A modest proposal - BTC as noise filter and quality incentive

[Causer Fons]

going through the contents of the meta section of the forum there is much warranted complaining about it being a noisy channel (trolls, imperfect moderation etc.)

It appears to me that our beloved peer-to-peer currency provides a potential solution to this problem.

What about requiring all account holders to post BTC against their names in order to gain and retain post-privileges.

In case a user spams or trolls their BTC can be confiscated and used to pay for the infrastructure (hosting)? (a noise filter)

In case there is a surplus of BTC through subscriptions, this can be distributed to contributers - who perhaps through a polling mechanism - are deemed to have added the most quality contributions to the forum.

This could be implemented in a subforum to begin with, but could lead to the forum being a much less noisy channel.

The problem with mailing lists and online discussion forums has always been the cheap cost of acquiring an identity and it being virtually free to pollute these channels with noise.

What more appropriate place than the bitcoin forum to use BTC for a constructive purpose?

If that works, it could set a precedent for other online discussion forums (perhaps first in geek circles and then later more generally) - a good avenue for the currency to gain popularity?

Lower workload for moderators, less noise, get paid for good contributions &c &c

Any thoughts?

[bc]

Is that what witcoin does?

 https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Witcoin

Can anyone comment on its effectiveness?

[Causer Fons]

thanks for pointing out witcoin to me, BC

having gone through their offering it seems to be pointing towards a similar idea
however the witcoin service is much more generalised than what I have in mind
essentially what they are trying to create is a content-appreciation platform, however they ask that users buy into a whole lot of new concepts, including donating tipping to a range of charities.
the general nature of the site means it is by design a noisy channel (content might be ok though).
looking at the balances of earnings that contributors make there, we are talking bitcoin-cents
since there is no stated purpose of the site, it means pretty much anything goes.

(I have found on it links to youtube clips without any commentary - hardly creative, new, content, and a post offering to pay people 0.1 BTC for trolling on a forum...)

A better way to introduce the idea of BTC as a noise filter and quality incentive in my mind would be to use a focused forum (such as bitcointalk) where the users care passionately about a specific issue and where noise is a real concern, and to simply overlay the BTC interface using a traditional forum design such as simple machines or phpBB.

Indeed user-familiarity with BTC also helps in terms of potential for uptake..