What Happened to Bitcointalk? Honest Observations After Coming Back

[TokenTikas]

[1] https://bitlist.co/topic/5583382
[2] https://bitlist.co/topic/5583384
[3] https://bitlist.co/topic/5583386

All of their deleted posts, just like the one they made here appear to be AI generated. Their purpose, like any newbie making educational threads is probably to farm some merit. Being so lazy as to copy and paste chatbot content will probably get them nuked before they are able to rank up and join a signature campaign.

Not only that, I’m even seeing something more dramatic here. The three (bitlist.co) links mentioned by respected member hugeblack were all clearly made with AI when I checked them properly. And the post shared here too was obviously written with AI as well.

What surprised me the most is that this AI-made post even received around 16 merits. Normally, when an average user makes a genuinely good quality post, that’s when people give plenty merits. But seeing an AI-generated post getting that kind of recognition is honestly quite disappointing.

[Sexylizzy2813]

I just came back to Bitcointalk after years away, and honestly the change is quite noticeable.

It feels like the forum has shifted heavily toward paid activity, casino promotions, and spammy commercial posts. A lot of what used to be organic discussion now looks like monetized content everywhere.

At the same time, it seems that older accounts with high activity or reputation can dismiss or remove newer perspectives very easily, regardless of the actual content being posted.

I understand moderation and trust systems are important, but from an outside perspective it does feel like the environment has become much more closed and heavily commercialized compared to what it used to be.

Not everything new is bad, but the balance between discussion and advertising definitely feels off.

Good thing you observed all you said, as long as I know there's only 1 thing that is constant and that is change so you don't expect the Forum to still be moving in the same path as of when you first came, change have to take place...speaking about your arrival, to me I still can't understand why you choose to appear as a newbie instead of using your old account (since you said you have been here before), at least that would show that you were here before but coming with this new ID is kinda confusing. Unless I'm not getting something right or did you visit this forum without having any registered username? Or should we call you the EYES OF THE GODs?

[EarnOnVictor]

I am new here but in my opinion bitcointalk is still one of the few places where people can freely talk about bitcoin and crypto. there are still good discussions here even with some spam and low quality posts

Your observation is valid, and I can assure you that there is no perfect place in the world, and never would you see a perfect system. The admin and mods of the forum, and many other members have tried their best to make things right, which has reduced idiocy to a barest minimum. Bitcointalk is one of the mature forums I know, so I wonder why anyone would take a brand new account seriously in this world that people have questionable character and need psych evaluation.

[Supreme Donvic]

~snip

Congratulations on noticing the obvious. Well now that you've been able to highlight the said problems and changes why don't you suggest fixes. When I see people complaining about signatures here and promotions etc... especially the ranked ones wearing signatures, all I see is straight up hypocrisy.

The fact is promotions and a lot of the other stuff you guys whine about are actually a keen aspect of traffic generation in this forum. The forum was created for indirect promotion and I don't see how it has changed totally.

All that you have said is true, those that are complaining of signature campaign and are wearing a signature and Avatar for a company are hypocrite, you can only complain about the spam happening on the forum and I believe before the creation of signature campaign in the forum people were still spamming on the forum. The OP that just posted should have used his main account to post this let's check some hypocrite.

Yeah this forum was created for promotion and that is the promotion of Bitcoin and that part has been happening on the forum till date, to keep the forum active we need things that can keep people engaged, life and everything in it are changing, social media is also changing people can now make money from it so why should Bitcointalk forum remain were it was since the OP lift.
I really don't know why some people don't like progress and growth.

[lovesmayfamilis]

I am new here but in my opinion bitcointalk is still one of the few places where people can freely talk about bitcoin and crypto. there are still good discussions here even with some spam and low quality posts

Yes, it's surprising how quickly you changed your tune and changed your mind about leaving the forum. Instead, you moved to another Portuguese section, clearly not your native local section, after hiding (deleting) all your old posts from the AI, as well as to the Nigerian and Philippine sections.

What made you change your mind? Did you find a new way to spam and earn merit elsewhere? Guess who's creating some spam?

[TokenTikas]

Yes, it's surprising how quickly you changed your tune and changed your mind about leaving the forum. Instead, you moved to another Portuguese section, clearly not your native local section, after hiding (deleting) all your old posts from the AI, as well as to the Nigerian and Philippine sections.

He’s literally spamming posts nonstop but I still don’t understand how someone can keep posting in so many different languages across different boards like this. How is that even possible? To me, it looks like he was trying too hard to appear multi-talented, that’s exactly how he ended up exposing himself. At this point, he’s clearly relying on AI-generated posts most of the time.

And there’s one more thing I notice that the post you quoted and replied to was also completely written with AI.

[LFC_Bitcoin]

I wonder what the OP’s motivation is, posting from an alt account, using AI to complain about the forum.

Obviously there are a lot of weird people online but usually there’s a motive. Probably just a degenerate oddball.

[mcdouglasx]

Currently, there's no website online that doesn't contain spam; that's inevitable. We just have to stop paying attention to what doesn't interest us and move on to what does. If this is a free forum, there's no way to completely eliminate spam. We just have to trust that the moderators will remove those posts that are too obvious. As for signatures campaigns, they don't have to be a source of spam. This can be improved with a collective awareness among users, increasing the quality of their contributions.

Sometimes I see posts with titles that don't interest me, and I don't even read them. It's not that difficult to navigate the forum and find information that interests you; it's a matter of adapting to what we have. Complaining about this isn't enough if you don't offer some kind of solution. Although I understand why many people might want this change, since quality posts are more scattered than in the forum's early days, this doesn't mean those posts don't exist.

I think that spam, more than anything, increases from new users trying to gain merits to later join a signature campaign. So, one solution could be a more aggressive limitation on the frequency with which they are allowed to post, until they exceed a certain merit or activity threshold, or simply adding a filtering system for posts, for example: most viewed, most viewed new posts, most commented, only posts from users with a certain number of merits, most merited posts...In other words, a more versatile filtering system.

[Rikafip]

@OP I have no idea how long your break from Bitcointalk was, but since I joined in 2019, everything has seemed pretty much the same as before, except that the forum has become less active. But that's something every other forum is dealing with at the moment.

I wonder what the OP’s motivation is, posting from an alt account, using AI to complain about the forum.

As @hugeblack revealed, he is being butthurt for getting his topics deleted. 

[Free Market Capitalist]

All of their deleted posts, just like the one they made here appear to be AI generated.

That’s exactly what I thought after writing my post. I figured the OP was probably generated by AI. And here you come with the proof that my hunch was right.

[NotATether]

With some users claiming to make $10k a month, signature income is the way to go.  If you are able to post useless content like sports gossip and get paid, it would be stupid to not do so.   And like others have said in this thread, if I'm forced to post here, I might as well get paid, right?

You can't make that much here unless you're a top campaign manager or run a really important service (even then it's not guaranteed). I'm not even anywhere near those figures.

[vapourminer]

I wonder what the OP’s motivation is, posting from an alt account, using AI to complain about the forum.

at this point bitcointalk has become a testing ground for AI bot accounts. if an AI bot account gets a merit, it advances. if no merit after a bit.. well new AI bot account n+1 already launched anyway..

[She shining]

but from an outside perspective it does feel like the environment has become much more closed and heavily commercialized compared to what it used to be.

I could be wrong but I have not seen anybody stating use my casino on their post and not party B.

[YOSHIE]

I just came back to Bitcointalk after years away, and honestly the change is quite noticeable.

@Marcus, No changes everything looks the same and the forum is fine.
As you can see in the campaign advertisement, yes, maybe those of you here who are advertising their brand don't understand how this forum works. now they understand, after all it is all the government's fault they often ban and tear down advertising, they demand high taxes otherwise they are no longer allowed to advertise.

That's the tolerance of the Bitcointalk forum, here there is no threat of high taxes, besides here there is freedom, that's what it looks like at the moment maybe there are a lot of advertisements seen.
But don't worry, the members here still keep this forum safe from spam, fraud and so on.

[Lucius]

at this point bitcointalk has become a testing ground for AI bot accounts. if an AI bot account gets a merit, it advances. if no merit after a bit.. well new AI bot account n+1 already launched anyway..

This is something that was discussed a few years ago when the first public AI appeared, and we all know that AI learns best when it tries to communicate with people. However, anyone with a little better observation can easily notice some phrases that reveal that it is AI. However, for now, we can say that AI on this forum will not hide so easily because our AI hunters hunt them mercilessly every day.


And as for people feeling like this forum is no longer the same as before, of course it is not the same because the forum is made up of real people who change or disappear over time, which means that the subjective feeling changes for each member.

Is this forum getting worse and worse?

[xLays]

I think this thread should be locked considering OP’s post is obviously AI generated anyway. Also, this isn’t the first time someone has posted something like this in meta board. I’ve already seen several similar threads before.

Most of the replies here are basically similar as the ones in this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5558347.0;all

[Rubuchi]

Your observation is valid, and I can assure you that there is no perfect place in the world, and never would you see a perfect system. The admin and mods of the forum, and many other members have tried their best to make things right, which has reduced idiocy to a barest minimum. Bitcointalk is one of the mature forums I know, so I wonder why anyone would take a brand new account seriously in this world that people have questionable character and need psych evaluation.

like you mentioned above, no single forum out there is completely perfect and the reason is people are not the same and will always rate all forums the way it best suits them. But what really matters most is the efforts put into maintaining the standard and reduce abuse among mere bees and to be fair enough bitcoin talk has done better than many online forums in that regards. The forum has existed for years now at least 15 years ago and they have developed the culture where reputation trust and individual voice and contribution does matter alot. We are also learning new things about the forum and would not relent but continue to contribute our own knowledge and understanding to the community here.