Why does this forum prop up alt currencies?

[btcidea]

It seems kind of weird to me. Competition is good but this forum has become VERY popular. The alt currencies sub-forum has become the birthplace of many many pump and dump currencies. I think in the long run it will hurt Bitcoin's image. Perhaps it's time to have the forum be about Bitcoin only. It will reduce the pump and dump scams and if an alternate currency does arise other than Bitcoin it can become popular on it's own merits and not by piggy backing on this forum. Why does the forum provide such rapid exposure and free publicity for competition? Just my 2 bitcents. 

[cakepie]

They're not pump & dump scams...

LTC or FTC or even CNC could both be regarded as the new currency of the future and replace bitcoin.

They have advantages over BTC. Main one being faster transaction confirmation...

IT TAKES AGES TO CONFIRM BITCOIN TRANSACTIONS!

[btcidea]

They're not pump & dump scams...

LTC or FTC or even CNC could both be regarded as the new currency of the future and replace bitcoin.

They have advantages over BTC. Main one being faster transaction confirmation...

IT TAKES AGES TO CONFIRM BITCOIN TRANSACTIONS!

10 min is ages? Small transactions can be done unverified and can be seen instantly.

[Mike Christ]

Why not?  It's all crypto-currency, and people wanna talk about it; besides, they're confined to a single board.  If you don't want to look at altcoins, stop looking at the altcoin board.

[DeathAndTaxes]

IIRC the admins/mods resisted making an alt-forum however the never ending alt-coin spam in the "main forum" finally lead to the creation of the alt subform.  It makes moderation easier.  Much like the reason why most forums (this one included) have an off-topic subforum.  Sure you can say in the rules off topic threads will be deleted but honestly everyone knows some % of the members will ignore that and then it turns into a debate on what is off topic.  If a thread comparing Bitcoin to xCoin off topic?  What about discussing an attack on xCoin which could also be made on Bitcoin?

Of course you can bring down the mod hammer and go forum nazi.  Auto-delete even marginally off topic threads, quick bannings, etc but that leads to more work as people create threads about the deleted threads, or create new forum accounts to protest their account getting banned, etc. 

In a perfect world people would use xCoin forum to talk about xCoin and that would be it but if you have ever had the "joy" of moderating a large forum you already know it isn't a perfect world.

TL/DR:  Forum members generally suck (at least some %) and they make moderators lives miserable.  Things like "alt" subforum and offtopic are a place to dump the trash.

[alinsaviuc]

Think of it as a good alternative for bitcoins. Just like with the fiat money. And then you have currency exchanges.