[2015-10-01] Roger Ver: There Has Been a Lot of Suppression of Ideas on Bitcoin

[tyz]

CoinTelegraph spoke with Ver about the new forum, his plans for Bitcoin.com, his dispute with OKcoin, and what he thinks of major banks hopping on the blockchain bandwagon.

http://cointelegraph.com/news/115364/roger-ver-there-has-been-a-lot-of-suppression-of-ideas-on-bitcoin-forums

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[1Referee]

I don't think that rewarding some one with 4BTC is going to get his forum the needed long term growth. It has missed the most important starting years of Bitcoin, that is something you can't buy with all the wealth he has. I'm sure once RV stops rewarding people, his forum will get quite empty.

[LiteCoinGuy]

I don't think that rewarding some one with 4BTC is going to get his forum the needed long term growth. It has missed the most important starting years of Bitcoin, that is something you can't buy with all the wealth he has. I'm sure once RV stops rewarding people, his forum will get quite empty.

I strongly disagree. Bitcoin.com is a valuable domain. That fact alone will bring people to it. It could be a main news source in the future with a great forum.

At the moment one guy is in control of the two main news sources. This cant be good for bitcoin.
Bitcoin.com will be a place for open discussions.

[medUSA]

There Has Been a Lot of Suppression of Ideas on Bitcoin

It's true to some extent. It's not suppression, its the difficulty of having an openminded discussions on a controversial topic. It's very easy to have a few hardheaded active members to weight the discussion to one side and discourages other knowledgeable members who would like to have a serious discussion, not an argument. It's part of the culture here. It's beneficial for the community to have another well managed bitcoin forum. I hope the mood there will be different.

[aigeezer]

I joined Ver's new forum because of this thread (same username). Thanks, OP. Competition improves the breed, and all that.

[Carlton Banks]

I joined Ver's new forum because of this thread (same username). Thanks, OP. Competition improves the breed, and all that.

Can you qualify "because"?

Seems to me that Roger is doing a good thing promoting his forum as an alternative, but "suppression" is not the best way to describe the situation, because it was not successful. Myself and others have made sure that XT and BIP101 were discussed openly on the main forum.

[aigeezer]

I joined Ver's new forum because of this thread (same username). Thanks, OP. Competition improves the breed, and all that.

Can you qualify "because"?

Yes - nothing profound or even subversive - I just meant that I found that Ver's forum existed from this thread.

I take no position on the "suppression of ideas" issue. There is always lots of spin and noise, but I am usually agnostic about the underlying facts until I reach my own ponderous conclusions. My current take on all this stuff is that enabling a reader to ignore a poster is a Good Thing but the ability of mods to delete posts (capriciously?) is a Bad Thing that is also thankless and unnecessary if readers can do their own censoring/ignoring using criteria of their own choosing.

Messy stuff. The new forum may or may not be "better" for my purposes, but I am glad it exists.
             

[1Referee]

I don't think that rewarding some one with 4BTC is going to get his forum the needed long term growth. It has missed the most important starting years of Bitcoin, that is something you can't buy with all the wealth he has. I'm sure once RV stops rewarding people, his forum will get quite empty.

I strongly disagree. Bitcoin.com is a valuable domain. That fact alone will bring people to it. It could be a main news source in the future with a great forum.

At the moment one guy is in control of the two main news sources. This cant be good for bitcoin.
Bitcoin.com will be a place for open discussions.

Bitcoin.com is the best Bitcoin related domain possible, no doubt about that. What news sources are you talking about?

Beside that, bitcoin.com made a huge jump on alexa.com being now ranked at just under 75K. http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/bitcoin.com

[Carlton Banks]

I joined Ver's new forum because of this thread (same username). Thanks, OP. Competition improves the breed, and all that.

Can you qualify "because"?

Yes - nothing profound or even subversive - I just meant that I found that Ver's forum existed from this thread.

I take no position on the "suppression of ideas" issue. There is always lots of spin and noise, but I am usually agnostic about the underlying facts until I reach my own ponderous conclusions. My current take on all this stuff is that enabling a reader to ignore a poster is a Good Thing but the ability of mods to delete posts (capriciously?) is a Bad Thing that is also thankless and unnecessary if readers can do their own censoring/ignoring using criteria of their own choosing.

Messy stuff. The new forum may or may not be "better" for my purposes, but I am glad it exists.
             

Don't think bolded text happened on bitcointalk, but I'm not 100%, maybe theymos did lose his composure and delete some posts. He (or other mods) certainly moved some posts/topics off the main board, which is what I deem an attempt to suppress that debate.

[aigeezer]

Don't think bolded text happened on bitcointalk, but I'm not 100%, maybe theymos did lose his composure and delete some posts. He (or other mods) certainly moved some posts/topics off the main board, which is what I deem an attempt to suppress that debate.

the ability of mods to delete posts

It happens routinely - even outrageously - in the Dash altcoin thread. I have no idea why it happens but the regulars there claim that the mods allow blatant troll posts, then delete any rebuttals. That is the main example which comes to mind but of course it has nothing to do with the blocksize gefuffle. Here is a modest example from my own experience but the claimed occurrences in that (huge) thread are much more dramatic: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=14356.msg9146497#msg9146497

I think BCT is so big and diverse that its look and feel may be very different from thread to thread and user to user.

[Carlton Banks]

Well, when you put it that way, it's happened to me personally once or twice over the years on this forum. "Post deleted. Reason: off-topic" (although that's a typical soft/non-offensive reason, it's a pretty useful catch-all)

Even forum.bitcoin.com moderators will have to delete some posts, so I guess it's a case of choosing your preferred censor.

[aigeezer]

Well, when you put it that way, it's happened to me personally once or twice over the years on this forum. "Post deleted. Reason: off-topic" (although that's a typical soft/non-offensive reason, it's a pretty useful catch-all)

Even forum.bitcoin.com moderators will have to delete some posts, so I guess it's a case of choosing your preferred censor.

Agreed. My own preference is the Ignore button, but it gets compromised when people quote trolls while troll-jousting - a perfect opening for tag-team trolling, and of course one has to resist the temptation to ignore people just because of disagreement.

It looks like Ver's new forum does not (yet) have an Ignore button so from that perspective BCT could win easily if its mods restrain their inner nanny. They will do as they choose and the market will decide what it likes, I guess. At this stage, a Streisand effect seems to be building. 

I'm just a spectator - no skin in the game - so I just watch with detached mild concern so far.