Everytime you drop the price I get a little bit more interested in buying it strictly for the sake of having another miner on hand. On the other hand, I've finally gotten my hands on a nice ASIC and they are indeed LOUD. I'm not sure how the noise from the V9 compares to the noise of the L3+, but I imagine they are relatively similar. I'll be watching this thread, if for nothing other than to see how low you are willing to go for this machine. I'm thinking $80 might be low enough to make me grab it. That's probably too low for you, at least at this point, but let me know if I'm mistaken.

I really like the "minimalist" design, because as other users have said we're walking a thin line between "gawdy" and "superbowl". That being said, the minimalist design feels like it is still missing something for my taste. I like the bull and bear faces on the side, but I am wondering if it would be possible to make those an indentation, or like a "brand" style icon, rather than a bulging outward segment. That would be extremely cool, and once you have a better idea on price please share what you're thinking. I want a ring, but I don't want to break the bank in order to grab myself one. Since it's plated, it shouldn't be too bad.

I would certainly buy one if I don't have to drop absurd amounts of money, but a few tweaks on the design would be optimal. It would be cool to allow customization for maybe a couple of different styles, but I'm not sure how feasible that would be for fulfilling orders.

You mention that it wasn't designed to be worn, but could that be accomodated? I would much rather have the versatility of being able to wear the ring, rather than it simply only having the ability to sit on a desk. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but if possible it would be nice to act a fool with my ring on.

I would like to disavow and suggest against allowing digaran to be a merit source. They act a fool, cause drama and add nothing to the community of value. Them being a merit source would only serve as a detriment to the community. Digaran believes that being a merit source is reason to think they are above other users.

Cannot state enough how unfortunate it would be for digaran to be a merit source.

Week 13 Payment received and confirmed, on time. Thank you very much, yet again. I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but I suppose in this instance that is a good thing. Cheers.

I'll give my personal tale and I'll keep it short. I always used to be a firm believer that the HODL crowd was doing a disservice to Bitcoin and that their rewards would be minimal at best. I was wrong. I used to always use my Bitcoin as a means of payment for just about everything. I would withdraw it to pay my bills, buy my food, and wherever I could spend it I would do so simply to show my support for the technology. Now that I'm looking back I could easily be a multi-millionaire if I have held onto even a fraction of my coin. These days I refuse to spend more than 50% of the coin I receive. I instantly squirrel away 50% of everything I ever receive for the future. I'm even doing the same with my mining profits, simply squirreling them away until I need to buy new equipment and going to constantly reinvest and move forward.

You didn't mention the price and you're only means of contact is discord, which seems a bit odd. You're a newbie "accound" so there isn't going to be much faith behind your reputation. I'd be willing to test out one of the codes to see how legitimate it is, or not. Of course, I wouldn't be paying until I am able to verify the integrity of the code through some time and testing. This might be an unreasonable offer, but I would be willing to put my funds up in escrow while I give it a go. The key would have to be valid for quite some time before I would be comfortable though, as I've boughten keys with similar stories in the past that have ended with my game being revoked and account being banned.

No worries Pugman, I've got a smile on my face and I'm always taking what he says with a grain of salt. It seems the more the discussion carries on that there is extremely mixed feelings about the subject and that would make these threads controversial at best. I'm going to wait for more feedback before I make any final decisions, but it seems like my Merit review days are over.

I agree with most of you that the threads have multiplied and it has become a part of the problem, rather than the solution as a collective. This is what I was interested in, so thanks for sharing your thoughts everyone. I don't mind going back to having no thread to maintain, maybe this will free me up to jump back into your Q&A thread.

You're right about it being about individuals, rather than the forum, so that's fair. I still can't help but feel like Off-Topic is the incorrect placement for these threads. They should either be disallowed or have a proper home, but that's simply one user's opinion.

I'd like to direct you to this post before even addressing anything else : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1785577.0 . You claim these accounts are Cracked, and hacked/cracked accounts are not allowed to be sold on here. That is illegal and you will be banned for this, unless you lock your thread and discontinue this activity. I'm assuming cracked means you brute-forced passwords, snagged a database or something similar.

What if someone wanted to buy a single account from you? Would they simply send you BTC 0.0000005183 or would they cut a penny in half and mail it to you? If you're accepting Paypal and Skrill I'm wondering how you accommodate for such an order.

I highly suggest nobody purchase accounts from this user, as it is against the rules and against the law. Your account will likely be banned from the forum and whatever service you are attempting to use the account on. That is assuming you even get the account from such a member.

Thanks for joining the discussion and giving your feedback, because as I said I've been following this thing since it started getting stitched. I was almost convinced from the very beginning that it was going to be an elaborate scam attempt, but I'm very happy to see it in the hands of somehow that's reputable and satisfied with what they've received.

The real question, does it pass the smell test?

Spazzer this is exactly why I was so pushy about getting feedback from whoever your first customer was. minerjones is extremely well known around the community and the fact that they are giving you the thumbs up says a lot. It actually reinforces my idea of contacting you for a custom quilt, but again we're going to wait for a jump in BTC price; assuming you aren't too popular for my custom order by then.

You're honestly one of the most foolish members on this entire forum. Where did I imply that I should be rewarded for my contribution? I want my thread to not be overrun by plagiarism and stupidity. I have the Off-Topic board on my Ignore list, and have for years.


How do Merit sources act? You're opinion is beyond worthless if you think being a Merit Source entitles you to a special platform or inflates the value of your opinion. This is what you do, throw around insults and accusations that are more realistically simple projections from yourself that aren't worth entertaining.


Wrong. All I receive in return is people like yourself throwing idiotic and baseless accusations, after putting in hours of review and work.


I honestly do not care to have ever received a single merit. They mean absolutely nothing to me. I specifically put it in BOLD not to merit me for that thread, because I honestly don't want anything in return. It just gives me something to do in my free-time that seems mildly helpful and constructive.


Wrong again, big dog. I know you're offended that I told you that you're no longer funny. It must hurt that the one person that was amused by your antics is no longer entertained by the town fool. I know that it hurts that you've been kicked out of your campaign for being an extortionist scumbag. I know you're a beggar and the money is important to you, but we're not all that low. Some of us have multiple streams of income, we didn't quit our job because a campaign manager decided to take pity on our sense of humor. I was around the forum long before I got paid by any campaign and I will be around long after they have dissipated.


Yes.
I'd apply for Mod of the board, too.

I agree that if the criteria is that the marketplace requires a Bitcoin transaction then my thread doesn't belong in Service. Arguably, I see it fitting within Meta, Beginner's & Help, maybe Games & Rounds. It seems I have a fundamental misunderstanding of the Meta section though, so I'm unsure where that leaves me. I just don't think that a "Service to the community" belongs in Off-Topic. There has to be a better place, because I've had that board on my ignore-list for as long as I can remember. Nothing useful gets done on that board and I'm not interested in being the first attempt at it.


I'd say this is where we may disagree. I see poor posting-behavior as a big issue for the forum currently; discussing with individuals how they can improve their posting behavior would seem the best method that I, as a regular user, can use to discuss and address this issue. So, I do see this as directly addressing an issue that the forum is being overwhelmed by. The implementation of the merit system is proof that this is an issue, but not everyone has the capability for nuance to understand what they are doing wrong simply by not receiving merit.


Have you read my thread? 
It mostly is complaining about their posting behavior, but constructively.

I woke up and I was a little bit upset to find that my most popular thread "sMerit Review" where users submit their posts for criticism, review and the potential to receive merit. I posted a thread to look for some discussion surrounding this (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3534421.msg36298687#msg36298687), hilariousandco stepped up and gave me some explanations for why my thread had been moved. I do not feel personally targetted, because there are plenty of more reputable users than myself that were running similar threads that were also moved to Off-Topic. QuestionAuthority had accumulated more Sent Merits than any user through a similar thread.

I had originally held my thread in the Service section, but a valid explanation arose :

 
I then asked if my thread would be more suited for the Meta section to which I received an interesting reply :


That left me with three questions:

Is Meta exclusively for "issues" or is it for "Discussion about the Bitcoin Forum?"
Do spam, posting-behavior and the distribution of merit not count as "issues?"
Does my thread accomplish more than allowing an avenue for users to beg for merit constantly?

I noticed that BTCForJoe's thread was still alive, so I was trying to figure out the new guidelines through using that thread as reference. However, that thread was then moved from the Service board to the "Games & Rounds" board under "Gambling", which seems out of place. Can there be a thread in the marketplace that involves merit/post-quality?

I'm looking for community discussion on whether or not you guys feel the changes to these threads have been helpful or hurtful. I'm also curious to hear more of a discussion about what would be acceptable forms of these threads, and the proper location of Joe's thread as well. This is an important question, because the single most merit to be sent within a thread comes from exactly this template. It has been a very significant portion of merit distribution up to this point, and it has been extremely positively received from most of the community. Please, cast your vote and share your thoughts. Am I too worried about it? My thread was extremely useful for multiple users to track down threads they want to be a part of or even merit that they wouldn't otherwise have come across.

I think you would be better served throwing this up in the Digital Goods section : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=93.0 , or if you're feeling froggy then you could even start an auction (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=73.0). There's a good niche of users that are always up for an interesting auction, but be aware they are going to be asking the tough questions. Nobody wants to invest thousands of dollars into something that is going to fizzle out relatively quickly. It's very rare that game sales increase after Month 1 and regularly there are not even 1% of sales after month 3 unless there is some tremendous stroke of luck or genius within the marketing department. You should make the name of the game public so that we are better able to judge if this is something we would be willing to support and put our money behind. At this point it just sounds like a losing investment for anyone that gets involved, sort of like buying a $2000 Collector's edition of a game without much promise of it's success in the future. If the owner of a game is willing to sell all of the rights for a couple grand, then I can't imagine it is going to be much more impressive than a high-school programming project.

I'm not looking for a wink, nod or some kind of loophole that allows me to post my thread somewhere that it is unwelcome or doesn't truly belong. I sincerely am trying to either adjust my challenge or trash it entirely. Since Joe's challenge got moved to Games & Rounds it would seem that "just include some money" wouldn't exactly cut it.

It feels more like, because the staff doesn't feel like we "need" these threads there will be some borderline moderation policies that kill any ability to run one of these threads successfully. I just know I would have never found a lot of the quality posts that I've sent merit to if they had not been submitted to me within my review thread. There's been so much information, reference threads, interesting discussions, etc. that have been brought to my attention exclusively because I had that thread running.

I'm going to take a few hours to think about it, maybe come up with something that is good for everyone (except shitposters).

Busy living their life. You are not a priority, because the same kind of threads pop up every single day. Somebody is upset with the ratings they've received from a DT member. You disagree that you should have received a negative trust from them, well your only option would be to make a case to DarkStar_ or to the people that included DarkStar_ onto DT. Outside of this, you are stuck with the negative trust and the rest of the community can do nothing except explain to you why you are wrong in this situation. It does look like merit abuse after looking more thoroughly into your trust, and I haven't read a single solid explanation coming from you that would justify this behavior. The Merit system is being abused and it is regularly being abused by members such as yourself in the manner that you have been sending/receiving merit. It is highly suspicious and you've been tagged, because it goes beyond a reasonable doubt.

I wouldn't expect DarkStar_ to make an appearance when all of your questions, comments and concerns have already been addressed. It matters little that you are upset with the outcome.



Crazy as they come. I've never met such a bloodlusted animal, you better watch yourself.


That's a sentence fragment at best and an extremely schizophrenic loosely associated thought at worst. DarkStar_ doesn't care if you are a part of the forum or not, but once you start abusing systems and breaking rules you will receive negative feedback or a ban once you are discovered.


Has he commented directly on the Negative trust? Have you received payment while having this negative trust? Even still, this has no weight on what DarkStar_ has to say about you, does it? Lutpin is entitled as an individual to have their opinion, while DarkStar_ holds another. We are not a monolith that needs to all see you the same way.


Good one.  Always hilarious to hear the "We're all innocent" excuse.


Yes, we are all old grumpy men that would like for you to get off of our lawn. We do not want the future generations to know of how great innovations and secret knowledge. Bitcoin is a secret for only the early adopters and all else will be walled off from our society. We all benefit from more people being genuinely interested in Bitcoin, so your question is idiotic.


dvillier you are doing wrong.
Yes it is DarkStar_'s right to send you negative feedback if he can judge that yes your actions are bad.

Stop Double-Posting, it is against the rules, extremely annoying and you are not adding anything new when you do it.

"Need" seems like entirely the wrong word to be using. I spend hours lurking and reading posts and rarely find any posts worth meriting besides high-ranking reputable members that wouldn't benefit from receiving merit. I use my thread as a place to give users that I've failed to come across organically the merit that they otherwise would've received from me. It's not a "giveaway" if you have to compete using your own creativity and ideas to produce something interesting, informative and helpful. If you truly feel that getting rid of these threads is a step in the right direction then I am no one to argue, but it seems like a lot of the reasons given so far are not very thoughtful. All I've gotten so far is essentially "Too many people beg for merit." and "I dislike the way you're distributing merit". I'll live with it, but it's frustrating when the merit system without context and references such as these threads is slightly more vapid.

Now I'm more confused than when we started though, because Joe's does have Bitcoin transactions within it, so how does it not fit the criteria for the Service board? This all seems very strange, and the answers I'm receiving don't feel thorough (although, I know answering my questions isn't exactly a high-priority, and it shouldn't be).

I thought Meta was for forum related discussion, not exclusively issues. However, even if it were for exclusively the discussion of forum issues, wouldn't an extremely big forum issue be the Spam and posting habits/behavior of many of the members? My thread was addressing our loudest problem. Pointing out the problems that I saw in the posting habits of others and giving reward to those that are exemplary users. I'm not trying to disagree, but I am trying to better understand. Did you see my thread as giving incentive for people to beg for merit?

My thread was much more than people begging for merit constantly; little insulted by that.  

I'll use the information in front of me to answer my own question about Joe's challenge, since it seems like that is the only standing reference at the moment.


Mine was the first. I take great pride in that.   There is no older review thread of that kind in relation to merit. So even if you were inspired by a similar merit review topic, they were most likely taking a page from my book. It's not an idea that's breathtaking, but I'm positive I pioneered it.

Would it be an appropriate thread for Meta, then? Or if I can transform my thread into somewhat of a challenge similar to what BTCForJoe is doing would it belong back in the Marketplace? Seems like his thread is still breathing (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3055616), even if he has it paused.

It looks like even QuestionAuthority's thread has been moved to "Off-Topic". https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2827596 With that being the case I can only assume that it goes beyond the "Service" board, because their thread wasn't even in that section. Like hilarious said, the marketplace requires Bitcoin payment for it to a fit. This gives me a little bit of a better understanding of what is going on. Thanks for helping me understand more. I'm assuming that these kinds of threads will only be allowed in the Off-Topic section of the forum, so essentially they're not allowed anymore from what I can tell. The idea probably got out of hand and it's not like they're going to allow us to be exceptions to the rule once it has been ruined for everyone. It was a nice run while it lasted, but until I hear from staff I'll be putting my review service on-hold. Looks like I'll have to find something else to do with my time around here that's productive and fill the void that's newly created.

Interesting, because it seems like your thread is of a similar-vein. I'm afraid that too many people started using my format in a very careless manner that wasn't conducive and it has convinced the staff to change their tune towards these threads. I cannot operate my thread from within "Off-Topic", that board is absolutely absurd. 80% of the replies since it's been moved are Copy + Paste of my earlier posts within that same thread. Nobody is taking it seriously anymore, nobody is following the rules or actually submitting high-quality posts. The thread has been effectively ruined by the move, so I'm wondering if the intention is to no longer allow these kinds of threads. I'm just looking for an explanation, because I don't want to move it back and cause more work for staff, but I feel like my thread was doing more good than harm.

Are they being willingly shared by the owner of the account? Have you received permission from each account owner individually and what incentive do they have to share their account? You cannot call it "shared" if the owner is unaware and has not consented to you using their property; this would be called stealing.

Please take a look at this thread : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1785577.0 , because selling illegally obtained accounts is one of very few things that is a bannable offense.