Problem with the crypocurrency community

Question

This question arises from here where the OP discusses about rushed proposals, in this case for the cryptocurrency IOTA.

My question is of a slightly similar nature in that it focuses on blockchain in general. For those who are not very familiar, blockchain is the underlying technology for blockchain-based cryptocurrencies. Common sense would dictate that it is good to have a Stack Exchange site for blockchain technology and one for cryptocurrencies in general, especially since they might have similarities that can help solve problems across different blockchains.

Unfortunately however, we have a Bitcoin, Ethereum, Iota, Monero, Neo Blockchain, and one that's already closed - Dogecoin.

If you look here, at a list of available currencies, I think you'll agree that the situation is going to get out of hand, with a Stack Exchange site for every coin that pops up, especially if they are approved at a moment's notice.

Would it not be better to unite all cryptocurrencies under one Stack Exchange site? CryptoCurrency?

Answer 1

There already is a cryptocurrencies site. The problem is that it's called Bitcoin, not Cryptocurrencies, so users of anything but bitcoin don't realise their questions would be on-topic there.

From their tour:

Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies is a question and answer site for cryptocurrency enthusiasts. It's built and run by you as part of the Stack Exchange network of Q&A sites. With your help, we're working together to build a library of detailed answers to every question about Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Namecoin, Litecoin, Ripple, ZCash, Dogecoin, and NXT.

Bitcoin have explicitly stated on their meta that they embrace other cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum as an example (the reason that another site was warranted there was because there were aspects of Ethereum that weren't on-topic for Bitcoin).

But I agree—it's getting silly to have a new Q&A site for every popular cryptocurrency when the expertise is very similar for most cryptocurrencies. That's why we don't have a "C Stack Exchange" site, and a "Python Stack Exchange" site—it would become infeasible and it's likely that someone might be interested in both.

Answer 2

I agree that it makes most sense to have a single blockchain community that addresses any questions on Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Ethereum, IOTA, Blockstack, etc.

If it were up to me, I'd rename Bitcoin.SE to Blockchain.SE and subsequently close Blockchain technology, NEO Blockchain, Etherium, IOTA, Monero and other blockchain-related proposals as duplicates.

It's not up to me, however.

Answer 3

Many of the more popular cryptocurrencies are platforms for development, not just digital assets. The assets are a part of the platform.

That being said, Stack Overflow has been great as a general programming site that supports different programming platforms in one location. Through the use of tags, I think a general cryptocurrency site could work.

Answer 4

No, clearly not. I've been following the Ethereum proposal from the early stages and was moderator pro-tempore on Ethereum through the public beta until we recently graduated to a full site.

And there were all these people rolling eyes, and telling us Ethereum questions are well on topic for Bitcoin Stack Exchange. At some point, Bitcoin even reconsidered to change the scope to Blockchain or Cryptocurrencies to be more inclusive. But they never did.

And here is why: Because Stack Exchange sites only work out for certain technologies with dedicated communities. Ethereum introduced a full stack of new programming languages and even a new programming paradigm. It quickly gathered developers from all over the world curious to learn the new concept and the site was one of the most active communities during an early public beta, with up to 100 posts per day.

Now, imagine, there is a site in the network called Bitcoin, or even Blockchain, and 90% of the questions are about Ethereum. What would you do? First of all, most of the users would feel misplaced, repeatedly asking highly specific questions on a site not really dedicated to the topic. They are not programming blockchain or touching Bitcoin at all. It's an absolute natural move to create something clearly dedicated to the topic. Similar to Ubuntu having its own site even though there is a Linux Stack Exchange site.

And Area 51 is the perfect place to test whether a new community is worth to have its own site in the network. The process of proposal, definition, commitment, private beta, public beta, and final graduation is nothing I would describe as something that's approved at moment's notice. It's long, winding, and stony road. And every community deserves a chance to test the waters. Who remembers all skeptics that said Ethereum will fail in private beta?

Good luck IOTA, which is -by the way- neither a cryptocurrency, nor really a blockchain.

Answer 5

I think that there is now room for a "Blockchain" site now that the Bitcoin site has significantly narrowed it's scope. Ethereum is also less welcoming when it comes to generic Blockchain questions (mainly because Bitcoin was scooping those up); you can see here what is considered on topic.

There was a "Blockchain Technology" proposal, but it has been deleted. However, that was before Bitcoin and Ethereum narrowed their scopes.

In my opinion a "Blockchain" site that handles "Blockchain and related technologies" such as mining, wallets would be helpful. But in that case the Area51 proposal needs to be resurrected. There are a lot of people working in Blockchain technology after all, and it seems that they are currently not represented.

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Problems with the proposal in the question (to merge all the sites together):

• Cryptocurrencies discuss much more than just blockchain as a technology. So if you have e.g. a question about, say, the way that blockchain indexing occurs, or the current value of Blockchain in dollars, then it makes much more sense on a more specific site.

• Another problem is that some cryptocurrencies may not even use blockchain technology. So including them would create a problem.

• And more practically speaking, you'd first need support from the specific sites if you want to merge anything.

All in all, having a single site where these vastly different question converge doesn't seem like a good idea.

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Note that I'm currently moderator at Cryptography (i.e. not cryptocurrency) where a few of these generic questions pop up. Generally we don't have an idea what to do with them, although I did create a a post on Meta on where to ask blockchain & cryptocurrency questions. I'm not the person to restart the proposal; I have no personal interest. There is also this question on Meta that links to this answer.

Answer 6

It makes sense to group chains that are technically similar to one another together. So a substrate one where all parachains can use as well as polkadot and kusama. But it would not make much sense to lump it in with solana for example as the only thing they really have in common is they use the same programming language.

Answer 7

I do not see that there is a real need for an "all currencies" group/page. They differ way too much and it would, in my humble opinion, lead to too much noise and way less real information transported.

You see, this in so many forums, where every discussion then just goes in all directions, and in the end, it is all just noise, one that you would get anywhere/everywhere exactly with the same noise.

So I see a benefit that the information traded gets a higher value.

Answer 8

There are two groups that need to be split:

• Real projects
• New copy/paste projects
• Promotion and hyping methods should be forbidden
• Non-topic related discussion should be deleted. Social networks are correct place for such

I think here some methods from some Stack Exchange sites could be used. Some Stack Exchange sites have restrictions like: a coin already must have been active for at least one year. That way, dead projects and requests for some/most copy & paste projects are excluded. Trolls will always exist, but Stack Exchange deals very good with that.

There are very good projects. What you see in getting out of control is the real interest towards the topic blockchain, which is by far bigger than just bitcoin. Until recently, bitcointalk was used for announcements.

At the beginning, most did think correctly that it is a correct place as that is where people with an interest in blockchain find each other. Bitcointalk itself is in no way demonstration of free speech or anything similar.

The idea was to keep all altcoin projects in overview and if there are useful developments, those could be implemented to bitcoin. But on bitcointalk it very soon got out of control. Moderators, as well as site and domain owners, do follow some very questionable agendas, resulting in many cases as a crime which nobody wants to investigate.

This is the real reason why so many people who, though they have a communication platform on bitcointalk, need to switch, as there isn't any better place to get into technical discussions, and Stack Exchange seems to be perfect for that.

My suggestion for the long run would be anyway to create a separate category called "Blockchain". There are very many blockchain projects outside and with time, which look now for some replacement of bitcointalk and similar questionable forums.

Answer 9

IOTA is the only cryptocurrency based on the new Tangle-technology

I suppose we want to bundle Q&A's if they have much in common. There are different criteria according to which you can bundle topics. It is true that all cryptocurrencies are based on a distributed ledger technology. However, there are two such technologies out there (in the cryptocurencies space): Blockchain & Tangle (DAG).

If you take a business perspective as a criterion, then they are very similar, but from a technical perspective they follow very different principles. If IOTA was part of some Bitcoin- or crypto Stack Exchange site, then users would have to specify #IOTA each time they ask a question, because it makes a difference (e.g. mining, transaction fees, blocks, ...).

In my personal opinion, a Stack Exchange site called "Tangle" would be more sensible. Nevertheless, IOTA probably claims the technology the same way Bitcoin once did it. Therefore, it makes sense to call it IOTA.

Answer 10

I think the reasoning for a Stack Exchange community for individual coins is really for the developers' benefit. Yes, it would be good to have a place to discuss overarching questions like scalability, block distribution, etc.

But those topics really don't warrant a Q & A session, because they aren't specific enough to have sourced responses to technical questions.