Why I am turning my back on bitcointalk. It just doesnt work anymore.

[Puppet]

Ive been using this forum for 4 years or so now, with different accounts,  I used to spend several hours every day on here and early on actually read most posts, but its just become unusable to me, its impossible to keep up with the flood of posts, and 99% of them just arent worth reading. Whats worse is that its impossible to find the few posts that are worth reading.

Part of this is due to bitcoin going more mainstream and logically creating a lot of new users,  but whats greatly exacerbating the problem is forum policy and forum software.

The policy that allows users to put spam in their signature and have casino's and what not pay out (newbie/alt account) posters based on how much (nonsense) they post each day is the straw that broke the camel's back. At least 2/3 of the activity I see is just alt accounts posting whatever in order to boost their activity and collect more bitcoins for their signature spam. How this is allowed is beyond me.

Another part of the problem is the relaxed newbie restrictions; with so many new accounts being registered every day, the bar to post should be raised, not lowered. Who wants to see 16 newbie spam accounts push down some of the rare pearls of wisdom, say posts by DeathandTaxes to the point where you cant possibly find them?

Finally the forum software thats absolutely unhelpful. Despite the fact that Theymos was given enough money to buy a medium sized software development company, in all these years, it hasnt improved one meaningful yota. The few changes that were made, made things worse, not better (think trust system)

Its really sad but these days I need to get my bitcoin updates from google news or reddit.

 

[Mobius7]

Another part of the problem is the relaxed newbie restrictions; with so many new accounts being registered every day, the bar to post should be raised, not lowered. Who wants to see 16 newbie spam accounts push down some of the rare pearls of wisdom, say posts by DeathandTaxes to the point where you cant possibly find them?

+1. Maybe we should have the newbie jail back.

Finally the forum software thats absolutely unhelpful. Despite the fact that Theymos was given enough money to buy a medium sized software development company, in all these years, it hasnt improved one meaningful yota. The few changes that were made, made things worse, not better (think trust system)

IIRC, a new forum software is being developed, and it will cost us $1 million...

[cedivad]

The number of puppet accounts created recently with thousands of useless posts is incredibile. They are either spamming the latest mining/exchange scam, or adding useless contributions to the conversation to increase their postcount.

I find the "activity" of a user to be a good indicator of the quality of his posts. That, along with the number of "likes" a member received on his messages over his postcount should be used to grant access to privileged areas of the forum, imho. You could also create filters to catch groups of people spamming the "likes" system.

Basically a bitcoin forum is needed, we can't live out of reddit, but there also needs to be limitations, areas with restricted writing privileges, etc.
Posted from Bitcointa.lk - #sriOT3hRbtNFH9ET

[randomlove]

Thermal flask just likes all your monies. Tbh you can use bitcointa.lk which is this site but with better software and ran properly I believe.

But your whole point stands, this site as sucked for at least the last 2 year and only got worse. The bitcoin community as been drenched with idiots and greed when the original investors were cool people. Now the greedy just reign supreme while people who care get pushed to one side and out voted. Same old same old.

It will take time before people realise bitcoin is currency and it has the chance to bring society to work together instead of in competition. Maybe it won't be btc but in the future a cashless society is possible with this technology! Only peace and harmony will allow this so the competition and greed needs killing! And fast!

[Bicknellski]

The number of puppet accounts created recently with thousands of useless posts is incredibile. They are either spamming the latest mining/exchange scam, or adding useless contributions to the conversation to increase their postcount.

I find the "activity" of a user to be a good indicator of the quality of his posts. That, along with the number of "likes" a member received on his messages over his postcount should be used to grant access to privileged areas of the forum, imho. You could also create filters to catch groups of people spamming the "likes" system.

Basically a bitcoin forum is needed, we can't live out of reddit, but there also needs to be limitations, areas with restricted writing privileges, etc.
Posted from Bitcointa.lk - #sriOT3hRbtNFH9ET

Bitcointa.lk seems to solve some of those issues as it really allows you to target what you want to read. Have you tried that OP?

[cedivad]

Bitcointa.lk seems to solve some of those issues as it really allows you to target what you want to read. Have you tried that?

Well, considering that i coded it... Yes, I've tried that
I'm really happy to hear that you find it useful
Posted from Bitcointa.lk - #FIWwjw1VUwFxwUnd

[Bicknellski]

Yes I am very happy. Yours infinitely better and easier to follow what I am interested in. It be nice to simply superceed Bitcointalk entirely with your site. Solves a lot of problems. My comment was directed at the OP not you I know you made the bitcointa.lk site.
Posted from Bitcointa.lk - #4gl0WocuYRGeun24

[cedivad]

Sorry for my egocentric behaviour, you quoted me so I didn't realised that
Posted from Bitcointa.lk - #FncXAvtJJfxnOBBi

[Bicknellski]

My fault entirely... posting from bitcointa.lk so you should be proud and slightly egocentric.
Posted from Bitcointa.lk - #mS9egXwzjsrumqfU

[Justin00]

+8000

you forgot scammers can scam, run free, come back and repeat. I understand the forum isnt responsible to track them down, nor should they... but jesus christ, ban them or something... do something.....  You can't just wipe hands clean because you have a disclaimer.

i used to enjoy coming here and reading some of the stuff back in 2012 and early-mid 2013.
but the fact the scammers are allowed to do what ever the hell they wont without being banned is beyond any logic and makes me sick.
fark half the time its staff members who are running the scams.

It seems like every forum rule change is to enable more people to scam.. i.e no scammer tag, trust system which allowed mods, and people on default trust list to scam, no newbie restrictions....

and the disclaimer under advertisements prooves the forum had a think about how the ads there running is assisting in helping people to get scammed.. but they thought... fuck it, we make money off this!!! lets just put a disclaimer in!

I'll await some mod/staff who has probably ran some "security" into the ground and lost all "investor" bitcoins to come to the defense, as normal.

 

Ive been using this forum for 4 years or so now, with different accounts,  I used to spend several hours every day on here and early on actually read most posts, but its just become unusable to me, its impossible to keep up with the flood of posts, and 99% of them just arent worth reading. Whats worse is that its impossible to find the few posts that are worth reading.

Part of this is due to bitcoin going more mainstream and logically creating a lot of new users,  but whats greatly exacerbating the problem is forum policy and forum software.

The policy that allows users to put spam in their signature and have casino's and what not pay out (newbie/alt account) posters based on how much (nonsense) they post each day is the straw that broke the camel's back. At least 2/3 of the activity I see is just alt accounts posting whatever in order to boost their activity and collect more bitcoins for their signature spam. How this is allowed is beyond me.

Another part of the problem is the relaxed newbie restrictions; with so many new accounts being registered every day, the bar to post should be raised, not lowered. Who wants to see 16 newbie spam accounts push down some of the rare pearls of wisdom, say posts by DeathandTaxes to the point where you cant possibly find them?

Finally the forum software thats absolutely unhelpful. Despite the fact that Theymos was given enough money to buy a medium sized software development company, in all these years, it hasnt improved one meaningful yota. The few changes that were made, made things worse, not better (think trust system)

Its really sad but these days I need to get my bitcoin updates from google news or reddit.

 

[tysat]

+8000

you forgot scammers can scam, run free, come back and repeat. I understand the forum isnt responsible to track them down, nor should they... but jesus christ, ban them or something... do something.....  You can't just wipe hands clean because you have a disclaimer.

i used to enjoy coming here and reading some of the stuff back in 2012 and early-mid 2013.
but the fact the scammers are allowed to do what ever the hell they wont without being banned is beyond any logic and makes me sick.
fark half the time its staff members who are running the scams.

It seems like every forum rule change is to enable more people to scam.. i.e no scammer tag, trust system which allowed mods, and people on default trust list to scam, no newbie restrictions....

and the disclaimer under advertisements prooves the forum had a think about how the ads there running is assisting in helping people to get scammed.. but they thought... fuck it, we make money off this!!! lets just put a disclaimer in!

I'll await some mod/staff who has probably ran some "security" into the ground and lost all "investor" bitcoins to come to the defense, as normal.

 

Ive been using this forum for 4 years or so now, with different accounts,  I used to spend several hours every day on here and early on actually read most posts, but its just become unusable to me, its impossible to keep up with the flood of posts, and 99% of them just arent worth reading. Whats worse is that its impossible to find the few posts that are worth reading.

Part of this is due to bitcoin going more mainstream and logically creating a lot of new users,  but whats greatly exacerbating the problem is forum policy and forum software.

The policy that allows users to put spam in their signature and have casino's and what not pay out (newbie/alt account) posters based on how much (nonsense) they post each day is the straw that broke the camel's back. At least 2/3 of the activity I see is just alt accounts posting whatever in order to boost their activity and collect more bitcoins for their signature spam. How this is allowed is beyond me.

Another part of the problem is the relaxed newbie restrictions; with so many new accounts being registered every day, the bar to post should be raised, not lowered. Who wants to see 16 newbie spam accounts push down some of the rare pearls of wisdom, say posts by DeathandTaxes to the point where you cant possibly find them?

Finally the forum software thats absolutely unhelpful. Despite the fact that Theymos was given enough money to buy a medium sized software development company, in all these years, it hasnt improved one meaningful yota. The few changes that were made, made things worse, not better (think trust system)

Its really sad but these days I need to get my bitcoin updates from google news or reddit.

I agree with you on pretty much all points, this place has gone downhill a lot since 2011/2012.  Changes need to be made, but theymos either ignores suggestions/changes or just doesn't want to implement them.  The old hands off attitude used to work a lot better when there weren't tons of people around, but times have changed.

[malevolent]

+8000
you forgot scammers can scam, run free, come back and repeat. I understand the forum isnt responsible to track them down, nor should they... but jesus christ, ban them or something... do something.....  You can't just wipe hands clean because you have a disclaimer.
i used to enjoy coming here and reading some of the stuff back in 2012 and early-mid 2013.
but the fact the scammers are allowed to do what ever the hell they wont without being banned is beyond any logic and makes me sick.
fark half the time its staff members who are running the scams.

Then you should remember that even when it was easier to keep track of all the scams, unless they were repeatedly disrupting discussion (MNW), scammers' accounts were only scammer tagged, because there is always a slim possibility for the scammer to repent and make some (sometimes successful) efforts to repay their victims (e.g. terrytibbs). With their accounts banned, it's even less likely the victims will get anything back. TF could have been banned as soon as he announced he was "hacked" but how would that help his victims? At least some of them got 20-30% their BTC back.

Even if we had a rule that scamming ends up in a ban... we would never be able to catch up with even a quarter of the scams. Someone would have to hire a dozen people to work full time, those people would need read access to peoples' PMs, there should be a rule against GPG or otherwise encrypting of PMs (to see what you're up to), and a rule against off-site communication, but even then not all scams could be prevented (especially long cons). The solution is not restricting freedom in the name of security, but education. I know some people are suffering from an overabundance of bitcoins in their wallets, so they're eager to part with them, but then they shouldn't cry if they failed to do their due diligence. Trust no one, assume everyone's out to scam you, and you'll be much less likely to get scammed.

It seems like every forum rule change is to enable more people to scam.. i.e no scammer tag, trust system which allowed mods, and people on default trust list to scam, no newbie restrictions....

Which mods have turned out to be scammers? I can only recall one, maybe two, mods that have scammed someone, and neither of them had their scamming facilitated due to how the Trust system and DefaultTrust works.
I'll agree that relaxing the newbie restrictions for the 2nd time might not have been the best decision, though I can see how it could have served as a deterrent both to spammers and valuable contributors.

and the disclaimer under advertisements prooves the forum had a think about how the ads there running is assisting in helping people to get scammed.. but they thought... fuck it, we make money off this!!! lets just put a disclaimer in!

Again, if you assume everyone's out to scam you, you won't send them any BTC unless you're really certain of their trustworthiness.

They may be unsafe, untrustworthy, or illegal in your jurisdiction.

[emphasis mine]

I agree with you on pretty much all points, this place has gone downhill a lot since 2011/2012.  Changes need to be made, but theymos either ignores suggestions/changes or just doesn't want to implement them.  The old hands off attitude used to work a lot better when there weren't tons of people around, but times have changed.

Do you mean in regards to newbie spam, or in regards to scamming?
The former would be easier to deal with (e.g increase waiting time between posts to half an hour for newbies and jr. members, or autoban or auto-tempban accounts if they have more than a dozen posts deleted in a 24 hour period), but I don't really see a solution to the latter without us having much more work, getting more mods, and severely limiting other users' freedom.

[tysat]

...

I agree with you on pretty much all points, this place has gone downhill a lot since 2011/2012.  Changes need to be made, but theymos either ignores suggestions/changes or just doesn't want to implement them.  The old hands off attitude used to work a lot better when there weren't tons of people around, but times have changed.

Do you mean in regards to newbie spam, or in regards to scamming?
The former would be easier to deal with (e.g increase waiting time between posts to half an hour for newbies and jr. members, or autoban or auto-tempban accounts if they have more than a dozen posts deleted in a 24 hour period), but I don't really see a solution to the latter without us having much more work, getting more mods, and severely limiting other users' freedom.

A little bit of both but mostly the newbie spam, removing the requirements has increased the noise a lot.  I'm not sure how we could (easily) cut down on the scamming, but that would be nice to do too.  Overall I think we might just need to be a little stricter with moderation.

[justusranvier]

http://cryptome.org/2012/07/gent-forum-spies.htm

Technique #6 - 'GAINING FULL CONTROL'

It is important to also be harvesting and continually maneuvering for a forum moderator position. Once this position is obtained, the forum can then be effectively and quietly controlled by deleting unfavourable postings - and one can eventually steer the forum into complete failure and lack of interest by the general public. This is the 'ultimate victory' as the forum is no longer participated with by the general public and no longer useful in maintaining their freedoms.

[Puppet]

Why would he change anything, here is his weekly advertising take - 36.7 BTC @$450 = $16,500

Thats the ironic part; by allowing advertisers to buy signature space, the value of the actual ads is diminished tremendously.
So not only does this policy kill signal noise ratio, it even hurts his own bottomline, fat as it may still be.

[Maged]

Ive been using this forum for 4 years or so now, with different accounts,  I used to spend several hours every day on here and early on actually read most posts, but its just become unusable to me, its impossible to keep up with the flood of posts, and 99% of them just arent worth reading. Whats worse is that its impossible to find the few posts that are worth reading.

(...)

Its really sad but these days I need to get my bitcoin updates from google news or reddit.

I know how you feel. I, too, first check reddit for Bitcoin news these days. Despite that, however, the discussion here is still an order of magnitude better than is it on Reddit. Somehow, we managed to avoid most of the issues related to groupthink that Reddit has in part because of how every post is considered equal in terms of value here. Hopefully, with new forum technology we can recapture that spirit.

I neither can nor will attempt to convince you to stay today, but please give Bitcointalk another chance once the new forum software is deployed.

[Sindelar1938]

I know what you mean
Coindesk and Reddit are better resources than this forum

[randomlove]

I know what you mean
Coindesk and Reddit are better resources than this forum

I personally hate coindesk, The negativity pushers and i dont trust them any more than i trust the MSM. Its not immediatly apparent but just look at there style of writing and some of there articles are just full on jokes that serve nothing but bad taste.

Reddit is full of idiots so the stupid boring topics rise to the top (just like on youtube with the sheeple watching what there told) which is about the same around here.

All in all, You just got to find your OWN weay as there's no 1 stop shop for anything in life, Its about finding the bits of info here and there and thinking subjectively/constructively.

[Abdussamad]

Ive been using this forum for 4 years or so now, with different accounts,  I used to spend several hours every day on here and early on actually read most posts, but its just become unusable to me, its impossible to keep up with the flood of posts, and 99% of them just arent worth reading. Whats worse is that its impossible to find the few posts that are worth reading.

It depends on where you are looking. The technical forums still have a lot to offer. If you are spending time in mining, securities and other such forums then of course it's going to be difficult to find worthwhile content. I guess it depends on your areas of interest.

[randomlove]

Ive been using this forum for 4 years or so now, with different accounts,  I used to spend several hours every day on here and early on actually read most posts, but its just become unusable to me, its impossible to keep up with the flood of posts, and 99% of them just arent worth reading. Whats worse is that its impossible to find the few posts that are worth reading.

It depends on where you are looking. The technical forums still have a lot to offer. If you are spending time in mining, securities and other such forums then of course it's going to be difficult to find worthwhile content. I guess it depends on your areas of interest.

+1, I just love the randomness of it all :-)