Would you say they were rather subjective, and could pass as good or bad depending on the user reviewing it? Like, some posts are so obviously spam, there would be universal agreement. However, when you get to the borderline cases as I like to call them, that's when reports usually go unhandled. They've definitely been seen, I'm quite confident of that.

I usually leave reports unhandled, when I don't necessarily disagree why the post was reported, but don't think it warrants enough action. Although, my sections are fairly easy so this doesn't happen very often, but you can see when it does because the reports stay in the report queue for a long time, which gives me the assumption that other moderators also feel the same way about it. 

I reported a few posts yesterday, and they were all handled as good. I was even expecting maybe one of them to be left as unhandled as it could've been subjective. So, the reports are getting handled, and I expect your reports were definitely seen.

If you don't feel like reporting, I could start reporting in that section. I'm there anyway, mainly for the UFC thread, though. I can also handle some of the newbie reports, but there isn't a whole lot of those in the last few months.

Also, worth noting that the majority of replies you get here, are going to be biased. Mine was. I believe in Bitcoin, this is a Bitcoin forum, and you've posted in a Bitcoin dominant section. Luckily probably staying on topic enough to stay here. Although, if you posted about whether altcoins were worth investing in, and secondly safe to do so, you'll find different answers since its from a different audience.

However, put it this way. If I had invested in some of the altcoins which piqued my interest along the way, I would likely looking at losses in them specifically. Whereas Bitcoin I've only ever profited. Although, I might be down to what I received last week, that doesn't matter in the long term.

Ultimately, it's up to you, but try to remember that the majority of altcoins aren't worth your time, and almost always fail. There's a few that might be promising. Particularly those that have Mimble Wimble implemented, as that at least from a technology stand point, is quite interesting. Other than that, most do the same thing, but slightly different.

You've got two of the most active staff users on that section, so while they might not patrol it, they're definitely around acting upon things. I don't know so much about Cyrus, as I'm not overly familiar with their duties, but I know they're very active at the very least.

I've reported a few posts over the gambling section earlier. Varying of different types, some which I'd expect to get handled, and then others which might be somewhat borderline, which I'm somewhat expected to remain unhandled. Though, I do think they're pretty much saying nothing. I'll see how they get handled.

Yeah, we tend to avoid locking threads. In my head, locking is usually useful in certain circumstances, which to be honest I haven't really come across in the years I've been here. If a thread is that bad, it would probably be just as good to remove it completely. However, in almost all cases I'd say its better to remove the problems within the thread, than the thread itself, and that goes for locking too. Others might have varying different levels, but we don't see threads getting locked much so I expect they have a similar interpretation on that.

Signature campaign managers can specify whatever they want in their rules, as long as it doesn't break forum guidelines. To be honest, even if they had a minimum of 20 posts a week, certain users could easily do that, without spamming. Some already do. It's the outliers which are willing to pretty much pump out anything, while still remaining somewhat borderline in terms of spam.

Self moderation doesn't always have to mean that you're censoring users. You could just be removing off topic, and unsubstantial posts, rather than relying on the forum moderators. That's a perfectly legitimate reason to open one up. You don't have to delete posts you don't agree with. I know there's a negative stigma around self moderated threads, but I've seen them become more prominent, and more importantly more accepted among the community over the years.

We moderators definitely do appreciate it when we get reports, but I can understand a users point of view if they don't want to rely on us for certain things. Especially, when it specifically isn't bad enough to break our interpretation of the rules, whereas yours you think it should be removed. I guess that could be considered censorship, but it's not like you're actively shutting people's opinions down, simply because they're giving a different opinion, it's because you deem it unsubstantial. Thus, they kind of accept that upon entering the thread.

That's probably the reason it's best to start a new self moderated thread, and just lock the old one. Since, then those that didn't sign up to the idea of a self moderated thread, wouldn't find their posts deleted suddenly, because it has now been converted to a self moderated thread.

So, after zasad@ asked these questions a few years ago (September 17, 2020 to be specific), I've finally decided to give it a shot. I'm quite impressed with my memory (fine you got me, BlackHatCoiner reminded me). Anyway, I've removed some, but I tried to the best of my ability to answer the questions.

Also, zasad@ thanks for the questions, I didn't ignore you , I just gave a delayed response, albeit very delayed . Nah, I honestly didn't believe many users would care about my story, can't recall if I ever did message you, don't think I did though, so I apologise for that.

Not sure why certain users were interested in hearing off of me. I'm not particularly interesting. Quite frankly, I'm disappointed with the lack of bear attacks, and close encounters with bulls that I was promised at the start of my journey.

So, I'm not much of a story teller, and to be quite honest with everyone here, I can't even remember all the motivations. However, I can tell you a little bit about what I can remember.

Over the years I recall some users speculating over my age, and for whatever reason assumed I'm much older than I actually am. Well, without getting too specific lets just say at the time I was speculated to be 30-40, which these days unfortunately is becoming a little more accurate to those lower figures, although I wouldn't say close .

So, why that's important is because when I was younger looking to earn a bit on the side, you know to fund my action man collection (Okay, I wasn't quite that young), I was technically too young to get a Paypal account. I can't remember the specifics of why I couldn't, probably something to do with having to be 18 to open a Paypal account. Anyway, for whatever reason I searched up for a legal alternative, and discovered Bitcoin (See at this time where kids my age were getting into drugs, and drink I was getting into the super cool Bitcoin, actually looking back it did lead to an addiction that's lasted for nine years now...).

Now, I didn't really have many skills at this point, I'm not one of those genius kids that could code up some app, and sell it to Google (although I was learning to code at this time, and guess could say I was okay at it). I was a normal kid, looking to make some pocket money. So, and this is quite laughable now looking back. I had this app on my Ipod at the time, which earned money by viewing ads, I was generating tiny amounts, like $1 voucher codes or $5 voucher codes for Amazon.

So, I decided to sell these codes for Bitcoin. It was really the only earnings I was making, and it was abysmal at the time. I wasn't going to get rich, and I wasn't trying to get rich. I thought about ways of scaling it, but ultimately it wasn't something that was going to make me Elon Musk, you know? Nah, instead I started to participate in the forum, and slowly started to understand why people actually valued their time here.

Honestly, I wasn't here to participate per say, not at this point, I didn't see myself caring about my account or even the forum at this point, but it slowly grew on me. I guess you could lend the phrase off Bob Ross, and call it a happy little accident that I stumbled upon Bitcoin. At that point, I started to learn more about Bitcoin, and started to see why these crazy geeks were into it so much. So, I decided once I'd buy some gift cards from the stores you can get them at, like the physical ones, and sell them. So I can get higher denominations.

At this point, I'm finally grasping why Bitcoin could absolutely set up my life in a real good way (even with these bloody gift cards). So, I didn't care about discounting the codes, because well I had faith that more people would realise what I realised about Bitcoin, and that would push up the value, and over time I'd be earning more than the 20% off or whatever it was at that time.

Anyway, safe to say that gift card business didn't last long after the collapse of bitmit?, but the damage had already been done. I was now obsessed with Bitcoin, instead of going out with friends, I studied Bitcoin, and participated in Bitcoin discussions here on the forum. However, that doesn't mean nowadays I'm a technical mastermind, I understand the fundamentals, still have a few gaps to fill, but I've now got this belief that no matter what happens, even the recent declines I'm in this for the long term, and quite frankly even if Bitcoin reached a million a coin, I'd still own Bitcoin, because of the freedom I've achieved.

That's the humble beginnings of Welsh, and how he joined the army of geeks . I know, you guys were expecting some sort of entrepreneur like story with that wall of text, wasn't you? Anyway, it goes without saying, but I'm so glad that kid that wanted that spare money to fund his marble collection, stumbled upon this gem of a community. It's weird to say these days, but this forum has become a passion of mine, which hopefully a lot of you can relate too, otherwise I'm going to sound like that guy that has romantically fallen for his car.


I can't remember exactly when I bought my first one. I mainly earned it through advertising, and what not. Back then you could get something like 0.25 Bitcoin a week. I can't remember exactly, but it was crazy amounts looking back.


I basically reported enough that theymos had a absolute guts full of seeing my name pop up. Nah, I reported a fair amount, and was invited by theymos very casually to become a moderator. No massive story there.

Varies wildly. Few hours a day, although most Saturdays I'm not as active, and occasionally have days off when real work ramps up, so even then not all dedicated to moderation as I still try, and participate in the community as much as possible.

When I was reporting I was dedicating maybe 2-3 hours a day to reporting, however since I can now delete most of the crap, it doesn't take as long. Significantly less actually. From time to time, I dedicate a large part of the day of clearing up all the crap. I hope I've made a difference in the time I've been here.

Don't really pay attention to it all that much, since that's not my line of work. I leave that to the big boys (Global moderators/admins).

I tend to believe its worked for this long, and becoming a moderator you don't go through a course or anything like that. theymos gives asks you, and then there's a few things in the staff forum to guide you. If you're making mistakes or not quite hitting the standards that theymos expects he'll message you, and very casually guide you. So, reducing the permissions of a local moderator reduces any issues that could pop up, in that lack of knowledge stage.

Plus, local moderators can get in contact with the big boys (Globals/admins), and ask them to escalate any cases. So, it's not like we don't communicate. Its not like you'd communicate in a office, but you ping things over to the big boys, and they get to decide the right course of action based on the local moderator's input. The system has worked for many years, and honestly there's not to many issues reported.

I think it's fine how it is.


I have the belief that the community is the driving force behind any forum. Without the communities involvement, we wouldn't have what we have today. As for the administration contributing to the development, I think they do. I do think admins, and the community have different responsibilities. The admins make sure things don't get too rogue, as well as implementing essential things, but the community is what makes things happen.

I'll be completely honest, I'm not looking forward to the software change, that might eventually happen. Over the years I've come accustomed to using UserScripts built for SMF, I've got my own CSS to make it look all fancy, and to remove niggly bits that have bothered me over the years. So, the daunting idea of doing all that again, is well daunting. Plus, I really hate modern looks, I know with CSS I can change that, but I bloody hate modern looking forums. So, much white space.


Without a doubt, we wouldn't have as much problems with spam if signature campaigns weren't a thing. However, I don't think they should be removed. They provide a sort of ecosystem on the forum, which I actually think is brilliant. I haven't always been involved in the signature campaign scene, I took a few years out of just posting normally, but I absolutely love the idea I can get paid to do what I would be doing anyway. That's like turning your passion into also your job, right?

Merit system has saved a lot of headaches. I think the merit system, and the underrated bumping changes, really did change things for the general forum user. It reduced a massive amount of spam, at the same time hiding some of the spam that's still here from the eyes of a regular forum user. Those two changes, along with removing the restrictions of the newbie jail, were the most important for the development of the forum, in my opinion. Slightly biased, as I see the massive effect that the bumping changes had in the Altcoin sections.  

There's just been so many over the years, it would feel disingenuous to publicly name some, and not all. We all sort of know the prominent ones, but also as a staff user you also see the quiet users that just report for the good of the forum, without actually talking about it. That's respectable in its own right, in my opinion.


KYC I mean...two factor authentication. That's likely a priority to me, and the only major thing that's missing from the forum. Maybe, some restrictions on bounties, they're a problem. I'm also not much of a fan of restrictions usually, but the bounty section is a unique case.

Might be a shocker to some being active, and a moderator of the altcoin section, but I'm not invested in anything other than Bitcoin. I never invested in Litecoin or any other altcoin that has had some success over the years. I also rarely use exchanges. Only ever take out of Bitcoin when I need too. For example, a few expeditions in the past.

I bet one whole Bitcoin on Germany to win a game in the world cup a few years back. They didn't lose, they just waited until extra time. Obviously, that meant I lost that. It wasn't worth much at the time, but obviously looking back today, it's rather funny or depressing what ever way you want to look at it. I think I would've won something silly like 9 Bitcoin, which again could be funny or depressing. Especially, as I've proven to be a holder rather than someone who trades. Would've bought me a nice Cyber Truck that would've.

I believe privacy is a human right. There's not much more to it than that. I don't use it as protection, but because I respect my privacy, as well as those around me.

I don't tend to specifically read books these days, usually listen to them in audio book form. That way I can do it while moderating or doing something else. Long travelling journeys is usually where I consume the most knowledge, as audio books have proven to be well worth their investment during these trips.

Last book I read was probably Mastering Bitcoin by Andreas Antonopoulos.  

Bitcoin, BTC, and what's that really cool one called? Ah, Satoshi's.

See this is the problem when I don't answer for a few years. I did remember too though! So, I'll predict for 2022. I think £20,000 on the 31st of Dec 2022. This isn't financial advise, and quite frankly I couldn't care less about the price of it at that time.

LogitechMouse hit the nail on the head. Do your research. If you haven't done your research, and understand why a particular investment should be successful, you're setting yourself up for failure. You wouldn't go down the street, and invest in a hot dog stand, if you didn't know how busy it was, so why would you do the same with other investments?

I personally didn't really understand the potential of Bitcoin until months, maybe up to a year of using it. I was just using it for a side gig. I basically looked for an alternative to the traditional payment processors like Paypal, simply because I was earning gift cards on a phone at the time, and wanted to sell them. That's basically it, so I was not looking to make millions. Then, as time went on I started to learn a little bit more about it, and that was that. I've now developed a sort of belief system that the world will always need something like Bitcoin. If you care about privacy, and not relying on third parties, you'll need something like Bitcoin. It gives you the freedom. Although, at first I was probably a little bit too young to actually understand the importance of that.

Plus, having a few problems with banks blocking payments, such as a trip I wanted to go on, and then having the hassle of sorting that out; that's basically what drove me to Bitcoin, and ended up becoming a massive part of my life. My investment has already paid off, and not completely via monetary gain, simply the freedom I've achieved over my money has been priceless.

Right. That isn't Bitcoin's problem at its core, rather it's the problem of people, and dare I say it capitalism actually encourages people to try, and find a way of escaping the rat race as some people put it. So, naturally people resort to crime out of desperation. I mean, just look at all the statistics out there, and it'll suggest the poorer a region is, the more crime there is. I'm not saying that the rich haven't pulled a scam or two, because they definitely have. However, crime is more prominent in low income regions or those with high levels of poverty.

Fundamentally, Bitcoin isn't at fault. It's the system, and people that are. We can't protect against that. I know Bitcoin being a currency which doesn't allow chargebacks can be seen as a negative, and a way of encouraging scammers, but I think a lot of people forget it's a two way street. Sellers, as well as buyers get scammed, even with chargebacks. Sellers get hit the most with chargebacks obviously, and it's a real problem. Paypal for example will almost always side with the buyer. Sellers are currently getting the short hand. That doesn't happen with Bitcoin. Instead, its encouraged, and almost the unwritten code that a escrow is involved, therefore you're safe from chargebacks fundamentally with how Bitcoin works, as well as reducing the chances of a seller pulling off a scam, because of the escrow.

So, scammers do exist in Bitcoin, and will always exist. Exactly how they'll always exist in the fiat dominant world. I could put in a common search phrase into any search engine right this second, and be served up a site that scams. That's the reality, but people seem to forget this when comparing Bitcoin, and fiat.

The only difference is in fiat you have a safety net, if you're on the right side of the transaction. However, in another way there isn't enough protection for sellers, since chargebacks can, and do happen frequently.

I'm feeling confident about Thiago Moisés. Think he'll get the job done. So, my early leans for the underdogs is; Cody Durden at 2.00, that's pretty good odds going up against JP. Kelleher at 2.30, he's a tricky fighter, and I imagine he'll do quite well. Nchukwi at 2.00 too. Vieira at 2.30. I honestly think this might be a night for the underdogs, and at some good value too. I honestly thought some of the above would've been the favourites.

Nasty stuff. I do recall Buckley being the underdog in that fight, right? I don't even know how I missed it, second round doctor stoppage too? So, it's not like it was a instant knockout like some on the night. Must have been when I got my wings although towards the end of the night I was fighting off falling asleep.

Diversifying doesn't mitigate the risk at all. If you invest that 60% into a poor investment, then you'll lose out. In fact, I'd argue due to having the majority invested in various different things, there's more risk. For example, you invest 60% into ten different altcoins, well most altcoins are absolutely not worth even talking about. The vast majority, and I would go as far as saying 95-99% of altcoins end up failing. So, while you've diversifying into altcoins, you have a very low chance of those altcoins being successful. Plus, it's almost guaranteed you'll lose money if you diversify into that many altcoins, simply because 95-99% fall flat on their face.

Personally, I'd just stick whatever you can afford to lose into Bitcoin. The rest that you aren't sure about, keep in fiat. Bitcoin is definitely the most promising out of any other altcoin out there, and I personally believe the best investment someone can make.

I believe its better than property, the only reason I'd pick property over Bitcoin is if I wanted to move or didn't have a home yet. Since, that satisfies two needs, rather than just being an investment. If I had a home, and was investing solely for profit, Bitcoin all day without any question in my mind.

This might just be the perfect time to invest into Bitcoin, if you plan on holding it long term, or at the very least a year after the next halving.

I'd say just report what you think is low quality. The moderators in that section are definitely active, and they'd probably welcome reports in that section. I only see newbie reports there, and they aren't that often, so I'm wondering if it might be the same for higher ranked accounts.

It would take the same amount of effort to report the posts, than to self moderate it yourself. Might be even quicker reporting, since you don't have to go through, and delete every post referencing that, whereas the moderator will.

Obviously, there might be a difference of opinion on certain posts. I can see a lot of subjective views being had on the quality of a post. Although, I do believe that the discussion should be resolved around gambling, and not just talking about a team or player for the sake of talking about sports, which I do believe is used quite a bit. I know that can be related at times, but it has to at least stem from a discussion about gambling, and not generic discussion. That's my view point anyhow. The moderators in that section, might have a different view.  

That doesn't really matter all that much, as it's a self moderated thread. If users don't like the way you're moderating a thread, they can open their own. Although, that does have its own set of problems, especially if we've got two almost identical threads, which are massing replies. Especially, if the spammers then post in both of them to get paid, which I suspect would be the case.


Yeah, I do believe it's possible. I believe the Wall Observer thread has been given this treatment in the past.

You've got the right users in Cyrus, and hilariousandco moderating the section. So, they'd likely have the permissions to do something like that. Different matter, whether they deem it appropriate or not, though.

I personally haven't seen anything special about him. I do tend to agree that his name is what's carry the weight behind his hype. He's obviously a decent fighter, but champion material? Maybe. Someone who I'm going to follow, and actually be excited about? Probably not. He's no Izzy, Conor or Khabib.

I think the latest I've heard is a week maybe two week notice. I mean how many fighters are willing to step down like that, since a lot of preparation goes into the cutting, even before the actual final day where they take the majority of weight off.

Cerrone will probably be around for a little longer, strikes me as one of those fighters who just carries on despite receiving beatings every time they fight.

Yeah, but we're going to need some information from you first. Ask your question, and there's plenty of knowledgable users here that will be able to help. Try to include as much information as possible, but without revealing any sensitive data. Also, beware of receiving personal messages on the forum, trying to help you in disguise.

Anyway, what specifically do you need help with?

Well, funny you should say that, because these were oddly reminiscent of the ones I see over at the Altcoin section. So, you might be onto something there. I've never really taken a look at where they're coming from, but they use the same techniques, same patterns, and well could well be the case that they have a monopoly over this forum in the bumping department anyway.

I've asked another member of staff to take a look into this in more detail, but I've cleaned up the majority. Just need to clean up the replies to the now deleted posts.

In the process of cleaning it up. Their posts were very low quality, generic questions, and all basically have only posted in this thread recently. They also strategically answered each other, i.e waiting 10-20 minutes to assure that the thread stayed near the top of the section. Also, taking a further look, they all woke up around the same time, and also changed their passwords around the same time. I suspect these were either compromised around the same time. However, quite clearly owned by the same person/group. If they've been compromised like I suspect, I imagine this is a bumping group which advertises they bump via aged accounts.

Interesting, they have their own website dedicated to this sort of service, they're probably raking in the money, yet most bumping services (pretty much every single one of them) are of such low quality, that they're usually obvious. These guys are not only neglecting the forum rules, they're likely doing this other places, so they have a complete disregard for other communities, but are getting paid pretty sweetly, and doing the bare minimum of effort.

I didn't realise we had already got to the stage of people creating their own website with fancy wording for fake conversations.

Yeah, not sure what's the best way of going about it. Since, I imagine their initial predictions at the end of the last halving were a little different to what they're displaying now. So, for anyone to accurately predict they probably would need to analyse that far back, to see how difficulty changed etc.

I definitely haven't looked at the statistics to give any meaningful predictions, it would be nice if these predictors gave some sort of formula that they use to determine the date, otherwise they might just be purely guessing.

Just had a look of the next card in full. Pretty decent fight night in my eyes. We've been spoiled the last two weeks, so only natural we probably won't see the same levels, but it's looking a decent night of fights. Chris Curtis vs Rodolfo Vieira, Brian Kelleher vs Mario Bautista, including the ones already mentioned. I actually really enjoy watch both Kelleher, and Bautista so I think that's going to be one hell of a competitive fight. If I was going to pick one fight that would be a contender for fight of the night, it'll be that one. Not sure who takes it either.

Just realized I must have missed this fight. I'm not sure if I dozed out temporarily or what, but I definitely can't remember the fight.

When you say wildly incorrect, what time frame are you speaking of there? Surely, as long as there's no massive changes in hash rate, and the difficulty adjusts within a certain period, you wouldn't get any more than a month difference? I'm saying a month as that's probably overestimating. I imagine it would be a maximum of a week or two difference?

I'm sure someone has done the Math before, and how much price changes, and therefore difficulty, and hash rate effects the date of the halving.

For those looking to escape living their life pay check to pay check, then volatility makes sense if they can time it right. For those that want massive amounts of adoption, and also consumer confidence, a steady price is what you want.

For me, I'm comfortable with Bitcoin being volatile for the time being. However, in the future I would want, and expect it to become a more stable currency. It's basically designed this way, as time goes on, and less Bitcoin is being mined, and therefore introduced into the network, the less volatile it becomes. You can almost compare block rewards like printing money off, expect it's already preplanned in Bitcoin to have these injections, and it gets smaller as time goes on, until it's no longer anything. However, for the short term while we do have these mini injections, we see somewhat the same as if the governments printed money off in fiat. We get a sudden increase in the amount of Bitcoin available, which theoretically pushes prices down, because while the demand might still be the same, there's ultimately more coins in the network.

When block rewards are gone, Bitcoin should theoretically become very stable.

Yeah, there's too much going on right now, to deem anything as causation. Even if we could it pick out things, we wouldn't be able to narrow it down, and with confidence say x, and y caused the drop. I imagine Bitcoin will hang around the current price for a while, at least within a few thousand of the current price. 5% can be deemed quite a lot in certain things, but for a drop in the mining share, probably isn't a massive problem, especially in the long run.

A little more accessible to people who can't afford x amount of hash rate also. Obviously, difficulty will adjust, and mitigate that. I think the main problem has been that mining in the West, at Western electricity costs, meant there wasn't many doing it in the West, and usually either resorted to offshoring their machines or looking for alternative energy methods.