Andreas Antonopoulos about censorship on bitcointalk and reddit

[bad_char1]

Every dictator in the world agrees with your logic.  "Don't like my rules? Respect them or leave "
Might there be some other alternatives beyond (A) and (B), which you may have missed?  

This is not even remotely correct. You can not compare dictators to a online forum. We go back to the lack of experience when dealing with forums. If I make my own forum, why should I let others decide how I should run it? That being said, there is probably a handful of alternatives to this forum.

Why should a dictator let others decide how to run his country?
*AFAIK, theymos has never stated that he is the owner of bitcointalk; he claims to be merely running it.

[Mickeyb]

Every dictator in the world agrees with your logic.  "Don't like my rules? Respect them or leave "
Might there be some other alternatives beyond (A) and (B), which you may have missed?  

This is not even remotely correct. You can not compare dictators to a online forum. We go back to the lack of experience when dealing with forums. If I make my own forum, why should I let others decide how I should run it? That being said, there is probably a handful of alternatives to this forum.

Why should a dictator let others decide how to run his country?
*AFAIK, theymos has never stated that he is the owner of bitcointalk; he claims to be merely running it.

I don't know, I know the moderation has been much harsher on reddit, I am not a reddit user so I won't be getting into field that I don't feel competent commenting, but I didn't mind him moving all of the XT threads.

For me, XT is just a try to create another altcoin by Gavin and Mike, nothing else. I am for the bigger blocks tbough, but certainly not for the XT takeover. All the moderation is explained in the rules of the forum so I don't see anything problematic here.

Just my 2 cents though..

[Kprawn]

You get banned for much less on some of these sub-reddits ....So what theymos did was quite normal in that setting. I cannot even remember how many sub-reddits I am

being banned on.  The XT guys was brigading and trying to force their fork onto people. It got themos and other people worked up, and he made a call. Right or Wrong, it

made a impact... much less XT trolls. They then played the "victim" card and pulled in some more support. It was all a storm in a cup.   

[Lauda]

Why should a dictator let others decide how to run his country?
*AFAIK, theymos has never stated that he is the owner of bitcointalk; he claims to be merely running it.

What makes you think that running a forum is comparable to running a country? It is not. It takes you minutes to set up a forum. Come back to me when you set up a country in 5 minutes.

For me, XT is just a try to create another altcoin by Gavin and Mike, nothing else. I am for the bigger blocks tbough, but certainly not for the XT takeover. All the moderation is explained in the rules of the forum so I don't see anything problematic here.

Just my 2 cents though..

Regardless of what XT is, there's a forum for it. XT supporters are refusing to leave and are just stirring trouble. This seems quite irrational to me.
Update:
I refuse to waste any more time with this nonsense (will respond only to reasonable people). There is no possible way of having a reasonable discussion with these guys. Any ad hominem attempts will result in the user being ignored forever.

[knight22]

Why should a dictator let others decide how to run his country?
*AFAIK, theymos has never stated that he is the owner of bitcointalk; he claims to be merely running it.

What makes you think that running a forum is comparable to running a country? It is not. It takes you minutes to set up a forum. Come back to me when you set up a country in 5 minutes.

For me, XT is just a try to create another altcoin by Gavin and Mike, nothing else. I am for the bigger blocks tbough, but certainly not for the XT takeover. All the moderation is explained in the rules of the forum so I don't see anything problematic here.

Just my 2 cents though..

Regardless of what XT is, there's a forum for it. XT supporters are refusing to leave and are just stirring trouble. This seems quite irrational to me.

XT supporters are most of them only supporters of bigger blocks either if it is done on Core so don't expect them to leave. Also expect greater pressure as time goes on.

[AGD]

Why should a dictator let others decide how to run his country?
*AFAIK, theymos has never stated that he is the owner of bitcointalk; he claims to be merely running it.

What makes you think that running a forum is comparable to running a country? It is not. It takes you minutes to set up a forum. Come back to me when you set up a country in 5 minutes.

For me, XT is just a try to create another altcoin by Gavin and Mike, nothing else. I am for the bigger blocks tbough, but certainly not for the XT takeover. All the moderation is explained in the rules of the forum so I don't see anything problematic here.

Just my 2 cents though..

Regardless of what XT is, there's a forum for it. XT supporters are refusing to leave and are just stirring trouble. This seems quite irrational to me.

Some people are so ignorant, when it comes to other peoples property. This "dictator" discussion is ridicolous!

[SaltySpitoon]

It's not a matter of opinions it is a matter of facts. Saying that XT is a programmed altcoin is even a bigger LIE.

The logic behind calling XT an altcoin is the fact that it is not Bitcoin without nearly 100% consensus. 75% isn't enough, 100% of the miners isn't enough. It needs something like 99.9% of the miners and 99.9% of the industry before its considered Bitcoin. If you take Bitcoin's and fork it, you have an alt coin. So until XT completely assimilates and I mean completely as in 99.9% Bitcoin and all of its users, it is not Bitcoin.

That isn't to say that Bitcoin XT is banned here, it just doesn't belong in Bitcoin sections.

[knight22]

It's not a matter of opinions it is a matter of facts. Saying that XT is a programmed altcoin is even a bigger LIE.

The logic behind calling XT an altcoin is the fact that it is not Bitcoin without nearly 100% consensus. 75% isn't enough, 100% of the miners isn't enough. It needs something like 99.9% of the miners and 99.9% of the industry before its considered Bitcoin. If you take Bitcoin's and fork it, you have an alt coin. So until XT completely assimilates and I mean completely as in 99.9% Bitcoin and all of its users, it is not Bitcoin.

That isn't to say that Bitcoin XT is banned here, it just doesn't belong in Bitcoin sections.

If you really think a 75% fork would result in 25% of people staying on core even after the split, then Core would become an altcoin, not XT.

[SaltySpitoon]

It's not a matter of opinions it is a matter of facts. Saying that XT is a programmed altcoin is even a bigger LIE.

The logic behind calling XT an altcoin is the fact that it is not Bitcoin without nearly 100% consensus. 75% isn't enough, 100% of the miners isn't enough. It needs something like 99.9% of the miners and 99.9% of the industry before its considered Bitcoin. If you take Bitcoin's and fork it, you have an alt coin. So until XT completely assimilates and I mean completely as in 99.9% Bitcoin and all of its users, it is not Bitcoin.

That isn't to say that Bitcoin XT is banned here, it just doesn't belong in Bitcoin sections.

If you really think a 75% fork would result in 25% of people staying on core even after the split, then Core would become an altcoin, not XT.

No, not true. Bitcoin is not a democracy. Bitcoin requires complete consensus, not a majority vote. If 90% of people split to XT, Bitcoin Core is still technically "Bitcoin". The only way Bitcoin XT becomes "Bitcoin" is in the same manner as all of the past forks. With concensus.

[bad_char1]

Why should a dictator let others decide how to run his country?
*AFAIK, theymos has never stated that he is the owner of bitcointalk; he claims to be merely running it.

What makes you think that running a forum is comparable to running a country? It is not.

Both have rule sets, power hierarchies (government bodies), schemes for conflict resolution and enforcement (dealing with dissidents/lawbreakers), structures to foster commerce and growth (see trading/lending subs) etc., etc.  Your failing to spot such obvious parallels is, frankly, somewhat worrying.

It takes you minutes to set up a forum. Come back to me when you set up a country in 5 minutes.

Potato?
Struggling to see the relevance.

Some people are so ignorant, when it comes to other peoples property. This "dictator" discussion is ridicolous!

See:

AFAIK, theymos has never stated that he is the owner of bitcointalk; he claims to be merely running it.

[LiteCoinGuy]

Why should a dictator let others decide how to run his country?
*AFAIK, theymos has never stated that he is the owner of bitcointalk; he claims to be merely running it.

What makes you think that running a forum is comparable to running a country? It is not. It takes you minutes to set up a forum. Come back to me when you set up a country in 5 minutes.

For me, XT is just a try to create another altcoin by Gavin and Mike, nothing else. I am for the bigger blocks tbough, but certainly not for the XT takeover. All the moderation is explained in the rules of the forum so I don't see anything problematic here.

Just my 2 cents though..

Regardless of what XT is, there's a forum for it. XT supporters are refusing to leave and are just stirring trouble. This seems quite irrational to me.

XT supporters are most of them only supporters of bigger blocks either if it is done on Core so don't expect them to leave. Also expect greater pressure as time goes on.

i guess that is the hardest part to understand for the 1 MB shills. 

[worhiper_-_]

People complain about censorship but seriously the worst that could happen in this very forum if you were to post a pro-XT post is that it would be moved to the altcoin board. Theymos is maintaining what's still the biggest forum about bitcoin discussion. I think that freedom of speech is praised here, to a point that we occasional see some downsides. Despite the fact that the administration does not support XT, discussion or support about it aren't censored. Moving topics to another board doesn't account as censorship as it doesn't prevent future discussions or erase past ones.

And aside of all that, it's been repeatedly stated that if certain bitcoiners don't like what theymos is doing, they're free to create other forums. We're already seeing that in Reddit. Sadly though, doe to the centralized nature of Reddit, housing all communities under the same website , we see a lot of conflicts. Users from one community witch hunting the others etc.

[Hellot]

Andreas also stated that he thought Hearn would end up being the decider of what happens with bitcoin development and he seemed alright with that.   

[Mr Felt]

Why should a dictator let others decide how to run his country?
*AFAIK, theymos has never stated that he is the owner of bitcointalk; he claims to be merely running it.

What makes you think that running a forum is comparable to running a country? It is not.

Both have rule sets, power hierarchies (government bodies), schemes for conflict resolution and enforcement (dealing with dissidents/lawbreakers), structures to foster commerce and growth (see trading/lending subs) etc., etc.  Your failing to spot such obvious parallels is, frankly, somewhat worrying.

It takes you minutes to set up a forum. Come back to me when you set up a country in 5 minutes.

Potato?
Struggling to see the relevance.

Some people are so ignorant, when it comes to other peoples property. This "dictator" discussion is ridicolous!

See:

AFAIK, theymos has never stated that he is the owner of bitcointalk; he claims to be merely running it.

To buttress your point w/ another analogy:

Quasi-Public Places.—The First Amendment precludes government restraint of expression and it does not require individuals to turn over their homes, businesses or other property to those wishing to communicate about a particular topic.1219 But it may be that in some instances private property is so functionally akin to public property that private owners may not forbid expression upon it. In Marsh v. Alabama,1220 the Court held that the private owner of a company town could not forbid distribution of religious materials by a Jehovah’s Witness on a street in the town’s business district. The town, wholly owned by a private corporation, had all the attributes of any American municipality, aside from its ownership, and was functionally like any other town. In those circumstances, the Court reasoned, “the more an owner, for his advantage, opens up his property for use by the public in general, the more do his rights become circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who use it.”1221 This precedent lay unused for some twenty years until the Court first indicated a substantial expansion of it, and then withdrew to a narrow interpretation.

from http://law.justia.com/constitution/us/amendment-01/54-quasi-public-places.html

[knight22]

It's not a matter of opinions it is a matter of facts. Saying that XT is a programmed altcoin is even a bigger LIE.

The logic behind calling XT an altcoin is the fact that it is not Bitcoin without nearly 100% consensus. 75% isn't enough, 100% of the miners isn't enough. It needs something like 99.9% of the miners and 99.9% of the industry before its considered Bitcoin. If you take Bitcoin's and fork it, you have an alt coin. So until XT completely assimilates and I mean completely as in 99.9% Bitcoin and all of its users, it is not Bitcoin.

That isn't to say that Bitcoin XT is banned here, it just doesn't belong in Bitcoin sections.

If you really think a 75% fork would result in 25% of people staying on core even after the split, then Core would become an altcoin, not XT.

No, not true. Bitcoin is not a democracy. Bitcoin requires complete consensus, not a majority vote. If 90% of people split to XT, Bitcoin Core is still technically "Bitcoin". The only way Bitcoin XT becomes "Bitcoin" is in the same manner as all of the past forks. With concensus.

If such scenario ever happens, good luck trying to convince the overwhelming majority that their version is not bitcoin.

[SaltySpitoon]

If such scenario ever happens, good luck trying to convince the overwhelming majority that their version is not bitcoin.

Again, thats not how it works. You don't have to convince anyone of anything. Bitcoin is a protocol that is based on consensus, not who can pander to the most people. Frankly, this is really a no win situation. Both XT and Core have problems, rather than solving those problems, they are just fighting a publicity battle, which is causing a bigger issue. If Bitcoin works the way that people are trying to make it work, the way you suggest, it is the greatest security risk Bitcoin has ever had, and "Bitcoin" can be safely called dead unless its fixed. Block size issues need to be fixed, a solution that doesn't require 15Mb upload/download speeds to broadcast larger sized blocks needs to exist, anonymity things need to be added, amongst other things. But those can all wait, as soon as all it requires is a majority to modify Bitcoin, anyone who can buy support for whatever cause they want can, be that block size increases, block reward increase/decreases, etc.

Again, the protocol requires consensus. This isn't a majority rule system, because majority rule systems are not stable nor secure. While Theymos has expressed that he isn't a fan of XT's proposed changes, I believe his greater concern is the same I addressed a moment ago. The straight definition however of an Alt Coin, is a Blockchain/Coin that is not Bitcoin. Bitcoin requires 99.9% concensus. Without that concensus its not Bitcoin, and therefor an alt coin.

*99.9% is just an aproximation, whatever the actual value is is aproximate 100% - statistical misrepresentations/margin of error etc, but its near 100%.

[poeEDgar]

It's not a matter of opinions it is a matter of facts. Saying that XT is a programmed altcoin is even a bigger LIE.

The logic behind calling XT an altcoin is the fact that it is not Bitcoin without nearly 100% consensus. 75% isn't enough, 100% of the miners isn't enough. It needs something like 99.9% of the miners and 99.9% of the industry before its considered Bitcoin. If you take Bitcoin's and fork it, you have an alt coin. So until XT completely assimilates and I mean completely as in 99.9% Bitcoin and all of its users, it is not Bitcoin.

That isn't to say that Bitcoin XT is banned here, it just doesn't belong in Bitcoin sections.

If you really think a 75% fork would result in 25% of people staying on core even after the split, then Core would become an altcoin, not XT.

No, not true. Bitcoin is not a democracy. Bitcoin requires complete consensus, not a majority vote. If 90% of people split to XT, Bitcoin Core is still technically "Bitcoin". The only way Bitcoin XT becomes "Bitcoin" is in the same manner as all of the past forks. With concensus.

This, 100%. As Nick Szabo said, lowering the consensus threshold so drastically to force the opposition is essentially a 51% attack through argument and is the basis for a civil war.

If there is no consensus reached regarding a fork, consensus favors the status quo.

[knight22]

[img]-snip-[img]

If such scenario ever happens, good luck trying to convince the overwhelming majority that their version is not bitcoin.

Again, thats not how it works. You don't have to convince anyone of anything. Bitcoin is a protocol that is based on consensus, not who can pander to the most people. Frankly, this is really a no win situation. Both XT and Core have problems, rather than solving those problems, they are just fighting a publicity battle, which is causing a bigger issue. If Bitcoin works the way that people are trying to make it work, the way you suggest, it is the greatest security risk Bitcoin has ever had, and "Bitcoin" can be safely called dead unless its fixed. Block size issues need to be fixed, a solution that doesn't require 15Mb upload/download speeds to broadcast larger sized blocks needs to exist, anonymity things need to be added, amongst other things. But those can all wait, as soon as all it requires is a majority to modify Bitcoin, anyone who can buy support for whatever cause they want can, be that block size increases, block reward increase/decreases, etc.

Again, the protocol requires consensus. This isn't a majority rule system, because majority rule systems are not stable nor secure. While Theymos has expressed that he isn't a fan of XT's proposed changes, I believe his greater concern is the same I addressed a moment ago. The straight definition however of an Alt Coin, is a Blockchain/Coin that is not Bitcoin. Bitcoin requires 99.9% concensus. Without that concensus its not Bitcoin, and therefor an alt coin.

*99.9% is just an aproximation, whatever the actual value is is aproximate 100% - statistical misrepresentations/margin of error etc, but its near 100%.

The thing is, achieving a near complete consensus among large groups of people with diametrical views is outright impossible (as shown) although it would be ideal. The only thing we can expect in the future is hard-forking by the of majority of economic participants and let the minorities decide if they follow or not. XT is the first but not the last of these kind of alternate client implementations. Don't fool yourself.

Waiting for a 99.9% consensus belongs to fantasy land at this point and will never happen.

[poeEDgar]

[img]-snip-[img]

If such scenario ever happens, good luck trying to convince the overwhelming majority that their version is not bitcoin.

Again, thats not how it works. You don't have to convince anyone of anything. Bitcoin is a protocol that is based on consensus, not who can pander to the most people. Frankly, this is really a no win situation. Both XT and Core have problems, rather than solving those problems, they are just fighting a publicity battle, which is causing a bigger issue. If Bitcoin works the way that people are trying to make it work, the way you suggest, it is the greatest security risk Bitcoin has ever had, and "Bitcoin" can be safely called dead unless its fixed. Block size issues need to be fixed, a solution that doesn't require 15Mb upload/download speeds to broadcast larger sized blocks needs to exist, anonymity things need to be added, amongst other things. But those can all wait, as soon as all it requires is a majority to modify Bitcoin, anyone who can buy support for whatever cause they want can, be that block size increases, block reward increase/decreases, etc.

Again, the protocol requires consensus. This isn't a majority rule system, because majority rule systems are not stable nor secure. While Theymos has expressed that he isn't a fan of XT's proposed changes, I believe his greater concern is the same I addressed a moment ago. The straight definition however of an Alt Coin, is a Blockchain/Coin that is not Bitcoin. Bitcoin requires 99.9% concensus. Without that concensus its not Bitcoin, and therefor an alt coin.

*99.9% is just an aproximation, whatever the actual value is is aproximate 100% - statistical misrepresentations/margin of error etc, but its near 100%.

The thing is, achieving a near complete consensus among large groups of people with diametrical views is outright impossible (as shown) although it would be ideal. The only thing we can expect in the future is hard-forking by the of majority of economic participants and let the minorities decide if they follow or not. XT is the first but not the last of these kind of alternate client implementations. Don't fool yourself.

Waiting for a 99.9% consensus belongs to fantasy land at this point and will never happen.

So bitcoin should become a democracy? Sounds like endless hard forks ahead and many, many surviving blockchains. Probably not just a civil war between two chains, but many.

[Zarathustra]

It's not a matter of opinions it is a matter of facts. Saying that XT is a programmed altcoin is even a bigger LIE.

The logic behind calling XT an altcoin is the fact that it is not Bitcoin without nearly 100% consensus. 75% isn't enough, 100% of the miners isn't enough. It needs something like 99.9% of the miners and 99.9% of the industry before its considered Bitcoin. If you take Bitcoin's and fork it, you have an alt coin. So until XT completely assimilates and I mean completely as in 99.9% Bitcoin and all of its users, it is not Bitcoin.

That isn't to say that Bitcoin XT is banned here, it just doesn't belong in Bitcoin sections.

If you really think a 75% fork would result in 25% of people staying on core even after the split, then Core would become an altcoin, not XT.

Funny theory. The 99% will then become the Altcoiners and the 1% remain the Bitcoiners. The next fork will teach some people that only nuclear (Dunbar) communities are consensus ruled. Movements of Millions in the Society are never ever consensus ruled.