Let me provide the history of moderation on this forum and Speculation as I experienced it:

Until summer and the Forum moderation policy (which ironically many objected against in the beginning, too), there was hardly any moderation at all by the few Admins. One year ago, even Silk Road could post on this forum and advertise its business.

Now as the market went parabolic and the forum became crowded with spammers and trolls, the situation was hardly sustainable anymore, so finally, volunteer mods were promoted and instructed to take care of it. It was also an effort to combat the image it gave to people (for example businessmen) who were repelled from Bitcoin due to its community. The image damage went so far that the Bitcoin Forum was removed from the bitcoin.org domain and on the frontpage it now links to a Google search to distance the project from this forum.

Most often, the spam and trolls consisted of people who liked to create threads consisting of "CRASH SELL SELL SELL"; this is indicated in sirius’s second point. As a reaction to the crap that persisted to plague the forums, the Speculation section was created in July to contain it. Here is one of the oldest threads exemplifying this well: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=28317.0

So, here we are now, with me appointed to take care of the recently neglected Speculation forum. As I have stated, I fully intend to keep intact the lax and laissez faire style of this subforum, and having you (Mushoz, I’m looking at you) judge it after two days and hardly any moderation at all is inadequate.

In case this disturbs you too much to bear this forum, I refer to my previous post here in this thread.

@WA
In my view, the market has learnt to simply ignore individual large bid walls. No bigger traders fall for them anymore, and that’s why I think the price action is hardly affected.

(Thread moved from Speculation)

If you think threads such as "dont buy a damn single bitcoin few days" are of necessity for free speech, there are plenty of other Bitcoin forums in competition. In case enough people deem the policy bad, discussion will move there.

That’s right.

Grey means the price has not changed (within the bar).

If the Dollar is worthless, that would still be nothing though.

Nope, he deleted his wallet from the early days.

We really need historic depth.

What Bitcoin needs most is the creation of a Bitcoin foundation that does PR, legal matters and development.

Wow, it’s impressive to see that the market has learnt to competely ignore indvidual walls.

I agree that Matthew’s constant posts in Atlas’s threads are counterproductive.

teflone, I wouldn’t be upset about his ramblings. The ignore works regardless of him changing names as long as he stays on one account, which I think he intends to do now that he got himself a Donator title.

No, that one is just meant for people who announce that they will soon buy or sell <amount> Bitcoins.

The example you listed is on the verge of being manipulative IMO, but I will probably only act on the most blatant cases.

This forum is very laissez faire and I’d like to keep it that way. The goal is really to get rid of all the crappy BUY BUY BUY or SELL SELL SELL so we can have a semi-serious climate at least. More discussion, less suggestion.

Can you rephrase that? No clue what you just wanted to say.

First off, my thread was sarcastically meant. Second, I don’t see any problem with it even if it were serious, as it’s just an opinion. Third, I’ve started moderating only recently.

And yes, of course they apply to me as well.

@myself
Again, these are not "rules", just a guideline so you typically know why your post has been deleted, so I’m not constrained to them.

To complement the Forum moderation policy for Speculation, here are a few guidelines on why postings are likely to be deleted or moved.

---

On Market Manipulation:

• Clear suggestions to market participants to take a particular course of action (e.g. "Buy now before the price goes to 5", "SELL quickly, the weekend is coming")
• Deliberate spreading of false or forged and deceptive information like faked charts
  
• Announcements to take a particular market action (e.g. "I am going to buy 50k BTC tomorrow, so you better buy now.")
  

On Unrelated Topics:

• Discussion of exchanges and service providers usually belongs to Trading Discussion
• Scammer accusations also belong to Trading Discussion

---

These are NOT rules.
It’s just an information service for probable reasons your posts might be deleted. Always use your own judgement.

This is torture too. Poor shorts.

That’s the market’s plot to disrupt your life!

Just recently, I wanted to clean up with the Penny Stock-ishness manipulation "OH GOD THE WEEKEND SELL SELL" in this forum.

Guys, you know that this wall has a single owner who can cancel it at anytime? It can also attract a big seller, but as long as it stands, of course noone can cover <4.6.

I would never rely on a single wall.

Now now, obviously it must be a bubble because people in here are so deluded that they deny it!

It’s not a bubble because of

1) Currency Risk

2) Counterparty Risk

3) Not efficient market yet

4) Affected number of people and volume, even with pirateat40, is insignificant in Bitcoin world.

Interest rate is likely to decrease over the long term as these factors change, but it will not "burst" and create havoc.

Any questions?