Suggestion: Remove Marketplace subforum

[Severian]

As a longtime lurker, I've watched the rise and fall of the obvious scams here and have seen people obviously untrained in business or the skill of spotting the dishonest get cleaned out. I don't blame people for being inexperienced, but I also don't have any empathy for people that want to blame someone else for their own mistakes.

If this community wants bitcoin to be received by the larger world, we need to clean out our own backyard. If you want to stop attracting dogs, get rid of the garbage on the porch. A good first step is the immediate deletion of the Marketplace subforum, or at least a brutal trimming of categories, and make this board one for ideas again rather than questionable commerce. If the marketplace forum is gone, other websites will most certainly pick up the slack and then the drama and problems of the scams and the begging become their problems, not bitcointalk.org's.

I might also suggest that moderators and forum staff might institute a policy of refraining from promoting or engaging in public deals on the board. It calls their neutrality into question when they do so.

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[bitcoinbear]

This has been suggested before.

If you do not like the marketplace, you can change your settings to ignore it.

This forum is based around a digital currency. A currency is useless if you cannot spend it somewhere. Th marketplace provides a place where people can trade using this currency. If you remove the marketplace subforum, all those posts will just be put into the main bitcoin discussion board.

My vote: leave the marketplace as it is.

[Severian]

If you do not like the marketplace, you can change your settings to ignore it.

It's not about liking or disliking the subforum. I like commerce. Love it, as a matter of fact. But the Marketplace seems to focus on people making money now rather than working to ensure that this new little currency is being accepted in the wider world.

Perhaps if the Marketplace were to be limited only to those services that use bitcoin as one of their payment options rather than letting in anyone that's trying to sell shares/wares for bitcoins, it might go a little way to cutting down on the Suckerfest.

Perhaps put the Marketplace under its own domain (bitcoinmarketplace.com or some such) and take it off the main forum.

[bitcoinbear]

If you do not like the marketplace, you can change your settings to ignore it.

It's not about liking or disliking the subforum. I like commerce. Love it, as a matter of fact. But the Marketplace seems to focus on people making money now rather than working to ensure that this new little currency is being accepted in the wider world.

Perhaps if the Marketplace were to be limited only to those services that use bitcoin as one of their payment options rather than letting in anyone that's trying to sell shares/wares for bitcoins, it might go a little way to cutting down on the Suckerfest.

Perhaps put the Marketplace under its own domain (bitcoinmarketplace.com or some such) and take it off the main forum.

I don't think you understand the point of the marketplace.

It is there so that people can do things with bitcoins. Many times, this involves selling something shares or wares.

I am not sure who you think would be elgible to post in the marketplace under your rules?

[Severian]

I am not sure who you think would be elgible to post in the marketplace under your rules?

My point is to remove the marketplace from the main forum. All of the scams and grifts have originated there and attract the criminals in the first place.

I didn't postulate any rules, merely an idea to remove the main source of the scams on this board.

[justusranvier]

This is a duplicate thread.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=105657.0;all

[bitcoinbear]

Perhaps if the Marketplace were to be limited only to those services that use bitcoin as one of their payment options rather than letting in anyone that's trying to sell shares/wares for bitcoins, it might go a little way to cutting down on the Suckerfest.

That certainly looks like a rule to me, just a very vague rule.

[SaltySpitoon]

Get rid of Marketplace subforum, watch Bitcoin prices drop down to $3.

95% of BTC business goes through the forum, if you just wipe all of that out, Bitcoins are now pretty close to worthless. We spent all of this time trying to get Bitcoins accepted by people, and by erasing the market, well... you erase the market.

[Severian]

Get rid of Marketplace subforum, watch Bitcoin prices drop down to $3.

It'd go back up again. Quickly.

[Chimsley]

I see the value of the Marketplace subforum though I haven't used it myself. I also see Severian's point to a point. My concern is that as more people become aware of Bitcoin and find these forums the amount of scams look bad from the perspective of a new Bitcoiner who would visit this site. I don't think we should remove the Marketplace subforum entirely but I think we should make it invisible unless your logged if that is possible with SMF. I would also suggest excluding Google etc from crawling the marketplace section of the forum. I wonder how many scammers lurked the forums to find easy targets before registering and posting the ground work to rip people off.

[BCB]

You guys are talking censorship and central authority.  This is a free market.  It's the wild west and until it evolves some people are going to get hurt.  And when folks find they no longer have the stomach for it (pirate investors/PPT's/former friends of matthew) they'll hop the next stage coach back east.

[Tyrion]

I think it would be far more worthwhile to bitcoin to simply discourage the discussion of defaults and scams in the main forums, maybe even ban them entirely to any area that a person under a certain postcount can see. Bitcoin needs lots of interest from new users to flourish, if they log in here and the first thing they read are a bunch of posts by gullible people whining about being "scammed" (when 9/10 times it was their own mistake for doing business with untrusty worthy people) they will be unlikely to want to participate. "scams" can still be discussed in areas where long-term users can access but not newbs.

It is possible that there is a good legal reason to do this as well: if these are really "scams" then it's a matter that could come under investigation by authorities andf therefore anything written about them can be used as evidence. I think it would be unwise for bitcointalk to allow potential compromise in this way.

[Severian]

You guys are talking censorship and central authority.

Redirecting a subforum to its own domain and removing market chatter from the main forum isn't censoring anyone. People are free to visit either site.

If you had a business, would you want the hookers and the crackheads hanging out front or would you rather they go elsewhere?

[Monster Tent]

The sites like bitmit and other s have the tools to make it easier to trade safely such as feedback and ratings as well as escrow.

Bitcointalk isnt ebay.

[FlipPro]

100000000000000000000000000% AGREE!!

LETS GET RID OF ALL THE FUCKING PONZIS AND SHORT BUS CASINOS WHILE WE ARE AT IT!

LETS RALLY PEOPLE!

WE ARE THE ONLY THING THAT CAN SAVE THIS CURRENCY FROM IMMINENT FAILURE!

[bitcoinbear]

The site should be focused on discussing Bitcoin in a civil manner.

Maybe if the mods didn't have to worry about scammer tags stemming from the marketplace, their time would be freed up to moderate some of the personal attacks and blatant trolling that goes on here.

I support this idea. Let other websites worry about creating a marketplace for Bitcoin.

The moderators of this site have made it clear that they take a hands off approach. People are free to discuss what they want, and that includes selling things.

If you want tons of rules and regulations, you are free to start your own forum.

[bitcoinbear]

The site should be focused on discussing Bitcoin in a civil manner.

Maybe if the mods didn't have to worry about scammer tags stemming from the marketplace, their time would be freed up to moderate some of the personal attacks and blatant trolling that goes on here.

I support this idea. Let other websites worry about creating a marketplace for Bitcoin.

The moderators of this site have made it clear that they take a hands off approach. People are free to discuss what they want, and that includes selling things.

If you want tons of rules and regulations, you are free to start your own forum.

There is a difference between "tons of rules and regulations" and having a specific function. In my opinion, the specific function of a forum (especially one at bitcointalk.org) should be discussion. When the discussion is overrun with threads about scams and the like, a large portion stemming from the forum itself, something is amiss. Useful threads are drowned out in a sea of vitriol.

I have a car that I use for transportation, I don't expect, or want, it to mow the lawn and do my laundry as well.

Maybe you should change your settings to ignore the boards you don't like? Just leave the "bitcoin discussion" as the only viewable board and you will have your wish.

[mobodick]

This has been suggested before.

If you do not like the marketplace, you can change your settings to ignore it.

This forum is based around a digital currency. A currency is useless if you cannot spend it somewhere. Th marketplace provides a place where people can trade using this currency. If you remove the marketplace subforum, all those posts will just be put into the main bitcoin discussion board.

My vote: leave the marketplace as it is.

There is nothing in the world preventing the commerce you speak of from taking place on a different internet address than it is now.

[mobodick]

Get rid of Marketplace subforum, watch Bitcoin prices drop down to $3.

95% of BTC business goes through the forum, if you just wipe all of that out, Bitcoins are now pretty close to worthless. We spent all of this time trying to get Bitcoins accepted by people, and by erasing the market, well... you erase the market.

The market should not be erased, it should be moved to a more specialised place.
Right now growth of the market is hampered by the way this forum presents information.
It is just not a very good tool to deal with a large amount of people doing business.
People talk about wanting bitcoin to be mainstream.
At the same time the community creates a tight ball of layers of information that are just not encouraging people to participate.
This forum won't be able, on multiple levels, to support an influx of main stream users.

[TTBit]

I grew up playing Sim City. When the people complained about the traffic, I got rid of the roads. Problem solved.