TMAN?  Yeah, there's a guy who had the mouth of a trucker--and I often wonder where he went to.  The forum lost a lot of very colorful members in the last few years, whether they used a profuse amount of profanity or just voiced their opinions in a forceful manner.  It's unfortunate that they're not all still around, because it seems like they added just the right amount of spice to certain discussions, something that's missing right now.

And hell no, I don't want to be censored on bitcointalk.  There are so many other discussion forums where profanity is the least of what you can't write.  Here you can offend people without fear of getting banned, and the community basically regulates itself if someone steps out of line.  That's the way it ought to be IMO, instead of an admin making rules up in order to protect people's feelings and whatnot.  

Yeah, bitcointalk does have rules about what can be said, but they're so rarely enforced that they might as well not even exist.  Go Theymos!

I don't know why that member hasn't been banned, but I'm 99% sure he's using AI because he can't write for shit and is here just to get paid.  The latter has been true for a lot of people for years, but with advances in AI....I don't know, it's kind of scary.

The only reason I could ever see for Theymos banning signature campaigns voluntarily is if bitcointalk evolved into an AI-driven spam forum worse than what it is now, because at that point all of the idiots would have driven out the good members--and it's scary to me because I'm not sure how close it's coming to that.  Campaign participants are basically taking writing jobs, right?  Well, if you need the money and the easiest way to go about getting it is to have an AI program generate some posts because you can't write (or have nothing to say), it's hard to believe it's not going to happen on a grand scale.

Ban all members suspected of using AI, that's my opinion.  Otherwise this entire forum is in jeopardy.

Theymos needs to make a rule ASAP if that's the case.  We've already had a problem with shitposters doing it the hard way for years, so if they can decrease the effort needed to crank out nonsensical crap exponentially, then that's another problem that needs to be nipped in the bud as fast as Big Boss can write up a rule.

Edit:

I tagged the member in question.  When there's no rule in place to deal with this sort of shenanigans, one must use the tools available to them to combat it.

But it is written; it's just a typical weird-ass unwritten-but-written-unofficial-and-rarely-enforced kind of forum rule dreamed up by Theymos or who knows who else.

As far as signature campaigners and insults/profanity goes, it's those kinds of posts that get the eyeballs and I don't think there's a single campaign project owner who's specified that their participants can't use whatever choice of words they want.  If that was actually a rule in a campaign, it'd be one I'd avoid like the plague.  Who wants some censor following them around the forum, micromanaging what gets said and what doesn't?  Sounds pretty fuckin' icky to me.

I'll even up the ante here.  If teamsherry follows up and does point out posts you find meritworthy, I'll check all the ones you've merited and if I concur, I'll give them an additional 1 merit.

They've been complaining about merit ever since that morning in January 2018 when I woke up (with the flu) and saw Meta had exploded and suddenly contained innumerable threads dealing with this new phenomenon Theymos had seemingly cooked up in secret.  And yup, the system has been kicking shitposters' asses ever since.  But hey, at least there aren't nearly as many merit-bitching or merit-begging threads these days.  For those of you who haven't been here a few years, those were a massive annoyance for a long, long time.

Edit:

By the way, "teamsherry" doesn't happen to look like this does it?

So....do you think some of your posts are among those that have escaped the attention of merit sources and all of the other members with merits to give out?  I'm really hoping the answer is no, because the quality of your writing is typical of what I see in most threads, i.e., abysmal.  And yes I'm singling you out since you acknowledged the abundance of shitposts but argued that good posts go un-merited despite the argument that LoyceV made.

See?  You're not even trying.  Or worse, this is your best writing.

Speaking of merit sources and their activity, I've been incredibly lazy for at least a month but intend to fire off the merit cannon shortly.  I'm still contemplating how to handle my offer of post history reviews in light of some feedback I've gotten and the high probability that I'm helping alt accounts that meet the bare minimum standards for merits rank up--something that I do not want to do.  But that's for another thread.

That was just a bit before my time if I recall correctly, but Theymos's action wasn't because of TECSHARE cheating anyone but because he was abusing the trust system--but correct me if I'm wrong.  Despite the fact that we couldn't stand each other, I never thought of him as dishonest, just a hothead who couldn't let a disagreement go.

Yep, and I'm sure for every member like TECSHARE that we know who died, there are a dozen or more who've left because of death or some other fate (like arrest in your example) that none of us ever hear about.  But that's what you get with a forum of this size.

And why in the world did this thread get bumped, exactly?  I mean, I see the post that bumped it but it seems to me it didn't need to get resurrected.

Ditto, and that's one of the reasons why OP's question is a bit hard to answer.  Another reason is that I've been around long enough to know that dips like the one that just happened are healthy.  I must've said it a dozen times--it's not a good thing when bitcoin rises too high, too fast and I wasn't hoping it would have reached $100k this month or even next month.

For everyone who got spooked....just stick around and hold it if you've got it.  Dips shake out the weak traders, and depending on what price you bought in at you'd be buying high and selling low, i.e., the exact opposite of what you're supposed to do.

Lol....what?

That statement reminds me of when Yobit had their last campaign, in which they accepted (to the best of my recollection) an unlimited number of participants.  A ton of formerly inactive members came out of hiding to join it.  That tells me that there are probably a lot of members here with high-ranking alt accounts that aren't used for anything other than campaigns, and that yes, a lot of people are here just to earn money.  But that's something most of us have known for a long time.

Not everyone, of course.  But just look at how many people here are advertising something in their signature space.  I'd say it's the majority of members here, no?

That's a "trucker's piss bomb" if I'm not mistaken.  I see them all over the sides of the road, and as they're no doubt loaded with substances of delightful kinds (and metabolites of said substances, too) I am always tempted to distill them into something evil.  I have yet to do so, however.

Shit, I didn't know this was where the party was.  Sorry I'm late, my fellow cyclers!  All praise be to Foxxxxxy and cheers to my teammates.  And I'm sending positive vibrations out to wherever Leo is.

I've told exactly one person about how members here can potentially get paid for making posts, and this person would have been the only one I know who'd be interested.  But then I explained that in order to make more than a pittance he'd need to rank up and that it isn't exactly easy.  He didn't care either, and as I said it might be different in other countries but the most logical explanation in situations like this is that accounts are connected.  I've seen excuses like the ones given here more than a few times over the years, so.

Still thinking about reevaluating my post history review offer.  It wasn't abused in this case, but I've been getting PMs from members I respect hinting that I ought to just ditch the whole endeavor, and I'm beginning to agree with them.

That was a preemptive call for non-flaming, since I recall getting a lot of backlash for prior statements.  And I'm not flaming anyone here because of any opinions they might have regarding MSTR.  Not now, anyway (heh).

But there already was a lawsuit in the works that I linked to a while back (that apparently went nowhere), so it isn't as though it couldn't happen.  But you're right, MSTR is being completely transparent about what they're doing with respect to buying bitcoin so I guess anyone who holds their stock shouldn't be shocked that its price is closely tied to the price of bitcoin.  And if bitcoin dropping down to $16k or wherever it was a couple of years ago didn't cause a revolt then I doubt there's going to be one in the works, except if some ambulance-chasing law firm wants to start up a class action lawsuit (which would probably fail).

Anyway, despite my skepticism my current thinking is that it's a benefit to the rest of us that a CEO of a tech company is so pro-bitcoin that he's putting his money where his mouth is and buying it in bulk.  If he has any influence in government or influential friends, that'd be even better.

No.  Not a single one, and that's why I find it incredibly hard to believe--especially since this particular forum has had a major problem with account farming, alt accounts abusing campaigns/bounties, and alt accounts contributing to the overall low quality of discussion here.  Let Occam's Razor slice your way through to the truth, no?

On the other hand, I have no idea what communities are like in other countries or if the younger generation (which I am assuming you are a part of) would be more likely to be into bitcoin and tell a friend about bitcointalk.  Still, even as I wrote that sentence the thought that popped into my head was why someone would tell somebody else about this forum--and it'd probably be "Hey, did you know you can get paid to write posts?". 

There's not enough reasonable doubt here IMO, but I'm not tagging any accounts either.

Wow.  Just fucking wow.  It amazes me when there are a bunch of "friends" (presumably in real life?) who happen to also be members of a particular forum....and they all get connected as alt accounts.  This is as far as I've gotten in this thread, but you can be damn sure I'm going to read this until it gets locked.

I have noted that PytagoraZ has requested post history reviews from me in the past, but not any of the above accounts that I can remember--but I haven't checked.  This thread is really making me lean toward ditching my offer altogether and going back to giving out merits the old way, while reading random posts.

I think of it less as censorship and more as mods acting as forum toilet paper, i.e., cleaning up the residual shit.  It's an important function on an internet discussion board where most members are incentivized to post and 85% of them don't know how to write coherently.  A certain remaining percentage are composed of spammers and the like.

So OP, now that you got a hundred answers to your lame question, can you please lock this thread?  It's good etiquette to do so since there's really nothing left to discuss.  Thanks in advance.

I'm not going to criticize Michael Saylor, so don't flame me, but if he buys bitcoin that way is it in the best interest of MSTR's shareholders?  AFAIK he's got a fiduciary responsibility to use Microstrategy's money & resources in the most responsible manner possible, and I'd think that getting a loan for that much money and buying bitcoin at a time when trading volume is relatively low might raise some eyebrows at the very least.

Aside from that, you can't argue with MSTR's stock price right now ($1695 as I write this).  Never would have thought it'd go that high, but I've been proven wrong once again.

Doubt he's going to do that when we live in a world of misleading thumbnails for videos, overhyped headlines, and pretty much everyone doing anything they can do to get attention on the internet.  But he absolutely should change the title, because OP's petty issue has nothing to do with bad behavior or newbies and everything to do with his own attitude.

I also think this thread is less to complain than it is to promote something.  Ever notice that many things on this forum aren't quite what they seem to be?

Bitcoin isn't a stock, and it isn't as if they can push their liberal agenda by voting their proxies and controlling companies' board rooms and such if they buy a whole bunch of bitcoin.  I don't see a huge risk to the bitcoin community in general but a risk to Blackrock if they somehow bought so much that they painted themselves into a corner, i.e., they wouldn't be able to sell it all if they needed to without crashing the market.

I'm way more concerned about them owning too much stock in too many companies.  That wouldn't trouble me at all if I didn't detest their politics and their ability to influence corporations to toe the line when it comes to DEI and who knows what else.  As far as bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency goes, let 'em buy all they want.  It'll either be bad for them or really good for us.

Marketing hype might play a part in some coins, but with crypto the price is basically determined solely by demand.  If there are any other factors, I can't think of them.

BTX is one of those altcoins that might be useful as a currency, but then again the same is true for any coin that has a low network fee and fast confirmation time.  Alas, nobody is using crypto to pay for things.  Still, BTX is still on my radar for some reason I can't fully articulate.

Fighting the government with a demand that they reimburse you for correspondence using bitcoin?  No, I can say that I have.  Lol.

Jet Cash, great to see you're still around, as always.  In your current predicament I'm afraid you're not going to get any satisfaction--and I don't think it'd matter what country you're in, there's no federal, state, or local government that's 1) going to accept that you don't want to provide your bank info, and 2) going to pay you back for using snail mail (with fiat or bitcoin).  I'm all for sticking it to the man in situations like parking violations and such, but you're tilting at windmills here.

That's impossible.  Just impossible.  Stream of consciousness thought here:  whatever happened to Quickseller?  That's off-topic, so nobody need answer the question, but as I've been awake since my last post I thought I'd axe it.

Most of my neurons have already exploded, imploded, or otherwise run screaming from the swirling pit of chaos that is the inner content of my skull.  But if you bring the injectibles, I will gladly bring the necessary equipment.