can't imagine that'll be all that popular giving time. The novelty will wear off.

That said I can see it being useful for users that don't send a lot of time on here, especially not daily users. As for the local languages I imagine you'd find prominent figures in the local sections willing to do some work for you if this did catch on. So, initially it might be difficult to be inclusive with the local sections, but over time, and will popularity you probably wouldn't have much of a problem with it.

I wouldn't be interested to read blog that is released weekly, and I doubt there would be much to write about in this short amount of time.
That doesn't mean that I am totally against the Blog idea, but it needs to be carefully planned and maybe written once per month.
I can't follow all discussions in forum, so I would be interesting to check the forum news and see if I missed something important.
btw anyone knows what is happening with Cyrus TheBitcoinTalkShow project and is next episode coming out?

Or we could combine both, adding top news release in forum top bar with clicks directing to separate bitcointalk.org/blog page.
Difference is that you can't write anything on blog page, it's just informative post with stats and source links in forum.

Looks like not all features in it are disabled, most are still active but only one feature not mentioned by indah rezqi that hasn't been updated since late 2017 (maybe it's been disabled). I just finished reviewing it.

I don't really know if a blog for Bitcointalk is necessary or not, but for me it's not. Since I'm mostly active and reading stuff around the forum, then I don't think I'll be visiting that blog just to read some stuff. But it's also good that I never thought about it before, but I don't expect this idea to be widely approved by users.

Definitely not needed. However, it could potentially attract new users if it was implemented the correct way. Although, I don't think many prospective users would be all that interested prior to signing up to the forum. So, I'm not completely sold on the idea. One thing for sure is; it wouldn't hurt to do something like this.

I know Cyrus was planning on doing videos highlighting top threads or whatever, I just don't think it's entertaining enough, especially for a video format. A blog might have slightly more success, but ultimately people aren't going to be reading your blog, they'd much rather read the material direct. So, I think it all depends on how's it implemented I think.

The idea is not that bad, since this will look like a newsletter,  i would love to subscribe too. But at least give users a dynamic choice like what board they want to subscribe too, a choice if they want to receive weekly or monthly and other stuff too.
Content should have like what statistics center have like mentioned, also like most viewed, most merited, most replied, etc. on certain time ^{(weekly, monthly)}
You can use ninjastic.space^[1] api data by tryninja for sorting out anything you need.

[1] Ninjastic.space - BitcoinTalk Post/Address archive + API (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5273824.0)

Why should it be done somewhere else, really? Because that's really not weird at all. Starting a new blog for Bitcointalk's publicity isn't going to be effective in the first place. If a good amount of publicity is what we want, then guest posting on crypto news/blog sites is the way to go.

Because even though the idea is to summarize what's been happening on the forum in the last week, I don't see it being that attractive for regular forum users. Chances are, they already know about it and they have seen the discussions when they happened live. But if written elsewhere and advertised properly, new users could see it and go: there is an interesting bitcoin forum called Bitcointalk. I am going to register there and check it out personally.     

Yes, but don't you have to pay for such advertisement? Unless that money comes from the forum's budget, no one is going to pay it out of their own pockets. 

Personally, I like to focus on visual content. Even though I have been absent for several days from the forum in the previous days, knowing the news a week ago will not mean much, as most of the Bitcoin news is related to real time and the analyzes are only related to old news.
I'll be interested if there's breaking news or important articles, just like Quora email notices.

I'm interested as long as it doesn't force users to subscribe to the content in question.

As someone who spends a significant amount of time on the road, I'd probably enjoy it more if it also came with a podcast version ^{[for links, I can always refer to your blog post at a later time]}.

I would not be willing to read the reputation drama in a summarized format in the form of blogs, rather i would prefer to read my favorite sections in full. You will be missing the WO conversations and a lot of other things. Also, we have services sections, a digital goods section, political section debates, and then signature campaign updates. That will be too much stuff to be covered in a one or two page blog.

Personally, since I'm an avid reader of the forum, I wouldn't be interested in a blog dealing with forum happenings.  In fact if I wanted to learn what Theymos or the mods have to say about things, or about any forum developments that I might have missed in sections I have on ignore, the Youtube channel would have been perfect.  I'm still confused as to why so much time and effort went into creating that channel only for it to be so quickly abandoned (or at least it appears to be abandoned).

And certainly I can't speak for other members, but I'm betting that the vast number of them who are only here to earn money through bounties/campaigns/whatever would be about as interested in reading a blog as they are the posts in whatever threads they're posting in--which is zilch.

So my vote is for no blog.  If the Youtube channel is any indication of interest in extra-forum stuff, it'd be dead on arrival.

I hope you like about this one. Lol

Wall of fame / shame. Shit posts so bad that they are actually funny (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4564216.0)

Having a blog is one idea, but not something urgent. I also have the same thought as you where it is very possible that this blog will be abandoned because people can always read and find it in the forum.

So what's the essence of bitcointalk forum users to read in summary, something they've already read In details?
Even if I had missed out on some important happenings, I can't read a summary. Nobody will. I'd prefer proof-reading from the context itself.

Mk4 has said something I'd love to stand for; if it'll be done ,then that should be outside to Fish some NEWBIES but , who's gonna pay for the expenses it'll incure? That's the same question.
Cheers
Sandra 👩‍🦱

Even if it ends up being some newsletter type of content, it's not that big of a problem to create a brand new throwaway email that you can use for that purpose only. Even if the database gets leaked/hacked, you can abandon it easily because it's not used for anything else that is important to you. I am just guessing that you don't want to subscribe to anything for possible privacy concerns.   

The Youtube channel as an indication might show some level of potential for off forum activity. It takes time to build traffic on a channel, and after about 4 or 5 videos, there was decent enough engagements. If that was consistent effort, it could be way more popular, within a year to 6 months.

A blog would not have the on forum interest that the Youtube project has, so engagements would not be replicated.

As I half expected, the members here are not really enthused by the idea.
If I do push on with it (cause I have a strong interest to write about what is written here :D), it would be more of a pet project, and I will probably not announce it here. All feed-backs are appreciated.

- Jay -

Jay look, if you'll be able to put up something that's structurally magnificent, about the forum dev, very fascinating discussions that will incure traffic  - all set up in a couple of videos, then I think having some traffic isn't a big deal.

There are other necessities to which the idea should be nestled, like; how the videos gonna look like? Are you gonna be presenting live and telling 'em what they'll wanna hear or are you using words to do so?

How bout the cost? Anyways,you're gonna have that in control ;D

Cheers
Sandra 👩‍🦱

I voted yes, because after watching TheBitcoinTalkShow, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the content. Based on that, I'd definitely be interested in reading some kind of forum "digest".

Some weeks are slower than others though, so coming up with decent content on a strict schedule will be tough. It might be wiser to adopt a model where you accumulate content and then release it on a semi-regular basis.

Even though I'd enjoy reading it and catching up on stuff I missed (especially from boards I don't post in), I think it would be pretty thankless work, unfortunately. Because I'm not the one doing it, I say go for it! :D