I am not sure if there are 'that' many discussions about alt coins, but I agree a large part of the posts is about earning bitcoin (mostly sig campaigns) and unfortunately also ponzis. That being said, if you look at the Bitcoin PH FB group, you can also see there are plenty of people seriously interested in bitcoin, having in-depth discussions about it and organizing bitcoin-related events in PH. Still, there is plenty of spam on FB about faucets/referrals/etc. - but at the FB group that just gets deleted. So some rules and moderation would be required in a new subforum, yes. I think that's the case for any local subforum.
Currently, because a lot of the posts in the Filipino thread are about a specific part of bitcoin (let's call it "earning bitcins"), it can discourage other people to post about other subjects, like "using bitcoin as remittance". You could post about it, get a reply or two, but it would be hidden through the pages rather quickly. That is exactly the reason why I think a new subforum would be great (or: why I want it personally.) It allows different discussions more easily.
In addition I do think that Filipinos can sometimes have the need to talk in their native language. As a Dutch, I do like talking in Dutch sometimes, even though I use English much more than Dutch. STILL I think it is not a problem to have English discussions in a Filipino subforum either, especially if it's about specific events, meetings and subjects relevant to only the Philippines.
Personally I see it like this:
- Keep the "Pilipinas" topic in the subforum as sticky and allow any kind of discussion in there (but obv not insane spamming.) Just for quick-questions, off-topic things, etc.
- English/Tagalog topics/replies both fine.
- I hope there will be 1 Cebu topic with Cebuano language, depending if the ppl from Cebu want that. Or just a Bisaya topic. This all depends if there is a need for it.
- Referral links, especially to micro earning sites (faucets) and "invest sites" (ponzi scams) should be not allowed, but discussion of it somewhat tolerated in original "Pilipinas" topic, just like now. Just to protect the subforum against spam. It is the same rule as Bitcoin PH FB group and I assume other local subforums have this too (perhaps unofficially.)
I really think it will be great, and equal (or more) activity compared to other local subforums. I also think there will be more different subjects for discussions than the current topic, which IMO will lead to more Filipinos/expats/companies joining the discussions too.
In the end I also think it will not hurt anyone (most can just ignore the whole board
) especially if there is decent moderation. I agree there should be enough activity to justify a subforum for it, but I think there is and will be enough.