How Would You Make Bitcointalk Better If You Were The Boss ?

[Fivestar4everMVP]

Straight to the Discussion.

Overtime, I've read a lot of posts on ideas, comments, suggestions, or maybe I've posted a few myself, on features that should be implemented, or shouldn't be implemented, removed from Bitcointalk to make it better for all, this ideas, suggestions are either supported by many and rejected by a few, or rejected by many and supported by a few, still does not make any difference because Bitcointalk continues to remain as it is , lol  .

But today, I want each and every one of us to be the Boss, its a simple question, Assume yourself as the boss who oversees all the affairs of this forum,
-How are you going to make this forum better than it currently is?
-Are you going to implement new features? what would it be and how would it benefit the community?
-Are you likely to remove a feature or two? what feature would you remove and why would you remove it/them?
-Will you redesign the forum?, what color(s) and designs do you think would suit the forum better?
-Will prefer to change the way the forum is being moderated? what would be the new mode of moderation by you?
-Or would you rather leave(run) the forum as it currently is ?

The above are just question templates, use it or make something entirely new.

To begin the Discussion--

If I was the Boss seeing over the affairs of Bitcointalk, I would implement a non-custodian Bitcoin wallet to the forum.
Reasons:-
-Bitcointalk is strongly part of Bitcoin's History,  this meaning that the history of Bitcoin cant be discussed without mentioning Bitcointalk, so i feel its not out of place if Bitcointalk has a Bitcoin wallet built into it.
 -Since a lot of Bitcoin transactions happen amongst the forum users everyday, having this feature will make sending and receiving Bitcoins amongst forum users very convenient.  

So what about you ? How would you make Bitcointalk better if you were the Boss ?

[Stalker22]

So what about you ? How would you make Bitcointalk better if you were the Boss ?

In the first place, I would make it more accessible for mobile platforms. No matter if it's just a responsive design or a dedicated app, this forum needs to keep up with modern technologies.
I am aware that this is very hard, considering the scale of this forum and how many users it has, but I think that it is possible.

[Z-tight]

Maybe bitcointalk just works fine the way it is, if i or any other member were the boss we probably might have made big changes, or set hard rules that will run the forum down and decrease its traffic, i know Theymos doesn't make changes too often, but that might be a good thing for the seamless running of the forum.

If i were indeed the boss i do not think i'd be able to make bitcointalk better than it already is, without ruining a lot of other things in the process, so no need.

[Igebotz]

-Are you going to implement new features? what would it be and how would it benefit the community?

Yes! After 6 months, derank banned accounts and return all earned merits to their original source.

To prevent merit abuse, implement a merit cap for legendary members.

Post jail for detrust members having 10 red tags automatically restrict you from posting; this is the only valid way to fight scammers since it is not moderated and the only way to stop puppets promoting scam projects.

Create a mobile BTT app.

Create at least one African local board. Bitcoin is for everyone.

-Are you likely to remove a feature or two? what feature would you remove and why would you remove it/them?

So many things to remove but I would rather not say.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Me, I'd start handing out bright red MBTCTBA hats and play a snazzy tune as my anthem, probably as one of those midi files or whatever they were in the late 90s/early 2000s that were embedded in websites and had to be manually turned off. 

Then I'd get to work snuffing out the shitposters and bring back the Old Scammer Tag system and probably newbie jail too.

In other words, you wouldn't want me as the boss of this forum.  And I have to say, after thinking about the question for a while I give a lot of credit to Theymos for not micromanaging the forum--I don't know what kind of guidance he gives the mods, but since everything is pretty chill around here and rules aren't exceedingly restrictive, I think he probably gives them a lot of leeway in terms of what they can do.  So props to Theymos for that.

-Bitcointalk is strongly part of Bitcoin's History,  this meaning that the history of Bitcoin cant be discussed without mentioning Bitcointalk, so i feel its not out of place if Bitcointalk has a Bitcoin wallet built into it.

It is a big part of bitcoin's history, but not to the outside world.  By that I mean when articles are published about the origins of bitcoin, they usually never mention bitcointalk.  I saw it mentioned in Digital Gold (great book, BTW), but even there it was simply to describe how Satoshi and the early bitcoiners communicated.  The 10,000BTC pizza thread was mentioned as well.

As far as the wallet idea goes, if it were a web wallet I wouldn't offer it.  But if it was a downloadable wallet that was just a bitcointalk-branded one, I think that would be a neat idea.  There are so many bitcoin wallets out there already, though.  On the other hand if I was the boss man, I might be inclined to use some of that donation money in the treasury to create something like that.  I certainly would hire a team of coders and fix a ton of fucking issues that members keep bringing up and which die faster than a dime store goldfish.

[Benkbeny]

Straight to the Discussion.

Overtime, I've read a lot of posts on ideas, comments, suggestions, or maybe I've posted a few myself, on features that should be implemented, or shouldn't be implemented, removed from Bitcointalk to make it better for all, this ideas, suggestions are either supported by many and rejected by a few, or rejected by many and supported by a few, still does not make any difference because Bitcointalk continues to remain as it is , lol  .

But today, I want each and every one of us to be the Boss, its a simple question, Assume yourself as the boss who oversees all the affairs of this forum,
-How are you going to make this forum better than it currently is?
-Are you going to implement new features? what would it be and how would it benefit the community?
-Are you likely to remove a feature or two? what feature would you remove and why would you remove it/them?
-Will you redesign the forum?, what color(s) and designs do you think would suit the forum better?
-Will prefer to change the way the forum is being moderated? what would be the new mode of moderation by you?
-Or would you rather leave(run) the forum as it currently is ?

The above are just question templates, use it or make something entirely new.

To begin the Discussion--

If I was the Boss seeing over the affairs of Bitcointalk, I would implement a non-custodian Bitcoin wallet to the forum.
Reasons:-
-Bitcointalk is strongly part of Bitcoin's History,  this meaning that the history of Bitcoin cant be discussed without mentioning Bitcointalk, so i feel its not out of place if Bitcointalk has a Bitcoin wallet built into it.
 -Since a lot of Bitcoin transactions happen amongst the forum users everyday, having this feature will make sending and receiving Bitcoins amongst forum users very convenient.  

So what about you ? How would you make Bitcointalk better if you were the Boss ?

To me, I don't see need for having bitcoin wallet embedded into the forum reason is because bitcoin transaction is cheap and cost less and wallet already available. Forum here more like other social media platform whee people with specific goal meet and chat over a topic.
If you ask me, This ecosystem is wide and there a lot to be considered here;
1: Bounty Area need concentration, a lot of company coming go host project need to be screen because a lot of them are scams and they end up bringing negative feedback on the forum.
2: Merit Earning: Before anyone can earn merit this day it's seems the person need to be identified with any higher rank that can give merit. Because I have come to discovered people don't longer give merit or either people sell it or greedy with it or does this mean people are no longer interested in reading peoples post?. I urge theymo to look into that
3: it's true this forum have over stayed and it's high time for us to have web Application build on playstore.
4: I think there is abuse of the forum maybe as result that it cost nothing to create an account.
So to avoid traffic and illegal use of the forum I suggest there should fee to attach to everyone new account creation.
5: Newbie are not longer given positive attention rather all they got is negative feedback and these scaring. If I am the Boss I will remove that barrier and rather make users with high rank to read newbies post in other to give them merit.

[SquirrelJulietGarden]

Does Boss equal to Lead Admin like theymos, Cyrus ?

Me, go ahead
- Require all user to learn about Bitcoin and force them to sign a Bitcoin message, for ownership proof, stake it in an official topic of the forum
- Use the ban hammer on plagiarism and don't ignore plagiarism.
- Alternative bans for users with plagiarism but has good net effects: ban from posting a month, 6 month. Signature ban 6 month, 1 year, 2 year.
- Transit the SMF forum to Epochtalk forum software. We are waiting for the new forum
- Require altcoin projects to run their bounties with Bitcoin, not with their tokens

Check the to-do list and rework: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4893744.msg44432901#msg44432901

If I was theymos, I would turn off my computer when I see this list. Headache  

I'm not going to respond here in detail to all of these ideas. It'd be extremely long. I will classify them as OK/maybe/no:

• A newbie welcome message or link to a welcome thread upon sign-up explaining the basic rules and links to everything they need to know including the full forum rules, helpful guides and FAQs etc. No excuses for not knowing the rules then.
• Dedicated sub board mods for most boards that don't have any mods or non-global mods already assigned (Bitcoin Discussion, Beginners & Help, Off Topic etc).
• More patrollers/mods who just handle sig spam or farmers.
• Restoring the memberlist search and stats (very useful for finding huge farming abuses).
• Enforce the sig campaign guidelines. If a campaign is spotted that is doing little to nothing and is abused en mass by spammers, farmers, bots and copy and pasters they are warned. If nothing changes then they are punished with such things as bans, threads trashed, signatures blacklisted site-wide etc.
• A 'bump button' for the marketplace that only allows you to bump your thread once every 24 hours. Manually bumping by posting will then be disallowed. As mentioned above, posts by lower ranked accounts could not be able to bump threads thus curbing potential abuse.
• A report queue for reported messages. Currently every global and admin are spammed by any reported message and half of the time when you go to handle it it has already been handled, thus wasting everybody's time.
• More admins or demi-admins added to help with account recoveries and other admin duties.
• A captcha added to a user's first post or two/three etc to curb bot usage (purchasing a Copper Membership could remove these).
• Require email verification for new accounts.
• Require email verification first before passwords/emails are changed.
• A Beginners and Help board for the Alt Coin section (the bitcoin one is mostly swamped with alt coin and bounty-related issues).
• Add badges as a reward for high reporters and/or merited users (some perks would also be nice). Maybe we could have a 'most merited' user of the month badge. Prizes or awards could be given at the end of the month/year for the biggest rats/grasses/ass-kissers merited users or reporters.
• More options for self-moderated threads (being able to limit participation to certain ranks ie no Newbies or Juniors etc or banning certain users from being able to post in your thread at all to stop trolls and personal attacks etc).
• Signature bans. Bans that remove the signature for x amount of time or even permanently (actually proposed by theymos but never followed up on). Being able to blacklist an entire campaign's signature would also be helpful for those campaigns that refuse to do anything about spam.
• Certain sub boards shouldn't count to post count or activity (Bounties, Games & Rounds and possibly Off Topic).
• Awarding merit doesn't take you to a new page. Clicking the merit button multiple times could pump up the merit one by one. This would make awarding merit much swifter and less annoying.

OK in principle, would require thought/adjustment/implementation. Many of these things are more complex than they look at first glance.

• Charging ICOs a fee to make their ANN here. You could even get rid of the ANN board completely and give them their own sub once they've paid the fee. If there's no Ann board then there will probably be no paid bumping because it will be useless, but let them spam away in their own slum and squalor.
• A dedicated Marketplace for the Alt Coin board that would be used for currency sales/exchanges and advertising/requesting services etc (the current one has no description and is being used as catch all for anything and everyting and not what it was intended for).
• Requiring manually whitelisting of all new accounts before they can post. All new users will essentially be shadowbanned until they've been verified by a mod. This will eliminate 99% of bots and spammers before they even start. Spam threads can be trashed on sight before they even become spam megathreads.
• Press board locked/archived as it's served its purpose
• Some local boards have Press and Off topic subs. They should be removed as they're hotbeds for account farmers/spammers and are not necessary here.
• Warnings in red displayed to lower ranked users when they go to post alerting them to the most commonly ignored/broken rules.
• A sub board for highly merited users to encourage constructive topics only by users who have proven their worth here over time (or make the Ivory Tower merit requirement much higher [OMG ITS LIKE SOVIET RUSSIA GULAG]).

Maybe.

• A publicly displayed 'banned' rank under a person's username for permabanned accounts (people are wasting both theirs and staffs time reporting already banned users and bots).
• Implementing a redirect notice/landing page for when users click an external link urging them to double check the url for phishing and possibly warning them of the dangers of buying things from autobuy links and that they should likely use a trusted escrow etc).
• Require at least one merit to become a Junior Member (bots will never rise past Newbie status then and can be nuked once spotted).
• More donator ranks such as Silver and Gold Member that come with additional perks such as avatars and Full/Hero member-sized signatures etc (which will severely curb account farming and sales). You could also even have an expensive premium 'Platinum' rank (bling bling) that comes with further benefits (for example: image banner in signature, animated gif avatar, custom title, ability to change username etc).
• Remove signatures completely from everyone (or everyone only has a basic signature) and to get one you either need a very high amount of activity & merit or:
B) Buy them via new donator ranks (theymos did initially comment: "This may be a good idea. Though I do think that people who don't pay should be able to get a small signature." [though Newbie signatures have been removed completely since this comment was made]).
• Posts from lower ranked accounts don't bump ICO threads to the top (which would then render paid bump spam useless).
• Two report buttons/queues: one for sig spam and low quality posts and one everything else that is more urgent (hundreds of reports on spam posts are currently burying more important reports).
• A new member rank after Legendary as it is becoming far too common now and will only become more so as time passes. I would suggest fixing Legendary at 960 activity and the new rank is double that at 1920. You could also make the merit requirement very high for this rank so it's only for the crème de la crème of users [OMG NAZI RANK ITS LIKE THE RICH KEEP GETTING RICHER].
• Additional perks for Legendary accounts or a higher rank if added (for example: custom title, image banner in signature, clickable link in personal text, access to exclusive sub board etc).
• A captcha added to deleting a post.
• Disallowing lower ranks from posting in Off Topic (this is bitcoin forum, why would they head to that board straight away other than to easily farm their accounts (alternatively, posts not counting towards postcount or activity there would also work).
• If a post is removed then so is any merit awarded (I think some users are deleting posts to hide evidence of abuse).
• More advertisement slots. This forum is badly under-monetised in my opinion and we likely lose hundreds of thousands in lost revenue to signatures and lack of ad slots and visibility.

No. Or not yet. Or the idea would need to be significantly modified.

-snip-

Your account was created 2 days ago and all 7 posts are in Meta. All posts are about Trust, moderation, merit, account security. What

[mk4]

I'll keep it simple: a nightmode option. Yes, we can install plugins to edit the CSS and all that, but I don't like that it somewhat encourages installation of unnecessary browser plugins.

2: Merit Earning: Before anyone can earn merit this day it's seems the person need to be identified with any higher rank that can give merit. Because I have come to discovered people don't longer give merit or either people sell it or greedy with it or does this mean people are no longer interested in reading peoples post?. I urge theymo to look into that

Or that.. maybe.. most people just post a lot of crap in the hopes of earning merit. There's literally no incentive for us to not give out merits because it doesn't help us financially anyway; but giving out merits willy-nilly will just increase spam because of the undeservedly leveled-up accounts joining campaigns.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Literally just enforce the rules, particularly the signature campaign rules.

[OgNasty]

Literally just enforce the rules.

Agreed or at least follow through on his word.  He says one thing or gives orders and then completely backs down or refuses to accept responsibility when his threats fall on deaf ears.  Then he uses the libertarian free speech excuse when he doesn't feel like handling problems he created.  Not to mention making assumptions and flinging insults or even encouraging trolling.  I'm sure not everyone here has had the pleasure of working with him though, so his word still carries value here.  I know I went a year without getting paid and then was called tacky for going above and beyond for him.  I just chalk it up to being inexperienced and in above his head.  

[Upgrade00]

Right away, the only features I think I will add is the newbie welcome message and build up activity for official forum profiles around different social platforms.

Besides that, everything works okay for me. There might be changes here and there over time.

[BitcoinGirl.Club]

I would implement KYC so all you fu****s leave the forum 😉
Give a break to the Theymos man.

Anyway,
1. Remove cloudflare
2. Remove the annoying captcha
3. Add a new rank for the monsters
4. Add a bitcoin price ticker at the top

[Welsh]

Two factor authentication would be my priority, although I understand implementing that within the current forum software is probably going to require a lot of work. However, other than that I'm happy with the current implementation of the forum. Maybe, adding some categorisation of the Altcoin section. Not only to organise it a little better, but also to encourage a bit more discussion related to certain topics.

I'd like to hear what others think about the sections that require more moderation? I've got spare time, and I'm willing to put some time into reporting again. Gambling Discussion, and Altcoin Discussion are the one's on my list at the moment. Are there any other particularly troubling sections?

A somewhat off topic remarks, but I'd also like to see the community reporting how it was a while back. We've seem to have slumped pretty hard recently.

[Igebotz]

I would implement KYC so all you fu****s leave the forum 😉
Give a break to the Theymos man.

Lol, I mean this forum has no monetary value so why would anyone submit KYC  isn't that against decentralization?

2. Remove the annoying captcha

It's always fun I won't lie

3. Add a new rank for the monsters

This will affect the low rank members.

I'd like to hear what others think about the sections that require more moderation? I've got spare time, and I'm willing to put some time into reporting again. Gambling Discussion, and Altcoin Discussion are the one's on my list at the moment. Are there any other particularly troubling sections?

Visit B&H that place is a burning hell.

It's very difficult to report while browsing with mobile phone! theymos fix this.

[BitcoinGirl.Club]

I would implement KYC so all you fu****s leave the forum 😉
Give a break to the Theymos man.

Lol, I mean this forum has no monetary value so why would anyone submit KYC  isn't that against decentralization?

This was a joke brother. You did not notice the emoji. The moment the forum will ask KYC (does not make sense even we are talking about it) the principal of the forum will disappear. Although it's fine to ask on the 1st April 🤣

It's always fun I won't lie

Fun? Have you even been in the situation when you do not have your bypass link and you are trying to login from tor? Try.

This will affect the low rank members.

It does not LOL
I was talking about those 10k merit earners
Fuck them! 🤣

[decodx]

Two factor authentication would be my priority, although I understand implementing that within the current forum software is probably going to require a lot of work. <...>

Speaking of which, do you know how long we'll be stuck with the current forum software? It's really outdated by today's standards.
What happened to Epochtalk? Why haven't we had any updates for ages?

[Igebotz]

I would implement KYC so all you fu****s leave the forum 😉
Give a break to the Theymos man.

Lol, I mean this forum has no monetary value so why would anyone submit KYC   isn't that against decentralization?

This was a joke brother. You did not notice the emoji. The moment the forum will ask KYC (does not make sense even we are talking about it) the principal of the forum will disappear. Although it's fine to ask on the 1st April 🤣

I got the joke sis! I mean, I left Binance when KYC became ridiculous; the way things are going, they'll demand marriage certificates and 10 finger prints for verification. It's insane. Satoshi must have pissed someone on Cannabis Island.

It's always fun I won't lie

Fun? Have you even been in the situation when you do not have your bypass link and you are trying to login from tor? Try.

Lol I will try.

This will affect the low rank members.

It does not LOL
I was talking about those 10k merit earners
Fuck them! 🤣

Lol add a Silver coin to the gold ones.  

Two factor authentication would be my priority, although I understand implementing that within the current forum software is probably going to require a lot of work. <...>

Speaking of which, do you know how long we'll be stuck with the current forum software? It's really outdated by today's standards.
What happened to Epochtalk? Why haven't we had any updates for ages?

Obviously nothing is going on! Don't expect anything mate.

[mk4]

Lol, I mean this forum has no monetary value so why would anyone submit KYC  isn't that against decentralization?

I mean.. (BitcoinGirl.Club joking aside) — to be fair, Bitcointalk was never meant to be decentralized. It's a lot more of the typical single-person owned online business than the Bisq-like decentralized platform.

[LogitechMouse]

So what about you ? How would you make Bitcointalk better if you were the Boss ?

-Security would be the top priority so maybe 2FA or some OTP that will be sent in the email would be the first one. I've experienced my account getting hacked already without any notifications whatsoever and luckily I got my account back after a week or more. This will prevent hackers hacking accounts here especially those high ranked ones.
-Maybe a mobile app would be nice as well. Though we can still access the forum through our phones, having a mobile version of it would be better .
-A local forum for each nationality would be nice as well.
-Maybe a section where users can be updated with what is happening with the crypto world. On that section, we can put some sub sections like for Bitcoin and some altcoins where we might put articles or videos out there like documentaries. It might help newbies as well since they can watch documentaries at read articles there.
-Users with negative trust will not be able to wear signatures. Well, there are some exceptions to it like for example, the user who put negative trust to you permanently left the forum forever. I think this might be hard but I think it's doable.

[abel1337]

But today, I want each and every one of us to be the Boss, its a simple question, Assume yourself as the boss who oversees all the affairs of this forum,

-Are you going to implement new features? what would it be and how would it benefit the community?

Probably add 2FA for additional security layer, Add Bitcoin and major altcoin price tickers

-Are you likely to remove a feature or two? what feature would you remove and why would you remove it/them?

I've been here for a long time now and on the past years, captcha during log in become pain in the a** especially when you are using a mobile device. On desktop mode it's somehow fine with me but this is probably the one I will be removing or changing. Changing it to failed multiple login attempts then having a incremental cooldown would be sufficient.

-Will you redesign the forum?, what color(s) and designs do you think would suit the forum better?

Adding night mode would be enough I guess. If we need to be fancy, Adding such user-preferred color changing schemes would be nice just like what google chrome browser customize profile colors.