Confessions of an /r/bitcoin moderator

[vgo]

"Bitcoin is already ridiculously centralized because of mining pools. Whether the block-size increases or not will have hardly any effect on this major existing problem. If we want to have a serious discussion about centralization, then it should be 'what are we going to do about mining pools'?"



No problem my friend... Mr. Gavin "to the rescue"  :    http://www.coindesk.com/gavin-andresen-rejects-bitcoin-centralisation-concerns-web-summit/


He said:

"Centralisation of mining is going to go in waves. Now you see economies of scale for companies that create huge mining farms where electricity is inexpensive. Once those [ASIC] chips become commodities and inexpensive, you'll see it decentralise again."


Oops!!

[LiteCoinGuy]

anyone is perfectly free to start their own bitcoin forum and moderate it however they chose  

that is not that easy because there is a network effect.

you can also say: anyone is perfectly free to start their own bitcoin.

[fryarminer]

Fantastic article OP.

[RGBKey]

Theymos has too much power to control discussion by himself, for someone that supposedly supports bitcoin, he sure likes centralization...

[MF Doom]

Fantastic article OP.

that was a great, and interesting read.

It certainly is hard for anyone on this forum, or anyone who supports btc to read that and still think as positively about where btc is headed.  seems like all the "positives" about btc are seemingly going away.  miners, btc "high ups" and the companies are becoming centralized, anonymity is not exactly guaranteed, adn its legal status still seems to be dubious at best, depending on how the gvt wants to get you.

and, now there are apps/companies offering similar money sending features that far exceed the ease of use of btc (and confirmation time)

[marcus_of_augustus]

Theymos has too much power to control discussion by himself, for someone that supposedly supports bitcoin, he sure likes centralization...

You should start your own forum to stop all this terrible forum centralisation.

[MF Doom]

Theymos has too much power to control discussion by himself, for someone that supposedly supports bitcoin, he sure likes centralization...

You should start your own forum to stop all this terrible forum centralisation.

did you not read the article?  his whole jist was sure anyone could, but no one should have to.  The community should be able to discuss and make decisions based on consensus, after hashing out the pros and cons, and how it will affect all btc users.

Sure he could go start one, but migrating 100's of thousands of users, probably wont happen.

[smoothie]

You should be grateful that theymos has been able to keep these forums up against all the DoS attacks and basically allowed anyone to say anything they want.

Otherwise you'd have a bunch of fragmented communication sites and no economy-of-scale for us to speak to each other efficiently as a global community.

He allowed all that block size debate to go on and on and on.

You are free to compete and make your own top Bitcoin forum. Even Google refuses to link to this forum any more, because TPTB don't like the free speech that theymos provides. They'll probably take down his forums somehow eventually.

Come on just admit it. You love politics, communism, and a big government dick up your ass as a result.

Are you saying that we all should bow down and thank Theymos?

You do realize that the main source of funds to run the site are from users yeah? Donations and ad space auctions.

[QuestionAuthority]

You should be grateful that theymos has been able to keep these forums up against all the DoS attacks and basically allowed anyone to say anything they want.

Otherwise you'd have a bunch of fragmented communication sites and no economy-of-scale for us to speak to each other efficiently as a global community.

He allowed all that block size debate to go on and on and on.

You are free to compete and make your own top Bitcoin forum. Even Google refuses to link to this forum any more, because TPTB don't like the free speech that theymos provides. They'll probably take down his forums somehow eventually.

Come on just admit it. You love politics, communism, and a big government dick up your ass as a result.

Are you saying that we all should bow down and thank Theymos?

You do realize that the main source of funds to run the site are from users yeah? Donations and ad space auctions.

I don't think that's the main source of funds, I think it's the only source of funds.

There is almost no censorship here at all. Theymos is the most liberal forum admin I've ever seen. Hell, if I was doing his job, I wouldn't allow me to say some of the things I say. He took harassment from people like Matthew over and over and over again and did nothing. He banned Matthew and Atlas time and time again but always allowed them to return to do the same shit. There are people still using this forum that should have been (on any other forum would have been) permabanned years ago. OP give up, you're stirring an empty pot of shit.

[Kprawn]

I also do not like censorship, but with all the XT brigading that was going on in the \r\Bitcoin sub Reddit, I was actually relieved that he temporarily banned such behavior.

You cannot have a small percentage of people disrupt a communication platform for their own benefit, and think moderators will not act on that.

Brigading is frowned on in all of Reddit, not just in \r\Bitcoin. You are free to create your own forum, if you not satisfied that this forum or \r\Bitcoin serve your need.

It's just not that entertaining if you have 20 members.   

[LiteCoinGuy]

I also do not like censorship, but with all the XT brigading that was going on in the \r\Bitcoin sub Reddit, I was actually relieved that he temporarily banned such behavior.

You cannot have a small percentage of people disrupt a communication platform for their own benefit, and think moderators will not act on that.

Brigading is frowned on in all of Reddit, not just in \r\Bitcoin. You are free to create your own forum, if you not satisfied that this forum or \r\Bitcoin serve your need.

It's just not that entertaining if you have 20 members.   

small percentage of people? 70% all the worldwide hashingpower - 14 % of all nodes, experts like Gavin, Mike and other people. that is not a small percentage.

[smoothie]

You should be grateful that theymos has been able to keep these forums up against all the DoS attacks and basically allowed anyone to say anything they want.

Otherwise you'd have a bunch of fragmented communication sites and no economy-of-scale for us to speak to each other efficiently as a global community.

He allowed all that block size debate to go on and on and on.

You are free to compete and make your own top Bitcoin forum. Even Google refuses to link to this forum any more, because TPTB don't like the free speech that theymos provides. They'll probably take down his forums somehow eventually.

Come on just admit it. You love politics, communism, and a big government dick up your ass as a result.

Are you saying that we all should bow down and thank Theymos?

You do realize that the main source of funds to run the site are from users yeah? Donations and ad space auctions.

I don't think that's the main source of funds, I think it's the only source of funds.

There is almost no censorship here at all. Theymos is the most liberal forum admin I've ever seen. Hell, if I was doing his job, I wouldn't allow me to say some of the things I say. He took harassment from people like Matthew over and over and over again and did nothing. He banned Matthew and Atlas time and time again but always allowed them to return to do the same shit. There are people still using this forum that should have been (on any other forum would have been) permabanned years ago. OP give up, you're stirring an empty pot of shit.

Your username says it all... 

[LiteCoinGuy]

Audio:

John Ratcliff reads his recent article Confessions of an R/Bitcoin Moderator which talks about the "is BitcoinXT an Altcoin" controversy that was used to justify banning discussion of the proposed fork from several prominent community hubs.

https://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/lets-talk-bitcoin-240-as-they-see-it

[galbros]

anyone is perfectly free to start their own bitcoin forum and moderate it however they chose  

that is not that easy because there is a network effect.

you can also say: anyone is perfectly free to start their own bitcoin.

I went and re-read the article and thanks again for posting it.  I fully agree that most would like to see a sensible compromise in the core implementation.

If XT is an alt-client as he suggests then moving discussion of it to the client section rather than altcoins here on bitcointalk would have made more sense.

While I can see that starting a new subreddit is difficult due to network effects, it may actually be very worthwhile, after all, that is the only way to break free of theymos's control of the discussion of bitcoin, which seems to be his core complaint.