Bitcoin forum is terrible

[FlipPro]

Think before posting.

that's not going to do it.

most ideas regarding the bitcoin technology are usually either met with "keep your stinking hands of my bitcoins" or "go fork the blockchain and 'fork' yourself" to have your idea implemented.

this forum is about speculation instead of technology now and the attitude is very similar to other "investment" forums.
which is no surprise, as bitcoin is about speculation right now, as there is no economy accepting bitcoin to speak of.

Actually there is and its growing every single day

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade

[KingFisher9]

I really don't think its that bad...sure improvements can be made, but most of these complaints are exaggerations

[relative]

Actually there is and its growing every single day

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade

no there isnt.
if you look at other fiat monetary systems, the base money supply roughly around 30% of annual GDP.
that would mean a bitcoin economy of 18mBTC or ~270m$.

bitcoin is speculation as of now, and this forum proves it further.

[FlipPro]

Actually there is and its growing every single day

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade

no there isnt.
if you look at other fiat monetary systems, the base money supply roughly around 30% of annual GDP.
that would mean a bitcoin economy of 18mBTC or ~270m$.

bitcoin is speculation as of now, and this forum proves it further.

Your going by traditional standards. How many fiat monetary systems do you know that are only 2 years old?

[relative]

Your going by traditional standards. How many fiat monetary systems do you know that are only 2 years old?

none. you don't have to take what I say as a criticism of bitcoin.
it's just a fact that the current bitcoin value is speculation. for example, speculation that bitcoin will be adopted as a form of payment and the money supply will be a reasonable ratio to GDP and these BTC/USD prices one day be justified.
but they aren't now.

I don't see how you can interpret these values and claim that bitcoin isnt 99% speculators.
remember that bitcoin can draw its value only from 2 things: demand from circulation and speculation.

[bracek]

I would love to see an ignore function.

yes, voting +/- on every post,
posters with negative balance in votes would  get posting disabled for a week...

[Vladimir]

Go for it TheManOfTown. There is niche in the market to fill, do it.

[unemployed]

I've already successfully been running a forum for several years adhering to guidelines above, unrelated to bitcoin, and I've contributed to set up and run several other forums as well. I am a computer engineer more than 30 years old and exercise strict rules, and will enforce the rules I stated above. If you think this is a good idea, then please send me a pm, or write in this thread. Also if you think it is a bad idea, then too state your opinion, I think there are more academics than myself that's tired of all the noise that's surfaced on this forum lately, so we need somewhere were all the noise and less intelligent posts are kept to a bare minimum and preferably completely eliminated.

That would be the most boring forum ever. If someone wants to create it, I totally support it. Let all whining people go away.

[rebuilder]

TheManOfTown: All good suggestions. I'm starting to think a very strict code of conduct needs to be enforced for a forum such as this to work. Only civil posts, no ad hominems, no aggressiveness, perhaps no profanity. The idea being to not moderate ideas but wordings.
Some fairly random examples of posts which I think should not be tolerated in their current form follow. Most of these are fine, even useful in terms of the content behind the rage, but would be better expressed in more neutral terms.

http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=21405.msg268477#msg268477
http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=20572.msg263925#msg263925
http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=20437.msg261202#msg261202
http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=20535.msg256510#msg256510


Now, before I get told to shut up or leave, these are not demands. I simply prefer an environment where it's possible to actually communicate, and it's gotten pretty difficult here. The guidelines above are very draconian, I admit. If implemented, they should in my opinion come in tandem with very transparent moderation. Clear limits on moderator powers, and repercussions for exceeding them. No thread deletions. You can't trust mods if you can't judge for yourself whether they are doing their job or abusing their power. This is not some random hobbyist forum. People have money invested in Bitcoins, and accusations of, say,  moderator collusion with Bitcoin businesses are therefore very damaging.

Maybe the bitcoin.org powers that be will do something like what I'm asking for. If not, I'm very willing to give any forum that does a shot.

[PCRon]

Theres many bitcoin forums you can choose one. Heres mine

www.tweetforum.com/bitcoin

twitter.com/bitcoinforum

I built a forum that connects to twitter and sends the users updates on every post, so they are always connected. I love this forum though , it's not perfect, but it really gets the job done.

I'm new to Bitcoin and I'm loking for good info, I'm spending a lot of time reading post that are very little help.  The forum is moderated, but it doesn't feel like it.

I checked reddit and it is already more helpful, I may go live there for a while. 

[FlipPro]

Theres many bitcoin forums you can choose one. Heres mine

www.tweetforum.com/bitcoin

twitter.com/bitcoinforum

I built a forum that connects to twitter and sends the users updates on every post, so they are always connected. I love this forum though , it's not perfect, but it really gets the job done.

I'm new to Bitcoin and I'm loking for good info, I'm spending a lot of time reading post that are very little help.  The forum is moderated, but it doesn't feel like it.

I checked reddit and it is already more helpful, I may go live there for a while. 

There is lots of info at tweetforum, theres info here, theres info everywhere ! Just get to it !

[Herodes]

TheManOfTown: All good suggestions. I'm starting to think a very strict code of conduct needs to be enforced for a forum such as this to work. Only civil posts, no ad hominems, no aggressiveness, perhaps no profanity. The idea being to not moderate ideas but wordings.
Some fairly random examples of posts which I think should not be tolerated in their current form follow. Most of these are fine, even useful in terms of the content behind the rage, but would be better expressed in more neutral terms.

http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=21405.msg268477#msg268477
http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=20572.msg263925#msg263925
http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=20437.msg261202#msg261202
http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=20535.msg256510#msg256510


Now, before I get told to shut up or leave, these are not demands. I simply prefer an environment where it's possible to actually communicate, and it's gotten pretty difficult here. The guidelines above are very draconian, I admit. If implemented, they should in my opinion come in tandem with very transparent moderation. Clear limits on moderator powers, and repercussions for exceeding them. No thread deletions. You can't trust mods if you can't judge for yourself whether they are doing their job or abusing their power. This is not some random hobbyist forum. People have money invested in Bitcoins, and accusations of, say,  moderator collusion with Bitcoin businesses are therefore very damaging.

Maybe the bitcoin.org powers that be will do something like what I'm asking for. If not, I'm very willing to give any forum that does a shot.

I checked a couple of the links above. Certainly posts that could have had a more civil language. Profanity never is a good idea when you try to get a message accros. So I agree with most if not all what you say. I see someone mentioned such a forum would be boring. Well, I think those who really loves the drama and all the trolling can stick to forums where this happens. I will go forward with my idea and I will see how it develops. There's possible to make deleted posts reviewable by admins, so that even if moderators abuse their powers, this will be noticed. There will of course be a discussion as to how the rules should be set on such a niche forum for bitcoin users, and there will of course always be disagreement over how it should be run, however, I think I've got my main point across in my first post. And when I start this forum, no matter how it turns out, everyone would still be free tho choose, if a user do not like the draconian rules, then that user is free to leave. The problem is that the minute you start backing off or giving slack in the rules, then problems will occur, and users will complain the rules are not equal for everyone, and eventually some of those users who did not get their will or became banned will call me names too. Something like that is impossible to prevent.

But I agree with you. Communicating in a civil manner would be of outmost importance in such a forum. And profanity and name calling is not something that I would want to have on such a forum. It wouldn't be too hard to police moderators, and see their actions (this can be logged). However, forum admins will have total control of such a forum, and as such, the forum admin would need to be trusted. Trust is usually built up over time, and that's the only way to do it when making a service for the community. I am of course open to any suggestions for how rules should be set and enforced.

[Herodes]

I'm new to Bitcoin and I'm loking for good info, I'm spending a lot of time reading post that are very little help.  The forum is moderated, but it doesn't feel like it.

Yes, I agree with this too. I asume the sheer volume of posts can be an attributing factor. These days it seems like 5% of what's posted in this forum (or less) gives
me any food for tought, and the rest is just mindless waste. Personally I don't like waste so much, although I am sure some of the users on this forum actually can
find amusement in hillarious trolling and stupid jokes.

[w1R903]

You can help by thinking about the way you post, too. (Not referring to anyone in particular here.)

Think before posting. If you find someone's writings raising your blood pressure, back away from the keyboard. Do not write anything until you've calmed down. When you do reply, vet your responses for anything that could be considered offensive. Once you've written your posting, go through it, sentence by sentence, and prune all the barbs. There's always a neutral way to say whatever it is you want to say, and even if your counterpart is a bona fide troll, remaining civil and calm will soon rob them of mistakes to latch on to. Either the other will respond in a reasonable manner and your discussion will go somewhere, or they'll degenerate further into ad hominems and irrelevancies, at which point you can with good conscience discontinue any discussion.

If a discussion is truly going nowhere, withdraw from it. Offer no insult, just take your leave.

Word.

[DonnyCMU]

Um... I'm sorry this is not very contributing.. but I couldn't help it seeing this one: 

Ever since June 3 or June 4 it's gotten really bad, all these new people coming in since the Silk Road stories.

I lol'd.

Name:    imperi
Posts:    505 (28.056 per day)
Respect:    0
Position:    Hero Member
Date Registered:    June 04, 2011, 08:05:57 am

[NO_SLAVE]

two weeks ago this was a thriving community of level headed intellectual progressives, now every post is met by gangs of thugs and mental midgets severely limited in world experience.
such is the nature of human civilization. 

[AtlasONo]

It's been this way for quite a while.

[Meni Rosenfeld]

@TheManOfTown - I may be interested in participating in such a forum.

I disagree about the "no referral link" rule though.

And I'll take this opportunity to say that one of the problems of this forum is people not bothering to read the documentation and posting criticisms of Bitcoin that are trivially debunked. This is exhausting after a while.

[Herodes]

@TheManOfTown - I may be interested in participating in such a forum.
I disagree about the "no referral link" rule though.

Your disagreement is noted, and I do understand why. But that's the way it is, people will have different opinions. Personally I do not like referral-programs, I never did. I am more of the opinion that if you create a business online or elsewhere, focus mainly on creating a great service, and customers will come, and they will tell others about your service. I understand other people will have a different view on this, and esp. those who are personally benefiting from the referral links. I am sure you and me would not agree on that particular issue, so let's just agree that we disagree.

And I'll take this opportunity to say that one of the problems of this forum is people not bothering to read the documentation and posting criticisms of Bitcoin that are trivially debunked. This is exhausting after a while.

Yes, it is. But I believe that's the nature of humans. Many people do not RTFM. Perhaps such threads should be closed down immediately with a link to a page where said questions could be answered if the users just spends 30 mins of his time to actually read the information present. There's nothing wrong with newbees, but I think everyone should first try to find the answer to what they need through reading available information and doing some google searches. There's a lot of information available about bitcoin, and it's not too hard to find. Also if questions asked are already in the sticky threads in a forum, I think the thread should be closed immediately with a point to the information that will answer the questions of the user.

After running forums through many years, I realize it is 100% impossible to keep all users 100% satisfied all the time, and no matter how you do things, people will call you names sooner or later.

"You can keep some of the people happy some of the time, but you cannot keep all of the people happy all of the time"

[Litt]

two weeks ago this was a thriving community of level headed intellectual progressives, now every post is met by gangs of thugs and mental midgets severely limited in world experience.
such is the nature of human civilization. 

This all started with that guy on OCN making the bitcoin guide for the internet trolls for all to see. A lot longer than 2 weeks. I remember this clearly because the decline of the level of intelligence in every post was dreadfully noticeable right after the initial wave of those people emerged on the forum. That guy pretty much single handedly dropped the average intelligence of the bitcoin community by more than 50% due the sheer amount of the new people and the extraordinary level of intelligence they share.