Regardless of the XT debate, centralization on reddit and bitcointalk has become a critical issue for the bitcoin community. A few anonymous people control both these forums, giving them unprecedented power to manipulate discussion, alter reputation, ban users, and even to facilitate scammers in the name of getting profits. Protecting the de-centralized spirit of the Bitcoin community is no longer on their list of priorities, in fact those in charge have publicly stated centralization is necessary. It doesn't matter how many thousands of posts you contributed or if you've traded thousands of Bitcoins, if one of the few who control reddit and bitcointalk decide to get rid of you there's nothing you can do. Bitcointalk has done more damage to my reputation than any other website I've ever used, and I only used it for a year. The damage wasn't even from the scammers, but rather those in charge of the community posting false allegations with zero evidence, and enforcing a guilty until proven innocent policy. Even when such allegations are definitively proven incorrect and allegations cease the posts stay on the internet forever, another site crawls all the bitcoin discussion and saves it. It's not an isolated incident either, happened several times to me before I realized how detrimental it was to even post there, and I've seen countless other members receive the same treatment.
There is no doubt that the centralization and censorship of the Bitcoin community is massively inhibiting the advance of Bitcoin and also the growth of the Bitcoin economy. We are scaring away intellectuals, businessman, and newbies that are just getting started. It has put us in a very dangerous position, the community has been weakened, and there is the possibility that the forums could be handed over to the government at any time due to their centralized nature. I am creating a de-centralized forum, and I mean truly de-centralized as I nor anyone else will be able to control it. I am already writing the code and I'm confident it won't be long until a basic release is out. I am certain this will be very positive for the Bitcoin community, and the rest of the world since centralization is getting stronger everyday. The world needs this to level the playing field, it will be impossible for anything to be deleted on this forum even if the NSA attacks it. No one will be banned ever. The only rule is there are no rules. If anyone is interested in this feel free to email me back. I am doing this for zero profit and without any pay, just out of passion, so I don't mind getting as much people as possible involved. -----Original Message----- From: sisadm101--- via bitcoin-dev <bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> To: bitcoin-dev <bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> Sent: Fri, Aug 21, 2015 2:10 pm Subject: [bitcoin-dev] Censorship People are wondering why there is such a division in the bitcoin community at this time. Bitcoin as a whole is only so big. The bitcoin discussion communities are spread out, but there are only a few popular ones. BitcoinTalk and Reddit seem to be the largest, most popular where bitcoin discussion happens consistently and from almost everyone in the community (devs, users, btc companies, merchants, and so on). I think we all know where this is going. If not, here you go. BitcoinTalk and Reddit are managed by a single person: Theymos. It's become quite clear over the past several days/weeks, that Theymos is highly censoring bitcoin discussion, mainly on Reddit, but also BitcoinTalk. If this single person is able to censor content, and hush the debate, he (and whatever his agenda is), wins. How can we as a community discuss these proposed changes, if the discussion is from a one sided point of view? There doesn't seem to be a solution at this time, but I find it dissapointing that many (in this very email list) aren't discussing this important part of the issue. Maybe it's becuase Theymos is anti-bigger blocks, which seems to coincide with the Blockstream point of view, which many of the core devs belong to. ------------------------------------------------- ONLY AT VFEmail! - Use our Metadata Mitigator™ to keep your email out of the NSA's hands! $24.95 ONETIME Lifetime accounts with Privacy Features! No Bandwidth Quotas! 15GB disk space! Commercial and Bulk Mail Options! _______________________________________________ bitcoin-dev mailing list bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
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