Kill the Politics forum

[passerby]

Question to those well versed with forum maintenance:

If/when the project I am tasked with overseeing (formally so far, since we're still waiting for first part of investor monies to arrive ) attains a basic web presence and a forum (we're currently evaluating several offshore hosts), I would very much like to see the current Political Forum crowd in its forum, since it will be a very niche project targeted more or less specifically at the mindset that disturbs Jessy Kang

So question:
would it be technologically feasible to migrate the entire Political there, maybe with forum.bitcoin.org account credentials to give people a truly seamless experience?

[lemonginger]

it would be possible to copy and clean that part of the database and populate a new forum, especially if you were running the same forum software, but probably not worth the effort. just let folks register accounts there. no need for bold

[passerby]

But I want to draw them in  

And it's such a beautiful thing - Politics Folks get a playground to truly call their own (with accounts already there for their convenience), "vanilla" bitcoin adopters aren't spooked by ZEH ANARCHISTSES, and I get an active potential userbase from which to recruit volunteers for the (hopefully) eventually upcomming beta.

Everybody happy

Since so far we haven't got any forum, I can try to arrange for exactly same forum software to be installed.

[Chris Acheson]

this entire proposal reeks more of oriental despotism than a defense of rational government.

Wow, really dude?  You lose the thread.

[theymos]

But I'd be satisfied with better ways to filter the content that you want, like, for ex., when you click "show unread threads", it would be nice to be able to filter out entire categories.

This is already possible. Look at the "ignore boards preferences" in your profile.

[cunicula]

Jessy Kang is right on. There are perhaps four useful parts of the forum.

1) Dissemination of news.

2) Discussion of Project Development [Development]

3) Answering users/vendors questions about bitcoin [newbies forum maybe renamed to users forum to avoid being pejorative]

4) Advertising bitcoin services and archiving feedback from users who have utilized the service or have questions about the service. [Marketplace]

Most everything else has a negative impact (willing to debate exceptions). In particular, reading the forum makes me worry that an exciting technology
may have fallen into the hands of idiots and fanatics who will fail to realize its potential. The discussions about market trends are particularly unhelpful.  

Would be better to have a forum that depended subscriptions to operate; that is a forum run like a business. Posting privileges would be restricted
to the marketplace feedback and the newbie/users sections for individuals who did not pay the fee. Abuse of news dissemination, project development, and service advertisement could result in
a warning and then membership termination.

[Jessy Kang]

It will take Bitcoin many years to reach the same level of maturity as the listed open source projects. Feel free to contribute towards the creation of a Bitcoin Foundation ;-) If no one does, then it just won't happen and a Bitcoin Foundation with a major budget would be a good thing in my opinion.

Yeah, we need to raise thousands of dollars for a Foundation for a forum script install LOL.  Moving right along...

Satoshi owns the domain.

No, Louhi Networks "owns" the domain since it is the name on the record. The issue is who controls it? Bitcoin.org is registered through eNom.com. So who has the login information to eNom and so de facto ownership of the domain?

Sirius owns the server. Gavin and I have access to the server.

*confused*  I'm told that Bitcoin.org is hosted on a Sourceforge virtual server. Seems unlikely Sirus owns Sourceforge.

Clearly I am not any kind of "ultimate authority" of bitcoin.org.

Far from clear, there is a distinct lack of transparency as to the operational structure of the Dev team. I can understand the desire for privacy- but that does mean that the roles of each player have to be concealed from the community. Simply anonymity should suffice.

I am using the tools I have been given in ways that I think are good.

Right, thoughts and feelings again.

I'm not going to do anything I consider I bad idea...

Yes, I understand we have to find a face saving way to extricate you. 

Since, according to you Gavin has the access required to make the needed changes, if he, or his agents, in accordance with a majority vote of the either the development team, or the forum members, begin to do so- would you actively impede them? Then *you* would not be doing things you don't like. Would this be acceptable?

...this entire proposal reeks more of oriental despotism than a defense of rational government.

All I see here is a bunch of intellectual whores pushing a very short-sighted agenda.

Can some mod put "Whorish Oriental Despot" on my profile instead of "Jr. Member"? It has a nice ring to it. 

[Perof]

Yea the politics forum was probably a mistake to add to a fledgling economic proving ground, but hey we all make mistakes. I think the site wouldn't be complete without some downright dirty free-speechering! It'd be hard not to be completely blindsided by the whirlwind of conflicted and contradictory statements generated by the postmodern american culture; anyone could get caught up init! For the most part though I think anyone who could consider putting their money in a place where trojans pose a bigger threat than bank robbers are more than capable of taking bitcoin seriously regardless of a few political musings. I'll admit it would be nice to see some diversity in op every once in a while. Maybe we should separate? See other people?

The political forum and everything else/

Would certainly make the whole movement seem more professional

[wumpus]

It will take Bitcoin many years to reach the same level of maturity as the listed open source projects. Feel free to contribute towards the creation of a Bitcoin Foundation ;-) If no one does, then it just won't happen and a Bitcoin Foundation with a major budget would be a good thing in my opinion.

Yeah, we need to raise thousands of dollars for a Foundation for a forum script install LOL.   Moving right along...

Indeed, it's not like one'd need a fancy office with expensive furniture and hire 10 people just to set up a basic 'bitcoin foundation'. Most projects started small.

No, Louhi Networks "owns" the domain since it is the name on the record. The issue is who controls it?

It appears that Louhi networks is a provider that provides anonymous domain registrations, based in Finland. The question indeed is who controls it. Probably, that's still Satoshi.

Sirius owns the server. Gavin and I have access to the server.

*confused*   I'm told that Bitcoin.org is hosted on a Sourceforge virtual server. Seems unlikely Sirus owns Sourceforge.

www.bitcoin.org is hosted on Sourceforge , however forum.bitcoin.org is hosted on a VPS operated by sirius.

The sourceforge project is owned by Satoshi and GA: http://sourceforge.net/project/memberlist.php?group_id=244765 ... So one of them could pull/replace the link to the forum from the main page any time, without even touching the domain.

Far from clear, there is a distinct lack of transparency as to the operational structure of the Dev team. I can understand the desire for privacy- but that does mean that the roles of each player have to be concealed from the community. Simply anonymity should suffice.

IMO, the dev team is pretty transparent. You could see who contributes to the client on either github or sourceforge. However, the dev team and the forum team have almost completely diverged. The dev team is mostly active on the mailing list and sometimes IRC.

Can some mod put "Whorish Oriental Despot" on my profile instead of "Jr. Member"? It has a nice ring to it.  

Haha, don't forget "intellectual"  

[Jessy Kang]

Cool, got my stalker chicks on chat- learning all about "WHOIS" LOL

It appears that Louhi networks is a provider that provides anonymous domain registrations, based in Finland. The question indeed is who controls it. Probably, that's still Satoshi.

Doesn't look like it. Satoshi registered in Aug-2008 with anonymousspeech.com- but hosted with value-domain.com. Which is a pretty damn Japanese company for a guy that otherwise did not come off as Japanese LOL.

Anyway hosting and registration stayed in Japan until 18-May-2011 when someone moved it to that Finnish Company.

So as recently as a month ago, someone had control over the domain name, and so is the individual with de facto control over Bitcoin.org and it's forum. Probably Thermos still hairsplitting.

www.bitcoin.org is hosted on Sourceforge , however forum.bitcoin.org is hosted on a VPS operated by sirius.

Ahh, ok "slicehost.com" still in the US though. Seems ill advised.

IMO, the dev team is pretty transparent. You could see who contributes to the client on either github or sourceforge. However, the dev team and the forum team have almost completely diverged. The dev team is mostly active on the mailing list and sometimes IRC.

Yeah, when you dig though IRC and the old forum logs, what gets you about Satoshi and the team is how workman like they are- no "Helter Skelter man- this is going to change EVERYTHING". They were just putting an immense number of hours in crafting an incredibly elegant tool- with almost no interest in the implications until fairly recently. Even then- not really from the developers, they just seem to want it to be "right".  I have immense respect for them after sifting though all that conversation mixed with incomprehensible data.

One of the reasons I think that the forum is most likely under the control of a single individual with his own agenda rather than the Dev team as a whole- because as a whole they just do NOT come off as asshats in any block of posts I can find. Bunch of watchmakers, don't understand a word of what they are saying and that's exactly what should be in the Bitcoin.org forum IMHO.

[JohnDoe]

Jessy Kang is right on. There are perhaps four useful parts of the forum.

1) Dissemination of news.

2) Discussion of Project Development [Development]

3) Answering users/vendors questions about bitcoin [newbies forum maybe renamed to users forum to avoid being pejorative]

4) Advertising bitcoin services and archiving feedback from users who have utilized the service or have questions about the service. [Marketplace]

+1, but there are a few other forums that are useful like mining and trading discussion.

Personally I would make the following changes:

1) Rename Bitcoin Discussion to Bitcoin News.
2) Merge Technical Support and Newbies forums.
3) Delete Economics, Politics and Off-Topic.
4) Add a Security subforum.
5) Replicate the exact same format on all the language subforums.

[passerby]

Elimination of Econ subforum is totally uncalled for.

Anyways, I'd like to get a bit of official position on this - if I do implement exactly similar board with exactly similar software, will bitcoin.org administration kindly assist me in drawing the politics and social issues discussion, as well as discussion of legality of various questionable bitcoin goods, towards that forum of mine?

Pretty please

[wumpus]

1) Rename Bitcoin Discussion to Bitcoin News.
2) Merge Technical Support and Newbies forums.
3) Delete Economics, Politics and Off-Topic.
4) Add a Security subforum.
5) Replicate the exact same format on all the language subforums.

6) Add a Merchants subforum, for merchant help in implementing bitcoin payments (I think it's good to keep this separated from general client technical support, as it will be easier to find things)

[tehcodez]

Leave it all alone...it sucks that lofty, theoretical discussions disturb some people.

[Jessy Kang]

it sucks that lofty, theoretical discussions disturb some people.

That's kind of the point- do you want it to stay theoretical?

The Bitcoin politicals seem divided into two camps, the hardcore academics who understand the underpinnings as well as the history of their ideology, and the "You're not the boss of me!" "I don't need you, I don't need ANYONE!" crowd who just likes to have a label to make teenage angst seem more credible.

The serious, academic political types here realize that these "lofty, theoretical discussions" have been going on for a hundred and fifty some-odd years with little to show for it and what is needed at this point is not more talk or navel gazing- but credible proof. They reasonably think that a successful Bitcoin simply by nature of how it will function, illustrates their beliefs better than any book or explanation.

It's one thing to point to your books and say a structure is unnecessary, it's another to have a successful system in place that proves it so.

[tehcodez]

And it's yet another to over-post in an attempt to sound "useful."

it sucks that lofty, theoretical discussions disturb some people.

That's kind of the point- do you want it to stay theoretical?

Yes, and no.

The Bitcoin politicals seem divided into two camps, the hardcore academics who understand the underpinnings as well as the history of their ideology, and the "You're not the boss of me!" "I don't need you, I don't need ANYONE!" crowd who just likes to have a label to make teenage angst seem more credible.

That's your perspective of who the "bitcoin politicals" are. Seems subjective (is it just black/white, really?).

The serious, academic political types here realize that these "lofty, theoretical discussions" have been going on for a hundred and fifty some-odd years with little to show for it and what is needed at this point is not more talk or navel gazing- but credible proof. They reasonably think that a successful Bitcoin simply by nature of how it will function, illustrates their beliefs better than any book or explanation.

A lot longer than that, dear. Given the rash generalization of the academics, seems like you might not know enough of them. Bet you they swing both ways, if not more.

It's one thing to point to your books and say a structure is unnecessary, it's another to have a successful system in place that proves it so.

Collaborative dialogue is always useful and necessary, with or without any real implementation. Things change, sometimes too fast for anyone to do something else about it.

A forum is a motley assortment of crazy characters, only some of which fall under any definition.

Political musings related to bitcoin are both vital and extraneous. Innnnnnnn the end, just keep the little section for politics, and if you feel it's not enough, then you do more about it. If you feel it's too much ignore.

[lemonginger]

A lot longer than that, dear. Given the rash generalization of the academics, seems like you might not know enough of them. Bet you they swing both ways, if not more.

Did you really just bust out a "dear"? Patronizing ass.

[Jessy Kang]

A lot longer than that, dear. Given the rash generalization of the academics, seems like you might not know enough of them. Bet you they swing both ways, if not more.

Did you really just bust out a "dear"? Patronizing ass.

"Yes, and no" my good chap...

If you read that entire post in a Michael Caine voice it's awesome.

I seem to have lost my snuff box.

[tehcodez]

Awww did I hurt your fewwwings? I'm sorry, dear.

I am patron...of the "it's the 21st century I'm sorry I'm not the most PC." Can't help if I use the superlatives with those who seem like they need them.

Call me a dick, or a prick, or a mofo (with or without uplift party plan). Rolls of my non-virtual shoulders....because I try not to get insulted by darkened pixels.

Still...the only retort is ad hominem. That's political :-)

[Jessy Kang]

Awww did I hurt your fewwwings? I'm sorry, dear.

I am patron...of the "it's the 21st century I'm sorry I'm not the most PC." Can't help if I use the superlatives with those who seem like they need them.

Call me a dick, or a prick, or a mofo (with or without uplift party plan). Rolls of my non-virtual shoulders....because I try not to get insulted by darkened pixels.

Who's offended? Or insulted? It was hilarious. Still didn't top Whorish Oriental Despot though