Could bitcoin be the moderator of a forum?

[Ucy]

Could easily be gamed or captured by people with lots of money and fake accounts. Besides, having lots of money does not translate to good quality or knowledgeable individual. If it was possible that only the knowledgeable or good people are the rich, and money is only earned by doing what is good/right, then this can be allowed. But it's not so in this world where money is earned through corrupt or evil means.

A far less game-able approach would be to let posts be rewarded based on how faultless they are. The less fault/issue a post has the more the rewards. Bad posters and rewarders can get their rewards slashed by people who are able to find issues in their past rewards or posts. If they have already withdrawn their rewards then they run into negative reward or debts, and the debt are paid whenever they earn good/faultless rewards

[Smartprofit]

it is definitely more complicated than I outline in my OP. tinkering with the incentives so that non power users have a good time is probably where most of the work is needed.

I highly doubt that users would make real money on such a forum, but it is possible that they make a little pocket change. I can speak from experience because this is a forum that exists using lighting: https://stacker.news

If you're an early Bitcoin miner and have 10,000 Bitcoin, you might be interested in the concept of a forum like this. 🙋

This concept could probably be used to create a Bitcoin maximalist forum, a forum where only "their own" can communicate. However, for example, when I first joined the Bitcointalk forum in 2017, I was interested in Ethereum and EOS, not Bitcoin. My real interest in Bitcoin only developed in 2018.

I would never join a new forum where you have to pay Satoshi to write a post... For a newbie, that's very strange. For an experienced Bitcoin maximalist, it might make sense, although I honestly don't quite understand what that means.

I also think that this kind of forum moderation would quickly lead to the emergence of a cult with a rigid hierarchy.  A minority of forum participants will constantly receive satoshi, while the majority will only spend them.🤷

[LoyceV]

LoyceV, I summon you again to see another user that want to strip the freedom we enjoy here lol

Lol.
@OP: why don't you create your own forum, where you charge people to post? See how that works out for you.

I spend most of my time on <backlink removed>, which is a forum that follows the model I outlined above, and I was curious what people here might think of the idea.

So that's the real reason you're posting this. Your post history shows you're only posting here to shill for that forum.

[Cryptomultiplier]

it is definitely more complicated than I outline in my OP. tinkering with the incentives so that non power users have a good time is probably where most of the work is needed.

I highly doubt that users would make real money on such a forum, but it is possible that they make a little pocket change. I can speak from experience because this is a forum that exists using lighting: https://stacker.news

If you're an early Bitcoin miner and have 10,000 Bitcoin, you might be interested in the concept of a forum like this. 🙋

This concept could probably be used to create a Bitcoin maximalist forum, a forum where only "their own" can communicate. However, for example, when I first joined the Bitcointalk forum in 2017, I was interested in Ethereum and EOS, not Bitcoin. My real interest in Bitcoin only developed in 2018.

I would never join a new forum where you have to pay Satoshi to write a post... For a newbie, that's very strange. For an experienced Bitcoin maximalist, it might make sense, although I honestly don't quite understand what that means.

I also think that this kind of forum moderation would quickly lead to the emergence of a cult with a rigid hierarchy.  A minority of forum participants will constantly receive satoshi, while the majority will only spend them.🤷

You are right about the divide that will ensure following such kind of an idea and that means the freedom we enjoy will become subject to how much Sats you are willing to pay and how much fans you have willing to spend their sats to ensure your post get an upvote.

The concept of why this forum exists will definitely change and am sure it would become difficult for newbies to grow in both knowledge and understanding and economy as many already have now, thus making this more of a forum where ads will be required just to get seen.

[billscoresby]

Also, don't confuse paying network fees for a Bitcoin transaction with paying a fee just to make a post. To me, they are completely different things, and comparing them doesn't make much sense.

Why aren't they the same? Unlike follow-based media (think X and Facebook), a forum is topic or thread-based. The result is that the users all share the place where new posts show up. Like the Bitcoin Discussion board here. How is the community to decide what shows up there? Sure, it can be ranked by views or likes or replies -- but all of these are trivially gameable. Alternatively, you can have moderators who decide what shows up, or some algorithm. But my point is that users of forums all require some way of deciding what the community sees -- and there is only so much real estate for that. So: why not use a market to solve that problem?

I would expect that many bitcoin people agree that markets solve many resource allocation problems quite well. Why should the same not be the case for visibility on a forum? I think the analogy between paying fees for blockspace and paying fees to post is actually pretty good.

Finally,  

And lastly, you said the reward pool would be shared among good posters? Like, WTF? That just doesn't make sense man...

That's not quite what I said in the OP, but here's how it currently works: rewards are divided among users who most accurately predict what other users will zap (upvote with sats). For instance, if you see a new post and you read it and think it's really good and you upvote it 500 sats, and then later a lot more users end up also upvoting it, you are more likely to get a bigger share of the reward pool. The goal is to reward the users who are most generous in zapping *posts that other users also end up liking.* It could be more complicated though: in the past we've had a random function that switched between rewarding users who posted content that got a lot of zaps, users who made replies that got a lot of zaps, and people who zapped things that a lot of other people went on to like -- ideally it creates an incentive for users to zap each other and post good content, but is also difficult to game.

Almost feels like you are just trying to promote Stacker.news.

I'm surprised you deleted my links.

The discussion is about using bitcoin to moderate a forum. There exists a forum that does this, but you feel that I am promoting it if I link to it? I felt that it added to the discussion if people knew and could verify that I wasn't speaking entirely abstractly.

[Mitchell]

I'm surprised you deleted my links.

The discussion is about using bitcoin to moderate a forum. There exists a forum that does this, but you feel that I am promoting it if I link to it? I felt that it added to the discussion if people knew and could verify that I wasn't speaking entirely abstractly.

To be clear, I didn't delete anything (nor did I report this topic). Just mentioned it since it felt as such, also considering your past posts about Stacker.news. I have nothing against the site, but the forum does get a lot of SEO spam. Another another mod must've agreed, since two of your posts were removed.

[billscoresby]

I'm surprised you deleted my links.

The discussion is about using bitcoin to moderate a forum. There exists a forum that does this, but you feel that I am promoting it if I link to it? I felt that it added to the discussion if people knew and could verify that I wasn't speaking entirely abstractly.

To be clear, I didn't delete anything. Just mentioned it since it felt as such, also considering your past posts about Stacker.news. I have nothing against the site, but SEO spam does. Another another mod must've agreed, since two of your posts were removed.

Appreciate the clarification.

It also helps in a way to demonstrate the proposal: Most people seem to respond negatively to my idea. If money was moderating this thread, they could have each spent a few sats to downvote it and collectively it would be ranked quite low, not surfacing to bother users of the site who don't like to see such things.

(as a side note, posts from bitcointalk regularly show up on SN. I enjoy seeing them, as do most in the community. I have posted AMA announcements and (very) occasionally interesting posts from SN. Calling it SEO spamming is a stretch.)

[knuckey]

What do you think of this idea? Where could it fail or cause friction? What dynamics might be interesting to add?

The existence of fees will be a big problem, users will not be active and the forum will die, only smart people who write will get benefits, while those who learn will not post anything just look because of the costs, failure lies in the costs without getting useful benefits and there is no equality between members, those who have money will be the rulers

[Churchillvv]

Just bury the idea!! It’s not totally bad but what’s the reason for payment and how is the payment going to be? Do we have to buy some bitcoin in the forum and keep so it could be debited directly as you post or reply or you have to manually make payments which will be in the pool until verified before your post goes through? More questions to ask but I’m missing them right now as I read more I will edit!

Anyways I don’t see it coming to light but if you’re delusional enough it could be attempted.

[lionheart78]

What do you think of this idea?

Sounds good until users find it expensive to post. Sure, this will solve spams but this will hinder people from using the forum freely.  I do not think there is a need to modify the current posting system to post to pay.  Believe me this will shy away users.

Where could it fail or cause friction?

From the moment the free to post forum become pay to post.

[Agathamay]

This idea is not feasible and if implemented will reduce the number of participants here. As much as I know, this is a free discussion forum and funds raised here were mostly through donations. I know that Theymos pay some workers here and also for hosting the website and other things but the forum is still rich enough and does not need imposition of compulsory levies to use the forum. Did Theymos ask you to post this?

I don't think Theymos must have asked him to post something like this considering how much is already in the wallet and reading from what op have posted, I also don't think he was talking about this forum but rather another forum or maybe an intended forum not yet started but whichever the case might be, I think getting traffic on the site should first be paramount over seeming how to earn because we've seen several forums die down even after the admin must have spent so much time and resources and in most cases, lack of traffic to the site made it cold.

So if op was referring to implementing such a system on thievery form, then I'm sorry to say that, it wouldn't work and if it's about another forum he intends creating, then he should forum more on driving traffic rather than how for him or the users to earn.

[macson]

You understand that people here don't like that kind of concept. You should just go back wherever you came from because there's nothing more you need to explain here since it's just useless.

If money was moderating this thread, they could have each spent a few sats to downvote it and collectively it would be ranked quite low, not surfacing to bother users of the site who don't like to see such things.

Thank God this forum isn't like that, because why bother spending money just to downvote your thread when people can just ignore it.

[kawetsriyanto]

I'm sure Satoshi doesn't create this forum to be a paid platform. If each post should be paid, it will be like a very commercial platform. Even in social media, we don't pay to post anything. So why this forum must apply "fees" for every single of post? By the way, there must be massive change to the number of active members if it will be implemented to the forum. Many of them may move to another forum, or they prefer to set "read mode" only. 

[vapourminer]

no

[d5000]

The most developed idea in that vein I have seen was Steem(it), which was hugely hyped in around 2017 or so. However its problem was that it was based on a tremendously centralized altcoin. You could of course replicate the system using a centralized forum using Bitcoin with Lighting/Ark/whatever 2nd layer is appropiate.

There were some differences to your concept in Steem.

For me the biggest problem of stacker.news and that concept you outlined is the mandatory payment for every single post. IMO that generates too much friction. In Steem(it), instead what you had to pay were the accounts, although the fee was modest (a few dollars), and accounts were sponsored by the altcoin team if you provided the email address (just like an airdrop). This was to remediate the sockpuppet problem.

The posts could be upvoted but the upvote would also not "directly" cost coins, but instead be subtracted from a sort of "karma" value (I don't remember how it's called, let's describe it in Reddit terms). That karma value, however, had a limit per account. The value would increase if your posts would be upvoted, according to the karma of the upvoters.

Posts that were massively upvoted, or upvoted from high karma accounts, led to a payout of coins. But if your posts were downvoted then your karma would tend towards zero.

The good thing in that system is: participating actively would be encouraged, which is healthy for a forum. But participation itself had a cost (data or coins), but if your posts were very good, you could make up the account fee in less than a day.

Instead in the Stacker system, active participation comes always with a small risk that you wouldn't get upvoted, and thus there could be a tendency to have rather inactive accounts. I think this is indeed, as others have said, a forum where early Bitcoin adopters with massive holdings could game the system as they have next to nothing to lose. Of course this would also somewhat work in the Steem system, if you are able to buy many accounts. But you would have to use these accounts wisely to game the system.

In summary, what I think is that the stacker.news system is slightly less activity-friendly, while the Steem(it) system would have a harder time to get a critical mass of users, but once that happens would be more active. But when it comes to "gaming" the algorithm, both should be very similar.

[snowpega]

This idea is not feasible and if implemented will reduce the number of participants here. As much as I know, this is a free discussion forum and funds raised here were mostly through donations. I know that Theymos pay some workers here and also for hosting the website and other things but the forum is still rich enough and does not need imposition of compulsory levies to use the forum. Did Theymos ask you to post this?

Haha, by the way, why do you think Theymos would ask him to post this? Dude, he is the admin of this forum, and if he has any news plan, he will share it himself on the forum without involving any third party here. So I think you might be kidding here or taunting him by saying this. Anyways, I don't think such an implementation is really much needed here. This is kind of a money waste, I think maybe. As all forum management funds are being managed very well by administration members. Many are getting paid because of their multiple roles, and if I am not wrong, these expenses are managed through many project sponsorships that are being run on this platform by multiple managers. Well, this is just an idea. What do you think about it?

[Darker45]

It appears interesting. I wonder how it would look like. Surely, however, it can't be implemented here. This place would turn into a no man's land with such moderation, unless those small fees would be sponsored by the service providers they're promoting or they're too small they're negligible.

While discussions would probably be a lot more serious and therefore generally more worth reading in such a setup, I suspect perspectives or views would be highly limited because of the fees. And it's also possible one narrative could be made to look as the strongest simply because the proponent has the money to burn.

[yhiaali3]

Your idea is interesting but it has both positive and negative aspects.
On the positive side, you could reduce spam by charging for posts and replies. This might help prevent the creation of fake or multiple accounts and it could improve the quality of posts because members will only post if they believe their content is valuable enough to warrant payment.

On the other hand, major problems will arise because this is an open and free forum that attracts many beginners who may not have any satoshis and will have to pay every time. In contrast, members who have a lot of Bitcoin will dominate the posting, as they can control the appearance and ranking of posts through intensive voting.
The most important problem is the network fees, which can cause a major obstacle to posting.

[m2017]

Here is a concept for a forum moderated by bitcoin:

- Each post costs a small fee in sats (paid to a community reward pool)
- Replies cost a small fee in sats (paid to a community reward pool)
- Upvotes cost a small fee in sats (paid to the poster)
- Post visibility/ranking is determined by sum of community investment (total sats spent on the post from all users) -- halved every x hours so as to keep things fresh.
- Community reward pool divided among most "valuable" users (valuable might be users who post things that get most upvotes or users who spend money to upvote things that others go on to upvote, etc)

What do you think of this idea? Where could it fail or cause friction? What dynamics might be interesting to add?

PS. Nick Szabo doesn't have to use the forum.

This could reduce the number of spammers and shitposters. Together with some of the ordinary users. Also, some users will switch to “read only” mode, especially beginners. Maybe there is even some positive aspect to this, because newcomers will carefully read the information on the forum and accumulate knowledge before posting anything. There is also another point. And this is a good way to find a use for bitcoin. Of course, it all comes down to implementation. If done correctly, such an innovation could be effective. However, it will take a great deal of work and time for the community to adapt, and the drama that is bound to arise is unavoidable.

Many users receive rewards for participating in sig.campaigns, so most will not have problems receiving bitcoin (which could be used on the forum).

I also had a thought, why wasn’t something similar implemented at the very beginning of the appearance of bitcoin and this forum? Then, when bitcoin cost pennies, it might have made sense and would have allowed more people to join bitcoin. Will this be relevant now? I don't undertake to answer this question. But I know for sure that this will create an additional headache for the forum administration with “vague” prospects, which suggests that this idea will remain at the concept stage.

P.S. This is a good idea for an April Fool's joke. Theymos, pay attention to this.