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There is another Bitcoin forum called witcoin and they have implemented an interesting system: You have to pay bitcoins to post and cast votes, and you get a revenue share on replies and upvotes.

That is probably taking it a bit too far for a "general public" site, but how about allowing optional donations for good answers by encouraging everyone to associate their profile with a Bitcoin receiving address?

The same idea was brought up on Stackoverflow (with Flattr), where it was received very negatively. But I think on a Bitcoin site, such a system would be very topical. And of course, it is opt-in on both ends (for receiving and paying).

And to those who oppose the idea of encouraging or supporting this behaviour, would you be offended if people gave a receiving address on their profile anyway?

Or is this even against the Terms of Service here?

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  • As of now, witcoin is dead (or at least has changed address)
    – o0'.
    Apr 19, 2013 at 10:37
  • Removed signature, due to no signature policy. -> "Please don't use signatures or taglines in your posts. Every post you make is already 'signed' with your standard user card, which links directly back to your user page. Your user page belongs to you — fill it with interesting information about your interests, cool stuff you've worked on, or whatever else you like! " -Jeff Atwood in meta.stackexchange.com/a/5038/232061
    – Murch Mod
    Feb 16, 2014 at 18:45

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I'm not offended if people put an address in their profile, but I don't want to encourage it either. I very much think expecting or asking for "tips" for answers goes against the spirit of the stack exchange site. Plus when you introduce money into the equation, it greatly complicates things like who answered first, or who answered better, or this person stole my answer, etc. I vote no for many reasons, those are just a few. (Also, it might go against TOS)

Honestly, bringing just a titch of politics into things for the moment, I think bitcoin as an open-source project got a lot less interesting when it suddenly became about bitcoin as a way to make money. I would really like to see this site bring back some more of the "community" vibe that open-source projects tend to take on, and less of the huckster/marketplace vibe that the forums shifted to rather quickly

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  • "Also, it might go against TOS". That would be a most important point... I'll add it to the question.
    – Thilo
    Sep 8, 2011 at 4:39
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    "project got a lot less interesting when it suddenly became about bitcoin as a way to make money". That seems to be a bit of an ugly situation with Bitcoin. I see this more from a "Flattr" point of view. I don't want to or expect to be making money of these systems, but I feel a real need to spend money that way. Every time I listen to a podcast, or incorporate some open source code into mine (especially if it is paid work), then I want to give a little something back. And I am not social enough for retweets or Like buttons. That is why I want to see these donate buttons everywhere.
    – Thilo
    Sep 8, 2011 at 4:56
  • @Thilo I agree with lemonginger and the accepted answer at SO is also valid here: if I earn money from writing here, I might not be able to post here from work. Adding an address in your profile is optional and I don't have anything against it.
    – nmat
    Sep 8, 2011 at 19:29
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I'm relatively certain that the rules permit you to put a Bitcoin address in your profile, and I have one in mine. If you want to encourage people to put one in theirs, say with a note in your own profile, you are welcome to do so.

If you're talking about some kind of integration with the site itself beyond that, that's not a good idea. SE sites are fundamentally built around a reputation system.

I don't have strong feelings one way or the other about a neutral note in the FAQ mentioning that you are permitted to put a Bitcoin address in your profile if you wish to do so. I personally have no objections to something like, "Please do not include anything but answers in your answers. Every answer you write includes, right in it, a link to your profile page, which is yours to say what you wish. You may list a Bitcoin address, or addresses for other crypto-currencies, there if you wish".

But I think other people do have strong objections to anything that could be seen as an official encouragement. And I'm sympathetic to the argument that anything that could be seen as even slightly pressuring people could be detrimental to the site.

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