Altcoin paywall

[AverageGlabella]

The altcoin sub forum no matter how much moderation will continue to decline as this forum and cryptocurrency gets more popular and receives more exposure. The current problem with that sub forum is the fact that an overwhelming amount of projects posted there are scams or low quality cash grabs at best. It has a reputation for these reasons and most genuine projects will be branded with the same brush. Unfortunately a pay wall would be unlikely to solve this problem due to the fact that these companies and individuals releasing  these garbage projects are willing to invest a small amount of money in the grand scheme of things because they will make hundreds of thousands in return.

Also introducing a paywall which requires every project to pay to list their project will probably be labelled as a cash grab and not very well received and the pros probably don't out way the cons because of these developers willing to pay the money because they'll earn over twice the amount easily.

So my proposal is to introduce premium altcoin sub forums. Just like the "Altcoin Discussion" is a dedicated sub forum we could introduce this for altcoins. For an example "ETH" could be a sub forum however the criteria for being allowed these sections should be that they've been vetted by dedicated members of the public and been verified as a worthwhile/interesting project as well as being a paid listing (per month). To be clear this doesn't mean "approved"  We should only allow a maximum of 5 sub forums at a time and have these on a monthly rent basis. I have no idea how much this should cost however I believe it should be within the thousands per month to allow that money to be paid to moderators/dedicated people to review the project and moderate that sub forum.

 Benefits to the forum:
- Vetted projects to assure quality
- Dedicated moderators = Less spam
- More exposure to quality altcoins
- Save time browsing the millions of projects launched every day

Benefits to the developers/owners:
- More exposure
- Dedicated moderators
- Have their project reviewed and be able to showcase that to others that they're project is of high standard

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[The Sceptical Chymist]

these garbage projects are willing to invest a small amount of money in the grand scheme of things because they will make hundreds of thousands in return.

If that's actually true, it's incredible to me--are we still in the world of creating a garbage project, drawing in suckers, and cashing in for that much money?  Sounds easier than a gold rush, IMO. 

Yeah, the altcoin section has been a mess for years.  I've always thought there should be subsections for at least the major altcoins, and I think I voiced that some time ago.  Just not sure how enthusiastic Theymos is about doing anything to or for the altcoin section.  I've long thought that it only exists to appease those bitcoiners who wanted a section for non-bitcoin cryptos. 

[o_e_l_e_o]

We should only allow a maximum of 5 sub forums at a time and have these on a monthly rent basis. I have no idea how much this should cost however I believe it should be within the thousands per month

I commend you enthusiasm to clean up the altcoin section, which it desperately needs, but I don't think this is the way to do it.

Sure, a paywall of several thousand dollars a month would weed out many (but not all) of the shitcoins. The issue is for the real coins, who is going to pay that fee? Take a coin like Monero for example, which like bitcoin, has many people developing different aspects of it, no centralized authority and certainly no centralized pool of coins or money to draw from. Who is going to pay the fee for their own board? The developers? Crowdfunding donations?

I would worry that the only coins which would pay this fee are the biggest and "best" of the scam coins, which have enough of a pre-mine or ICO to afford it.

[DaveF]

We should only allow a maximum of 5 sub forums at a time and have these on a monthly rent basis. I have no idea how much this should cost however I believe it should be within the thousands per month

I commend you enthusiasm to clean up the altcoin section, which it desperately needs, but I don't think this is the way to do it.

Sure, a paywall of several thousand dollars a month would weed out many (but not all) of the shitcoins. The issue is for the real coins, who is going to pay that fee? Take a coin like Monero for example, which like bitcoin, has many people developing different aspects of it, no centralized authority and certainly no centralized pool of coins or money to draw from. Who is going to pay the fee for their own board? The developers? Crowdfunding donations?

I would worry that the only coins which would pay this fee are the biggest and "best" of the scam coins, which have enough of a pre-mine or ICO to afford it.

What he said.
A quote from me about this from a over a year ago:

So, according to the time / date in the upper right of the Announcements (Altcoins) page it's 9:48:02

On the 1st page the top of the page post has a last post time of  9:48:00
The oldest on the bottom is 09:43:31
So posts are scrolling off the page in less then 5 minutes. Even if you have the best project out there. Getting past all the "noise" is going to be almost impossible.

-Dave

-Dave

[DaveF]

If that's actually true, it's incredible to me--are we still in the world of creating a garbage project, drawing in suckers, and cashing in for that much money?  Sounds easier than a gold rush, IMO.  

Yeah, the altcoin section has been a mess for years.  I've always thought there should be subsections for at least the major altcoins, and I think I voiced that some time ago.  Just not sure how enthusiastic Theymos is about doing anything to or for the altcoin section.  I've long thought that it only exists to appease those bitcoiners who wanted a section for non-bitcoin cryptos.  

Also from what I posted over a year ago:

If you think back 20+ years it was the same during the .com boom.

Q: What is the name of your company?
A: Plastic Cup Inc.
Value = $1.00

Q: What is the name of your company?
A: plasticcup.com
Value= $1,000,000,000,000,000,000.00 Quick sell stock.
But we just opened and don't do anything yet.
JUST SELL SOME SHARES!!!!!

With BTC going over $10K again, it's going to be a shit storm of epic proportions as everyone tries to cash in again.

Anybody want to get in on the ground floor of BitcoinDave?

-Dave

[thd26bct]

It has at least one disadvantages, because some of best altcoins left the forum months or years ago. Vitalik, for example, left the forum years ago. I know OP suggested such funds will be collected from ETH community (for example) to fight for one to five sub-boards, but I doubt that community will be ready to do something like this. It looks unrealistic. The mechanisim looks like what the forum has with banner adverstisement auctions, that use funds from their own teams/ owners, not from community.
Furthermore, it is easy to search for specific projects to find good topics related to them. Shitty topics, created originally for spam, will tails off fastly, that is one of good indicators to judge topic quality. Another indicator is the general post quality of OPs. I think that people can easily to do it with all current available tools.

[r1s2g3]

It will be very hard to deal with scammers whether you take payment or not.
The best action is to educate the masses and they can automatically understand these scam on their own.

[AverageGlabella]

I commend you enthusiasm to clean up the altcoin section, which it desperately needs, but I don't think this is the way to do it.

Sure, a paywall of several thousand dollars a month would weed out many (but not all) of the shitcoins. The issue is for the real coins, who is going to pay that fee? Take a coin like Monero for example, which like bitcoin, has many people developing different aspects of it, no centralized authority and certainly no centralized pool of coins or money to draw from. Who is going to pay the fee for their own board? The developers? Crowdfunding donations?

I would worry that the only coins which would pay this fee are the biggest and "best" of the scam coins, which have enough of a pre-mine or ICO to afford it.

Crowdfunding could be a way of doing it or we could consider offering certain coins free slots if they meet certain criteria like Monero. Again they would have to be reviewed by whoever is given the responsibility. Its true that scam coins will probably be able to afford and justify paying the fee and many other legitimate coins won't have the money but its certainty going to be a deterrent and by putting a review process in it too I think it would weed out most.

If that's actually true, it's incredible to me--are we still in the world of creating a garbage project, drawing in suckers, and cashing in for that much money?  Sounds easier than a gold rush, IMO. 

Yeah, the altcoin section has been a mess for years.  I've always thought there should be subsections for at least the major altcoins, and I think I voiced that some time ago.  Just not sure how enthusiastic Theymos is about doing anything to or for the altcoin section.  I've long thought that it only exists to appease those bitcoiners who wanted a section for non-bitcoin cryptos. 

Not all the garbage projects are raking it that sort of money but the ones with a good marketing approach are. I know that a few of the projects have generated a significant profit and then just exited like the hundreds of projects before them.  Yes I know the argument against the altcoin sub forum is that its not about Bitcoin and this is primarily a Bitcoin forum so not much attention is giving to the sub forum. We have 2 mods covering that whole area which is probably more active than the whole of the rest of the forum.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Again they would have to be reviewed by whoever is given the responsibility.

This is the same issue with why scams aren't moderated - it would take an inordinate amount of time to investigate every altcoin as to whether or not it was a scam. No process is going to be 100%, and you run in to the issue of real coins being denied arguably their best platform, or scam coins being approved. The "best" scams are ones which aren't immediately obvious, and survive long enough to lure in the maximum amount of people. These people will then flood the forum, blaming us for approving a scam that they lost money on.

Completely agree with your points regarding the altcoin boards (and most boards for that matter) needing a dedicated sub board moderator.

[AverageGlabella]

This is the same issue with why scams aren't moderated - it would take an inordinate amount of time to investigate every altcoin as to whether or not it was a scam. No process is going to be 100%, and you run in to the issue of real coins being denied arguably their best platform, or scam coins being approved. The "best" scams are ones which aren't immediately obvious, and survive long enough to lure in the maximum amount of people. These people will then flood the forum, blaming us for approving a scam that they lost money on.

Although your points are valid and I would agree that this would be a time consuming endeavor many people are already doing this for free. ICOethics has been reviewing several different altcoins and exposing them for example. However a deposit would be made and then the review would take place. So a moderator or whoever is put in charge of doing it would be getting paid and therefore justify the time taken to review.

You've made a point about the "better" scams being harder to detect. Although an in depth evaluation on the project will likely reveal any hidden intentions in the majority plus I think anyone paying a substantial amount to get their project evaluated with a no return on deposit if anything seems fishy is not something most scam projects would be interested in doing because of the risk involved where as legitimate projects wouldn't even have to worry about that.

[o_e_l_e_o]

ICOethics has been reviewing several different altcoins and exposing them for example. However a deposit would be made and then the review would take place. So a moderator or whoever is put in charge of doing it would be getting paid and therefore justify the time taken to review.

I take your point regarding the payments from the altcoins being used to fund the team responsible for reviewing them. But there is a difference between ICOethics busting scam which they come across and tacitly saying that projects aren't scams by approving them for their own sub board.

I'm not trying to be deliberately obstructive here, I just don't think the forum vetting projects is the right way to go. Coins like BCH and BSV could easily pay any fee from their centralized owners, and don't have any of the usual flags of being scams like a fake team, Ponzi structure, etc., and so would likely get their own board, despite being total trash.

[Welsh]

I'm not trying to be deliberately obstructive here, I just don't think the forum vetting projects is the right way to go. Coins like BCH and BSV could easily pay any fee from their centralized owners, and don't have any of the usual flags of being scams like a fake team, Ponzi structure, etc., and so would likely get their own board, despite being total trash.

This to me would be the biggest concern about this, and the fact that users will assume that these projects have been officially reviewed, and approved by the forum which would definitely cause a few headaches. I think this has been discussed in the past, and I think the logistics of it could be a concern. Generally, I think its a good idea to showcase proper projects that are worthy of that extra exposure, but then again looking at how profitable the altcoin market is from a developers perspective we would likely have several projects wanted these positions, and reviewing them would be both time consuming, and likely a waste of time for a lot of the trash projects that would undoubtedly apply for the spot regardless whether they're paying a premium for it or not.

Generally though, this is a decent suggestion, and with a bit of fine tuning we could get something to work. Although, I'm currently braced for the onslaught of new users heading over to the altcoin section due to Bitcoins recent price surge.

[Pmalek]

I proposed Security Deposits for bounty threads a few months ago but it didn't really catch on. The concerns were similar like in this thread that doing that would give members a false sense that the project is somehow vetted and secured by the forum itself.

I am for any kind of improvement that would distinguish good and reliable projects from scams.

Quoting my own thread here as a reference.

When you move into a new apartment you are often required to pay a security deposit. A guarantee of some sort for damages that could be caused by you - the tenant.

How about offering ICOs/ITOs an option to pay a security deposit as a proof of their legitimacy and good intentions. The security deposit would be kept in an escrow account for the duration of the campaign. In order for the deposit to be returned the campaign must have honoured all their promises to investors and bounty hunters alike. If not, the deposit remains in the escrow account and could be used as a means of a small compensation for the investor/bounty hunter.

I am not proposing it should be mandatory for all campaigns. It is just an option that can be activated by the ICOs to prove themselves.
Can this still lead to abuse? Yes it can. The campaign can still pay a deposit and end up scamming their investors/bounty hunters for more money. But if implemented properly and with a high deposit it could maybe work.

I don't really follow the Altcoin industry anymore but like it or not they are a big, if not the biggest section of Bitcointalk. Unfortunately resulting in a lot of spam as well.

I am curious to hear the communities opinion about this. Something similar might have been propose in the past, sorry if it's a repeat. I did a quick search but didn't find such a thread.

[AverageGlabella]

I proposed Security Deposits for bounty threads a few months ago but it didn't really catch on. The concerns were similar like in this thread that doing that would give members a false sense that the project is somehow vetted and secured by the forum itself.

I am for any kind of improvement that would distinguish good and reliable projects from scams.

Quoting my own thread here as a reference.

This is an interesting concept so if I'm understanding correctly they would be paying into an escrow as a security deposit and lets say something did go wrong would that then be distributed out to those that have been affected by the coin? The logistics of that sound like a nightmare but in theory a good idea. Having a large substantial amount in a security deposit which will then be used to reimburse those could be a good idea. I think this would only be relevant if the project scammed and not because it failed though as even good projects fail to realize their potential.

[Khaos77]

Dude,

No one is going to pay for an altcoin sub-forum on btctalk,

1.  BTC Maximalist call every coin not bitcoin a shitcoin,
    why would anyone pay for that slander

2.  Many Altcoins have Slack or Telegram or other forums,
    so they just relocate all communications to their other forums and dump btctalk.

[asche]

2.  Many Altcoins have Slack or Telegram or other forums,
    so they just relocate all communications to their other forums and dump btctalk.

It is also a place where you can easily moderate or redact anything you don't like.

It is hardly comparable with an open forum with objective mods. Projects using only these are a big red flag imho.

In fact if anyone gets scammed by these, nobody will ever know it, so they can do it without risking anything too.

[malevolent]

You aren't the first person to come up with a such an idea:

Although I find most alt-coins useless, annoying and uninteresting pump & dump schemes I still believe a mutually advantageous outcome can be had.

Why not just charge them, say, a quarterly fee of 5-10 BTC for a sub-board or subforum? If 100 users of an alt-coin would chip in, that would only be 0.05-0.1 BTC per person. If an alt-coin is big enough they will find a way to raise the funds, if it isn't, then there's no reason why they should have their place on this forum. They could elect a Moderator among themselves and maybe Theymos* would just write in the board description that people entering that board do so at their own risk, Bitcointalk Moderators wouldn't have to bother nannying them.

*if you're reading this, what do you think? The forum would raise some more money

The problems which would arise are mentioned by others:

1. A dedicated board could lend extra legitimacy to a scam before its inevitable exit-scam.

Solution: only allow old/serious established projects to have their own boards? E.g. ETH, XMR, ZEC, but...

2. ... would there actually be enough demand from non-scammy projects? Many have moved onto other venues: Telegram, Slack, Discord, their own forums, facebook groups, etc. Traditional discussion forums still retain their advantages, but a lot of people prefer more responsive mediums of communication.

[Khaos77]

2.  Many Altcoins have Slack or Telegram or other forums,
    so they just relocate all communications to their other forums and dump btctalk.

It is also a place where you can easily moderate or redact anything you don't like.

It is hardly comparable with an open forum with objective mods. Projects using only these are a big red flag imho.

In fact if anyone gets scammed by these, nobody will ever know it, so they can do it without risking anything too.

You do realized that most alts topics had to become self moderated because of the asshats that constantly insulted and derailed the topic on btctalk.
Having some moron berate an altcoin that many in a community have worked hard on and spend considerable portion of their own fiat trying to maintain, is unwelcome to say the least.
Example:

Quite the good shitcoin. Maybe it is time to stop cheating users, ain't it?

Which is why many altcoin communities did the following.

Many have moved onto other venues: Telegram, Slack, Discord, their own forums, facebook groups, etc. Traditional discussion forums still retain their advantages, but a lot of people prefer more responsive mediums of communication.

You don't see self righteous trolls like Lauda anywhere but on btctalk.  

[pooya87]

i don't think this is a good idea not because of the way you are suggesting it be implemented but because of the bias it creates. even if you find the most perfect method to only select the handful of good projects. bitcointalk should never create any kind of bias for any project. instead people should learn to do their own research and if they can't do that they shouldn't even enter the altcoin market.

[o_e_l_e_o]

even if you find the most perfect method to only select the handful of good projects. bitcointalk should never create any kind of bias for any project.

I tend to agree with this. A payment method favors coins which have a centralized entity who will make the payment, which is the exact opposite of what constitutes a good cryptocurrency. Picking based on marketcap doesn't work either with coins like BCH and BSV being completely manipulated to be worth far more than they are, and coins like USDT printing new ones out of thin air, and so all having artificially inflated marketcaps.

On other boards, a sub-board generally gets created if a lot of posts on that board are about the same topic - take the most recent creation of the hardware wallets board, for example. Again, I don't see how this would work on the altcoin boards, as projects would just flood/spam from an army of sockpuppets until they hit the threshold for their board.

I think the vast majority would probably be ok with a sub-board for Ethereum, but beyond that it would be completely up in the air.