How long did it take you to really “get” how Bitcointalk works?

[Johan van Der Walt]

Been around here for a bit now and I kinda get how things work, but still trying to get more familiar with all the different boards and where everything actually fits.

At the start I didn’t really understand the whole merit and ranking thing, or how some boards are way more active than others. Slowly getting there though, just takes some time I guess.

How long did it take you guys to actually feel like you fully understood how the forum works?

[Hazink]

It took me a little more time to just focus on reading and exploring the forum long before I started making a post here, and you can't know everything all at once.

First, you focus on reading about the rules of the forum as time goes on, and you will expand your knowledge, you make mistakes and get corrected, and you learn from them, people are still learning where your knowledge stop might be where that of another starts from.

[_act_]

To understand about merits, activities and posts should take less than a day to understand as you read about them. The badges should take less than a day to understand even without reading about it.

To understand about each boards, this can take weeks or months. You will understand it better if you track the board and seeing what people are posting there. This is what I do not understand fast about this forum but newbies can be posting on just few boards, learn about other boards and expand his posting to the other boards.

[DYING_S0UL]

I mean it's an individual thing imo. Some might take a month to understand the forum, some might take a week. It solely depends on the person, varies to everyone, since all of us has different level of understanding. Focus on yourself if you wanna grow here, in knowledge and in rank, don't just jump into the conversation without taking a moment to properly understand the subject. Dedicate enough time to the forum, have the mindset to learn, read more, write less, or write where your knowledge/ability allows you to, and you should be good to go. And there are some important things that you might wanna follow, every board has some posts pinned to it. Check them in your free time, and you'll get the idea on how bitcointalk works (mostly).

[lovesmayfamilis]

I've often written that I came to the forum for the bounty, not fully understanding what it was. I just saw it on YouTube and decided to give it a try. Social media: you click something, and then they promise payouts. The fairy tale ended after two months. I realized it was all nonsense, and only then did I venture beyond my local forum to check all the scams that scammers so diligently tried to plant here. I didn't immediately learn about merits, rank increases, and even more so about company signatures. Which is probably why I'm so skeptical of newbies who write guides from day two, know what DT is, know everyone's stories, and know where to increase rank. In my case, everything happened gradually, perhaps very slowly, until I realized how precious this place had become to me.

[Frankolala]

It took me months to understand the forum for easy navigation. I was only posting in Beginners and Help board in the beginning without knowing that there are other boards that I can post on. Gradually, I started getting use to the forum. I am still learning about the forum despite spending more than three years here. The time it will take one to learn how this forum works depends on how eager the person is ready to learn. It becomes more easy if you're already a member in another forum before registering here.

[LoyceV]

At the start I didn’t really understand the whole merit and ranking thing, or how some boards are way more active than others.

Oh really? You're a chatbot spammer. Do you do that on other forums on the internet too, or only here because you're hoping to rank up to monetize your spam?

I'm still learning new things after 10+ years.

[Cityhunter34]

Been around here for a bit now and I kinda get how things work, but still trying to get more familiar with all the different boards and where everything actually fits.

At the start I didn’t really understand the whole merit and ranking thing, or how some boards are way more active than others. Slowly getting there though, just takes some time I guess.

How long did it take you guys to actually feel like you fully understood how the forum works?

I think this is a normal thing because there is no how you can understand everything at ones. The forum is all about reading so it will definitely take you time before you would start getting familiar with it. However, the most important thing in this forum is time and patience, if you can afford to do this without giving up along the line you must surly get use to the forum one day. Honestly I can't remember how long because it has been a while now, so I might not get it correctly. So consistency is the real key to navigating the forum.

[Btcslop]

To understand about merits, activities and posts should take less than a day to understand as you read about them. The badges should take less than a day to understand even without reading about it.

To understand about each boards, this can take weeks or months. You will understand it better if you track the board and seeing what people are posting there. This is what I do not understand fast about this forum but newbies can be posting on just few boards, learn about other boards and expand his posting to the other boards.

Yes, that’s right. It also took me some time to fully understand how the forum works. At first, many things seemed complicated  which boards were for what kind of discussions and how to post properly. But gradually, I learned the rules. Now I’ve created a new account so that I can start fresh, plan everything properly, and move forward in the right way. My goal is to learn more and contribute better without repeating my past mistakes. I hope to be more actively and meaningfully involved in this forum with my new account.

[JollyGood]

It takes time to understand what is happening as well as to navigate the various boards the forum has to offer. The total time would be dependent on the individual.

The pattern many newbies are following today involves trying to obfuscate the fact the accounts are being operated by account farmers (that are pretending to be newbies). The main purpose is to monetise the accounts by joining campaigns. That is the reason why outsiders looking in will not be able to work out how long it takes to understand how to use the forum. Their desire to expedite the process of joining campaigns is a sign they are not "real" newbies.

How long did it take you guys to actually feel like you fully understood how the forum works?

[Obim34]

How long did it take you guys to actually feel like you fully understood how the forum works?

It takes a year or within years to fully understand the forum, if you are really new to the forum you can't understand how the forum operates under weeks or months, but the longer you stay logged in, reading and learning the quicker you get exposed to facts about the forum.

You can understand better when you spend time active and engage in discussions, so many details about the forum is behind old threads that carries informations about the forum which you don't know as a new user, so how quick you explore the forum makes it quicker for understanding the forum.

[Ultegra134]

Oh really? You're a chatbot spammer. Do you do that on other forums on the internet too, or only here because you're hoping to rank up to monetize your spam?

I'm still learning new things after 10+ years.

I bet he grasped the idea of how ChatGPT works quite fast! This is one of the cases that deserve to be nuked, although the latest 3-4 posts look like absolute crap to be written by AI, he still has posts on 4th or 5th of November that are pure AI diarrhea, with this post being an attempt to indirectly gain merit.

Anyway, the forum is quite easy to navigate, activity and ranking up is quite straightforward if you spend 10 minutes to read how it works (but I'm guessing OP didn't, he might have asked ChatGPT though). Only the trust system is a little more complicated and it's something I recently learned how it works and navigates.

[Rikafip]

Probably much longer than it should because I am kinda of guy that doesn't like to read guides before use and instead prefer to figure things out slowly on my own pace, which I am still doing to this day.

Having said that, I did have ~20 years of forum experience before coming here so it wasn't that hard to adjust.

[Donneski]

Honestly, it took me over a year before I really felt confident around here. I had that same “newbie phobia” you’re probably feeling now, second-guessing every post and worrying if I was doing things right or will ever do the right thing. But with time, constant learnings about Bitcoin and how the forum works, it all started to make sense.

 Bitcointalk has its own rhythm and the more you read and observe, the clearer things get. I noticed you joined back in September so you’re still early on. Don’t rush it, just keep engaging and learning. Before long, you’ll feel completely at home here.

[PX-Z]

... but still trying to get more familiar with all the different boards and where everything actually fits.

You can actually read the description of every boards on what you topics and discussion suit on those specific boards. If you can't see them you can see your settings (Look and Layout Preferences) and check the "Show board descriptions inside boards."

How long did it take you guys to actually feel like you fully understood how the forum works?

I'm not entirely sure if i fully understand how the forum works either, since i don't memorize all the rules. Some sections even have their own specific guidelines that need to be followed. Usually, i just read them from time to time, especially when someone brings up a topic related to the rules. The same goes for things like merits and ranking, i get familiar with them when i read the discussions, but after a while, i tend to forget and end up checking them again later.

[LTU_btc]

Difficult to answer because it's been long time since I joined forum and now I don't remember everything in detail. Probably I would lie if I'd say that now I know everything perfectly. I think it took at least few months to understand basic things on Bitcointalk. And for example it took me a while, probably year or a bit more to understand how trust system works, what is DT or trust ratings.

[Synchronice]

Been around here for a bit now and I kinda get how things work, but still trying to get more familiar with all the different boards and where everything actually fits.

At the start I didn’t really understand the whole merit and ranking thing, or how some boards are way more active than others. Slowly getting there though, just takes some time I guess.

How long did it take you guys to actually feel like you fully understood how the forum works?

It's a very simply forum with simple setting and simple rules. There is not really much to learn, everything feels natural, at least this was the case for me. At first ranking up needed to be figured out a little bit but with small Google search I gained access to thread that explains what is ranking and how it works. To be honest, I misunderstood how trust was working and I added many people into trust without really acknowledging how important trust system is on this forum but later I understood my mistake and corrected it.

At the start I didn’t really understand the whole merit and ranking thing, or how some boards are way more active than others.

Oh really? You're a chatbot spammer. Do you do that on other forums on the internet too, or only here because you're hoping to rank up to monetize your spam?

I'm still learning new things after 10+ years.

That was very funny

[BurningChrome]

I get how forums usually go, but this ain't your regular forum. It's like a whole other world with its own weird rules and inside jokes!

Getting the hang of the tech stuff – posting, quoting, reading the rules – is simple. But learning the social stuff? That's where things get tricky! And I'm still figuring it all out. I really don't have the time so I mostly pop in to read a thread or two that I find interesting.

[Asuspawer09]

As I remeber it takes a very long time, probably more than a year since I wasnt really that active when I first started here in the forum, and probably some of the post are just actual comments that I just want to say or just genuiene question that I want to learn since, at that time I wasnt really that familiar with cryptocurrency, I think I was just a student when I first encounter the forum there was also not a lot of things about cryptocurrency so there was no actual information that you could trust, the when it comes to projects, crypto, investments etc.

Merit did not exist when I first started, so I think it was just a matter of post and how long your account is. When merit started, it took a long while before we got familiar with it, since it was really difficult to earn merits, and I think there were some issues as well with merit distributions.

Just focus on the things that you are doing if your on Bitcoin post or ask things that you want on Bitcoin discussions, When I want to know or learn something the forum is the best tool, until now there are some that I still dont understand here, there are topics that I have no idea what its about, good thing is members here is going to teach you.

[Mrbluntzy]

It took me a lot of time, especially especially after I came here and yet was finding my way around, then I left for a very important reason and when I returned, I read many threads on the boards that are very important to me, since the boards have descriptive information, it easily Intedified where I should visit and reply to threads I have information on and also created threads too. It took time but as I was consistent, I later find everything easier and also learning more.