Topic: Bitcoinize boards / forums (Read 6539 times)

Well http://bitbiz.io/ have a interesting concept. {A forum where Crypto Currency Business is discussed}

The members get "shares" for things they do on the forum. Eg. 1 x share for each post or 2 shares for a new thread etc.}

All income from donates from sponsors and advertisers, are divided in dividends, as per their amount of shares.

The shares are sold amongst members for BTC

A real good idea to incorporate BTC in a forum environment.   

 

This very important discussion seemed to die out in 2012. I will attempt to revive it.

a module installable in a forum software should in my opinion ideally do the following:

1) Allow users to add public addresses to their profiles
2) Allow users to create multi-sig addresses (n/m) by selecting which user accounts are participating and what the n-of-m ratio is.
3) Allow users to share payment requests as parts of posts and as PMs.
4) For users with a public address in their profile, show a payment history with associated payment requests.
5) Allow users to configure if they want their public address shown or hidden.
6) Integrate well with the forum for notifications.

It is important that no funds are stored in the board at all, and that the board solely provides functions that makes using bitcoin more convenient.

I personally would be thankful if someone implemented this for phpBB so that I could manage family economics in a private forum like described here: http://forum.bitcoin.se/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=801

Here there is another possibility
http://www.monotiz.com/smf/index.php?topic=21.msg42
Anyway, he said that it's occupied with other things

Here's an example of an opportunity.

The comments board for the community of readers of Calculated Risk is a Drupal 6 system which runs on the site called "Hoocoodanode" (as in, who could've known that the ninja / liar loans and the resulting housing bubble was really Goldman Sachs, AIG, Hank Paulson, and Countrywide Financial, etc. bending us over..  really, hoocoulda knowd)?

The URLs are:
 - http://CalculatedRiskBlog.com
 - http://www.hoocoodanode.org/node/5771

The sites see a pretty decent amount of activity.

What is interesting is how widely used are the icons in communicating.  It isn't just a few emoticons like and  and these icons become a substitute for typing and help as a visual aid.  I can scroll down a topic fairly quickly just looking at the icons to see what might be worth reading and what can be skipped.

Here's their legend for icons:
 - http://www.hoocoodanode.org/smileys_glossary

Here's a typical post to show how the icons are used:
 - http://www.hoocoodanode.org/node/15459

There's probably some monetization method there.  Like maybe to use more than one icon per reply you get a certain amount deducted from your balance.  Or maybe the operator wants to give an incentive for the use of the icons? I don't know, just that these are one example of something that I see on this one forum and haven't seen it anywhere else so I wanted to share.

^ Use something like Litecoin or Microbits, give out a few free with a register, then they cannot withdraw the coins on their end and explicitly have to give them to someone else? Not sure if the spam filters could take that much of a pounding, but I'm just throwing it on the wall.

Ok... continue... so far

tipping != rating

with tipping - everything is clear...

What about rating? how can we create new\implement old rating model using Bitcoins?

I for one wouldn't explicitly use BTC for ratings. It's better as a tipping tool or for payment for virtual goods and services and that is how ogrr.com uses it. Other users might look at your BTC and draw their own conclusions but for the ratings/egoboo purpose perhaps you would have a number like total BTC earned rather than current balance.

Imagine every member have 10 BTC on their accounts.

How BTC possession affects rating of the user on forum? Can i inflate my ranking by depositing more bitcoins into my account? Is rating mechanism as simple as transferring your bitcoins to somebody else if they made a good post?

I'll take a first crack at this. They need a module that is easy to install on their existing board system with the following features:
* Account balances
* Deposit request and fulfillment
* Withdrawal request and fulfillment
* User reputation system with feedback forms

* Security of the funds themselves, since multi-sig isn't ready yet, the system should be able to facilitate one or more cold storage addresses. It should enable the admin to check the total BTC in the system and send anything over a reasonable amount of working funds into cold storage. It should also use the deposit mechanism to allow the admin to bring funds back onto the site when a large withdrawal comes. Any discrepancy should hook into the notification system of the board.
* Migrating from existing points systems. This is hard to automate without knowing more of what's out there. Still some tools would be useful generally. For example an automatic conversion utility that pulls in and exchanges point values from other tables into this module's. Another might be an estimator that would help the site-owner figure out how much BTC they'll need to back total holdings at a specific exchange rate. Or perhaps this module can help the owner increase transparency on their existing system and simply enable purchase and sale of points for BTC at whatever price the admin sets.
Bitcoin will enable them to attract productive users who wish to be paid for their time and energy. It can also help them develop additional revenue streams by allowing users to purchase forum upgrades, other goods and services from the admin using a widely(moreso than their points) accepted currency.

We need couple of use cases to discuss..

Let's say Oggr.com likes bitcoin...

What do they need?
What kind of problems do they have?
What bitcoin will enable them to do?

That's the problem.... it's not clear what to do... + I think having Bitcoin in hands we can provide something much greater than simple rating or old systems

I have suggested this before.

I recommend we start a bounty to get some developers to make plugins for all of the Boards available facilitating Bitcoin transactions.

Related:

Read about "PieTrust" in:
 - http://mwhite.calepin.co/the-emerging-wisdom-revolution/

And earlier, a "bounty" system for FOSS projects:
 - https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/bitcoin-based-bounty-pool-software-platform-for-foss-projects-update-4435

The numbered points here seem to be targeted at a specific site that isn't clear. When I think of Karma, I think of /. but perhaps you have a different idea Andrew?

At this early state, we could really use a survey of the available points and reputation systems. If we create a matrix of features that are currently available by CMS/site/bulletin board platform, we can prioritize features to be developed first.

I'm not sure where this matrix should live but a wiki is probably best. If someone wants to create this, link it here so we can work on it together.

Our goal is not to create another bbs or a bb platform that includes a Bitcoin economy component. Our goal is to make it as easy and straightforward as possible for admins to implement a Bitcoin-based points system/economy.

Maybe combine django-bitcoin and some python-bbs will be very easy.

Ok people, we need to think hard how to make it viable....

1. Who receives BTC?
2. Who sends BTC?
3. What every transaction means?
4. How BTC is connected to karma?
5. Incentives...

Can somebody lay down basic strategy so we can start discussing it?

Valid point. Steps can and should be taken to reduce risk. As it stands lots of folks have value stored in many sites with much less transparency in their account balances than what Bitcoin integration might bring. Holding Bitcoin (or something Bitcoin-backed) increases the likelihood of attack but it also increases the economic impact of a site, potential for trade, and even folks making a living from a site.

Right. One could even require a small payment or that a string be signed by that address to prove ownership.

You like social contests that improve the demand for an asset you hold?    This can be an option per site. It would probably be rarely used but in the case that a site owner really wants to encourage commerce, it can be shown. An additional option might be to have a public amount and a private one.

I like this idea and it's easy enough to do wherever one might want to. Still some users are funny about their addresses and may not want to publish them any more widely than necessary. It's also a little better for privacy if you generate a new address for each transaction.

The original idea of this thread is to increase the number of places where Bitcoin is used by recognizing the opportunity in replacing proprietary/fiat points systems. I'm sure any site that has any significant amount of commerce has a reputation system.

You bring up a good point though in that efforts encouraged by this thread should attempt to improve upon existing reputation systems. This could entice folks to integrate BTC into their economic model just to get the best reputation system available.

Would be nice if you could get a Bitcoin magnet/html link that could outbound to your client and prepopulate the address. Can someone work that into a Firefox/Chrome extension, maybe make it compatible with instawallet?

I'd rather not have every random forum holding coins.  They are screaming to be hacked.

Instead the "integration" should be the ability to look up the current balance of an address registered in the account details section, and post that balance under the avatar (or wherever)

To be honest though, it sounds like a non-problem.  Bitcoin is already capable of transferring value from anyone to anyone; and what is the advantage to me of having my balance published for all to see?

Bitcoin integration?  Just put an address in your signature.

Better is a reputation system.  And that doesn't require bitcoin at all.