[POLL] should the "securities," "lending," etc. sub-fora be moved to a new site?

[BC Systems]

The whole point of Bitcoin is to be a currency that you can do business with.

To sever the marketplace would be removing Bitcoin from what it's intended for. As far as I know, this forum is one of the few marketplaces where you can do direct business with Bitcoins through almost anything.

If Gavin wants Bitcoin to remain as a niche hobby in spirit, then we should just make this forum technical discussion only then.

[finkleshnorts]

Splitting bitcointalk up would be a mistake, and it will not solve the problem of scams. The scams found in the lending and securities sub-fora are just a small subset of the scams present on bitcointalk - there are also scams in mining, newbies, trading, and all of the other marketplace sub-fora. I don't know what the answer is to preventing bitcoin scams but it is not this.

Gavin wants to sever the entire marketplace.

To be honest, I'm not sure that's a bad idea.  The Bitcoin world has grown large enough that it could probably sustain a stand-alone market-place messageboard, I think it would be a healthy thing if people relied less on this forum as a primary means of promoting their businesses.

Scams have come to dominate the conversation here because they've taken place here.  Had they not been launched and promoted here, there'd still be discussion of them but not thread after thread of "where's my money" across multiple forums.  The number and scope of scams is only going to increase so we need to think about ways to ensure that they don't continue to be the dominant topic of discussion here.

I agree.

[justusranvier]

There's alternative way to achieve the desired seperation - instead of moving the business subforums leave them here and move tech support and development forums to bitcoin.org

[stochastic]

There's alternative way to achieve the desired seperation - instead of moving the business subforums leave them here and move tech support and development forums to bitcoin.org

+1

[Bitcoin Oz]

There's alternative way to achieve the desired seperation - instead of moving the business subforums leave them here and move tech support and development forums to bitcoin.org

Thats a great suggestion.

+1

[justusranvier]

New suggestion: Leave everything the way it is except change the domain name to "bitcoindrama.org"

[BadBear]

New suggestion: Leave everything the way it is except change the domain name to "bitcoindrama.org"

LOL, I like it.

[mobodick]

I think that this board should at least be split in these parts.
1) bitcoin internals (development, general bitcoin stuff, focus on the network)
2) speculation (everything to do with bitcoin<->other currencies/financial instruments)
3) merchants (everything to do with bitcoin<->goods/services)

Furthermore, businesses should not be allowed to use the board for official communications or for organizing their business on.
It would get rid of the clutterfest that's been going on.

[FlipPro]

Ponzis must go. Vote with your hearts people. Bitcoin has a serious future, but only if we are willing to stand by the truth.

[FlipPro]

They're all scams....like scientology.

+1

[FlipPro]

Please stop trying to troll this thread.

You're the biggest non-productive troll I have ever seen in my life.

Please begin to do something in this community, if not you're going to start catching an ignore from alot of people..

[FlipPro]

I'd like bitcointalk.org to be in the spirit of the Internet's original ".org" -- For Non-Commercial Use Only.

But... it is hard to figure out what is Commercial Use and what isn't (e.g. some mining pools are non-profit, some for-profit, and I'm sure there are some in the fuzzy middle), which is why there really aren't any rules for .org any more.

I agree with you 1000% Gavin. This forum should be non-profit operated.

Which means you guys can set rules.

Which means obvious ponzis like the bitcoin savings and trust can be removed by the staff.

[mobodick]

Trolls like you are ruining this site.  Please take your immature antics to another forum.

...said the unicorn pony.

[FlipPro]

Trolls like you are ruining this site.  Please take your immature antics to another forum.

...said the unicorn pony.

There should be a scammer tag for unproductive people like Rarity. They contribute no value to the community, and instead waste all of our time by polluting our forum with garbage.

[Rarity]

It is a shame that I have to suffer personal attacks on my character and baseless made up accusations of scamming simply because I had the gall to ask an admitted troll to leave me alone. 

[mobodick]

Trolls like you are ruining this site.  Please take your immature antics to another forum.

...said the unicorn pony.

There should be a scammer tag for unproductive people like Rarity. They contribute no value to the community, and instead waste all of our time by polluting our forum with garbage.

I don't agree.
Rarity can bring good points to discussions.
Same can be said for you.

In general, i feel that tagging people for anything other than known scammings sould be avoided altogether.
Maybe a system so you can managed such tags for personal use, but not globaly.
One persons hero is anothers troll.

[bitcoinbear]

The whole point of Bitcoin is to be a currency that you can do business with.

To sever the marketplace would be removing Bitcoin from what it's intended for. As far as I know, this forum is one of the few marketplaces where you can do direct business with Bitcoins through almost anything.

If Gavin wants Bitcoin to remain as a niche hobby in spirit, then we should just make this forum technical discussion only then.

If the marketplace was split off to bitcoinmarket.org or whatever, then that forum would prosper and bitcointalk.org would wither away and die.

[giszmo]

I voted "no" because I see the great potential for legitimate business. The scams so far were 90% PPT. Sorry but those who got burned deserved to get burned and hiding it doesn't prevent more people from getting burned. The open forum here can help get an idea of how to detect a scam and in the end of the day everybody has to decide for himself which risk he wants to take and which proof to ask for. If I want you to invest $10k in my business, I not only make my business as transparent as possible but invite you to a 3h skype meeting to present you all my assets and answer all your questions. I don't just hold a photoshopped passport to the camera and ask 100k for my mining operations from people that I don't care about. Still the latter seams to work in bitcoin land. Not my fault and not the fault of the host of this forum.

Keeping business out of bitcoin is a ridiculous idea and not doing so leaves you to the problem to detect before the fact what is a scam and what not regardless whether you are dealing with HYIP, BFL or casascius coins.

[evolve]

Doesn't matter now, the SEC (or the equivalent in other countries) will start shutting them down soon enough.  Their investigation of pirate is just the beginning...I wouldn't be surprised if the entire forum gets shut down for openly allowing the ponzis to operate and advertise here.