The Forum is Dying

[BitcoinDistributor]

If you look around you'll see the signs...

-currency exchange section is slower then ever.
-posts are becoming more and more spam-like
-people are selling their accounts left and right
-the overall mood just doesn't seem positive anymore

I know me personally, I haven't held bitcoin overnight in months and don't plan to anytime soon. As for forum use, I come on, but only for business-purposes to convert payments I've received in bitcoin to fiat. I got into bitcoin beginning of 2013 and once it hit $300 (on way up) is when I said overpriced and got out.

Its a good idea however the price fluctuations honestly I think are what makes bitcoin unable to sustain being a growing currency. No one wants to go to sleep at night and every morning worry "Did I just lose 10% or more of my money overnight?". My margins are 10% and overnight a couple weeks ago I said what the hell I'll just leave it in bitcoin and I woke up and down 10%+. I lost my profit on my sale + more...what business owner is ever going to want to take that risk? From then on I converted all payments to fiat on exchanges and then sell for fiat to people here and LBC (not converting back to bitcoin until I find a person willing to buy said bitcoin).

Its sad really - I had high hopes for this currency and when it was stable around $100 for a long time is when I truly believed in it. It was relative stable. We'll see if it ever revives, honestly I doubt it. Biggest problems by far: liquidity and price stability

I would be very interested in knowing if casinos or services using bitcoin have had a drop in the overall USD worth of the action / money spent over last couple months to support the above.

[Blazr]

This page here shows the number of new signups and new posts per month:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=stats

There has been a noticeable drop the past few months, but I guess it's due to the end of bubble-mania.

[Ume]

This page here shows the number of new signups and new posts per month:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=stats

There has been a noticeable drop the past few months, but I guess it's due to the end of bubble-mania.

Average 0f 237 users registeration from 237 37 or less are real users other are fake one .

[MaxDZ8]

Sounds like a good thing to me.

[Quickseller]

The number of new users registered this month is at it's highest rate since March 2014, when it was at a all time high. January 2015 saw more new user registrations then the preceding two months combined (although Nov and Dec 2014 were very low in terms of new user registrations - I am not sure if Nuked users are removed from new user registrations or not). January 2015 saw new user registrations of almost double of any money throughout the second half of last year.

The number of posts are down substantially however this is likely because of the closing of the Prime Dice signature campaign along with better anti-spam measures taken by BadBear that has weeded out spam substantially.

The number of posts however is still greatly above 2013 levels which is probably a better baseline to go off of as 2014 saw a lot of spam, and a lot of users were attracted to both bitcoin and the forum in late 2013/early-mid 2014 because of the massive price rally we saw in late 2013. The fact that the price of bitcoin has fallen substantially likely means that less people are interested in it (a lot of people who were attracted to it, were likely hoping to "get rick quickly" and when that did not pan out, lost interest - this is evidenced by how many manic posts there were in mid 2014 about the price going to ridiculous levels [outside the speculation/economics sections]).

-currency exchange section is slower then ever.

The currency exchange section is only one part of the marketplace, which is only a part of the overall forum. There are becoming more and more ways that people can easily and cheaply trade bitcoin via services like circle and coinbase which are generally safer then trading in a peer to peer fashion with escrow. Additionally I think there is some level of fear about having to comply with AML/KYC laws that are difficult to understand (these fears are probably mostly irrational, however they probably are there).

-posts are becoming more and more spam-like

Spam is up somewhat, however it really is not that bad now. Spammers will eventually get weeded out and will eventually go away. I would say that some of the spam is attributed to legitimately new users who may not understand 100% what is being discussed - they will likely eventually learn and their posts will appear more intelligent (less spammy) over time.

-people are selling their accounts left and right

There is no reason not to embrace the free market - that is what bitcoin is all about isn't it?

-the overall mood just doesn't seem positive anymore

That is very subjective. However there are a lot of scammers who are unhappy that it has become more difficult to scam for a number of reasons. Additionally I would say that people are generally not happy with the low price of bitcoin which may spill over into other sections.

-other stuff that has zero to do with the forum-

Congrats

[Lethn]

There are often quiet moments on this forum, I don't think it has died at all, there just isn't anything very exciting going on, if you see any spam posts just report them and move on, if Bitcoin rises again or does something you can expect people to spam the fuck out of this place.

[yenzae0215]

i dont think the forum is dying, its just many people(kids included) registers and start spamming but that doesnt mean forum is now dying

[hilariousandco]

Op is actually right. This forum is dying of AIDS:

This forum has AIDS and its own immune system is eating it alive. 

So is bitcoin apparently.

I don't think the forum is dying and is as active as ever, but the overall mood will be up and down just like bitcoin.

[picolo]

There is changes but the number of messages and the acution results for advertising are still strong.

[Tschai]

I think the forum is following the graph of the Bitcoin sentiment.
I know my site did this also: The traffic spiked when Bitcoin's value spiked...and is currently kinda boring, relatively.

[NeuroticFish]

If you look around you'll see the signs...

-currency exchange section is slower then ever.
-posts are becoming more and more spam-like
-people are selling their accounts left and right
-the overall mood just doesn't seem positive anymore

My feeling:
* There are a few established currency exchanges that don't need much to do, all goes OK and their activity usually mean bad things: errors, hacks, or just maintenance. So silence is good and reassuring there.
* Yes, too many posts are scams or spam. Some sort of newbie jail could help.
* Accounts selling is fine - the mods explanation makes sense not to ban it - still, I agree, too many posts are in that direction. Maybe that should go to a contained area, which maybe is by default set on ignore for new users?
* The overall mood can't be good while some bought at 5-900$ and now it's.. less than 250$

3 simple solutions would be:
- newbie jail
- ban ponzis
- ban/moderate (OK, this is not simple) "sell now" "buy now" "dump is coming" threads - they are only simple daytrader FUD.

[newflesh]

Op is actually right. This forum is dying of AIDS:

This forum has AIDS and its own immune system is eating it alive. 

lol that's a classic quote, guess you can't please everyone. It's still a very active forum regardless of the influx of butt-coiners infesting the speculation board.

[Muhammed Zakir]

My feeling:
* There are a few established currency exchanges that don't need much to do, all goes OK and their activity usually mean bad things: errors, hacks, or just maintenance. So silence is good and reassuring there.

Everything can be hacked but the companies are distinguished on 'how they react to it and how they answer people'. Most of the people are using exchanges to trade.

* Yes, too many posts are scams or spam.

Not only new users, even Hero Members scam. It simple, "Scammers scam".

* Accounts selling is fine - the mods explanation makes sense not to ban it - still, I agree, too many posts are in that direction. Maybe that should go to a contained area, which maybe is by default set on ignore for new users?

New accounts are created to announce account sale for making their real account a secret. So blocking newbies from posting there is probably a bad idea.

* The overall mood can't be good while some bought at 5-900$ and now it's.. less than 250$

Many of them even bought at $0.1, maybe far lesser than it. I don't think it's a bad thing which affect users.

3 simple solutions would be:

There are many things which looks fine as solution but most of them won't fit in 'solutions'.

* Yes, too many posts are scams or spam. Some sort of newbie jail could help.
 =snip=
- newbie jail

Newbie jail is bad idea. There people who join this forum for asking doubt about technical things, to ask about companies, to announce/offer their service etc... The post and PM limitation currently is some sort of newbie jail and is working fine except for PMs - shouldn't allow newbies to send a PM without posting. A 20-30 seconds forced class about forum rules is probably better idea than newbie jail.

- ban ponzis

Bad and very hard idea. If you start banning, you will have to start banning cloud mining etc... It would be very hard for mods to investigate on every new cloud mining.

- ban/moderate (OK, this is not simple) "sell now" "buy now" "dump is coming" threads - they are only simple daytrader FUD.

Like you said it isn't simple but I didn't understand fully about your statement "they are only simple daytrader FUD".

   -MZ

[redsn0w]

No I don't think this forum is dying (but this is only my personal opinion). However if you think that it is dying, what is the "real & unique" problem which causes this thing will happen? I think the scammers and spammers.

[NeuroticFish]

I guess that I was far from clear....

My feeling:
* There are a few established currency exchanges that don't need much to do, all goes OK and their activity usually mean bad things: errors, hacks, or just maintenance. So silence is good and reassuring there.

Everything can be hacked but the companies are distinguished on 'how they react to it and how they answer people'. Most of the people are using exchanges to trade.

That's obvious. Just imho it's rather normal/good to have pretty "silent" threads about exchanges: not too many still come out and the big ones don't really have good news to share.
I use exchanges as well and I find them OK. But just seeing their threads with "we are still here" would be .. odd.
So imho silence there is fine.

* Yes, too many posts are scams or spam.

Not only new users, even Hero Members scam. It simple, "Scammers scam".

True. But a Hero member may be more careful to not get negative trust, while there are a lot of brand new accounts with 1-2 posts, only for a ponzi or a ref link to a faucet....
These are in the scam or spam area which can easily reduced.

* Accounts selling is fine - the mods explanation makes sense not to ban it - still, I agree, too many posts are in that direction. Maybe that should go to a contained area, which maybe is by default set on ignore for new users?

New accounts are created to announce account sale for making their real account a secret. So blocking newbies from posting there is probably a bad idea.

I don't want to forbid that for newbies. I want only to hide it by default, until they will get "old enough" to find the checkbox to uncheck.
But I just realized that people also come here without an account and then it will actually be visible....so my idea is actually not really useful 

* The overall mood can't be good while some bought at 5-900$ and now it's.. less than 250$

Many of them even bought at $0.1, maybe far lesser than it. I don't think it's a bad thing which affect users.

I wish I were around those days...
However, I think the "noisier" ones are the ones losing, and that makes the forum look somehow "depressed".

* Yes, too many posts are scams or spam. Some sort of newbie jail could help.
 =snip=
- newbie jail

Newbie jail is bad idea. There people who join this forum for asking doubt about technical things, to ask about companies, to announce/offer their service etc... The post and PM limitation currently is some sort of newbie jail and is working fine except for PMs - shouldn't allow newbies to send a PM without posting. A 20-30 seconds forced class about forum rules is probably better idea than newbie jail.

- ban ponzis

Bad and very hard idea. If you start banning, you will have to start banning cloud mining etc... It would be very hard for mods to investigate on every new cloud mining.

*sigh* you are right with both. I overlooked all the implications.

- ban/moderate (OK, this is not simple) "sell now" "buy now" "dump is coming" threads - they are only simple daytrader FUD.

Like you said it isn't simple but I didn't understand fully about your statement "they are only simple daytrader FUD".

   -MZ

By "daytrader FUD" I wanted to say that there only (weak) attempts (by spreading "news", usually FUD) made by some traders to affect the market in a way to make (more) profit.

There was another place where I used to hang around about one year ago. The FUD was always deleted by the mods promptly. (It didn't help the price of that coin, but that's a different story.) At least the place was "cleaner"... 

[Lauda]

You do realize that this is one of the bigger forums out there? We don't need it to have the same number of users as Facebook you know.

[Welsh]

I don't think the forum is dying, but rather your love for Bitcoin dying. The forum had less users, less active in 2011 and that was some of the best discussion we've had. Of course this is  to be expected as there is only a limited amount to speak about. To be quite honest at this moment in time I would rather a close knitted set of individuals. I don't think many people are panicking about the price, I haven't checked the price directly for many many months.

I don't know what you mean by the 'mood'. It depends what you read, something recently which I consider pretty positive is Elwar getting paid in Bitcoin, he doesn't seem to care about the relation with USD or any other fiat currency. Now if that isn't positive then I don't know what is. If only that was available outside of the US I'd be set.

The currency exchange section is going to drop off more when there are easier ways to purchase and sell Bitcoin. Spammers get dealt with if you report them, if there aren't any mods on it only takes a few hours at most for one to pop on. There's going to be scammers where ever you go, there's no stopping that.

[picolo]

I think the forum is following the graph of the Bitcoin sentiment.
I know my site did this also: The traffic spiked when Bitcoin's value spiked...and is currently kinda boring, relatively.

A big bank failing in Europe or the States, big riots, the price of BTC at 1000$ and we will have many new users and momentum.

[ajareselde]

If you look around you'll see the signs...
-currency exchange section is slower then ever.

There are increasing number of scams with person to person trades, so users may choose exchange as a better option

-posts are becoming more and more spam-like

well since there are such volatile moments lately, people tend to change their opinions with change of the wind blowing, thus creating spam mess
they get ignored or their posts deleted anyways, mods are doing a nice job with that

-people are selling their accounts left and right

yup, im also against that, because in the end u dont know with who you are talking to in the end, but as forum rules seam to allow it, theres nothing much that can be done.

-the overall mood just doesn't seem positive anymore

Bitcoin isnt rallying anymore at this time, and this is bitcoin forum, so many users have a loss, or small profit on their tradings..

I would be very interested in knowing if casinos or services using bitcoin have had a drop in the overall USD worth of the action / money spent over last couple months to support the above.

i dont thing they do if u count in bitcoins, but if u count in fiat value, they probably do. But markets tend to change, and it will pass..
as per https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions , number of transactions is rising, so you could interpret that as a very good thing.

Dont know what to say enymore, there are rainy days everywhere, why not here also? Its not like it was promised to be milk and honey all the time..

cheers

[bitgeek]

I know me personally, I haven't held bitcoin overnight in months and don't plan to anytime soon. As for forum use, I come on, but only for business-purposes to convert payments I've received in bitcoin to fiat. I got into bitcoin beginning of 2013 and once it hit $300 (on way up) is when I said overpriced and got out.

This nicely shows your bearish attitude. You don't hold bitcoin and immediately get rid of the ones you come upon. If you sold all you had for $300 you missed about 12 months of higher prices. No wonder you became bitter. There's a lot of people like you in here, especially in the speculation subforum. Maybe they can comfort you