How can we stimulate Bitcoin Talk?

[Jet Cash]

Several members have stated in private conversations with me that BT is getting boring. I must admit that I sometimes have trouble stimulating interest, or finding topics where I can contribute. The world is in economic turmoil with various economies on the brink of failure. Alongside this, established and new crypto-currencies and digital banking methods are gaining in popularity and strength. One would expect Bitcoin Talk to be humming at the centre of this revolution. How can we stimulate informed discussions, and help BT to grow away from its current emphasis on the crypto underworld, and gain a place in the respectable financial world?

I've started an initiative to award merits on a different board each day for a week or so, and I'm starting with the political board. Is there a better use for my sMerit awarding time?

[LoyceV]

How can we stimulate informed discussions, and help BT to grow away from its current emphasis on the crypto underworld, and gain a place in the respectable financial world?

I don't think this will ever happen. When I think about respectable forums, I think about forums with many interested experts. When I think about Bitcointalk, I think about a shitload of spammers who are only here to earn money.

It's not that informed discussions don't exist, it's just a very small fraction, which makes them hard to find. I'll keep doing what I always do: report the bad stuff, merit the good stuff.

[Makkara]

Some is also here for the technology, despite being mostly a meme nowadays.  

[Hagmonar]

I think you do not have any problem regarding your merit distribution, at least you are doing your part in order to help promote quality poster and make them realize to post more interesting stuff because they are being appreciated.

The simplest solution we can do is to take action from all the suggestions of reputable forum members here. The merit system is doing its part, maybe we should just upgrade it at some point, specifically merit for Jr. Member.

Eradicate all the useless account by giving them a hard time ranking up to lessen all the spams and shitposting just to get paid.

[LeGaulois]

The only way to get a decent conversation is to talk about difficult topics like this one for example. Since they have no idea what people are talking about, it's difficult to spam it. When they will have enough to not be able to participate in the forum perhaps they will start to learn what others are talking about.

I do admit it's difficult to find a decent topic and when there is one, it's difficult to read the interesting posts. Myself, I decided to make only self-moderated thread. There are still a lot of posts that worth to read, personally I bookmarked the interesting posters in a folder and start to read the forum by using my own list.
With Bitcointalk you don't need to visit Coinmakertcap to check the Bitcoin price. You can go in the Speculation sub-forum, you have all info daily
(...
Today, Bitcoin value is $7,000...
...Hi, Bitcoin is failing, $6,990...
...Bitcoin is going to the moon, $7,002 right now, buy buy buy...)

I wish we could have a whitelist feature like with NoJs, then all other contents are hidden LOL

[hilariousetc]

This forum is far from boring, but the quality of content is shit and gets worse with each passing month the longer we do nothing about it. It's rare you can have a decent conversation about anything in boards like Bitcoin discussion because they're populated and overwhelmed with sig spammers and farmers who only care about making low effort posts as quickly as possible. That obviously needs to be tackled if we want things to change around here. You could do that quite quickly by removing signatures completely from lower ranks and punishing those spam campaigns who pay everyone to make this spam in the first place. Those two simple changes would have a remarkable effect on the shitposting culture around here that has become both tolerated and the norm.

[Don Pedro Dinero]

The world is in economic turmoil with various economies on the brink of failure. Alongside this, established and new crypto-currencies and digital banking methods are gaining in popularity and strength. One would expect Bitcoin Talk to be humming at the centre of this revolution. How can we stimulate informed discussions, and help BT to grow away from its current emphasis on the crypto underworld, and gain a place in the respectable financial world?

Hi, thanks for the post. I’ve been thinking about it lately because I’ve been a year in bitcointalk and at first it seemed to me more exciting, maybe because back then I did not know anything about bitcoin and this forum, and maybe because bitcoin was going up very fast.

When I had been some months in the forum already I started finding the meta section the most interesting one but nowadays you only see repeated threads: posts about the merit system, posts about possible improvements that don’t get implemented, posts about hacked accounts that don’t get recovered...

It is a complicated issue because changes depend on Theymos, and he likes to take things slowly. Also, because quality comes in hand with less traffic.

I was also thinking if we, as a community could do something. If bitcoin is going to change people’s lives in the future, something like the internet did, we could be doing something; we are the façade of bitcoin, but a dirty one.

The problem here is that we are in a boring phase. Lightning network has been being tested for a while, but it will take some time to be fully functional and, hopefully, to become widely used. We can see an economic crisis which can be like the 2008 one or worse, and in which bitcoin could play a key role, but it seems it will take some time until it comes. We expect bitcoin to surpass the December 2017 ath at some point as well, but it will also take some time. It can take months or years, so there is no excitement.

In the meantime, while we wait for those events, we could, and should, be cleaning the façade, so that when there is a new ath, when bitcoin becomes more widespread, when there is new (fiat) economic crisis, this will be the center of the resistance against the fiat power.

The main point here is that changes don’t need to be radical: @theymos if you read this please go one step further of what you have done. The merit system and the two serious boards have done something but it’s not enough, it is time to make something else. It doesn’t need to be radical but do something please. If that works, in six months more we can take another step.

[Jet Cash]

I'm quite pleased with the political board promotion so far. I've managed to find a few posts to merit, and I'm running the promo through until Saturday now.

[shield132]

Bitcointalk isn't getting boring to be fair, it's very funny when you read thread titled like this: My father's uncle got depression after he bought bitcoin and etc. How can this be boring? Lol... Yeah I understand you mean quality of threads and posts is dropped, just see view/post ratio, it's usually 3:1 and that's very sad, seems people don't read other posts, just post blindly.
So to my mind, show signatures only in mining, technicul discussion and similar threads, remove them from bitcoin discussion, trading discussion. This way sig shitposters won't post in spammy sections if they want to get money.

[Direwolve735]

This forum is far from boring, but the quality of content is shit and gets worse with each passing month the longer we do nothing about it. It's rare you can have a decent conversation about anything in boards like Bitcoin discussion because they're populated and overwhelmed with sig spammers and farmers who only care about making low effort posts as quickly as possible. That obviously needs to be tackled if we want things to change around here. You could do that quite quickly by removing signatures completely from lower ranks and punishing those spam campaigns who pay everyone to make this spam in the first place. Those two simple changes would have a remarkable effect on the shitposting culture around here that has become both tolerated and the norm.

I believe that in order to solve the problem of spam, it isn`t necessary to completely eliminate signature campaigns. I thought a lot about this issue, read the comments of other users, and noticed that many talk about spam as a consequence, but don`t pay attention to its reasons. In order to solve this problem or at least reduce its scale, it is necessary to change the rules of the game. As hilariousetc noted, such topics as Bitcoin or Altcoin discussion and Economics are usually littered with garbage posts written by signature campaign participants. It is in these topics most often you need to write in order to fulfill the requirements of the signature campaigns.

In addition to allowing to carry signatures to forum participants who have reached at least member status (as has been suggested already hundreds of times), I propose that newcomers be prohibited from writing posts everywhere except Beginners & Help and Local until they reach the Juniour member rank and the number of merits necessary for this. I believe that a beginner should first become acquainted with the information, read more both news and comments of honored forum participants. His own thoughts should be formed on the basis of an analysis of "primary sources", and this requires time and diligent work with theoretical materials.

Participation in discussions with compatriots will help newbies understand the topic (this will be easier because there is no language barrier) and, if necessary, improve the level of English (with those who speak to you in one language, this is much easier). If in the local branches the questions and comments of the beginner are deemed worthy and he recieves the right number of merits, he`ll have the opportunity to write in English-language profile topics. In addition to this, I propose to establish an official time interval, which must be observed when writing new posts (for example, no more often than once in half an hour) and set a daily comment limit (not more than 7). Thus, we will protect the forum from those who scribble meaningless and endless posts every 5 minutes.

[pugman]

I admit that things are getting boring here. You can hardly discuss about stuff here. There are very few members that like to discuss, and most things just get repeated on and on.

Everyday we see someone complaining about account recoveries, someone talking about bots, someone talking about shitcoin bounties. We see the same suggestions literally everyday in meta. So if that's not boring, I don't know what is.

I have suggested that global mods should be given the ability to whitelist/blacklist signatures, that could help curbing down spam in a BIG way. If a user is spamming too much, they should be reported(through report to moderator button), and if they qualify to be mere spammers, then their signatures can be blacklisted. Its a win-win situation. No "restriction", and lesser spam, at least hopefully.

[Flying Hellfish]

How about checking out different sections of the forum.  I spent 99% of my time in the mining and P&S/OT for like 5 years.  Then I went to the collectibles section and found a whole different world!  There is some amazing stuff and folks there working on BTC business that could use support.  I bought a bar that has a piece of the fucking moon in it!  Its the pinnacle of my little collection, plus I spend some BTC to help BTC enthusiasts!

I bought an awesome hoodie with BTC logo on it from a user starting a clothing business, when the weather cools off I can't wait to wear it and I am so happy to be using BTC as a currency and supporting the little guy that loves BTC as much as me!

There is a project that supports and makes hand crafted crypto quilts, I am trying to save up my btc fun money for one they are beautiful.

I could go on and on what a community it is there!

[jackg]

How about checking out different sections of the forum.  I spent 99% of my time in the mining and P&S/OT for like 5 years.  Then I went to the collectibles section and found a whole different world!  There is some amazing stuff and folks there working on BTC business that could use support.  I bought a bar that has a piece of the fucking moon in it!  Its the pinnacle of my little collection, plus I spend some BTC to help BTC enthusiasts!

I bought an awesome hoodie with BTC logo on it from a user starting a clothing business, when the weather cools off I can't wait to wear it and I am so happy to be using BTC as a currency and supporting the little guy that loves BTC as much as me!

The collectibles section is a good one.
I bought a casascius coin recently and I've been looking into getting one of these coins for literally three years and a month. And I finally managed to get one a few days ago and it's great!

The bar with a piece of the moon on it, would be great if it had a hologram with a bitcoin address and an arrow pointing towards it .

There are threads like these that are really in short supply though. I got to the alts sometimes and there are sometiems a few great threads in there but the problem has become that in almost every part of the forum, we're after finding a needle in a haystack.

I admit that things are getting boring here. You can hardly discuss about stuff here. There are very few members that like to discuss, and most things just get repeated on and on.

Not to mention that a lot of new members seem to be incapable of doing a google search.
I came to the idea of bitcoin and this forum in about June 2015 and I was really excited by it (I get nostalgic by looking at this forum on my raspberry pi even now)... It's a shame that a lot of spammers have descended here and a lot of the bitcoin developers have left the forum too!

We have theymos who has the stamp of approval from satoshi and sirius whenever he comes around...

[Flying Hellfish]

The bar with a piece of the moon on it, would be great if it had a hologram with a bitcoin address and an arrow pointing towards it .

Dude it's loaded with 100k bits its so freaking awesome LOL!!!!  It's a Kiarlara.



http://kialara.com/product/silver-series-2017-moon/
Hologram is on the back!

The moon rock is in the window in the top left!  Owning a piece of the moon is really neat!

[jackg]

Dude it's loaded with 100k bits its so freaking awesome LOL!!!!  It's a Kiarlara.



http://kialara.com/product/silver-series-2017-moon/
Hologram is on the back!

The moon rock is in the window in the top left!  Owning a piece of the moon is really neat!

Ooh Cool!
Are they making any more of them?
100k bits is 0.1 btc? I haven't used bits since bitvisitor shut down (they were a great site)!

[bill gator]

I notice that the only times I have been bored on this forum are the moments where my forum use becomes habituated to some degree. Whether it be checking the same 2 boards, only operating within a handful of threads or refusing to learn new concepts, innovations and information.  I break the slump by checking out a board that I haven't visited in awhile, like the Politics board has been much more palatable since FH became the moderator and merit has been implemented. There are certainly boards, such as economics, bitcoin discussion and a few others that will make you seriously depressed about anything and everything Bitcoin if you spend enough time there. The best way to stimulate the forum at this point would be to separate the chaff from the grain. I don't find it particular hard to find quality discussions, but it's just as likely that the discussion goes over my head; this gives me an opportunity to learn and constantly keeps me interested. Just the other day I learned a bit piece of the technical puzzle and my understanding of Bitcoin expanded, after years of research and interaction I am still learning new things.

There are people here for the wrong reasons and they are flooding the forum with nonsense. This is a double-edged sword in that it boosts the advertising numbers that enable the site to pull in an extra buck, while it dampens the experience of anybody that cares.

This forum is the opposite of boring, because the other forums that I have spent time on are abhorrent. It may seem like the grass is always greener, but I assure you that it is not. There is plenty to do, boundless economic opportunities and some very interesting connections to be made. The problem is we have too many spammers, which are encouraged by bounty earnings through signature campaigns or social media campaigns. We can increase moderation staff, change something that enables these users (signatures enabled, rules, etc.) or an alternative I haven't considered.

It has been getting better in the past several months, though, certainly not worse. We are making progress.

[Quickseller]

We need to make bitcointalk great again!

The topics themselves are not that boring, there is a lot of nonsense posted in response to many interesting topics, making discussion difficult.

[Flying Hellfish]

Ooh Cool!
Are they making any more of them?
100k bits is 0.1 btc? I haven't used bits since bitvisitor shut down (they were a great site)!

nah no more of these being made afaik.  I think mine is like #239 or something (to lazy to look at the bag in my drawer hehe!)  They made some 10k bits and 500k bits iirc as well.  The collectibles section has a couple threads all about the Kialara's

Honestly so far the Kialara's are my favourite because they are just so cool and not just another round!

[The Sceptical Chymist]

100k bits is 0.1 btc?

I can't stand that unit.  I don't like having to do a math problem just to understand how much bitcoin someone's talking about--it's not hard to write out 0.1BTC when that's what you mean.  "100k bits" isn't even an abbreviation, it's more typing and more complicated.

In any case, I don't think we need to stimulate discussion here.  There's a thread about everything, but as most of us know the actual discussion is of extremely low quality.  There isn't any way to change that except to ditch signature campaigns.  Quality probably would improve, but there would be much less discussion overall--kind of like the Dash forum.  What gets written there is very well thought out, but there aren't all that many active members (compared to bitcointalk).

I'm not really into bitcoin collectables, but those kialara things are pretty neat and there's definitely a market for physical coins.  Too bad NGC and PCGS don't grade them.  I think those companies will eventually come around, and it'll be a great day when they do.  ANACS isn't horrible, but their slabs are ugly and their grading isn't as good as NGC or PCGS.

[hilariousetc]

I believe that in order to solve the problem of spam, it isn`t necessary to completely eliminate signature campaigns.

I didn't say that. Quite the opposite. It's theymos who has stated that the next solution will likely be to just remove signatures, but that's not as easy as it sounds either (you'll have to remove avatars and personal texts as well) nor do I think we should ever do that fully. I don't think it's fair to remove them from everyone when it's the newer users that come here to spam in their hundreds that have ruined it for everyone. What about those who just want to advertise their own business or their items for sale in their signature? They're then penalised because of the behaviour of others who have decided to monetise and abuse theirs. The penultimate solution if you were going to go gung-ho and remove signatures would be to remove them from all lower ranks. Maybe leave only Hero or Legendary or those that have got a great deal of merit (and not just auto-merit) so this doesn't penalise those that have been here a long time or made a lot of quality contributions. You could even go with my suggestion of removing signatures completely (or from all lower ranks) and allowing users to purchase them via donator ranks (copper, silver, gold etc). The problem with signatures here is that it's free to create as many accounts as you want and people do. When there's a cost to have a signature nobody is going to be able to afford them on all their 12 to 200 accounts.

In addition to allowing to carry signatures to forum participants who have reached at least member status (as has been suggested already hundreds of times), I propose that newcomers be prohibited from writing posts everywhere except Beginners & Help and Local until they reach the Juniour member rank and the number of merits necessary for this.

Theymos has already said he will never bring back newbie jail which is essentially what you're suggesting, so you might as well forget about that and look at other ways to prevent abuse.

In addition to this, I propose to establish an official time interval, which must be observed when writing new posts (for example, no more often than once in half an hour) and set a daily comment limit (not more than 7). Thus, we will protect the forum from those who scribble meaningless and endless posts every 5 minutes.

It also stops genuine users from making posts. Those that come here to abuse the system will just swap over to one of their 12-200 alt accounts whilst they wait. Abusers will always find a way to bypass the system whilst it puts off genuine users who can't be bothered jumping through all these hoops just to post or get an answer to a question.

There are people here for the wrong reasons and they are flooding the forum with nonsense. This is a double-edged sword in that it boosts the advertising numbers that enable the site to pull in an extra buck.

Theymos recently said he thought about removing the ad slot here completely because it's too much of a hassle for him (which I think would be ridiculous to do), so I'm not sure if theymos cares too much about traffic. If he doesn't though I'm not sure why he allows signature campaigns here (or lets them do what they do). I always assumed that they were only allowed because to kill them would probably kill off at least 80% of traffic. We can still find a compromise without having to ban them or removes signatures but it's not going to happen without some help from him or permission to start dishing out punishments for the worst of campaigns.