If it's just going to be an exact clone of this forum then what is the point? We can all just stay here. If it's going to be something never done before then I'm in. My interpretation of the function of a forum is to build a community. The cryptocurrency community is primarily technologists who are trying to make money. And when I say make money I mean literally. Shouldn't a new forum contribute technologically and also bring people into the process of creation? We can talk, I'm fine with that but I think if Bitcoin or any of these cryptocurrencies reach their potential it will be because millions of people are involved in the economy. Right now we don't have enough involvement.
It addresses the problems of the current forum.
Also, what makes you think a newbie is going to build a community for you to profit from? Also why denominate things in Litecoin if the ultimate goal is to bring Bitcoin to the forefront of cryptocurrency usage?
In that case we want the same thing, I just think why not be more ambitious about it? If it's supposed to replace Bitcointalk it has to be ambitious because if its just an ordinary forum why would anyone bother? It has to be the best forum and have some technological innovation.
One of us has missunderstood badly. I hope it's not me.
The new forum isn't to replace Bitcointalk - it's an additional forum to promote competition between forums and to strengthen the ecosystem. It'll help each of the forums strive to be better or lose users to the other and that's a good thing for the community.
You certainly won't be able to replace Bitcointalk with your current ideas. If anything I believe you'll put a great many people off it.
Are you sure about that? Complex isn't the issue. Gamification on the other hand is bad why? This forum already is gamified. There are bounties everywhere, people working on projects, and doing all kinds of stuff. You could call it games, but people are being paid to play with virtual money and to mine alt-coins so those games make real money but lets be honest, it's still a game. Bitcoin is a virtual currency, Asicminer is a virtual company, the virtual stock exchange is a game that just happens to have real value.
Bounties and incentives don't necessarily gameify a site. It's how those incentives make users behave. For instance, if you have 15 levels of 'experience', you're encouraging users to post as much as they can as soon as they can to reach the upper levels.
A bounty in an advert to research something isn't gameification.
I agree the majority of any forum should be free to use. But do we want tipping? Yes. Do we want contests and tournaments? Yes. Do we want polls, or even paid polls?
I don't disagree with any of that.
We need that stuff to collect statistics so once again I say we need it and it can't always be free. People aren't going to take a survey for free, but if all you have to do is take a survey and earn Bitcoins because someone is willing to pay the forum for it then isn't that better than an advertisement? It's better for the forum and for the users right? And the same or perhaps much more money is generated which can circulate back to the forum members if for instance they own shares and receive dividends.
Perhaps I just don't understand your desire to turn the forum into a business. A business with equity at that.
I also don't get why people wouldn't answer surveys without being paid if it's to improve the community. I get why they'd want paid if you were lining your pockets from the results/research.
I do underatand the concern that the site could become too commercial. There has to be a balance. Perhaps this thread can allow us to find that balance.
You don't think you've gone too far by the time you've paid to sign up, paid to get into VIP areas, bought into the forum with Litecoin shares, allocated shares for the new forum, etc?
Or do you see that as balanced?
Donations and advertising are not sustainable though. When the site gets DDOSed or when it gets too popular what then?
I suspect with your suggestions, the site will never get popular unless you define popular as 200 very rich users funding the site costs and generating a profit for the 'owners'.
I disagree with that statement. I think active users matter more than just people who never post or never take part in anything. How do we encourage people to be active without providing incentives? We keep hearing no one wants to spend their Bitcoins, but we never encourage people to earn or spend. Why not create a culture?
You'll have fewer active users - your community will simply be smaller due to the barriers to entry you're imposing and also why will newbies feel inclined to help build your business?
I think if we can keep the spam in the newbie section then that is a good decision. I think there can be surveys, lotteries, tipping and other mechanisms to encourage people to actually apply their Bitcoins and get active. You know, actually make a wallet and actually start using the technology as a currency rather than just talking about how cool it is or how to buy some.
I think you've missed the point I'm making but if I haven't been able to explain it so far it's unlikely I'll be able to do it now.
Encouraging users to start spending is a difficult one but making the forum where they can learn about it chargeable just to be on, is not going to be the solution. The two objectives are independent of each other and in my mind, shouldn't be mixed together. You're tying an activity to a goal to try and achieve that goal.
I disagree. I think if the forum were better than this one then most of the active members from this community would go to the better technology.
Of course if the forum was 'better' than this one people would go but you define 'better' as 'run like a business' and I'm not sure everyone would agree with that.
You also define 'better technology' as 'gameified'. I would describe your 'better technology' as 'different' but not better. I'm sure you don't mean the database will allow a higher volume of transactions or that the motherboard uses a faster bus speed. That's what technology is in my mind.
That is why I think you need good technology. You want to get the active members first, because they are posting every day. I do understand you can't only have active members, so a newbie section which functions like the newbie section on Bitcointalk would be fine.
People don't go to a forum for the 'technology'. Also, are you defining an active member as 'non-newbie'?
And this is where I disagree. I think a new forum could generate a lot more than 1 Bitcoin a day. I think it all depends on the technological design of the forum. I think it also depends on the quality of the membership, the content, and how active the members are. You can encourage an active membership which creates quality content and easily generate 1 Bitcoin a day if you had the kind of membership size you see on Bitcointalk. But let's be honest, it's unlikely that would happen overnight even if the technology were better, I just think if you're going to invent another forum, why not actually invent something no other forum can do? Kind of like with alt-coins, if you're going to invent a new coin why not innovate?
I feel that your problem will be everyone will run a mile when they see how much of a business the new forum will be. You'll never get to the size of Bitcointalk with all the fees, the shares being handed out (to whom? by whom?).
I'm pretty sure they already know who the high value targets are. High value doesn't mean easily accessed.
You don't think $1 is easy access for a scammer? If you told a scammer that there's a forum full of pre-validated, high value assests that will cost you $1 dollar to access, you can bet they'll beat a path there.
The less fortunate? I'm not sure what you mean. The option seems to be keep the door open so scammers and spammers can pollute the forum, or lock the door and charge a fee for entry. I say we should have a public area and a VIP area which gives the best of both worlds. I don't think you can do it all open without someone trying to mess it up. I've seen threads get ruined on this forum by one person shitposting.
I don't think we disagree here - just where that line is drawn and how high it's drawn.
I'm doing it to make things better for myself and the community. There is no reason why I should lose to help the community when, if I can win helping the community win. Why not just adjust the incentives to encourage people to help each other? Devcoin is doing exactly that, and it seems to work at least to get people to accept bounties and fund projects.
What do you lose helping build a community?
Are you saying you'll only help if you're paid?
How do you know they'll go elsewhere? Those users sign up for Facebook and jump through way more hoops to do so. They sacrifice their privacy and civil liberties to be part of something cool or to try the cool new technology. I think these users will jump on the Bitcoin train when it becomes cool enough, but they wont know how to buy the coins, or how to use it, or what the coins are, and in my opinion the best way to teach is by making them use it. Actually make a wallet, and sign in with a wallet address, why not?
Facebook users don't see an immediate financial cost. They also don't see that Facebook is making money off of their accounts.
People will give up their civil liberties because they don't know better.
Make the Bitcoin wallet signing one of the 'experience levels' sure, but make it as a barrier to entry and you'll lose a great deal of newbies.
Tell me what demographic of newbie does not have a Bitcoin address and does not want try using Bitcoin as a currency? If you're not part of the blockchain as a miner and don't have a Bitcoin address?
I don't have that info.
What demographic does not have a Bitcoin wallet address? If they have at least that, then we know they at least cared enough about Bitcoin to do that. A lot of people making shitposts and spamming just sign up to do that and don't even care about Bitcoin enough to download a wallet or get an address. I've seen people literally make one or two posts about nothing and then start spamming.
What proportion of spammers don't have a Bitcoin wallet? Without that info, we're speculating as to whether your proposed solution would work against them.
I don't see a problem with making it a requirement later on once people can already participate.
Finance is about making money but it's also about community. This is a finance community where everyone here should want to make money. Why else are you playing with virtual money if you don't want to make money? The goal is to make the virtual money function like real money? So we have to actually use it.
I might have an interest in stocks and shares but I wouldn't expect to have to deal my shareholdings on a forum. I might like tropical fish but for sure I'm not going to use them on a forum as currency.
It's not a finance community - there are people here from all walks of life.
You're presenting a false dichotomy where someone has to either be fighting in their self interest or for their community as if they oppose each other.
I've not made that claim - you have. I simply have no interest in making money off the back of the community I'm trying to build, if for no other reason than a conflict of interest. If you don't see that conflict, you soon will once people begin to ask questions.
I think both problems are linked. People spam to make money correct?
Perhaps this is where some of my confusion comes in. You use the meanings of things slightly differently to me. A spammer is anyone who posts junk and that can often be things like selling services (to make money) or just posting rubbish to troll etc.
People are attracted to Bitcoins because that is a new money? The Bitcoin miner is in it to make money right? Whether you think of it in the literal sense of generating a new money, or the purely economic and self interest of making profit, the whole point of Bitcoin is to make, spend, and transfer value. I keep reading that everyone wants to hoard and no one wants to spend, but then I read from you that this is not a problem.
A lot of people here are here to make money - absolutely. I don't think anyone has a problem with that. The hoarding issue is a problem but you can't make people spend if they don't want to, otherwise you're as well using a fiat currency where if you don't spend, your value is inflated away.
I think the only reason it's not a problem is because there are only 1 million or so people who know what Bitcoin is. I'm saying these forums are not going to scale up just like Mt Gox couldn't scale up, and for the same reasons. These forums are not prepared for 10 million members, or 20 million members, and wouldn't know what to do with that many people, but the truth is, if properly designed the sky is the limit.
Forums don't need to scale like Mt. Gox. They have raw power issues, a forum doesn't have the same resourcing issues. There's no way the new forum will have too many users - not for years. There's no point in over-engineering for a situation that'll never happen.
Even with all the inactive/troll/sockpuppet accounts, we only have 135325 users here.
It's all about content. In my opinion the forums with the most active membership will create the best content, provide the most opportunities, and as a result attract the most new members. I think Bitcointalk is that forum right now. I think to get people away from Bitcointalk will be hard unless you attract the most active (VIP) members from Bitcointalk onto a new forum and then convince them to be active in the new forum.
I don't think people come to Bitcointalk for the content. I think they come here for the community.
I guess we'll need to agree to disagree.
50 minutes a day spent on replying to each other's posts lol
Anyway - good discussion
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