The users who are outing scams regularly, and are leaving accurate trust ratings might be a candidate for your custom trust list rather than giving them positive trust. I think in exceptional cases where users are dedicated to busting scams, and have shown that over a few years positive trust could be given. Although, a better suited way of handling it would be putting them on your trust list if you trust them to make good judgement calls, and leave accurate feedback. Of course, if they're just exposing these scams, and aren't leaving trust feedback then they aren't much good on your trust list.

Regular subscription emails get annoying, although well planned, and executed emails can be good. In modern times I think email marketing is getting less, and less effective because it uses a repetition model rather than well timed emails. Don't get me wrong email marketing is still a very good way to get business, but I think for a forum which is sort of trying to separate itself from that area of things a one off email every few years could be something to consider. 

With the funding they're willing to put into advertising, and a long term campaign running on this forum will likely mean they will be a big forum, but a competitor? Depends on how you view it. If you're talking in terms of traffic then they might be a competitor, but quite frankly Bitcointalk.org is my home, and I imagine a lot of other users consider this their home away from home. Its not just a forum anymore, and is something which brings out real passion from its users.

If you compare the history, and passion from its users then Bitcointalk.org will always be the top dog in my eyes, and I'm not going to be using any other. Hell, I don't even use Reddit.

Lets assume that those figures are correct, which they definitely aren't, but lets assume just for arguments sake. I don't know about you guys. but I would much rather a tight knitted community than a community run by the Bitcoin price, spamming the forum, and covered in alternate accounts trying to earn a quick buck now the Bitcoin price is up.

This forum in my opinion has been vital to providing new comers with information about Bitcoin, and has helped Bitcoin grow to where it is. Sure, there's rules on this forum to prevent it from being total chaos, but I think everyone can admit that freedom of speech is encouraged here, and the restrictions in place are always heavily considered before being implemented. Theymos has time, and time again decided to not implement something which limits users to an extent which he thinks effects users unfairly.

Look at the community projects which have been developed around this forum also. Vod, DmdrDmdr, and LoyceV have all developed things relating to the forum out of passion. That's the thing with this forum though users aren't here just because its the most popular Bitcoin forum, but because they're passionate about the forum, and the history of it.

There's various different reasons, but one of the reasons could be compromised accounts which requires admin intervention. From a reporting point of view you wouldn't know this, though.


I know for a fact that the tooth fairy doesn't exist. I mean it depends if the user has any morals or not. From my stand point of view if someone is going to be causing spam on a forum that they're advertising on then that's a red flag. I don't see the best projects doing it that's the point. Litecoin, Grin, and etheruem never had to resort to these bumping services.

This topic has been moved to Trashcan.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5190732.0

Incentivising posting within specific threads. Refer to:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2103690.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=434310.0

Maybe, having users who have had over x amount of good reports against them show up there instead of specifically newbies/Jr members. Patrol is a very useful too, and increasingly so since the addition of merit requirements for jr member, but I'd like to see some of the users show up that have had deleted replies. The only issue I see with that is users might not want to be "audited" publicly like that, and the way around that would be only staff having access to that particular feature.

The great thing about Yahoo's list being public we could probably dig into a lot of those banned accounts history, and establish connections between each one meaning they'd hopefully not be able to abuse future campaigns. Especially, if campaign managers start merging a lot of the names into their own banned list.

Seems like a few users still report hundreds of posts in quick succession now, and again. Plus, there is still fake conversations going on where a lot users got banned. It has probably dipped down, but I would say its not anywhere near a 50% reduction.

Without seeing exact numbers, and judging by the amount of reports than I'm receiving I'd say its pretty close to what it was before, however a lot of users haven't realized the new bumping rules yet, because lets be honest those types of users don't check Meta, and only care about spamming their project up to the top.

There's a lot of users which are decent posters in the campaign, but they are drowned out by the masses of spammers which inevitably get drawn in by such a high paying campaign. I still stand by my original point of view that this will likely take Yahoo a few months to get under control, and hopefully the campaign won't cause too many issues. I've merited users from the crytoTalk campaign also, and for the ones that I come across who are spamming I just message Yahoo if they aren't quite breaking forum guidelines.

That's without considering the plethora of alt accounts which are likely enrolled in the system. You could potentially x10 that amount considering the amount of account farming which was happening before the merit system was introduced. Considering, there's been a few accounts waking up recently would signal towards alternate accounts too.

Most of the users that have posted there have already been banned, but the posts remain.

A lot of the users post in the same threads in the same order. Seems like this bumping service is being used by multiple projects. Some of the posts have been pretty much copied, and pasted with slight variations making me further believe that they are all connected.

Its bad from a spam point of view from the forum, but also a good way for outing scam projects. I'd like to think that any legitimate service would avoid doing this themselves or hiring someone to do it for them.

The spam is certainly still happening, because projects still like to create fake conversations, and reviews of their service which usually turns into unsubstantial "this project is great because it does x, y, and z. Although, the difference now is most of the forum who doesn't venture beyond the first few pages is not seeing it. The spam still exists, but at least the exposure to it has greatly reduced.

Well, let's take a look at Vietnam:

According to some of the cost of living sources


Compared with the average salary:


At current prices, and making 20 posts a day for a week they would be earning $141.4. For arguments sake we'll just say a month is 4 7 day weeks; They would then be earning $565 which would mean they would be earning over the average monthly net salary by a total of $185.65 which is roughly around $2227 more every year.

Vietnam being one of the more expensive third world countries to live in when compared with the likes of Venezuela.

Limiting this coin to older users isn't the way too go that's not what I'm suggesting when I say greatly contributes to the forum or an historical figure within the forum. In a hypothetical example;

A historical figure could be a user who registered six months ago, but squashed one of the highest critical forum security bounties saving the forum from being compromised. As long as they're still active then they would likely be in the running to get a coin. As well as users who are clearly passionate about the forum, and have gone out of their way to make this forum a better place. Its these sorts of things which should be considered when selecting users, and not just based on activity or merit.

I think a combination of the above, and BPIP's recognition system could potentially be combined to determine who has higher priority over others, but again I don't think I want to be involved in the selection process of who gets what coin. I do have users in mind for the coin as I'm sure everyone does. Plus, I'm doing a little historical project which involves the forum a little bit which definitely has brought up users that I wasn't aware of, but having the ultimate decision over who gets it is a very hard decision to make. Plus, its highly likely someone would find a problem with selecting users from the recognition algorithm if I'm in it or even if theymos is in it.  I'd like to avoid conflict of interest as much as possible.

If this was to become a reality, theymos would likely be the best option to pick. Whether he would want too would be another story, but he knows the inner happenings of the forum as well as been here a very long time. I don't think there's any decentralized way of selecting users without it being abused.

An idea that I had was if there was a way of going about getting users to fill in a form (with no personal information) stating that they would be willing to accept a coin without knowing that they'll be getting a coin we could create the serialized numbers equal to their forum url ID which I think would have made a real neat touch.

However, that form could be abused, and trolling could occur. At the moment no manufacturer on the forum has gotten back to me saying they're interested except for Denarium. However, they are yet to confirm if they would  be 100% interested, and just told me they would have to get back to me. Which either means, we wait for another significant date of the forum, and plan well in advance this time or we look elsewhere off the forum which in my opinion takes away from the whole community coin philosophy. I'm hoping Yogg's project will be a significant effort, and will hopefully plug the hole if this doesn't materialize.

When we consider active users, banned, and those who are considered scammers by the majority then there isn't a whole lot of users left. No where near 0ver 300k let alone 2.7 million. A digital coin would not have the same impact, depending on how you're thinking this would be done if it was a coin on your forum profile then it just becomes a sort of badge. Which users are going to show as status instead of having something they're proud about. I'd be chuffed with a physical coin with the Bitcointalk.org seal of approval on. I don't know why it is, but I feel something for this forum, and its not just a forum or community that I'm a part of anymore. Its something which I'm passionate about, and believe has been a fundamental part of Bitcoin.

I'd disagree, I feel like having a physical collectible to hang up on the wall or whatever you want to do would be better than something digital.

Expanding onto o_e_l_e_o's answer about severe issues like malware, and plagiarism which should always be reported. Also, take into consideration the last activity of the thread. If the thread is still very much alive, and being viewed as well as replied too then I would be more inclined to report there, because if its still active users are likely reading back at them replies, and I feel its important to remove the spam, and "lesser" issues.

Generally, a few months is probably still considered high priority in my book, but it gets lower, and lower priority once we are hitting 2+ years ago. By all means, if you're reading through a thread from a few years ago, and see things which should be reported then go for it. However, I wouldn't make go out of your way to report from a few years ago.

They'll be dealt with the same way though, so we are not going to mark things bad just because they are from a few years ago.

Although, I'd love to offer this to as many users as possible it starts to lose its sentimental value as soon as we start increasing the amounts of coins. In my opinion, and I know there's going to be a difference of an opinion on this matter, but only those that have contributed greatly to the forum or are of historic value to the forum should be eligible.

If I can make this work then I'd be more than willing to organize other significant dates such as 20th anniversary. This could be an ongoing thing, and therefore an encouragement to the newer users who might not be eligible yet.  

The satoshi quote idea is a good one, and hopefully if it comes to the community designing it some users will keep that in mind. I've just got to find a manufacturer which is open to the idea. Unfortunately, I don't have the pulling power of theymos to begin with, and the fact that its starting off as an unofficial project I feel has been an issue, because the only criteria I can give to them is if its good enough theymos might bless it as official.

I've already come to terms with the fact that this isn't going to be readily available for the anniversary, but if we can get it announced, and development started that's something. I've had some users come to me with some good ideas, and some with a little advice. All I need is to find a manufacturer which has the same passion for the forum as myself, and other users who care for the community.

Also, I think its worth mentioning that I'm not just going to go with someone just because they are up for it. I want quality, and I want to incorporate as much as the communities input into the coin as possible, and the right person for this will support that. I wished I opened this thread a little after theymos' initial idea proposal.

According to BPIP Bitcointalk.org currently has 132,815 users which are active (logged in within 3 months). Over half of them probably fall into these groups: Registered this year, red trust, bounty hunters, lurkers, and non English users. Although, ideally I don't want to limit this to those who speak only English so it might be worth contacting moderators of the local section to see if there's anyone eligible. Apart from that most of the users will not be eligible for this coin. We want this coin to be something which is sought after, and to reward the highest contributing users as well as some historic users of the forum.

I feel like 500 coins would probably be the sweet point in terms of not too rare, and not just handing them out. Although, I haven't done enough research yet to see how many users would be eligible compared to my criteria. Manufacturers might be more willing to make higher quantity coins obviously too. 

It's fairly straightforward to work out who the merit sources are on this forum by looking at the merit received, and given. If someone was dedicated to pestering merit sources they would be able to figure it out. Although, I haven't had too many users message me to merit them. Only a few now, and again.