Contributors-only forum.

[Alex Zee]

This seems like a better requirement. The problem with a new forum is getting that critical mass of contributors. Better to invite more people and then uninvite them if they don't meet the community's standards than have an empty forum.

Andrew, this is a centuries old problem, how to select such people and who will be selecting them.

History tells us that all such attempts have failed so far

That's why I proposed a simple criteria that doesn't require any judgment on my part.

It's a simple fact check - whether or not a person had actually contributed something - no judgment is needed.

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[Isepick]

Simply mining should not be a contribution

Wow. Good to know the thousands of USD I have spent on equipment and my $800/month electric bill do not contribute at all to Bitcoin. Let the price fall below $5 for a month and you will find out exactly how much miners contribute to Bitcoin. Miners are integral part of Bitcoin, yet everybody who isn't a miner wants to treat them like red headed step children. You will be hard pressed to find non-miners that have spent $10k on the Bitcoin project, or even $5k. Bitcoin can survive without another exchange, or another merchant site, or another pool. Let the miners turn their rigs off, and Bitcoin dies. Mining is the very fabric that Bitcoin is made of. The crypto part of the cryptocurrency. But apparently miners don't contribute to Bitcoin.

Its your site, run it how you want. Good luck.

[Alex Zee]

Chicken-and-egg problems don't solve themselves without strong intervention.

I don't want to start going "door-to-door" and invite people privately yet. Some might not like it

Better wait some time and see, maybe the critical mass will gather by itself.

Whenever I post in a thread, it is added to my watch list. By clicking on the "Show new replies to your posts."

Got it. I will look into it.

[Alex Zee]

Wow. Good to know the thousands of USD I have spent on equipment and my $800/month electric bill do not contribute at all to Bitcoin.
...
Its your site, run it how you want. Good luck.

Isepick, the reasons for that are:

a) anyone, who has a modern GPU can mine.

b) you mine so you can get money. It's not exactly an altruistic work you are doing here.

If anyone thinks different - let's discuss it.

[Meni Rosenfeld]

Wow. Good to know the thousands of USD I have spent on equipment and my $800/month electric bill do not contribute at all to Bitcoin.
...
Its your site, run it how you want. Good luck.

Isepick, the reasons for that are:

a) anyone, who has a modern GPU can mine.

b) you mine so you can get money. It's not exactly an altruistic work you are doing here.

If anyone thinks different - let's discuss it.

Most of what people do for Bitcoin (or for anything else) has an altruistic component and an egoistic component, and mining is no exception. While most miners do it mostly for the profit, participating in the security of the network is usually also a consideration.

That said, quantitatively, a miner's marginal contribution to Bitcoin may be smaller than they think. By mining, they are increasing the difficulty, thus discouraging others from mining. Thus this is only a moderate shift of the equilibrium towards higher security. If many people stop mining, the difficulty will decrease to the point that others will easily come to replace them.

Also, for the purpose of the new forum, mining with a single GPU isn't indicative of sufficient involvement and understanding of Bitcoin to expect higher-than-average-quality posts. Mining with 20 GPUs might, so this could be treated as a sufficient contribution for entry.

Chicken-and-egg problems don't solve themselves without strong intervention.

I don't want to start going "door-to-door" and invite people privately yet. Some might not like it

Better wait some time and see, maybe the critical mass will gather by itself.

Find a creative way to promote the forum without being too spammy. That's the kind of thing I expect you to do if I am to participate in your forum.

[Vladimir]

The more important question is whether those who qualify really want to post there.

[greyhawk]

The more important question is whether those who qualify really want to post there.

Who wouldn't want to post in a think tank that closes itself to external ideas. 

[Meni Rosenfeld]

The more important question is whether those who qualify really want to post there.

Who wouldn't want to post in a think tank that closes itself to external ideas. 

Non sequitur. There is some memetic variety among Bitcoin contributors, and detractors should be invited too if they can demonstrate they have a clue what they are talking about.

[Synaptic]

The more important question is whether those who qualify really want to post there.

Who wouldn't want to post in a think tank that closes itself to external ideas. 

Non sequitur. There is some memetic variety among Bitcoin contributors, and detractors should be invited too if they can demonstrate they have a clue what they are talking about.

Would I be allowed to post?

I'd like to think admitting me would be a pretty good litmus test for the truthful open-mindedness of it...

[Alex Zee]

Would I be allowed to post?

I'd like to think admitting me would be a pretty good litmus test for the truthful open-mindedness of it...

As soon as we have a quorum of ordinary contributing members we will organize voting on invites.

[Otoh]

An ivory tower - how quaint

[Isepick]

a) anyone, who has a modern GPU can mine.

And every single GPU that mines makes it the network that much more secure. Bitcoin has the world's largest amount distributed computing power. Any attacker has to overcome that.

b) you mine so you can get money. It's not exactly an altruistic work you are doing here.

I'm sorry, you never mentioned altruism before this post. If you are looking for people that have made altruistic contributions to Bitcoin, then your site is going to be very small my friend.

...
That said, quantitatively, a miner's marginal contribution to Bitcoin may be smaller than they think. By mining, they are increasing the difficulty, thus discouraging others from mining. Thus this is only a moderate shift of the equilibrium towards higher security. If many people stop mining, the difficulty will decrease to the point that others will easily come to replace them.

Also, for the purpose of the new forum, mining with a single GPU isn't indicative of sufficient involvement and understanding of Bitcoin to expect higher-than-average-quality posts. Mining with 20 GPUs might, so this could be treated as a sufficient contribution for entry.

I meant the more immediate effects of a large portion of the hashing power suddenly dropping off the network. Greatly increased block times, etc. until the difficulty adjusts. We see how well that is working for Namecoin right now.

Also as someone who has 20 GPUs at 6 GHash, I know I work a little harder at maintaining the equipment than someone mining with a single card.

[Alex Zee]

I'm sorry, you never mentioned altruism before this post. If you are looking for people that have made altruistic contributions to Bitcoin, then your site is going to be very small my friend.

Sorry, altruism is probably indeed not the word I was looking for
I'll take it back.

Also as someone who has 20 GPUs at 6 GHash, I know I work a little harder at maintaining the equipment than someone mining with a single card.

No offense, but just buying a bunch of GPUs for mining doesn't mean that a person will be a valuable contributor to discussions, does it?
Anyone can do it. Where's the creative part?

Anyway, I can't verify how many GPUs a person has.

[Meni Rosenfeld]

Anyway, I can't verify how many GPUs a person has.

Sure you can, that's kind of what the whole Bitcoin protocol is based on. Give them some random number, and see how many difficulty-1 hashes they can generate in a given time frame with this number in the extraNonce.

[Alex Zee]

Sure you can, that's kind of what the whole Bitcoin protocol is based on. Give them some random number, and see how many difficulty-1 hashes they can generate in a given time frame with this number in the extraNonce.

  I never thought of that!

[Alex Zee]

I've added BTC price display for logged in users.

Look in the left-upper corner

[db]

Good idea. The sad reality is that public forums inevitably rot if they get popular.

[Alex Zee]

So, what about invitations? I ask, because there are people, who want to participate, but have no tangible contributions currently.

How should we do it? Anyone can suggest a candidate with a brief description and a poll?

75% votes to invite, 50% to ban?

Also maybe some tag or a special user group that will mark a person as not a direct contributor?

What do you think?

[andrewbadr]

So, what about invitations? I ask, because there are people, who want to participate, but have no tangible contributions currently.

How should we do it? Anyone can suggest a candidate with a brief description and a poll?

75% votes to invite, 50% to ban?

Also maybe some tag or a special user group that will mark a person as not a direct contributor?

What do you think?

You're making it too complicated: just invite a lot of people who you would like to participate. Getting a critical mass of participants is hard. I speak from experience. Banning people who misbehave is comparatively easy. The point of your forum is to maintain a higher-quality discussion, not vote on things and form committees. The easiest way to achieve that is for you to lead the way and invite people unilaterally and then enforce the standards on the forum. Later, if necessary, appoint other moderators to help maintain the community standards.

[Alex Zee]

Ok, then.

Me hereby entrusts meself with ze right to issue ze royal invites 

Oh, boy, it's 3 AM here, I should be sleeping...

See you all tomorrow.