Holy crap....I'm so out of the loop with the news that I didn't even know Twitter had changed their name.  Is that true?  They changed it to X?  I guess that makes sense for Elon Musk, but Twitter had become kind of an iconic brand name (even though I think their service is total shit).

Anyway, I never got the sense that Musk actually cared for Twitter all that much--even though he bought it, I think he was just trying to make a whole lot of noise and piss a bunch of people off that he didn't like or whose views don't align with his.  And he had the money to do it combined with the personality of a troll, so now that he's got control of X or Twitter I'm not sure he gives a shit if people leave or not.

The guy is just weird, weird, weird.  I never could stand the opinions coming out of Twitter or the attention they got from the mainstream media, so I was rooting for him when there was some question as to whether he'd be able to pull of the acquisition.  Now he's stepped back a bit and I couldn't care less what happens to the company.  My apologies to OP and others who use it, but if X goes under you'll survive.

It's "faults" just to be clear--and I swear as I get older I think I'm going to become one of those people whose fingers are so gnarled up with arthritis that they need a voice-to-text machine in order to write things on a computer.  Lol.  Not kidding.

Why would bitcointalk have to implement a feature like this?  I don't know what's out there as far as translation software/apps/whatever, but if there was a program that let you speak Spanish (for example) and have the written text translated into English, you could have it done up into a standard text document and then copy/paste it into a post, no?

Frankly I would have no problem with members doing this as long as the translation is good.  People have been using shit like Google translate for years to make posts here, with some horrifying results--and to try to obfuscate plagiarism, too.  Maybe if AI gets advanced enough, quickly enough, members who can't speak a lick of English can be writing profound statements about bitcoin in impeccable English, and nobody would be able to tell that they had a little bit of....help.

Then again, the rule of the forum is: whatever can be abused by a bunch of shitposters will be abused beyond anyone's imagination.

Yep, I too remember when that happened, and there was at least one discussion about the repercussions of a member like Lauda leaving the forum, one who'd left so many DT-weighted feedbacks over the years. 

There are pros and cons to the situation OP brought to the table, and this isn't the first thread about it either, if my memory serves correctly.  And assuming I am right that the community has talked about feedbacks left by members who've disappeared, that discussion was always left hanging.  Why?  Because there's no solution to it except for an intervention by Theymos, and he seems unwilling to step in and remove any feedbacks from members like TMAN, Bruno, TECSHARE, Lauda, etc. 

The only thing that can be done is to decrease the weight of the feedbacks by removing inactive members from DT--but again, that opens another can of worms if scammers are no longer red-tagged with the weight of a DT member.  I've long given up on anything being done except for talking about this, and I'm not even sure there's a big problem anyway.

Man, that's weird--he's been a member the entire time I've been here, and I don't remember ever seeing his username at all.  And it's not like he didn't make a lot of posts, either.  Maybe not a ton for someone who's been a member of bitcointalk for 10 years, but still.  I had to look at his post history, and it's clear why his name didn't ring a bell, because he posted a lot in the altcoin section.

I hate to see young people die, and looking at that picture of him he looks as though he's bursting with energy and enthusiasm.  So although I didn't know him, RIP Joerii.  It's obvious he touched a lot of peoples' lives, and my condolences to his family and friends.

I had to let out a big sigh when I read OP's story there, because bitcoin had been on my radar even earlier--and I failed to hold the btc that I purchased at what now seems like a ridiculously low price.  If I were to keep looking back at 2015-17, I'd likely jump off the highest building that had an elevator with a straight shot to the roof.

Alas, hindsight is 20/20 and we all know this (or should).  But yeah, there's going to be another boom, no question.  Cryptocurrency is a market just like any other, and since there have already been several boom/bust cycles it only makes sense that the market for bitcoin is going to be a cyclical one just like the stock market.  Plus it's not like it's only for tech geeks anymore like it was in the very early days; institutional investors have gotten into the game, and that pretty much guarantees there are going to be raging bull markets and withering bear markets.

I couldn't tell you if $26,XXX is cheap for bitcoin right now, but since it's already been almost 3 times that price....it might just be a good buy right now.  At the very least, I probably wouldn't sell lest my and OP's regrets come true for anybody who's holding BTC.  Don't be a Sceptical Chymist!

When I read stuff about Tencent and the like, I don't doubt that statement at all.  On the other hand, it seems like a lot of the tech innovations that have changed our lives have originated in the US--I've no idea whether that's going to continue or not, but I wouldn't count the US out just yet.

As far as China goes, I've got my doubts that a communist country is going to become a tech giant on their own.  They're very good at using everything that other countries have invented (not to mention their culture of counterfeiting shit), but I don't think they're going to make any major developments in tech all by themselves.  But hey, I've been very wrong before, more times than I can count so we'll see.  What I'm more worried about is how all of these countries with enormous power and resources are going to get along in the coming decades.

I'm just going to reply to this part of your question list and suggest NOT buying any Ledger wallets either.  They probably still are the leader in the HW wallet space, but after their Recover "option" debacle I'm not sure how long they're going to maintain that standing, nor do I trust them anymore.  If they can access your private keys, forget about it.  The same is probably true of other HW wallets with secure elements (or so I've heard) regardless of whether the code is open source or not....but I don't know.  I'm done playing around with them altogether.

If you read Ledger's subreddit, you'd think coins are lost from their wallets all the time, but I think in most cases it's due to operator error.  As far as any of them getting hacked, none of the big brand name ones have.  Not sure about any scams going on with the crappier ones sold on eBay and the like, but just be careful and read up on what's available before making a purchase--and not just forum posts, either.

What's up with all of these threads about merits?  Are people starting to become concerned with ranking up again and earning more money?  That cynical little devil that lives on my shoulder is starting to tell me something's up.

And OP, this forum has existed for most of its life without the merit system or any method for members to "like" posts.  So I'd say even if the merit system wasn't created, we'd all be just fine.  On top of that, everything you wrote has been discussed to death already--across many threads and who knows how many years.  So please lock this thread, because it's going to turn into a shitposter magnet and we don't need threads like this in Meta.

That was almost a flash crash, because the stock market recovered fairly quickly (though I can't remember what the economy in general was like afterward--but it was nowhere near as bad as what came after the events in The Big Short).  I'd also say that the '87 crash might not be "famous" with younger folks because they probably weren't even born yet, but I'm sure a lot of business execs and Wall Street people won't ever forget it.

Anyway, you guys do realize that the bull market in stocks that started when things began to recover back in 2009 or so is still going on now, right?  While I don't get the same vibe tread93 gets about the economy (or housing market), stocks just don't keep going up forever.  That's almost as reliable as any law you'll find in a physics textbook, and that's saying something for such a soft 'science' as economics.  So I'd say a crash is coming eventually, but I don't see anything that might precipitate it immediately.

Maybe Michael Burry knows what's up.

I would question why OP is even here if he didn't even take the time to browse through the first few pages of Meta, where he'd probably find that this discussion was recently had, and in which I posted (for probably the hundredth time) a variation of this:


OP, either deal with what you're given or suck it up and stop making noise.  You can argue about this until you're blue in the face....or just put on some goddamn sunglasses while you work your way up to joining a bounty.  Lots of luck to you.

OP, I guess everyone's got their pet peeves and I can sympathize with you....but personally I stopped caring about PM or e-mail titles a long time ago, and now that I'm actually thinking about it I'm not sure why that is.

But e-mails aside, when it comes to PMs on this forum, mostly what I get are requests for post history reviews with a very small number of messages directed at me on a more personal level.  My mind has been like a overflowing snake pit lately, so maybe if members do follow your suggestion it might help me get my messages organized at least.  We'll see what happens.

Nice to see a thread about some forum etiquette.  There should probably be more like this for newbies (though I'm betting this thread is going to eventually get buried under tons of new threads until it reaches a page where nobody's going to find it).  Lol.  Unless something good gets stickied, it vanishes pretty quickly.

I don't think there's a correct answer to OP's question.

I also think this might be a merit-begging thread disguised as a discussion of the merit system created by a newbie who knows exactly how important merits are and what the earnings potential is by virtue of being a higher-ranked member of the forum.

The fact is, it doesn't matter if it's your first or 6000th merit that you've earned; if you're a poster who's good enough to stand out from all of the crap posts that have infested most sections of bitcointalk, you're going to earn merits.  If you're just average you might get lucky and write something a merit source or some other member who's got sMerits to give out finds interesting.  In that case I'd still say any merits you earn are going to be equally as hard to come by. 

Come to think of it, I've seen so many 1-merit Jr. Members around that the first merit a newbie earns might just be the easiest, especially since there's a thread dedicated to the members who're most generous to newbies.  I'm usually very low down on that one, because I don't hand out merits to compete in that thread or for charity.  So who the fuck knows?

If you ever find yourself with a question like that, just note: anything that can be abused or used to its absolute limit to earn money on this forum will be.  I have not read all the responses in this thread, and there might be a correct answer from one of our more informed historians, but if I had to make an educated guess I'd say at some point animated signatures got way out of control.

I think that's the reason why there are any rules at all here--simply to keep the idiots who'd run amok in check.  Theymos has an extremely reasonable set of "unofficial" rules, which are much more lenient than other forums I've seen.  Most of those rules probably evolved parallel to the evolution of signature campaigns.

Heaven help us all if Theymos changes the forum format to anything akin to Reddit.  I know nothing about how Twitter is laid out, but I've seen screenshots of tweets and the whole thing looks retarded with a very big capital "R".  Should that ever come about, I think I would flee to my fantasy sig campaign castle and live there behind locked doors for eternity.

Yeah, I hate Reddit with a passion.

That's anyone's guess.  Sometimes you think he's ignored all suggestions and then suddenly one of them has been implemented.  It's a crapshoot with him--but I'd bet the house he's not going to lift a finger to act on this one.

OP, you might have noticed that I talk shit about bounty hunters and sig campaign spammers and the like, but understand two thing:

1) I have signatures and avatars on ignore, so unless I check a member's profile manually I have no idea if they're participating in a bounty or campaign.  The shit-talking I do is based on years of prior experience with people who are incentivized to post on bitcointalk.  Let me ask you, have you been on any other forum and seen a new member create a thread asking how they can rank up or make good posts?  I seriously doubt it, and if you say you have I'd like to see the evidence. 

Many older members did not come here so that they could get paid to post, even if they're doing so now.  If someone came here due to their curiosity about, or passion for, bitcoin then why wouldn't they want to get some extra BTC for what they'd be doing already?  That's true of a lot of old-timers.

2) It is without question the members who participate in bounties or bitcoin-paying sig campaigns that aren't selective about who they accept that are responsible for most of the garbage posts here, and it's the reason why Bitcoin Discussion (which should be the best section here) is infested with low-quality posts.  Campaigns and bounties primarily pay for posts in English, but this is a global forum and for many members English is probably not even their second language.  So what happens?  People who can't write English to save their lives come here to try to earn a living by writing the most insipid nonsense ever written in the history of discussion forums (except for the ones that still allow "+1", "great post", and the like).

Wonder why the merit system was introduced in the first place?  Go back to December 2017 in Meta, and you'll probably find that there were a bunch of threads about forum post quality.  It had been a major issue for years prior, but it hit its boiling point right before Theymos dropped the merit system on us in Jan. 2018.  And let me tell you, senior members were not a big part of the problem unless those accounts had been bought or hacked.

Don't get discouraged if you see a lot of shit-talking, though.  Any new member can establish themselves if they really want to, and I've seen that time and time again.  But I wish it wasn't as rare a case as it is for that to happen.  Most newbies are just here because they heard they could earn money online.

You can keep saying that until the cows come home, but if you do you're just going to make yourself a target of ridicule. 

You're also making a claim, specifically that bitcointalk members are more interested in shitcoins than they previously were.  You sure about that?  Even if you're gauging said interest by an increase in activity in the altcoin section, it could be due to bounty hunters becoming more active.  That entire section (including all the subsections) has been a cesspool and a haven for the worst posters this forum has.  That being the case, I don't think there needs to be another board added for shitcoin wallets.

Also: Theymos would never go for it, especially since he's rejected much better suggestions that have been made.

Huh, I never noticed that (but even if I had, I've got no faith in the trust system so I wouldn't have cared).  Lack of caring not withstanding, I do find it somewhat interesting if someone excludes me from their trust list.  JG doing it after 1.6 years, though?  Do you really think that's retaliation?  I suppose it could be, but I'd be curious to know the reasoning behind that move, because members are supposed to be excluded from your trust list only if you think their feedback-giving is wrong for whatever reason. 

Since JG and I aren't exactly on bad terms despite me excluding him from my trust list (we've actually discussed it via PM), maybe he's got a good reason for it?  Maybe?  Possibly?

Well I sure as hell would be--but this would not be the correct section for it (Economics would be my first thought), and I seriously doubt a brand new member is going to be dropping a bomb about a legitimate stock exchange on a forum about bitcoin.  Scandals just aren't revealed that way.  If anyone's got enough poop on a big enough organization such that it'd be newsworthy, they'd go to the press.

But hey, lookin' forward to all the juiciness OP promises to post (lol).

Yep--but the old rule is that you can't please everyone all of the time.  That said, this is the first time I'm seeing a request to delete any child boards.  What we usually see is just what you said, people requesting subsections for crap like NFTs.

I don't visit most of the sections OP mentioned, so I'm not sure how active they are (I'm curious about the new forum software section in particular).  What I'm fairly sure of is that if Theymos lifted his finger to create a board or a child board, it's not likely he's going to delete it anytime soon.  But he's surprised me in the past, so don't take my post as speaking for him.

If a board is obviously a dead one with little chance of being resuscitated, then I would agree with OP that Theymos ought to nuke it.  That only makes sense, right?

That made me chuckle--not because it's ridiculous but because the trust system is so ridiculous that its absurdity is deserving of such witty ridicule. 

As to the statement above by EFS, I would have to disagree unless I'm not seeing all the evidence that the majority of the forum members are liars.  That's not to say that I haven't seen hundreds of examples of dishonesty by scammers, bounty cheaters, and the like but bitcointalk has multiple millions of members.  Anyway.

The trust system really, really needs an overhaul.  When Theymos added the flag system, I just scratched my head and then rolled my eyes.  When he made the default trust list a rotating system, I entered ~DefaultTrust and said I was done with it.  But given how deaf he is to suggestions from the community I don't expect things to change anytime soon.