Just look at the comments on the link The Pharmacist referenced. Comments like "How do I rank up on Bitcointalk" and these are the type of users who are the problem right now. They don't care about Bitcointalk, Bitcoin or even cryptocurrencies. They won't even look at the rules, yet they are earning a living by spamming the forum. Like if you are getting paid a decent rate at your job that normally motivates you to perform better at it but, it just seems to have the opposite effect here.

I didn't realize that people have gone so far to make tutorials on youtube though. I've seen a few steemit articles but, judging by the views on that youtube video it seems like this is a pretty in demand topic. 

Which is exactly why I won't support it automatically which a lot of people seem to be doing. They might have legitimate reasons, but it just seems like a knee jerk reaction. People really need to make their own decision in this rather than blindly following people they may admire.

Because at this point everything has been repeated. It doesn't deserve merit when it's already been discussed about 10 times this week. If you have a genuine new discussion and you answer the questions intelligently then you'll get merits. Doesn't mean you'll get it every time you answer one.

theymos/cyrus. Although, a mod will likely be able to answer your question. Judging where you posted this though (Service Discussion) you likely haven't followed the rules. They aren't likely to answer personal messages either as they have hundreds per day if not more.

Yeah in terms of being hacked it's almost always the users fault for poor security practice rather than the software being at fault. Unless, it's their fault because their database got hacked then you can't really complain. Although, they would likely be responsible if they a hack did occur.

Seems a lot of work to add manual signature campaign managers when there are better options out there as suggested by hilariousandco. Plus, without a doubt if theymos was in charge of setting who can be campaign managers then people would claim that the system is centralized and being abused. It may sound stupid, but people will claim that. The paid signature gets rid of that. It means everyone can aspire to be a campaign manager if they wanted, and anyone could make money from a signature if they are willing to invest in it.

Why would you use blockchain.info locally though? There's better options out there. Blockchain isn't a very well coded wallet and what often happens is people send the wrong fees because of their automatic system which estimates the fees to send. Of course, it can be double checked by the user, but unfortunately with an automated system like that people just assume it's correct.

Doesn't sound like you need a programmer or even someone to recover the private keys. You need someone to look at the hard drive and see if anything is salvageable, specifically the wallet.dat. Without that you aren't going to get back into the funds I'm sorry. Consult someone who you trust and also specializes in recovering hard drives.

You need either of these two things:
- Private key
- Wallet.dat

If you have none of these then it's impossible to crack it (wallet.dat) and it's impossible to import it (private key).

I think theymos cares more about the quality of the forum than the money that the forum is earning. You could argue that the less traffic, less adverts bought and that means the forum staff get paid less, but I'm sure they don't care either. If we got rid of the spamming maybe we woouldn't even need that many moderators. Paid signatures are the way to go I think personally.

Even, if that's correct you still posted in a mega thread. Plus, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3114353.msg35278308#msg35278308
That's still in Bitcoin discussion and is considered a mega thread. Some of your replies are fine, but not of exceptional quality and probably don't justify any merits, but you'll likely earn merit if you make quality replies which haven't been repeated already just don't expect to earn 100 in one day as that's just not plausible.

I'm not sure that I agree with this though. I appreciate WikiLeaks, but honestly just because their account got banned I don't think it's deserving of a community wide "blockade" based just on this. Of course, there are definitely other factors to consider when dealing with coin base.

I don't use Coinbase, but it's very likely in their terms and services that they can terminate an account without any explanation why. Also, we probably don't know the full story here and possibly WikiLeaks did violate their terms and conditions. Even, if they didn't coinbase are well in their rights to do so. I think I remember this issue being brought up in the service discussion section quite often that peoples accounts were getting shut down for no reason, but no one kicked up a fuss then and just assumed the user was in the wrong.

Tell me then what's considered a big investor? 11 million USD seems a very lot to me and something that the majority of us wouldn't even get in the 2/3/4 etc lifetimes. Remember, the limited amount of Bitcoin it doesn't really depend on investors as much as traditional currencies because it can be mined instead of investing USD.

11 million is a drop in the ocean for GBP and other currencies, but that's just because of the amount of it available. Bitcoin is much more limited in that regard.

You've posted in the megathreads on Bitcoin discussion. Of course no one's going to merit you there as it's already been answered with the same things over and over. It's unlikely that you added anything new to the discussion and anyone who does have merit to give isn't likely to be looking to give it in those threads.

Source? 'Serious' amounts of money has always been invested in Bitcoin. Take the Winklevoss twins for an example. They apparently invested millions into it very early on in it's life. In fact they invested 11 million dollars into Bitcoin which is an exceptional amount: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/winklevoss-twins-bitcoin-billions-facebook-mark-zucherberg-lawsuit-a8090921.html

I only see a few benefits of online wallets such as blockchain.info, but I see a lot more downsides. It's probably the least secure way of storing Bitcoin. Yet I would estimate the majority of users actually use it for storing large amounts, because it doesn't require an investment like hardware wallets and is easily and quickly set up.

I believe admins can only see deleted posts, although moderators may have access to the number of posts that have been deleted via a report. Although, if you are reporting an account note down it's name and archive their post history at the time of the report. If you come across them again then report and include the archive. The staff can then decide it's fate.

I've started doing this for full time members and above as the other ranks are easy to achieve and would likely result in a waste of time.

There aren't too many reasons to support war in fact I'm also 100% against the idea of war in the majority of cases. WW1 & WW2 were probably justified and needed to happen. However, others may argue there are benefits of war; For example, if we look at WW1 and the technological advancements excluding weapons which were made because of the war:

- Mobile X-ray machine
Before the war wounded soldiers were often removed from the battlefield and transported back home to get evaluated or medics diagnosed incorrectly on site resulting in soldiers being mistreated. The mobile X-ray machine allowed medics to identify breaks and the like on site and be able to offer medical care based on the results. These are now used around the world in different clinics. For example, if you are bedridden in a hospital then nurses will now come to you and perform a X-ray.

- Satellite communication
You might recall hearing about messages being delivered via pigeon, telegrams (which were invented in the American civil war or radios which were not very reliable and could be tapped into very easily by simply being on the same channel. Radios also had a certain distance in which they wouldn't be able to transmit to each other.
Of course satellites are used for all sorts of things now including being used by everest base camp to get medical care to climbers who are suffering with Cerebral hypoxia and getting them helicopter evacuation down to lower levels. Without the invention of satellite communication expeditions such as Everest, K2 and the like would be much more risky than it is today.

- Hydrophones
Primarily used to locate U-boats these devices were designed to be used underwater to listen for sounds underneath the surface. These are now being used for various different things including locating submarines below the surface and surveying the oceans. For example, these devices are used to monitor whales within the ocean.

-Penicillin
Probably one of the most breakthrough discoveries at the time which has been deemed a super drug and saved many peoples lives. Imagine a world without penicillin. Infections which penicillin now treats these days were originally fatal. Penicillin was originally discovered in 1869 but, if it wasn't for WW2 then the effectiveness of the antibacterial drug in the world. Yeah we have alternatives for people who are allergic to Penicillin but, at the time this substance saved several thousands of soldiers dying from infection as well as those who had infections in hospitals, care homes and at home.

This isn't even including the advancements made to airplanes (jet engine), air control communication, Nuclear power,  Enigma computer and ultra sound. Plus the improvements made to engines used in land vehicles.

Beyond what has already been discussed the only real benefit I can see from war is the technological advancements which are made. Especially within the medical field. You could also look at the cold war between America and Russia and probably argue that we wouldn't have landed on the moon (as soon as we did) and build a space shuttle capable of doing that if it wasn't for the massive dick measuring competition these two countries were having.

Is it a equal trade? Killing thousands of people for advancing medical care such as Penicillin which has saved thousands? It depends on the mentality that you have. Whether saving the majority is better than a select few. It's the typical dilemma where you are given a decision to make on which rail would pick the with three people tied to or one person. There's probably not a perfect answer to this, and war probably isn't justified ever. But, we shouldn't ignore the benefits which do come from war whether it's justified or not.

Yes, but this isn't a reason to support war. In fact you might argue that this is a reason to not support war as it encourages greed and dominance. For example, if you asked people about monopolies in the business world people would more than likely say they are bad and small businesses should be given a chance to compete. Well, if the USA declared war on a smaller country to gains it's power, profits and strategical position is that really a good thing?

This is why World War happened. A coalition was formed against German forces and their allies to prevent them from gaining superior control. Of course, there was other things like eradicating a race etc. This is why I feel that in this particular situation war was justified. It was preventing another country from eradicating a race, and taking out several countries.

You are probably right from the defendants view. Although, flip that around and try to support the country which is attacking for what is probably for political gain, or power. There's two sides and it's people shouldn't support their country declaring war just for power, greed or what ever.

The only way would be actively looking at personal messages which I think isn't ever going to happen and I'm sure a lot of people wouldn't be happy about it if they did. Then account sellers/buyers will just encrypt their messages.

Alright, it would restrict some users because they are lazy and can't come up with any good content, but that wouldn't stop many. Like I said as long as they can get a pay check they'll be willing to do it.

Have you ever tried finding volunteers before that would perform a job which wouldn't bring up a lot of hassle? A moderator needs to not abuse their power which is hard to come by these days. especially when theymos and this community values freedom of speech.

Mods are already rewarded based on the amount of work they do. Not to be confused with a "Salary" though.

If a local section needs a moderator ie has a lot of spam and a lot of people reporting without them getting dealt with you can bring this discussion up within that local board and have a sort of election. theymos might then heed this advice and appoint a moderator.

I would also argue that the merit system is working, and will eventually be a little bit better once more merit sources have been allocated. Remember, the merit system isn't to remove spam, but to prevent those who post low quality accounts from ranking up. It does act as a deterrent of making low quality posts for those who want to rank up.

There's other factors to it. For example, Shorena had the most reports and held that record for a very long time, but was never approached. Others below him were made staff because they benefited the forum most by either reporting in sections which wasn't getting dealt with or were reporting inside a timezone which no one else is actively dealing with reports. At the end it comes down to whether theymos thinks you are appropriate.

Of course the more you report the more you'll be likely to hit these timezones that no one is moderating in.

Alternate accounts are allowed, and aren't tagged by DefaultTrust unless they are abusing with said alts.

Yeah, the Technical Support is for discussion about the Bitcoin client created by Satoshi. That's why other clients such as Electrum get moved to their own section. I imagine this is the reason it got changed from "Technical Support" to "Bitcoin Technical Support". You may be running a node on that notebook but, the primary topic is about power supplies and not discussion about the node itself.



Unfortunately, there's no other section which it would fit in better.