[Real Performance VS. Advertised Performance]

This is a review of my experience with the M20S 65 TH miner by MicroBT. This miner is built using 12nm chips and comes with a built-in PSU. I have allowed it to run monitored for a few days to get a good baseline for power consumption. The average temperature for the environment would be approximately 27 degrees Celsius.

Real Performance VS. Advertised Performance


This model boasts an advertised efficiency of 48 W/TH or .048 J/GH @ 65TH +/- 5% drawing 3120 W +/- 10%
Real world tests came in within spec as can be seen above. I am seeing 65 TH @ 3232 W giving us an efficiency of .0497 J/GH

This is a pass for the M20S model, it delivered as promised.

Ease of use
Install

It doesn't get much easier to set up than this. You are responsible for 2 connections. The first being the network cable which connects to Ethernet port. The second is the power cable. The miner requires a cable with a C19 connector on the power cable. I used a 12 gauge cable rated to 20 amps - Pictured is the supplied cable
Note you will need to ensure you have a circuit within spec for the PSU. This means a minimum line voltage of 200V and maximum of 260V. Confirm your particular models specs as PSU's may change.

Login and Configuration
Once you've accessed the miners IP on your network you will log in using these credentials - Username - admin, Password - admin.
Select the "Configuration" tab and then select "CGminer Configuration" from the drop down menu. Here you will enter your preferred pools information as provided by them. There is a power mode tab - Low Power function is not available at this time. I will update this if it becomes available.

Noise

This Miner is louder than anything I have run before. Using an App on my phone I received ~ 68 db near the miner on the inlet side. Readings taken from the Exhaust side were spiking as high as 78 db. A more accurate meter would be useful, but if you want to use this in a residential environment you need to consider sound proofing. It can be done as evidenced by my setup, but I would not recommend running this in a residential or home capacity without a plan for the noise.

Packaging and Physical Specs

The miner arrived in standard packaging for MicroBT miners. I saw no damage and everything felt secure as I tilted the machine to listen for loose or damaged components. It is larger and heavier than the M10's but overall has a similar appearance. See images below for unpacking.



Advertised Specs

• Hashrate - 65 TH/S +/- 5%
• Power Consumption - 3120 W +/- 10%
• Efficiency - 48W/TH
• Size: 39cm Length x 15.5cm Width x 24cm height
• Weight - 10.75 kg
• Operating Temperatures - -5C - 35C
• Power Specs - 200V-240V  ** MicroBT English site rates up to 300V. I will seek clarification.

Note about the Built-in PSU - Advertised is the P21 PSU, mine appears to be a P20 model, which I will inquire about.

Manufacturer: MicroBT - https://www.microbt.com/
Distributors: PangolinMiner - https://pangolinminer.com/ ; Whatsminer - https://whatsminer.net/


My personal opinion - Overall I am pleased with this miner, and would buy another of the M20 series. It delivered on spec, and on days that have gone above 30 degrees Celsius I haven't had any issues. I am disappointed that it didn't have the Low Power mode available with this batch, and hope it will become available. On the warm days I mentioned it would be nice to have the ability to change the power mode.

[Payment Addresses to be provided once full]

What are you waiting for?  .1 BTC grab your spots now.

Payment Addresses to be provided once full

First attempt fell flat so I'm back with the same prize of .1BTC there are 32 spots available, take as many spots as you'd like. I will then select 1 Block after the raffle is full. That Block will determine which board we will be using, the next block will determine the winner of the Raffle. See Post 2 for boards and available spots

Details

• Prize - Winner will receive .1 BTC *** - Transaction fee will be paid by me.
• Cost per spot - .00345 BTC. This buys 1 spot in this Raffle
• Payment - I will provide each participant an address to send their funds to once all spots are filled. This saves on TX fees, and coordinating refunds if the Raffle doesn't fill up.
• Escrow - If by the end of the raffle the consensus is that participants would like an escrow to hold either the Prize(currently held by me) or Tickets, that can be arranged. I reserve the right to choose the escrow from this forum. Darkstar_, OgNasty, or minerjones are my preferred choices. I have not yet approached either of them about this, if they are unavailable another suitable forum escrow would be chosen. *** In this case the Escrow fee will be split between winner and myself.

How it works

• Pick your spot - Confirm it is available by reviewing the list below and previous comments. Whoever requests the spot first will receive it, subsequent posters will be given the option to select an open spot if any are remaining after going through valid claims. If you edit a post please strikethrough the original comment for clarity.
• When all spots are taken I will provide a payment address - I will sign a message here when I do so.
• I will select a future block that will be for determining the winner using the last character of the hash of that block.
  

** By selecting a spot you are committing to pay for the selected spot(s) chosen. This commitment will be for 48 hours from the time posted, in case the raffle doesn't generate interest.

Edited: Block from board in description at top for second block.

Well some may be familiar with my winter mining setup thread, the cool times have passed and I'm back to the grind with full electricity costs and heat management. Then there's the ever dreaded noise that can accompany these shiny little beasts. I had recently completed a trial run on my tunnel for exhaust and noise reduction; and am super happy with it as a working design. Running are 3 M10's and 1 M20S, off 2 basic Dlink routers. I have 2 30 Amp circuits and 1 20 Amp circuit supplying the Miners, all 240V.

Warning *** It's not pretty, but it works  

The Tunnel

What you are seeing is the 4 miners directly on the concrete slab of my garage to work as a heatsink. The insulation above/near the intakes is rigid pink to avoid fibers being sucked in the intake - I do have to adjust the left side or cut some rigid to cover that. There is roughly a 6-9 inch gap in front of the miners before I laid down 4" insulation so as to not restrict the exhaust of the miners. Sides are all 6" Mineral wool and the ceiling of the tunnel is a mix between 6" and 4"; no specific reason here just used what I had. The reason my Tunnel uses the mineral wool insulation is for the sound dampening effect it has by being a porous surface. I directed exhausts towards the walling and even created a little bend in the tunnel itself to try and improve the overall length of the path the sound waves might bounce. The reason I used metal and mineral wool for everything in front of the miners is strictly a fire precaution should the worst ever happen. The airflow is all there as well, the sides are filtered intakes. There will be minimal recirculation of air as this exhausts to the open and the heat goes up while the garage sucks off the ground level unimpeded. Don't mind the sizing of the filter I had intended to place the tunnel in a different spot, but made due with a sweet fold job.

So the list of materials here is all stuff I had a round the house apart from a 20$ shelf and 12$ in wire. Here's the list of materials you can see; you might even recognize some parts from the winter setup.

Mineral Wool Insulation - 6 battons of R20, and 3 1/2 of R14  Left over from renovations.
2 shelving racks - 1 I had previously from the winter mining setup, 1 I grabbed cheap as I like the idea of a wire rack shelf in case I needed to change the design.
25" of wire - Just some threaded wire I used to support the insulation resting on top.
Duct tape - How could I not involve it in one of my projects, would almost be sacrilegious. It's really only there for the filters at the moment. Like I said working design and what not.







Above you can see various images of the tunnel as it was first laid out and is currently operating. The meter readings are done off my phone and from left to right are - Directly in Inlet near miners, Within 3 feet of the inlet standing, Outside 5 feet from the exhaust of the tunnel, and directly at the tunnel exhaust.

This is a far cry from where I started June of 2017 with 3 working S5's and one S4+, overheating in my garage as I had little concept of the importance of heat exhausting. Up until recently I had my 3 M10's on a rack pointing into my yard out the window. This was okay but I could hear the miners within say 60 feet, mostly because I knew to listen for the humm/buzz. It annoyed me more than the family but I hated being 30 some feet away listening to them with the kids; felt a little like a jerk lol. Now I'm not worried about the noise at all. I have 2 neighbors within 60 feet of this garage door and I had all sorts of dampening plans for the driveway that I can essentially scrap.

All that remains for my adjustments are a few extra connectors to ensure a good hour of cutting for anyone trying to enter the garage unnoticed - currently I'd say it would take about 25 minutes if they're prepared. Most days my car is parked within about 18 inches of the door not allowing much chance of entry. I also ran out of screen mesh that I want to put on the outside to reduce visibility and seal up the last few spots bugs could enter.

So I came across a couple posters who are clearly just posting to promote a cryptowebsite. They are not engaging the community or in a conversation, they are pasting part of a story and linking back to their site.

Here is the 4 profiles I found actively doing this appears they may have started small then added more accounts. -
Madhu10 -  June 25/19
Nimisha27 - June 26/19
Ankur21 -  June 27/19
Sakshi07 - June 25/19
zecoex - Earliest activity but all posts are still referencing the site - May 18/19

So at most all that can be done is reporting them to be moved to the appropriate section of the forum. Is there anything else that can be put in place, or am I just overthinking this. It just feels like more low quality spam that isn't adding anything. I wouldn't care if they were at least paraphrasing and trying to start a real conversation.

So I've been opening up one of my M10's lately, and it was the PSU swap that got me reminiscing. I haven't had 100's of machines pass through my hands or anything but have had to repair or attempt to at least 1 of each model I've owned. So I thought it would be fun to hear from miners past and present about their own expletive laden moments while repairing some hardware. Feel free to throw in some of the software side of things that were equally infuriating.

#1 - This by far still stands out in my mind every time I struggle. It was the T9+ and removing the ribbon cables from the hashboards. I remember 1 was bad enough but I had to remove a second just to be able to swap them around for troubleshooting. Lucky me got to remove the 3rd one as well because it turned out to be the troubled board. Finger tips were numb after the first.

I mention the PSU up top because I was reminded of it while disconnecting the M10 exhaust fan for the PSU swap. Swore a few times and looked for this invisible clip that had to be there because there was obviously something holding this in place with the force of a god.

I'll give an honorable mention to the Avalon 5 pin cables. Every now and then I get one that just seems to stick and grab hold. Then I was always worried I would yank something loose, hasn't happened so far, but every time I take down the 741's there's that moment.

I've been wondering lately if managers have been thinking about adjusting who they allow in campaigns with the new Flag system. In the past 99% of users with Negative trust from a DT member were not eligible for the majority of campaigns.
Some allowed certain users to take a shot despite negative feedback, most of the time these cases had no issues and it was more personal feedback than anything. So now we have the Flag system, and no trust score. I'm just curious as to what people plan to change if anything, as not all flags will have feedback left, and vice versa. I know it really comes down to optics for the company paying for advertising, so I was inclined to assume most will still deny users with Negative feedback, as well as Flagged users.

Will it matter if a flag has become inactive? Seeing as they can still be found under the profile just not displayed prominently.

I am creating this as my landing page for when I flag a user to warn Newbies under the new flag system.

Reasons you are flagged

Selling in a locked, self moderated thread.
Deleting valid concerns or comments from a self moderated sales thread
Refusing to Escrow
Previous unresolved scam accusation - New addition June 14


I do not flag all users for these reasons, I do so on a case by case basis. I will also add to this list as time goes on. If it turns out this is allowed feel free to add your reasons here and if I agree will add them to the OP, if your values are inline with this it can be a communal landing page. If that's permitted. - This appears to be permitted but it is still advisable to create your own if you are inclined in case someone wants to have a dialogue.

I plan on only mostly using this page for 1-5 post throwaway accounts for generic warnings based on the above reasons.

Flags created under this banner

Tineems - Reference Link
Devil11 -  Link to unresolved scam accusation
bbcwholesell  -Flag- Link to open scam accusation
Rico80 - Flag
Dimitri10k- flag-Reference thread

Other reasons with explanation
mikelsmith2020      Flag Creating Duplicate [ANN] for Adkinsbet to scam through

Catchy Edgy Sales Name goes here

Note the Double Horizontal Rule will represent a new post for this.


This thread is just being created as an example of how people with a wide range of products can use the forum without it getting spammy. The consideration is that I don't want it to have a negative impact on their ability to market here; especially when the product is suited to the space. I mostly had this in mind with hardware brokers but it could be applied to many different sales offerings. This would be their "Sales Landing Page", I would personally crosslink it to a separate Service thread - and make note that questions and answers as well as discussion can happen there. This thread I would make a self moderated and Locked topic, as it should serve as a catalogue of all offerings and not necessarily the place for discussion. Note: I would not use those features on the Service thread as you want to remain open and transparent, just my opinion.

The OP has essentially a table of contents linking to as many sub categories for listings you want to create. The sub categories are the first posts in the thread, so reserve as many as you think you may need, and probably a few extras. These sub categories will link to each of your follow up [WTS] or [WTB] offerings. This makes sales threads no more than 2 clicks away from the product they are looking for.

These paragraphs would be a good place to explain how to contact you about particular offerings. For brokers it would proably be a good idea to explain how the sales process works from this point forward. Any information you find relevant to the potential customer. Then starts the labor intensive part of grouping your offerings. I'm only creating a small sample to give an overall ideal of usability. If you found you OP growing to large and the lists getting long you could put them in columns or create anchors, and link to each topic from the top of the OP.

Asic miners

• S9
• S11
• Avalon 841
• Avalon 921

GPU's

• Amd
• Nividia

Power Supplies

• EVGA
• Bitmain
• Generic 1600W

Full Lots
Only available as a package offer. Placing them here deters people from trying to purchase part of the lot. I won't bother making an example here but it would be the same as the previous categories if you have multiple listings that fall into this.
300 - Nividea 100 , Avalon 841's ,90 - Bitmain Apw3++ 90000 USD
Post#1
S9 offerings post: We'll pretend these are separate here you would link to all your offerings that have S9's available. You can group these off into the variations like "i" and "j" or overall hashrate. This can be done in their own lists for ease of use. Personally I would use the description of quantity available price and any other details you want and Hyperlink that to the offerings post.
30 - S9's 14 TH used  150 USD/piece
12 - S9j                          900 USD/piece
Post #2
S11 offerings post:
70 - S11 MOQ 14 units     1300 USD/piece
Post #3
Avalon 841 offerings post:
5 - Avalon 841's   80 USD/piece

Post #4
Avalon 921 offerings post:

94 - Avalon 921              5000 USD/piece
Post #5
AMD GPU's offerings post:
10 AMD RX 570 8gb      9 USD/piece
Post #6
Nividea GPU's offerings post:

Post #7
EVGA Power Supplies offerings post:

12 - EVGA 1600W PSU's     450 USD/piece
Post #8
Bitmain Power Supplies offerings post:

Post #9
Generic 1600 W Power Supplies offerings post:

Post #10
5 - Avalon 841's   80 USD/piece
30 - S9's 14 TH used  150 USD/piece
10 AMD RX 570 8gb      9 USD/piece

Post #11
70 - S11 MOQ 14 units     1300 USD/piece
12 - EVGA 1600W PSU's     450 USD/piece
94 - Avalon 921              5000 USD/piece
12 - S9j                          900 USD/piece

Post #12
300 - Nividea
100 - Avalon 841's
90 - Bitmain Apw3++

Total lot 90,000 USD + shipping from North Pole[/list]

[Payment Addresses to be provided once full]

Payment Addresses to be provided once full

I'm looking to make this a fairly regular thing hosting a few raffles a week if the interest is there. So for the first ever, I decided to go with a larger prize of .1 BTC. These will be standard raffles no fuss no muss, 16 spots available, take as many spots as you'd like. I will then select a winning block after the Raffle is full.

Details

• Prize - Winner will receive .1 BTC *** - Transaction fee will be paid by me.
• Cost per spot - .0068 BTC. This buys 1 spot in this Raffle
• Payment - I will provide each participant an address to send their funds to once all spots are filled. This saves on TX fees, and coordinating refunds if the Raffle doesn't fill up.
• Escrow - If by the end of the raffle the consensus is that participants would like an escrow to hold either the Prize(currently held by me) or Tickets, that can be arranged. I reserve the right to choose the escrow from this forum. Darkstar_, OgNasty, or minerjones are my preferred choices. I have not yet approached either of them about this, if they are unavailable another suitable forum escrow would be chosen. *** In this case the Escrow fee will be split between winner and myself.

How it works

• Pick your spot - Confirm it is available by reviewing the list below and previous comments. Whoever requests the spot first will receive it, subsequent posters will be given the option to select an open spot if any are remaining after going through valid claims. If you edit a post please strikethrough the original comment for clarity.
• When all spots are taken I will provide a payment address - I will sign a message here when I do so.
• I will select a future block that will be for determining the winner using the last character of the hash of that block.
  

** By selecting a spot you are committing to pay for the selected spot(s) chosen. This commitment will be for 48 hours from the time posted, in case the raffle doesn't generate interest.

Claimed Spots:

0 - owlcatz
1 - spokanistan51
2
3
4
5
6 - jackg
7 - WhyFhy
8
9
a - spokanistan51
b
c - bl4nkcode
d
e - owlcatz
f

Every now and then there are threads in Mining that get long and tend to bury some valuable information or simple information about legit websites to order from or deal with. I was thinking it would be nice to allow thread starters to create a Pinnable message that appears at the top of each page. This would be helpful in any information thread that carries on for a long time or undergoes changes to a system. This Pin could document changes, report problems, maintain lists - really anything that could be deemed relevant to a thread. Some auctions or raffles might benefit from this feature as well - the bids, ticket holders, and winners could all be updated in these sorts of messages.

This is a DIY project because you have to, that is unless you want to spend some serious cash on a PDU with these features. I made this prototype for myself just to have a working model and then see where I can improve upon the design. In all honesty though I'm not going to need this very often but it's nice to be able to check new gear as it arrives. This will allow you to confirm for yourself the power draw of your miners among other things depending on the model you choose.

So here's the only link that really matters. It's the critical component the Multi-function power meter. There are so many designs out there but they all have some minor differences in their ratings for: Voltage, Current, and Frequency.The model I settled on is rated well beyond anything I will throw at it.

6-in-1 Digital tester My model came with the current transformer and the setup is super simple by following the visual installation. I settled on this model so I could get readings over 3000 W as I'm expecting an M20S. Apart form that I used the following that I had on hand already. * I will look for the link to what I ordered exactly.

- 12 ft of 12/2 Wire - Length is optional as needed I had this kicking around and didn't want to cut it down for a trial.
- Controller box - Easy to remove cover.
- Power cables to make cable ends - These depend on what cord ends you need - At the miner, and at your power source (PDU or receptacle).
- A couple Wire connectors.
- Not shown but it's advisable to use an electrical box for safety to hold the cable end connections. That or some other means of making the connection, it's not a good idea to leave connected wires exposed to pulling forces which could break the connections.

One thing I will point out is you need at minimum a basic understanding of electrical wiring to attach cord ends and make the meter connections. So here's some Photos. I warn you it's not pretty but it works.



So the above images are the entirety of the build and the internal wiring of the meter. I will note I would probably change a few things inside the box, like using 14 gauge wire for the sensing lines - The two leaving the base of the meter. I would either find a better material than 12/2 Wire as it's extremely rigid and can be annoying to move around.



These 3 images are my M10 running in Normal mode, then Low Power mode, followed by the other readings this was at hour 22ish on Normal mode.

I know this has been kicked around a few times, but I couldn't find a solid discussion around it and reasoning behind keeping this feature available to all. I've only seen a handful of threads that don't appear to be scammy by nature using either of these features in the Marketplace. When I say locked topics I'm only referring to being able to toggle the feature for bumping. I'm not even proposing an outright elimination of the feature, this could be a feature some users could be whitelisted for by Admins or Marketplace Mods. A good example of a whitelistable account might be brokers maintaining a large amount of items in 1 thread.

Maybe I'm missing something but it seems the bad far outweighs the good by keeping these features available for everyone, considering it's the go to move for Newbie accounts looking for a quick score. The few users who feel their topic will be spammed or they may be harassed can make use of the "report to moderator" function. The rest of the threads will be open to have reasonable questions asked and discussion to take place on this forum, considering this is where the Ads are placed. It will still depend on members to ask the right questions but I think there are plenty out there that patrol and will do just that.

There have in the past been concerns as well around these features empowering and protecting the potential scams themselves. They can spread false information about escrows gear and anything they really want with little recourse available. There is no way apart from leaving feedback and hoping people believe it or are not convinced it's frivolous through whatever means of contact these people use. I get it that it's still up to people to do their due diligence and they should catch these tricks, but unfortunately a lot of us learn the hard way. It's an unfortunate by product of the protections certain banks and cards have afforded us.

With the recent steps to display a warning based on DT trust to logged out users. I'm hoping we can take further steps to improve the Marketplace through transparency, functionality and safety.

I am offering up my Avatar space and Personal Text for your advertising needs. I am open to terms that suite your needs with the minimum being 7 days. There is no guarantee on a minimum number of posts - I post anywhere from 20-60 posts in a week, and maintain several reference threads.

Conditions:

• Must comply with forum rules
• I reserve the right to refuse offers at my discretion
• Payment and offers are to be made in BTC
• Service can be discontinued at my discretion - refunds will be prorated
• Client may end agreement at anytime, refunds will be discretionary
• No services in competition with my Signature advertisement

So if you want to give my highly skilled Stuart a break I look forward to your offers. You may PM me to discuss if you want but I prefer conversations within the thread; or at least the final details.

I know, I know, they're an extremely risky venture to begin with. I have taken it upon myself to issue one, and recently found myself wondering something.  Note: there is nothing wrong with my loan.

There has been a massive wave of bans sweeping the forum. It's not just newbies or others you might have immediately turned down for a no-collateral loan. Some members have been established and had good track records with high paying Sig Campaigns. While there is no guarantee of a loan being repaid, it's generally assumed one would not toss away their reputation or a good source of income for a small loan.

If you have one of these loans out right now the best action is to PM the member to see if they can still access their account and send a PM. I did this and we had good communication, not I was not hounding them or bringing up anything other than their account access.

This normally would have qualified as a snippit in the pinned topic - but as this is a current issue I figured I'd give it more visibility.

For some reason when I scroll over an edited post I'm not seeing the timestamp or by who. All I get is a little white rectangle, when I hover over it.

Not something I generally pay attention to, so it's entirely possible it's just me.

Edit for test. Yeah I'm all good now, not sure what the issue was. Probably something on my end.

I know that I don't have all the details and will add and polish as time and information becomes available, but thought I'd start with what I think I know. There have been some changes recently in what powers/authority have been granted to Global Moderators and Contractors. It might be nice to get a clear picture of what how things are functioning at this time.

Admin:
- God-like abilities within the forum. Can modify/remove any and all data or information within the forum, this includes all abilities listed below.
- Handle payments and operation of Forum Staff, and service providers
- Plan for and sustain operations of the forum

Global Moderators:
- Can apply moderation to any board
- Can Ban users
- Can receive and respond to reported PM's
- Now have the ability to apply a Signature Ban as opposed to a standard account ban

Moderators:
- Can apply moderation to the boards they are assigned
- Have the ability to Nuke some newbie accounts.
- Need to request Bans, Global mods or Admins have the final say.

Cryptios:
-Main purpose is to investigate and accomplish account recoveries.
-They also have the ability to Lock accounts, if they believe it to be compromised.
-I believe they also have the same abilities as Patrollers.

Patrollers:
- Ability to moderate Newbies across all boards.
- Can nuke some newbie accounts.

Stipulations for Mods to have the ability to nuke a Newbie account -

Regular mods can ban Newbies if they haven't been whitelisted by another mod, don't have Copper membership (IIRC), and have less than 150 posts or less than 30 posts if they have earned at least 1 merit.

Perhaps this is as good a place as any to also remind users that staff/mods are ALSO regular users.  We have opinions and ideas the same as other regular users, some are good ideas and opinions and some not so good. Some of us can be a little cunty some are nice all the time.  Most of us have different levels of participation and knowledge about the forum and blockchain tech.

IOW staff are not automatically experts in anything  

And I would add that we are not Bitcoin's customer service. ~snip~

It's the hilarious how some people think there's a customer service for everything and go from "please sir, i'll do anything" to "i'll find you and..." when they don't get what they want.

Welcome to the CBC.

Are you Canadian (or a resident of) then this thread may be for you; if enough of us use/monitor it. I figured that it would be nice to have a spot where we can deal in CAD and look for EMT as FIAT payment options. I realize everyone can just create their own thread every time, but I've found in the past it's not always easy to find a CAD option. Dealing with PP and USD usually hurts our bottom line once conversion and fees take place.

So moving forward when I want to part with some BTC, I will be posting here. So feel free to post here if you want to be on the radar for people. I'm not going to out any Canadians I know. I am willing to be a middle man for communication if you don't want to reveal yourself as Canadian to everyone as well. (I will exercise caution in helping facilitate any anonymous deals).

So here are some local rules for this thread:

1) You must be dealing in CAD - Or dealing strictly in alts if you're wanting to keep them in the country as your patriotic duty  
2) Travelling or looking to sell some locally within Canada, sure drop a post, why not. Remember to be careful about disclosing to much personal information; if you value privacy.
3) Perform your due diligence before trading with anyone, even Canadians.  
4) Be clear in your terms what you are looking to buy/sell and at what rate you expect.
5) My french is rusty/ a distant memory but as I've found in the past my shitty French skills and someones broken English can generally understand each other.  

I think that's it. I'll add more rules or suggestions/tips if anyone has a good one.

Glossary of terms

CAD - Canadian dollars,    EMT - Email money transfer,       PP - Paypal

Quick option Companies

https://bylls.com/                                    See DarkStar_'s post for info.
https://shakepay.co/


Current Offers
As this thread grows and offers become available I will do my best to link the post to the OP in this section.

petahasher - Shitty scammer

Steamtyme - Selling BTC for PP or EMT

Monbux - (WTS) BTC and ETH for CAD.

I came across a story yesterday that was little more than a few paragraphs and someone's tweets. A few companies I never heard of, and a large amount of miners missing. The strangest part is this took place in New York state, which is not necessarily the location I expect.

Today there is more details and it really does blow my mind.

https://www.ccn.com/new-york-bitcoin-mining-magnate-accused-of-stealing-over-5000-crypto-miners

So I tend to think of Hosting facilities catering to the masses, a bunch of people who can't build their own facilities. I do recall talking with someone in the biz before, and they mentioned people who operate for 1 large client but I assumed that was a bit of a rarity. Then here is a prime example of how even a well backed presumably well-versed crypto firm/firms can be fleeced. These people are out millions on gear, cash, and BTC.

One thing that crossed my mind here is that because they waited so long to actually show up and confront the guy, there's no telling what was done with the miners. One theory is that they were sold, and a lot of people wouldn't think twice about buying used gear from anybody let alone a "hosting facility". So being the US, I'm not sure on what proof the authorities would need to confiscate miners from citizens if they think it's stolen property.

How many people who have bought used gear could prove it wasn't stolen? Also what about Brokers specializing in moving used gear, are they liable if it wasn't disclosed?

[is]

So a few months back I began to collect posts made by theymos that did a few things. They either clarified misinformation or provided an expanded explanation of the forum mechanics. It started as a curiosity as I would see members pull these quotes out all the time, and would follow the quote and dig a little further. What I found was that a lot of theymos's [Ann] threads buried some insightful information due to them being open topics for discussion and not a locked and updated resource. I would like to see both run parallel and the information threads maintained by Mods or Admin.

In lieu of that I'll post this topic. I reviewed theymos's post history back to when I started out on the Forum August 2017. Only took 44 pages of reviewing at the time. I might have missed something or left things out, feel free to make suggestions or add your own quotes in replies.  In some posts I removed the quoted reply, to try and shorten the post length. I also trimmed a couple quotes where I was only interested in a small part. I recommend people follow the quote back to the context and discussion if you find it interesting.

Link to Post 2 containing DT - Feedback - Merit

Forum Structure/Procedures

Bitcoin.org:
 - Cobra has ultimate control over the domain name. I have access to the domain name settings.
 - Cobra runs the server.
 - Will Binns holds the BTC.

Bitcointalk.org:
 - Cobra has ultimate control over the domain name. I have access to the domain name settings.
 - I run the server. Cobra has no access to the database or server.
 - The BTC is held by myself and the treasurers. Cobra has no access.

I am not Cobra. What would even be the point of that?

It's surprising how well-documented history can become totally forgotten... Satoshi created the forum on Nov 22, 2009, and was head administrator until almost 2011. Then Sirius was head administrator until 2012, which is when I took over.

Cobra also owns the bitcointalk.org domain name. I consider the forum to be basically owned by or at least dedicated to the Bitcoin community, though; I don't call anyone an owner of the forum.

That wiki article is kind of terrible...

I'll get right on that, just as soon as hell freezes over.

I won't make a habit of trimming these quotes but moving parts have made most of it irrelevant. Retention/Privacy info

Your mental model should always be that the forum logs everything, especially since it is behind Cloudflare, which is almost certainly an NSA-backed operation. But here is some more detail. Currently there are four classes of IP logs:
~snip~

This isn't a good example of me being a "rebel", since there's ~no legal risk in refusing to help police who don't have a court order, and there's even less risk when they're not even trying to enforce a law which exists in the forum's jurisdiction. Anyone in the US who would help foreign police with a Bitcoin ban is seriously misguided, at the very least.

Evil IP explained- I found it interesting and never really new how it worked.

I did this back in 2015, but I wanted to update it. I used exactly the same mapping code as last time.

When someone is banned, their IP and some of their neighboring IPs receive evil points. Here I've created a map of the IPv4 Internet according to evil points. Currently, IPv6 is mapped into the 240.0.0/4 range, which is the large square taking up the top-right sixteenth of the chart. (I'm not sure yet whether IPv6 is actually disproportionately evil, or if I'm just cramming too many people into that address-space. Probably the latter is at least something of a factor, since 9% of traffic is IPv6 but 6% of this address-space is IPv6.)

Here's the image (zoom in):
https://bitcointalk.org/banmap201805.png

For comparison, here's the one from 2015:
https://bitcointalk.org/banmap201510.png

Each pixel is a /24 address block (ie. each pixel represents 256 IP addresses). The colors are:
█ Zero or nearly zero evil
█ A small amount of evil
█ More
█ More
█ At this point you actually have to pay if you register an account in this block
█ More
█ More
█ More
█ Pretty high
█ A ton of evil, more than anyone is likely to pay

This is per block, so a single IP address could have an evil score requiring payment while its block still shows up as black here. A colored pixel indicates the evil score of a typical IP in that block.

Addresses are laid out in the standard way. So you can for example cross-reference with these maps: https://ant.isi.edu/address/

A /24 should almost never uniquely identify someone, but to be safe I randomly added, removed, and modified some of this data for plausible deniability.

Bans

He has several accounts all banned for ban evasion. It seems that the underlying offense which caused him to initially get into trouble (and often the thing which causes his alts to get noticed) is excessive multi-posting. But when he was warned and/or temporarily banned for this minor thing, he kept evading his bans. This forum cannot operate unless its few rules are followed, so ignoring the warnings and temporary bans that you receive and continuing to do the same stuff is unacceptable. People who do so are not welcome here.

His bans will not automatically expire, and any future alts we see from him will be permabanned. I may manually reconsider his ban if he promises to actually try not to break forum rules. The rules are not meant to silence anyone, but to keep the forum usable and fair. When someone multi-posts excessively, it monopolizes a thread in a way which harms everyone else's ability to communicate. Based on his posts in this thread, I think that he will just continue to break rules if unbanned, so I will not unban him at this time.

bitcointalk.org is not a normal for-profit company. Even if banning iamnotback somehow stopped all future ad revenue, he would still be banned, since his rule-breaking is disrupting the forum's mission of hosting free discussion of Bitcoin and related topics. (As explained above, "free discussion" is not "unmoderated discussion".) Similarly, I would welcome effective competition from decentralized forums, and I would be thrilled to be able to shut down bitcointalk.org in favor of a better-in-all-ways decentralized alternative. But although decentralized forums have existed for a long time (eg. Freenet's FMS is almost exactly what iamnotback keeps describing, and has existed since before Bitcoin), they have unfortunately not been widely used since the era of the semi-decentralized Usenet system, mainly due to vastly inferior usability.

Apparently my offense was by being highly expert in my technological, economics, sociology, and game theory analysis while I performed that analysis on various shitcoins thus plausibly offending some people who may have bought off one or more moderators behind the curtain.

LOL

It must be that other big-blockers like HostFat (moderator), franky1, jonald_fyookball, etc. have no problems here just because their arguments are ineffective. But faced with your incredible expertise, we had no choice but to ban you.

Look, you're banned because you've been fundamentally unwilling to follow any forum rules. This is a centralized forum, and if you want to post here, then you have to be willing to swallow your pride a bit, conform to forum rules, and take mods seriously when they give you warnings. If you're going to ignore mods, ignore rules, generally make a nuisance of yourself, and constantly escalate when called out, then you're simply not welcome on this centralized forum: go away and stop trying to sneak back.

As I mentioned before, I am willing to reconsider your ban if you promise to follow the same rules as everyone else and try to avoid getting banned, rather than having the attitude of "you can't ban me".

-

In general, I'm all for being lenient. There are users who have been temp banned many times but still haven't been permabanned because their contributions outweigh their misbehavior. I actively disbelieve in the idea of a "rule of law" where hard rules exist and are strictly applied across the board as if we're all robots. Every case should be considered individually in the context of the forum's mission.

Plagiarism is what gets people permabanned, not just copying. Plagiarism is copying with the intent of passing the work off as your own. In essentially all cases, plagiarism deserves a permaban because it usually proves definitively that the person is here for the wrong reasons: to fill up space in order to get paid, not to actually discuss or contribute. If someone was able to convince us that they were plagiarizing just to eg. impress people rather than to fill up space, then a lesser ban of a few months might instead be warranted. But this has never happened AFAICR. (Arguments based on plausible deniability aren't going to work; we don't need to prove that you had the motive we see in your actions.)

If you treat posting as a job, a chore, then you must live in fear, since the forum is not made for you. In this case, you need to blend in as someone who actually cares, but plagiarism will immediately out you, and producing a mountain of useless posts will also eventually be noticed, if more slowly. If you do actually care, then this will be obvious in your posts (and probably your merit score), and you will have nothing to fear from moderators; even allegations of plagiarism will be doubted when seen in the context of your other posts.

in extreme cases could be copyright theft?

Plagiarism is almost always a copyright violation which could conceivably get the poster in a lot of trouble, but it's not a bigger legal issue for the forum than anything else. (Using the forum to violate copyright is never allowed, though.)

when copying and pasting from the net can it lower google rankings? and internal copy and past could do the same thing?

That's not a particular concern of mine.

even memes may soon constitute copyright theft

Only in the EUSSR.

-

There's been no policy change. redsn0w wasn't permanently banned due to several factors which made me think that permabanning him would be a net negative for the forum. Nobody is banned strictly because of "the rules"; it's always handled case-by-case, but almost always, plagiarists deserve to be permabanned.

If you think that a ban should be ended, make your case in a new topic from a "good for the forum as a whole" perspective.

-

What happened yesterday was that Marina Uni renamed the topic to something English, moved it to an English board, and then reported it. A moderator in that board, not being aware of any of this context, then trashed it for being off-topic.

I restored it and temporarily banned Marina Uni for moving the topic to where it would be off-topic. OPs do not own the replies to their topics, and unless it is self-moderated, they have no right to have the replies deleted.

Communication

~snip~
How I handle PMs:

 - I try to at least skim all PMs. Rarely I might misplace some, but usually not.
 - If I feel ready to immediately resolve your PM, and I feel that it is a reasonable request worth my time, then I do it. Often this is replying to questions or doing simple tasks, but sometimes I'll have already been working on / thinking about it for days/weeks/months and your PM will get me to devote a few hours to finally resolving the thing right then and there. If even newbies ask questions which I consider reasonable, I usually answer!
 - If I am not ready to act on your thing, often due to uncertainty or lack of immediate time, then your issue enters my "leaky queue". Unfortunately, a lot of these things never end up getting done. (But I do try to get to the most important ones.)


You have to do a lot more than disagree with me to get me to dislike you. And even if eg. MemoryDealers came to me with some reasonable issue with his usage of the forum, I'd handle it like I would for anyone else.

It says "Administrator" under my name, not "President". Anyone is free to PM/email me.

-

You seem to have mistaken me for some sort of politician. If anyone interprets anything I say/do as "I'm theymos so I'm right," then they have totally misunderstood me. I'm very interested in grin on a technical level (not so much for investment), and I didn't see any harm in supporting it, so I spent a few hours adding it to the forum. I'm not trying to make any grand statement here. If grin ends up failing completely, then that will not be too surprising.

Occasionally in other cases I might have an attitude of, "I'm doing it this way because I'm convinced that I'm right. If I'm wrong, show me." If you disagree with my view that all but a few altcoins are based 95-100% on marketing, with only very half-baked actual features/ideas, then that's fine; I won't stop you. Use one or more of those altcoins to build interesting things, and I will be happy to see the ecosystem usefully expand in surprising ways.

Moderation

I'm surprised that some veteran members don't know that the forum was founded by Satoshi.

Maybe he wouldn't want to post here nowadays, since the signal-to-noise ratio is too low. But he also wouldn't have liked posting on a forum with oppressive moderation, which would be necessary to make the forum something like how it was in the early days. I think that Satoshi just wouldn't have liked using any large forum.

Whether Satoshi would agree with current forum policies is another matter. You can agree that a policy is correct without necessarily liking the end result. The existing forum policies are pretty natural extensions of the policies under the administration of Satoshi and Sirius, intended to maximize freedom while still keeping the forum usable. Though if he disagreed, he'd probably say that there is too much freedom and not enough usability.

And while it may be interesting to speculate, Satoshi's approval is not required. You should do what is correct, as far as you can tell, not what you think some person (who is really just an abstract idea to most people rather than a real person) would want you to do.

-

It wasn't deleted by -ck.

Nobody is out to get you. The posts looked in isolation like no-content "good project"-type garbage. Many moderators scan all posts as they come in, not looking closely at which threads they belong to. I agree that those posts were sufficiently on-topic when taken in context, especially when posted by non-newbies, and should not have been deleted. Their authors reposted them immediately, so get over it.

-

I restored the four deleted topics, but since they were all very similar, I locked all but one of them.

Except for a few special cases, it should not be policy for subjects to be confined to megathreads. It's OK for there to be overlap between multiple active threads. If a board seems to become monopolized by similar-looking topics, then some lockings or perhaps deletions might be warranted, but Hardware is low-volume.

A little treat in the middle I stumbled upon theymos's origin story - Pretty Epic

How did you came to know about Bitcoin first ?

I saw someone mention it on 4chan. They were complaining about the long block download time.

[Really excited to see the offering]

Edit: I missed the fact that this was bitcointalkorg to bypass the safeguards in place.

I've noticed this happening a few times recently someone uses the hyperlink to disguised as a bitcointalk.org topic. I personally thought this was already disabled as I tried to do it in a [PSA] thread I created a while ago. I linked to the second message as it was a "Rickroll" to show about clicking on anything you see.

This quote shows it broken down well in the topic so I'm crossposting it here, as it will likely be deleted from the original thread - it's unrelated but up as a warning until the original post is dealt with.

Really excited to see the offering


 [ url = http : // https : // mega . nz / #!27giCaBA!MpY7jO2eBIFixadv3jbdqfnHS_iZH5pAMp_mztL3FHY ]


https : // bitcointalkorg/index.php? topic=284987.9 [ / url]

here it is deconstructed

and it leads to this

What I'm wondering is can we disable using "bitcointalk.org" as a title for hyperlinks. That would be the best blanket solution in case hacked accounts start posting the same garbage. Another option is prohibiting brand new and newbie accounts from posting a clickable link.

Sorry if the terminology is off, but I'm pretty sure most will catch the drift here.