Topic: Understanding Bitcointalk.org Top Boards (Read 478 times)

Unfortunately, it is human nature to judge a book by its cover, and that's why exciting technologies don't ever get off the ground. Theymos gets judged just for being the image of Bitcointalk, and for some reason outside Bitcointalk there seems to be hostility towards its users in general. I'm not sure what the image of Bitcointalk is outside Bitcointalk as I'm way to involved in the forum to take a step back, but I've read quite a few statements of hostile towards this forum. I don't know if they've been wronged, or at least feel they've been wronged, but I get the feeling its not that, and just the cool thing to say. I dunno, maybe the general consensus of how much spam is located in certain sections on the forum contributes towards that attitude.

I also judge a book by its cover when it comes to threads on this forum. For example, there's certain tell tale signs of a thread title on whether or not its going to be using multiple accounts to create fake buzz, or in general invite lower quality users in.

OP, Yes! but No!
The numbers raise certain boards in a way that makes us wonder "this is the movie of the synopsis we read", so, as a comparative simile in which I can think of closest, this context reference that I bring, means that it does not matter If the synopsis did not coincide, if the movie is good, we continue to watch it.

That is, the reflection of those numbers should not be the perception of what the bitcointalk.org forum really is, perhaps for the one who comes new and they do not have much time, yes, and they take that impression (or think they read the correct synopsis) ... but if you decide to stay I am sure but absolutely sure that you understand that it is a reality, that it is lived as a collateral effect of the genesis existence of bitcoin.

In conclusion, don't just look at numbers , headlines, remember this phrase; "don't judge a book by its cover" ...so just it's worth saying "don't judge bitcointalk by its boards".

A large amount of the demographic here came here to make money, and not to discuss the technicalities of Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies for that matter. Therefore, Bitcoin although can still be a great money making method isn't what tops the list when you look at some of the promises, and hype altcoins receive.  Day trading in particular can be very profitable in altcoins if you know what you're doing. Its only natural that people participate in conversations that they're involved in, and passionate about. The altcoin sections from my point of view are generally lower quality overall due to the sheer amount of posts that are being thrown that direction, but there are some decent discussions in there, and there always has been. The altcoin section isn't all about the new, and upcoming altcoin that's going to make everyone, and their grandmother rich. No, sometimes there's some good discussion about cryptocurrencies in general, and the direction they're taking. Some of which can be quite enlightening, and thought provoking.

Unfortunately, I'll admit this is drowned out by either the amount of posts that are being submitted, but also the fact that the public perception of the altcoin section isn't that great outside of it. The sections tend to get bad mouthed constantly, and sometimes that's justified, but not always. Its gained a reputation for somewhere people go just to spam, and talk nonsense about competing coins to Bitcoin when that's not always true. It is true a lot of the times, there is a great deal of spamming that happens there, and its hard to moderate on a normal day, let alone when there's big events happening outside the forum which is reducing users time spent on the forum due to their real life duties taking over.

Although, this forum caters for all types of cryptocurrencies, and has become in my opinion larger than just Bitcoin, and is more of a cryptocurrency forum. I still think that the majority of the changes over the years to the forum has been revolved around Bitcoin. There's only been a few changes to cater for alternate coins. Mainly, in recent years to reduce the spam issue we currently have. So, I'm not sure I agree with the criticism of the forum becoming a wider discussion platform than just Bitcoin, after all the forum is primarily a Bitcoin forum since the main sections are focused on Bitcoin. Plus, its completely optional if you want to read the altcoin sections or even have them displayed. You get to choose what you digest on this forum, and this is by far the go to place for discussing cryptocurrency. You could go to Reddit I suppose, but I've never been a fan of the way posts are displayed on Reddit.  

Also, I think the majority of users on this forum are aware of the issue with signature spammers or those that are looking to join signature campaigns. They usually, tend to avoid getting reported, and therefore will post in sections, and threads with lots of replies to avoid getting reported or added to a blacklist. That's always been the case, and years ago this happened in other sections, we saw it briefly happening in project development, and there's still to this day posts being made along the lines of "Good project" outside of the altcoin section. Mainly, in the service announcements, and project development sections. Its not completely exclusive to the altcoin sections, and those that post in the altcoin section are sometimes given a bad name for nothing. Sometimes it is justified of course, but it would be nice if we judged on a individual basis instead of applying a blanket statement to all. Don't worry about those that are spamming to get in a signature campaign, and encourage the behaviour of good campaign mangers so their efforts are largely useless. Whenever, you do see bad quality posts, and you want something to happen report them.

Most bitcoin-related sections are moderated more heavily than the altcoin section, but spammers and shitposters are still very much attracted to Bitcoin Discussion last time I checked--and that's got to be a hard section to moderate, because of the sheer number of posts getting made on a daily basis.

And you're right, the reason for OP's observations is signature campaign spammers/bounty hunters.  Period.  A lot of them don't know much about crypto, so they post generic posts in the altcoin section, which is the most relevant section to whatever altcoin/token bounty they're in.

It's the second reason listed above that's the primary one.  I don't know how many altcoin section posters are wearing advertising in their signature, but if I had to guess it would be over 90%.  There might be some hype about DeFi sparking new threads, but most of the posts made within those threads are likely garbage shitposts made by bounty hunters.  And I don't think the first reason listed above has anything to do with it.

Most of my merits receive are from beginners & Help section. I thought that Beginners & Help section is one of the merited section in the forum but the data from statistics presented were really not. I was a bit surprised for the result. Anyway, following the trends here of most merited posts are usually coming from users tha are contributing mostly for the forum so it is expected that merits circulation here would be greater compare to other sections. This is somewhat a motivation to users here in this section to continue being helpful by contributing posts that could be essential or substantial as a reference in the future.

Statisctics are usually given few merits for it is a load of work and lots of analysis to do. It may be easier for the statisticiam here but for us the average users may find it difficult at the same time interesting from acquiring data and its analysis.

Merit source are also active here to get updates and information or it could also be that merit source could easily spot posts here that could be merited compared to other section with thousands of spam posts from bounty hunting. Spotting to merit a post their would be really difficilult and lot of work to do. Merit source would think that it is better to give the merits here to users that could help them reward the merits in other sections.

The meta section is all about us on how to become helpful and contribute to the forum. All ideas were always being shared here for the betterment of the forum. Issues and arsing major problems about the forum usually discuss here and users share valuable thoughts regarding with issues likely to get merits. It is rightful that meta should have more merits circulated compared to other sections.

Unfortunately most of the older members will agree with that fact - that part of the forum is definitely out of control a long time ago, and there is nothing to see and read there except for those who have some interest in altcoins. However, if we take into account that this is the most active part of the forum, some things become clearer - and if we miraculously shut down those boards, what would that mean for the forum in terms of traffic? It is obviously an assessment that it is better to keep some things in one place than to spread them all over the forum.

As I hear from some members, bounty hunter is literally an occupation in some parts of the world.

 Bitcoin discussion also like the altcoin discussion is becoming a focal point for spammers, some post/topic/reply not meant for those boards finds its way into the boards and remains there,
This post become a ground base for the gravitational pull of spam replies and in no time having pages after pages

This post for example and many like it.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.55206976

Altcoin discussion board needs sterilization from these infections/decays

Without scraping anything, I already know it's bad. Just have a look at Patrol, it's filled with "proof", "twitter" and "facebook" shitposts. The altcoin boards are also a lost cause: there are only a few topics that are worth reading, and most of those are flooded by spammers anyway.

I still don't get why it's allowed to post millions of mindless "bounty reports" on this forum.

The discussions in the Russian section on alternative cryptocurrencies may indeed seem to be the most active, but in my opinion, this does not correspond to reality. The Russian section itself is very large, perhaps this gives the impression. But according to my observations, all these numbers remain from the days of bounty companies. Today the forum really lacks people. Speaking specifically about the Russian local department, the same people write there.

And of course, all posts in these sections are just a requirement for subscription bounty companies. And if we talk about the merits that are distributed in these sections, then it is difficult to find good posts there, since there is mainly the quantity, not the quality of posts.

You can see the merit distribution per board here (update once a week, although data related to post counts is updated monthly):

Merits per board:
https://public.tableau.com/views/BitcointalkMeritDashboard/SectionSubsection?:language=es&:display_count=y&:origin=viz_share_link

Merits per board II:
https://public.tableau.com/views/BitcointalkMeritDashboard/ReceivedMeritSubsectionII?:language=es&:display_count=y&:origin=viz_share_link

Merits per post per board:
https://public.tableau.com/views/BitcointalkMeritDashboard/MeritperPost?:language=es&:display_count=y&:origin=viz_share_link

There are plenty more tabs to see, but those help to get a certain overview on Merit distribution per board. If you play around with the filters, you can see how things evolve over time. Specifically for example, the Altcoin Ann board on the first tab displays having received 5,71% of all awarded sMerits. Nevertheless, delimiting the date range to 2020, the received amount represents only 1,73% of al 2020 awarded sMerits.

The simple and convenient explanation is that once when bitcoin was the biggest in "popularity" and only a couple of altcoins were there, we have the Bitcoin OGs in this forum and those sections would be seeing a lot of action and legitimate threads even if some of those were mindless rambling on anti-establishment propaganda.

Altcoins boomed after that and honestly the number of users who read and think before replying on any topic reduced to a very small fraction because the bounty hunters increased in number of accounts.

At times we had 100+ accounts owned by the same user spamming in bounties section while I feel just around 100 is the number of legitimate users who still help out others and reply constructively in threads, global threads that is.

This is a bitcoin forum but altcoin discussions (

I forgot about that but I almost got all the listed boards except for Tokens, lol. It's a significant improvement for the listed boards, at least something has been done.

Thanks. Your post reminds me that rules on bumping topics changed because of massive abuses in altcoin-related boards.

• Bumping changes on some boards

Off-topic: 888 is a nice figure. 

I think no one is disagreeing with you because it's true. Most of the time, people who start their projects post in the announcements and when you start anything that is cryptocurrency and different from Bitcoin, it would be considered already an altcoin. It's not that surprising if you check the Recent Unread Topics at the top of the site. A majority from my list are from Altcoins:

• Bounties (Altcoins)
• Announcements (Altcoins)
• Mining (Altcoins)
• Service Announcements (Altcoins)
• Altcoin Discussion

Like others have pointed out. The few times Ive decided to expose scams ( also I think DaveF posted about this..but a glaring reason altcoin scam threads should be allowed to stick in scam accusations thread)  there or try and have a conversation about why the Alts are scams or anything at all for that matter, this is the kind of high level conversations that go on there - https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.22131305

It’s not interest in legit coin projects..it’s just a swamp of mostly morons.

I'm not sure if his tool is yet active or not, have not used in a while. But data scraper like LoyceV, DdmrDdmr, tranthidung can give you the data you need. I just found some old data. You may get some information from there- https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/analysis-merit-per-post-per-sectionsubsection-5083312

That's a really interesting idea, I wonder if someone can do it for us? Not sure if there is a way or method to get that information.
That data will be so interesting to see.

Yup, you are correct. I would like to know the above quoted information if possible by any of the member on the forum.

The altcoin section is heavily used due to bounties IMO. Users flock there to spam the altcoin boards with useless nonsense normally. You might ask LoyceV to scrape the data on the sections you mentioned and find out how many posts are reported and deleted from those sections. Might give you a better understanding of how crappy that section can be.

The reason is very simple. Spammers can spam in altcoin section a lot without the tension of post getting deleted. Most of the signature spammers post in altcoin section only. Bitcoin boards are moderated much heavily than altcoin boards.
Bounty section is most active because every day thousands of bounty reports are being posted. This is simple explanation.
Now, if you want to find out the true active board, find the board with most merit being distributed each day. I think that will be good idea to find out active board in term of quality.

None of this are true to be honest.