Topic: newb forum is far more interesting then the real thing (Read 1129 times)

"we need to start discussing a real solution to direct new users. "

I think the entire reason for the moving of this forum from forum.bitcoin.org to bitcointalk.org yesterday,
was because the noise in this forum is seen as a bit of an impediment to getting mainstream adoption by merchants etc.

I expect a more 'sanitized' forum for merchant support issues and the like will be linked to from bitcoin.org and other major bitcoin sites (weusecoins.com?) at some stage.

That being the case - this forum is presumably going to stay more or less the wild and wacky place that it is.. as many value this more than an orderly 'respectable' forum.
I can see a place for both, and think the dissociation from bitcoin.org is probably a good thing.

So.. I don't know if that qualifies as a 'real solution' - but it's clear the folk running bitcoin.org and the forums are addressing this very issue right now.

One of the points I see you making that I am totally on board with (and I think it is one of your main points) is something like the following: Most members on this forum have a vested interest, for various reasons, in making bitcoin more user friendly in order to promote the long-term viability of the bitcoin economy (and sustain bitcoin price). But when a newbie joins the forum trying to find out how they can get and use bitcoins, they are presented with a bewildering convoluted mess. Sure, the answers to their questions are buried somewhere in this mess, but the answers can be very difficult to find. In short, if we could make the forum more user friendly, this would help make bitcoin more user friendly. I agree, but the hard part is the solution. A forum by its very nature is a giant messy convoluted conversation, so it is going to be difficult to locate just the bit of info you need out of this mess. I agree that the newbie blacklist thing is problematic, but I haven't seen or been able to think of an obviously better solution. I'm not sure how your paypal idea is supposed to help, so maybe you could say more about this. One thing I've thought is that it would be nice to have a "knowledge base" section in the forum where solutions to common problems or questions are laid out clearly and succinctly, and people aren't allowed, no matter how senior, to post to these threads with any old useless jack-in-the-box spammy lol comment. I know there are stickies that are supposed to serve this purpose, but many of them are outdated now, and since people are allowed to post to the sticky thread, the stickies themselves quickly become a mess. 

But anyway, yeah, you did seem like a troll at first, but I don't think you really are, and for what it's worth, I do not want to see you banned (so long as you don't put the troll mask on again, lol).

dargo,

I can go with that, and I do agree I have come off as a troll.

While I don't believe anyone here is any more or less evil then the next one thing has come to light in my mind about bitcoin and that is the nature of this forum. This forum is the entrance to bitcoin and our current presentation is that of a gypsy carnival or an episode of jersey shore. My banning is proof that we need to start discussing a real solution to direct new users. 5 posts and 4 hours is a shitty method a we need to change that by starting to discuss alternative methods and then vote on it with the polling feature.

I think we need to allow users to buy into forum usage with paypal and payout in part with bitcoins once the transaction has cleared.

lol_charliesheen,

I probably should have been clearer about this, but I actually wasn't accusing you of being a troll. My point was just that you are coming off as a mere troll b/c whatever useful input you have to offer is completely obscured by your defensive vitriolic language. Now that you are getting clearer about what your complaints are against the forum, I think you are pointing out some real problems, and it would be good to have a member who wants to highlight these problems and try to offer constructive solutions. Yes, it is sometimes hard to find useful information b/c you have to wade through page after page of useless comments, spam, misinformation, etc. And yes, senior members can sometimes be a bit spammy. Ultimately I'm not sure these problems can be solved since every forum I have seen has the same issues (even worse in many cases). Overall, this forum is run much better than most I have seen. But if you don't want to be banned, you will need to lose the vicious language and state your beefs more calmly and clearly. And it won't help to just attack anyone who disagrees or criticizes you in the slightest way. Nor will it help to make extreme claims that are just a distortion of reality. For example, you seem to want to paint the senior forum members as some kind of "evil empire," which is surely not the case. Many senior members are very helpful (some more so than others I suppose). Perhaps there are some that do more harm than good on the forum, but I haven't run across any.   

and you didn't use any punctuation

I will not deny that I do not wish to be banned, but in my short time in the cold i am going to point out what i see. If there ever was a hurdle for bitcoin it is these forums.

@julz

heres the standard "high level" spam we see from the acclaimed old guard. I am too guilty of this:

1. starts with a generic blasphemous title with a problem that isn't a problem or maybe it is either way OP should have known better then to start this thread, based on their status in "the community" and fact that they could have researched their question or otherwise
2. series of loathing/unhelpful/empty/useless/long posts that skip around the problem that wasn't a problem
3. possibly a link back to similar equally un-useful thread
4. OP or another old guard member posts a link to their equally unhelpful website all to gain a few hundred clicks
5. normally theres is a "?", but what really happens is truly new people who have money ready to help inflate bitcoins are offput because the goal for many is traffic and not substance
6. There is no profit because new people look at the threads and see some of the comments and are turned off by the idea that in several months maybe they too can have 600 comments and hero member status when really all they want to know is where to swipe there credit card to receive some bitcoins


SOLUTION

no more outbound links, if you have a site that may help someone then it should be mentioned and pm'ed to them or the content itself put into the thread. We have the wiki, if you beleive your site is worthy post it there.

There are plenty who don't like the way this works.
I think it's a bit of a disgrace.. but then, I'm not a mod/admin who has to fight spam.
Still.. there has to be a better solution than by default treating everyone so poorly.



Some of them do it in an annoying somewhat spammy way - others more tactfully.
Given that I think most people are interested in what new bitcoin-related projects are popping up - it's probably not that easy/worthwhile to police.

nah, delete my shit.

You are talking crap on a forum you are desperately trying to join again.  That's hilarious.

So older users don't use the forum to gain traffic to personal projects?
New user can easily join and be apart of the conversation?
The front page of bitcoin discussion is not filled with complaints that have 3x duplicate threads?
Already answered thread questions are not viewed as spam?

I don't give a shit if you think i'm a troll. You are a troll. I just read your last ten post replies and its not like you have anything good to say.

Given your posts as "lol_charliesheen", it looks like you are well on your way to getting banned again. Perhaps if you try to make something other than baseless venom-filled posts, you might have some chance of sticking around this time. Give us a reason to believe that you aren't exactly the kind of troll that isn't welcome on this forum.   

i'm trying to have my old account removed completely, apparently bans take place without warning or explicit rule.

the more and more i can't comment tho, i realize the true limit to the current community, its a circle jerk that appears very creepy. Thread after thread about how to get new members and more projects and then the moment someone new wants to chime in they are labeled a troll and black listed until they have explicit permission to join the community.

Hey, if you want to get this thing going then the most basic of questions will have to be answered many times over. Does this forum exist to bitch about the most recent outages in websites and discuss shitty un-pursued ideas or to grow the community. Prices have stagnated because the moment a new person gets interested in bitcoin they are then treated like any meat-space organization and given the cold shoulder.

There's one thread where they talk about "getting the women on board" and its like duh, don't ban them the moment they do join. Remember that wave of "spam"?, it wasn't spam, it was ivory tower mods viewing the uneducated as a waste. News flash bitcoin is money, we need more people with money buying in at all costs in order to grow this.

Careful, on most forums creating a new account to get around a ban is a good way to get banned again, probably by IP.

ironically enough i was banned for being to vulgar as user "charliesheen", the even more ironic part is that there is no way to get into contact with the people who run the forums.

.......someone ate one lemon too many for breakfast.     

The real forum is a giant circle jerk to see who can get the most hits on their current bitcoin project. So few new people are allowed in that the discussion there has stagnated for the last 2 months. Its like a hen house where everyone posts just to be heard immediately after a non-issue arises. Its as if a bunch of D-grade onion writes got together to write a shitty satire on what an online forum could be. If everyone in the main forums got on a boat and that boat sank no one would care. How can a community who is looking to grow need to white-list individuals? If you took a poll of who created bitcoin 80%-90% of the main forum would take credit for it.