Enough with the elitist crap

[mouse]

You shouldn't ever write when your agitated, but here goes.

Bitcoin is not just for Linux users
Think about whether you fancy yourself as part of the "technological ruling elite". Bitcoin has nothing to do with any OS. All people should be able to freely use and enjoy this technological advancement. Different OS's represent different user groups, and those groups may differ from you in many ways. They probably differ in technical expertise from yourself. The solution isn't to make them just like you....

Stop Blaming the victims
It's already well known that for every hack some portion of the blame will rest on the victim. No doubt, they will also be blaming themselves. Most likely they were running windows, and they didn't do X, Y, or Z. Instead of trolling their loss, show some empathy, and work out what we have learned. See if theres anyway the 'bitcoin system' could be set up to avoid these kinds of losses (to go hand in hand with 'user education').

Stop being so God-damn defensive
We are all indebted to the people who develop bitcoin. Still, they are men and women, not Gods. If you see a new comminuty forming around Bitcoin (as is happening), and they have different needs, roll with it. Just say, "yes, the client (or documentation, or whatever) can always improve. We are working on it, and would love to hear your ideas". If we start setting up sacred cows its only encourages more trolling on 'both sides' when in reality were on the 'same side'. Case in point, having to know that you even have a wallet.dat file, let alone that is unencrypted, is a area of bitcoin that can be, and is being, improved. Just admit it. If you do admit it, dont worry - it doesn't mean all of bitcoin will go down as a failure for all of time.

Clearly the bitcoin community has seen a rapid increase of users that differ somewhat from the initial users. There are growing pains. Can't we all just get along? *Group Hug*.

[1714157036]

1714157036

[1714157036]

1714157036

[1714157036]

1714157036

[FlipPro]

I love you but I feel like punching whoever hacked tweetforum dead in their face.

*Group Hug Entire Community*

EDIT:And whoever been hacking anything that's not theirs. Theres much better ways to get BTC'S than by hacking people...

[BTC Economist]

elitist*

[mouse]

elitist*

Bad habbit of mine, fixed

[hugolp]

Mouse, I agree with you. But the Bitcoin community is very big and there are people with different opinion regarding technology. Its how it is.

[wegotpickles]

I've seen a good bit of Linux specific talk, but i haven't seen to much Linux elitism here (although i spend a lot of time in Linux specific communities so maybe I'm desensitized). I'm just glad the board isn't over run with distro wars over who's pet distro is better for Bitcoin and network security that another's pet distro.

As for the the rest, I think its just the uncertainty in the air lately that none of us want to admit to. With the hacks, malware, scams, and rampant trolls plaguing our beautiful baby currency, it can make one feel a little on edge about investments made, and we take out on each other.

Hopefully as each of these issues are resolved/diminished we will see a return to a more friendly atmosphere.

*Hugs*

[Rocketfella]

Bitcoin is not just for Linux users
Think about whether you fancy yourself as part of the "technological ruling elite". Bitcoin has nothing to do with any OS. All people should be able to freely use and enjoy this technological advancement. Different OS's represent different user groups, and those groups may differ from you in many ways. They probably differ in technical expertise from yourself. The solution isn't to make them just like you....

I disagree. Bitcoin is in its early stages and not idiot proof at all. Currently, we only have the core functionality: sending coins from your computer to somebody else. All the convenience functions like security are missing and whoever wants to use Bitcoins right now needs to understand that it's her own responsibility to keep them safe.
You need to understand the average computer user here: To them, having an insecure Windows machine is no big deal: It doesn't matter that their email account got hacked and is sending spam because they used an insecure password, they just get a new email address with another insecure password. It doesn't matter that their computer becomes part of a botnet and gets a lot of malware thus running slower and slower: The average computer user will just say "Well, computers get slower over time, I just have to buy a new one or hand mine over to my neighborhood geek to fix it". Also, it doesn't matter if their HDD breaks. They don't have backups, but the files on their computer weren't important to them anyways and all their important holiday photos are on facebook anyways.

Now, the important thing here is that Bitcoin is different from all these other problems: Contrast it to email: The whole point of email is to allow you to communicate. If your account gets cracked and is used for spam, you can create another email address and continue with what it's about: communication.
The point of Bitcoin is to move money around. The really big difference is that getting hacked here actually destroys the whole point of Bitcoin since it's actually a loss to you: It's not like "Oh, my computer is slow, I'll just get it fixed", if your wallet gets stolen it's not possible to just create a new one: You actually lost that money and no friendly neighborhood geek can fix that for you.

What I'm trying to say is that AT THE MOMENT Bitcoin is not suitable for your average "I use Windows and I don't care that it's insecure" user. Because Bitcoin is in it's early stages, any serious business with it should only be done in a secure environment, namely a secure OS. If anything, for convenience you should only keep a very small amount of Bitcoins on your Windows machine, but not more than you can afford to lose.

I think that in the future, Bitcoin will become fool proof; the average user can just use an online wallet in combination with a RSA token, just like online banking works right now. But we aren't there yet and saying "Don't be elitist, every idiot should be using Bitcoins today!" does more harm than good.

By the way, using Linux is no big deal: even a chicken can install it if you place enough seeds on the ENTER key and you can just install it parallel to Windows: When you turn on your computer you'll get a little selection window where you can choose to either start Windows or Ubuntu. Also, during install, Ubuntu offers you to encrypt your Ubuntu partition, which is exactly what you want to keep your money safe. Use Windows for your pocket money and Ubuntu for your savings account.

[Jack of Diamonds]

The BTC community is/was largely made out of extreme tech geeks.
As such, there will be a large proportion of people with asperger/autist tendencies, social insensitivity, irritation and other "flaws".

However, were it not for those pioneers, Bitcoin couldn't exist.
They are the few people in the world who, despite their quirks, are capable of sustaining, developing and spreading something like Bitcoin.

I don't know a damn about Linux or command lines despite having a big mining farm. But I realize those people are still valuable and smart.
Of course, if 'we' want to make Bitcoins "presentable" then defensiveness and elitist attitudes would have to fade.

[speeder]

Rocketfella that is the whole point of the OP.

bitcoins right now suck, and we should work to make them not suck, instead of just attack newbies.

[wareen]

Clearly the bitcoin community has seen a rapid increase of users that differ somewhat from the initial users. There are growing pains. Can't we all just get along? *Group Hug*.

+1
I fully agree, there is no need for elitism!

For the network to be secure we will always depend on some people who really understand the system and run it accordingly but not everyone will have to know exactly how it works to use and gain from Bitcoin.

The Bitcoin ecosystem grows and there will be different clients, different online wallet services etc, so that everybody will be able to choose his or her personal compromise between security and usability.

I recommend everyone who could use some good spirit around this forum to check out this thread - maybe even revive it

[caveden]

Bitcoin is not just for Linux users

I think Rockfella made a good point here. Currently, well, it is mainly for geeks which don't use Windows. At least if you want to keep it yourself, on your computer. You may as well trust a third party to keep your money, but the recent attacks on MtGox show us even that is not very secure either.

I realize it's a pity, but I really don't see how can you expect average non technical people to protect their bitcoins effectively. That might change in the future, let's hope it does, but it is not the case right now.

Stop Blaming the victims

Entirely in agreement with that one.

[chungy]

Stop being so God-damn defensive
We are all indebted to the people who develop bitcoin. Still, they are men and women, not Gods. If you see a new comminuty forming around Bitcoin (as is happening), and they have different needs, roll with it. Just say, "yes, the client (or documentation, or whatever) can always improve. We are working on it, and would love to hear your ideas". If we start setting up sacred cows its only encourages more trolling on 'both sides' when in reality were on the 'same side'. Case in point, having to know that you even have a wallet.dat file, let alone that is unencrypted, is a area of bitcoin that can be, and is being, improved. Just admit it. If you do admit it, dont worry - it doesn't mean all of bitcoin will go down as a failure for all of time.

To be fair, bitcoin isn't exactly something that should be used without understanding how it stores your coins on your computer (well, technically, they aren't in your wallet.dat, but you don't need to really know that).  If you were developing a web browser, sure I can agree there's no real use for users to know what file cookies are stored in, where the cache is at, etc.  However, with Bitcoins, you should at least know what wallet.dat is in order to have the ability to back it up or move it about; we are talking about money here, and it's not like you would go to a bank either without understanding their policies.

[aral]

Stop Blaming the victims
It's already well known that for every hack some portion of the blame will rest on the victim. No doubt, they will also be blaming themselves. Most likely they were running windows, and they didn't do X, Y, or Z. Instead of trolling their loss, show some empathy, and work out what we have learned. See if theres anyway the 'bitcoin system' could be set up to avoid these kinds of losses (to go hand in hand with 'user education').

Well I haven't learned anything from their mistakes but hopefully other people with wallets full of bitcoins might read their stories and wake up a little regarding their 'open windows' security situation.    So for that reason I don't think they should be treated too harshly, and I hope also that people continue to post these stories with as much background info as possible.

You know, I don't want any of these people to lose bitcoin but it is actually quite annoying to me that a hacker is getting a big free ride off them while I acquire my coins the honest way. 

[WNS]

Just say, "yes, the client (or documentation, or whatever) can always improve. We are working on it, and would love to hear your ideas"review your well commented and standard compliant patch to the Git repo.

There Fixed it.

The bitcoin infrastructure is not a product, if people come in and try to treat it as such, they are bound to be disappointed. If you want to build and market a compliant client, please by all means, if you can find a market niche meet it. As it stands bitcoind is FLOSS, in FLOSS land meritocracy matters, and you don't get to make demands if you don't contribute usable code, otherwise you are asking the devs to work for you for free, which is not a very compelling argument.

[bcearl]

The Bitcoin protocol maybe for everyone, but the client you get at bitcoin.org does not need to.

The single most important thing to understand is that the client is a different thing than the project. The client from bitcoin.org is written by some dudes for themselves and others who like it that way.

If you want it in a different way, pay somebody to write a different client. Everybody welcomes that client to take part in the Bitcoin network!

[lemonginger]

Just say, "yes, the client (or documentation, or whatever) can always improve. We are working on it, and would love to hear your ideas"review your well commented and standard compliant patch to the Git repo.

There Fixed it.

The bitcoin infrastructure is not a product, if people come in and try to treat it as such, they are bound to be disappointed. If you want to build and market a compliant client, please by all means, if you can find a market niche meet it. As it stands bitcoind is FLOSS, in FLOSS land meritocracy matters, and you don't get to make demands if you don't contribute usable code, otherwise you are asking the devs to work for you for free, which is not a very compelling argument.

That is not true. Any open source project has plenty of work for people that aren't coders - including support and documentation issues. Hell, most large projects like Drupal are flush with coders but begging for people to go back and re-write documentation that hasn't been updated in 2 or 3 years, etc. And devs can only work on what they know  about. Filing bug reports and feature requests and having those commented on by other users is also very important.

[barrymac]

I would agree with the OP to some extent. Security however is traditionally provided by banks, and I've already noticed some activity in this direction.

Elitism obviously isn't going to help the system take off. Especially when you consider that probably the most fertile ground for a new currency would be where the national currency has already failed. These places would not tend to have many Unix L33ts. In africa it is relatively common to use phone airtime credit as currency and the mobile providers have provided services supporting this activity, making it easier to transfer credit between sim cards. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa

Bitcoin needs to be that easy. I have the feeling someone will be providing a service that will achieve this within a few months.

@chungy Many people use banks who have no idea what their policies mean if they had ever read any of them. Indeed many people use banks who don't even understand the basics. I've known people who treat a credit card as if it were their current account balance.

[lemonginger]

Also I totally agree with OP with all points, but I also agree that making it clear(er) that we are essentially in very early dev phase of bitcoin would be good. There seem to be the pull on the one hand with sites like "we use coins" to make it seem like bitcoin is Here! Now! Ready! and Easy to Use! to encourage widespread adoption, and then on the other hand we have people saying, wait! we are still working on some pretty basic scalability and security issues - use at your own risk.

Now those may just be two different opinions, but they are pretty large differences, and I think that the community should be better at communicated the risks of currently using bitcoins, not just being evangelical in talking about its benefits.

[bonker]

You shouldn't ever write when your agitated, but here goes.

Bitcoin is not just for Linux users
Think about whether you fancy yourself as part of the "technological ruling elite". Bitcoin has nothing to do with any OS. All people should be able to freely use and enjoy this technological advancement. Different OS's represent different user groups, and those groups may differ from you in many ways. They probably differ in technical expertise from yourself. The solution isn't to make them just like you....

But windows is for fags and always has been...

everyone knows that.

[wumpus]

Also I totally agree with OP with all points, but I also agree that making it clear(er) that we are essentially in very early dev phase of bitcoin would be good. There seem to be the pull on the one hand with sites like "we use coins" to make it seem like bitcoin is Here! Now! Ready! and Easy to Use! to encourage widespread adoption, and then on the other hand we have people saying, wait! we are still working on some pretty basic scalability and security issues - use at your own risk.

+1
The project is still in its early stages. Development is very active, and thus it's a good thing to suggest features. I agree elitism has no point there, or being defensive, ideas should simply be acknowledged (which is what I try to do).

On the other hand, as a developer I can understand the other side of the "coin" as well. People become annoyed if the 1000th person creates an account on this forums and thinks he has a completely original idea by proposing wallet encryption, even though the developers are working hard on implementing it. Or makes yet another topic why bitcoin won't succeed. Or thinks its a CIA plot. And so on. If people haven't done their own research, a simple google query would do, then they can expect the replies to be a bit snarky.

Note that this is an open source project. No one is paid any money to provide help here.

BTW about victim blaming I agree 100%. It's annoying and tends to be very common especially in communities dealing with finance.