The original motivation that is still heavily a factor, is that if the alt coin section was removed, we would just have people spamming the rest of the boards with alt coin stuff. Essentially the same argument as having the Off Topic section.
This is why I proposed the creation of a new forum. If we kick out altcoiners now, they'll have nowhere to go, but if we migrated the existing section to a new forum for them first hopefully the majority will go over there and won't spam up bitcointalk.
It doesn't relate to Bitcoin, but its a place to put things that shouldn't go into "Bitcoin Discussion" or the likes. Another point is, people rush to call Alt Coins a scam, or that bad or seedy behavior from some Alt Coin players leaves a bad stigma on Bitcoin or something. That is sort of hypocritical, talking about Alt Coin scams is the same as talking about the Bitcoin scam because of Pirateat40, Nefario, or MtGox.
I totally agree. PayPal is a cryptocurrency, their shady business practices shouldn't affect Bitcoin's reputation.
Dev is a dutchbag
What do you have against the dutch?
My post isn't a shot at anyone in this thread in particular, but I've heard this argument so many times before, and it really still baffles me reading people's philosophies in other threads, and then seeing how quick they are to turn and prosecute Alt Coins for the children! or to prevent terrorism! or whatever else people want to yell to rally support. If you want to end what is bad with Alt Coins, do it with education and your bitcents.
But I'm not doing that. Don't get me wrong I'm not an "altcoiner" and my reasons for that is I do not see a compelling reason to use one, nor do I know of any altcoins that I trust. I am of the opinion bitcointalk should be mainly about Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies whether they be Litecoin, PayPal, ApplePay or Dogecoin should be mainly discussed on their own forums. I think that BitcoinTalk has gone offtopic.
Right, I didn't mean to target you in particular, but 95% of the supporters you are going to gather in this thread are going to be here for more than just your reasons, I wanted to try and address as many possible. As far as creating an entirely new forum for Alt Coins, I dont think thats the way to go. With the new forum software I'm expecting there will be some serious improvements to the Alt Coin section and rest of the forum organization, but as far as creating a new forum, there are plenty of others just for Alt coins, but people still come here. While I don't think that Paypal could be considered a Cryptocurrency, for the purpose of our discussion that isn't important.
Unless I'm misunderstanding you, your biggest issue with the alt currency section is how it spills into the rest of the forum. To a certain extent there is no avoiding people posting in the wrong section. The forum staff moves hundreds of threads to more correct location per day, if something is out of place, just report it and we will get to it. I don't think removing the section and moving it elsewhere or anything else will really prevent people from making the occasional accident of starting a thread in the wrong place, and those that do it on purpose are removed.
I could make the same argument that this is a Bitcoin forum, we shouldn't have a Politics and Society or Off topic section. I am of the opinion that Bitcoin, Alt Coins, and Politics and Society are all interrelated. Close enough to stay on the same forum, but if any measures to prevent spillage from the Altcoin section out could be taken it would be best to do so. The new forum software should open up a lot of doors for that sort of thing, and just waiting and carrying on is our best action.