Bitcointalk's historical important changes

[tranthidung]

The thread has still been constructed.

Local rules:
- It is not a self-moderated thread, because Meta board does not allow self-moderated ones; but if one spams here, I will report spam posts to moderators.


Table of contents

• New forum software
• Rank system
• Merit system
• Trust system
• Bump rules
• Copper membership
• Image display
• Captcha
• Restrictions on Newbies' PMs
• Restrictions on signature in some boards
• Altcoin give aways are not allowed
• Retention/ Privacy info
• Seclog changes
• Account recovery changes
• Thread ownership can be changed
• Links no longer open in a new window/tab
• Avatar changes
• Vote changes
• Badge changes
• Newbie jail
• Self-moderated threads
• Forum servers
• Signature changes
• Forum data dumps
• Miscellaneous

Contents


New forum software
Beta of new forum software now officially open
There are at least two trial forums that use Epochtalk's source codes:

• www.cryptos-currencies
• https://coinbistro.com (by Cryptios team)

For more, please see: Where is your new Bitcointalk? #RaiseYourVoice


Rank system
The bitcointalk.org forum created in 2019, on 22^th November 2009, by now it has had three significant changes in its rank system.
1. November 22, 2009 - January 22, 2018: Without activity requirements
Welcome to the new Bitcoin forum!
2. June 18, 2013 - January 23, 2018: Activity requirements
Activity & new membergroup limits
3. January 24, 2018 - September 16, 2018: Activity requirements + Merit requirements
Merit & new rank requirements
4. September 17, 2018 - by now: Users have to earn at least one merit to become Junior Members (if enough activities)
Enhanced newbie restrictions & requirements
For more details, please see:
History of bitcointalk.org's rank system


Merit system
1. Merit & new rank requirements
2. Enhanced newbie restrictions & requirements
For more, please see:

• One year anniversary of merit system
• One year anniversary of enhanced merit system
• Merit source observations

Trust system
1. Original Trust system

• Trust improvements
• Trust vocabulary
• Minor trust score algorithm change

2. Default Trust change;
3. Trust flags (from which we have flags that have separate and different functions than Trust, feedback, to avoid misusing)
I highly recommend the guide from LoyceV: LoyceV's Beginners guide to correct use of the Trust system


Bump changes
I am not sure when bump rules first applied, but maybe here:
1. Marketplace rules and guidelines (first version of bump rules)
2. Unofficial list of (official) Bitcointalk.org rules, guidelines, FAQ

13. Bumps, "updates" are limited to once per 24 hours.[2]
21. Old bumps should be deleted. [2]
22. Advertising (this includes mining pools, gambling services, exchanges, shops, etc.) in others threads' is no longer allowed, including, but not limited to, in altcoin announcement threads. [8]

3. Bumping changes on some boards (bump button & bump score)
This idea to build up a bump button and bump score began here:
community generated suggestions to improve the forum (+ eventual voting on them)

An example: a bump button sounds good as a fix for certain very visible problems, but it also codifies a broken system. People would use bots to bump all of their threads constantly, giving "industrial" posters a huge advantage over casual posters. A captcha could maybe help a little, but there are services where you can pay a tiny fee to have captchas solved for you. (Which opens another question: maybe a comparatively tiny fee should be allowed as an alternative to having you solve a captcha.) A better solution would be to replace the concept of traditional bumping with something quite different, with different bumping models for different types of sections. But that requires further thought. If implementing a bump button was free, perhaps it'd be worthwhile to at least do it for now and fix a few minor problems with bumping today. But since it's a clearly-imperfect solution, this isn't even on my miles-long to-do list.

And there: Ideas for topic ordering in altcoin announcements?
For more, please see: Bumping - Rules, FAQs


Copper membership
1. Enhanced newbie restrictions & requirements
I am not sure about this one, and will check further.
2. grin is now accepted for forum payments
Guide steps to wear Coppermembership is here

Image display

• Newbies can now pay a small fee to enable images
• Images in posts disabled for newbies

Captcha

• Moving to Cloudflare
• Login captcha
• Captcha bypass

Restrictions on newbies' PMs

• Newbie PM warning
• Newbie PM changes to address phishing
• New PM limits
• Newbie PM opt-in

Restrictions on signature in some board

• Two new no-signature boards
• Rules for Serious Discussion and Ivory Tower

Altcoin giveaways are not allowed
Giveaway threads are not allowed

15. No on-forum altcoin giveaways. [6][e]

For more, please see: Altcoin give-away rule results in temporary bans. Read before posting.


Retention/ Privacy info

• Retention/privacy info

Seclog changes

• Password reset log
• FYI: "ownership change queued"

Account recovery changes
Old:

• Recovering hacked accounts or accounts with lost passwords

New:

• Recovering hacked/lost accounts
• Account recoveries are moving again
• 
  Cryptios

Thread ownership can be changed

• What to do with the wall observer thread?
• Wall Observer new ownership

From WO, theymos considered to disable signature in some serious boards later.


Links no longer open in a new window/tab

• Links no longer open in a new window/tab

Avatar changes

• Accepting default Bitcoin avatars
• Avatars re-enabled
• APNGs are now detected

Vote changes

• You must be at least a Jr. Member to vote in polls

Badge changes

• Badges
• Legendary coin color changed to dark blue

Newbie jails

• Newbie restrictions (Please discuss forum policy here.)
• Newbie restrictions
• End of newbie restrictions; ban changes

Self-moderated threads

• Self-moderated topics

Forum servers

• Forum moved to current one
• Moving servers

Signature changes

• No more signature images
• Merit & new rank requirements (Newbies unable to wear signature)
• Enhanced newbie restrictions & requirements (old-era Junior members deranked to Newbie) if did not earn at least 1 merit, and unable to wear signature).

Forum data dumps

• Dump of posts
• Additional data dumps?

Miscellaneous

• Get Donator status by donating 10 BTC
• Various limit changes
• Ignore users
• Watchlist
• BTC tag

[1575911369]

1575911369

[coupable]

As usual , you made a great nice job tranthidung ☺️
All my respect Sir .

I would like to suggest adding another element to your list which is about "Local Boards" if you can collect data about them. Personally, i don't know what non-English board has been created first or when/how hire mods.
As an example , and as far as i can remember, my local board "arabic" has been created in 2017, and i think this info should be displayed in your list if you can provide further details. Same thing with other boards.
It would also be good if you can find data about first to latest created boards and sub_boards. This should also belong to the forum great changes.

[Halab]

i don't know what non-English board has been created first

Funny, I asked myself the same question a few days ago. For that you can look at the ids of the local section. 
For example :
Russian section: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=10.0 (id: 10)
French section; https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=13.0 (id: 13)
Arabic section: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=241.0 (id: 241)

It will give you an idea.

[DdmrDdmr]

<...>

I actually went on a (mini)quest this past summer to find a thread that contained the original petition for the Spanish local board (if there was such a petition). I found it, at the time, on Meta: Please create a Local/Castellano (Spanish) forum.

Side note: While at it, I found this gem: Who's the Spanish jerk draining the Faucet?

[Bightening]

I think this should count as a new addition to historical change in Badge. (Although it is yet to be fully implemented)

5 art-contest-winner badges will be assigned to the winners of this voting.

Restrictions on signature in some board

• Rules for Serious Discussion and Ivory Tower

The link for ‘Rules for serious discussion and Ivory tower is wrong. You might want to correct it to; https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2722359.0.


Important to note that, Bitcointalk.org wasn’t a day’s job, most of the changes made resulted from ‘in-use’ challenges and from complaints from forum users. Most had to go through the polls, and some others were solutions suggested by the forum community, showing it’s a community decision. So if you’re new (or old) to the forum, you should appreciate the effort of older users and Theymos (who single handedly did the coding and Ann, except that done by Satoshi). Finally, the new software development would depend on lessons learnt here; community effort.

[tranthidung]

Thanks @Bightening for pointing out my incorrect link; @coupable, @Halab and @DdmrDdmr for creative ideas.

I listened to all your opinion, made another decent thread, so here you go, guys: History of local boards

[coupable]

I listened to all your opinion, made another decent thread, so here you go, guys: History of local boards

That was amazingly fast !! But how you grab all this data in a very short time !!  Organise it in a wonderful way !! You don't even seems to make a lot of edits after publish !! Anyway, this really amazes me bro.
Now, it just lacks that you add the link to local boards history here to the main list so to have a full organised list.

[hosseinimr93]

i don't know what non-English board has been created first

Funny, I asked myself the same question a few days ago. For that you can look at the ids of the local section. 
For example :
Russian section: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=10.0 (id: 10)
French section; https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=13.0 (id: 13)
Arabic section: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=241.0 (id: 241)

It will give you an idea.

Seems that cannot determine the order of creation of different local boards using their Ids.
According to History of local boards which was posted by tranthidung, German board has been created on 09/10/2010 and Russian board has been created on 29/6/2011 while their Ids are 16 and 10 respectively.  

[rosezionjohn]

Seems that cannot determine the order of creation of different local boards using their Ids.
According to History of local boards which was posted by tranthidung, German board has been created on 09/10/2010 and Russian board has been created on 29/6/2011 while their Ids are 16 and 10 respectively.  

Russian board was created first according to Veleor

The actual date of birthday of the Russian local is July 28, 2010

It's interesting that so many Russians have shown interest in the project. Thinking about the Russian culture and society, I'm not completely surprised why. I'll make a new board, let's see how many non-English-speaking users we'll get.

The first topic in the Russian local.