text:
2018: a year in moderation
It's New Year's Day in Stack Exchange land...
A distinguishing characteristic of these sites is how they are moderated:

We designed the Stack Exchange network engine to be mostly self-regulating, in that we amortize the overall moderation cost of the system across thousands of teeny-tiny slices of effort contributed by regular, everyday users.
-- A Theory of Moderation

While there certainly are Moderators here, a significant amount of the moderation is done by ordinary people, using the privileges
they've earned by virtue of their contributions to the site. Each of you contributes a little bit of time and effort, and together you accomplish much.
As we enter a new year, let's pause and reflect, taking a moment to appreciate the work that we do here together.
To that end, here is how the moderation done here on Bitcoin breaks down by activity over the past 12 months:
                 Action                  Moderators Community¹
---------------------------------------- ---------- ----------
Users suspended²                                  1         46
Users destroyed                                 182          0
Users deleted                                     1          0
Users contacted                                   2          0
Tasks reviewed³: Suggested Edit queue           310        947
Tasks reviewed³: Reopen Vote queue               29        106
Tasks reviewed³: Low Quality Posts queue        114        779
Tasks reviewed³: Late Answer queue              136        862
Tasks reviewed³: First Post queue               527      3,826
Tasks reviewed³: Close Votes queue              677      2,570
Tags merged                                      32          0
Tag synonyms proposed                            21          0
Tag synonyms created                             22          0
Questions reopened                               20          0
Questions protected                               1        165
Questions migrated                               21          0
Questions merged                                  6          0
Questions flagged⁴                               18      2,015
Questions closed                              1,080        509
Question flags handled⁴                         809      1,224
Posts unlocked                                    0          4
Posts undeleted                                  40         65
Posts locked                                      5        421
Posts deleted⁵                                1,646      3,325
Posts bumped                                      0      8,647
Comments undeleted                                9          0
Comments flagged                                  1        697
Comments deleted⁶                               269      1,242
Comment flags handled                           210        488
Answers flagged                                  42      4,036
Answer flags handled                          2,838      1,240
All comments on a post moved to chat              3          0

Footnotes
¹ "Community" here refers both to the membership of Bitcoin without diamonds next to their names, and to the automated systems otherwise known as user #-1.
² The system will suspend users under three circumstances: when a user is recreated after being previously suspended, when a user is recreated after being destroyed for spam or abuse, and when a network-wide suspension is in effect on an account.
³ This counts every review that was submitted (not skipped) - so the 3 suggested edits reviews needed to approve an edit would count as 3, the goal being to indicate the frequency of moderation actions. This also applies to flags, etc.
⁴ Includes close flags (but not close or reopen votes).
⁵ This ignores numerous deletions that happen automatically in response to some other action.
⁶ This includes comments deleted by their own authors (which also account for some number of handled comment flags).
Wishing you all a happy new year...


text:
Community Promotion Ads — 2019
2019 is here! And with the new year, as usual, comes a new iteration of Community Promotion Ads! Let’s refresh these for the coming year :)
What are Community Promotion Ads?
Community Promotion Ads are community-vetted advertisements that will show up on the main site, in the right sidebar. The purpose of this question is the vetting process. Images of the advertisements are provided, and community voting will enable the advertisements to be shown.
Why do we have Community Promotion Ads?
This is a method for the community to control what gets promoted to visitors on the site. For example, you might promote the following things:

the site's twitter account
handy cryptocurrency related resources
cool events or conferences
anything else your community would genuinely be interested in

The goal is for future visitors to find out about the stuff your community deems important. This also serves as a way to promote information and resources that are relevant to your own community's interests, both for those already in the community and those yet to join.
Why do we reset the ads every year?
Some services will maintain usefulness over the years, while other things will wane to allow for new faces to show up. Resetting the ads every year helps accommodate this, and allows old ads that have served their purpose to be cycled out for fresher ads for newer things. This helps keep the material in the ads relevant to not just the subject matter of the community, but to the current status of the community. We reset the ads once a year, every December.
The community promotion ads have no restrictions against reposting an ad from a previous cycle. If a particular service or ad is very valuable to the community and will continue to be so, it is a good idea to repost it. It may be helpful to give it a new face in the process, so as to prevent the imagery of the ad from getting stale after a year of exposure.
How does it work?
The answers you post to this question must conform to the following rules, or they will be ignored.

All answers should be in the exact form of:
[![Tagline to show on mouseover][1]][2]

   [1]: http://image-url
   [2]: http://clickthrough-url

Please do not add anything else to the body of the post. If you want to discuss something, do it in the comments.
The question must always be tagged with the magic community-ads tag. In addition to enabling the functionality of the advertisements, this tag also pre-fills the answer form with the above required form.

Image requirements

The image that you create must be 300 x 250 pixels, or double that if high DPI.
Must be hosted through our standard image uploader (imgur)
Must be GIF or PNG
No animated GIFs
Absolute limit on file size of 150 KB
If the background of the image is white or partially white, there must be a 1px border (2px if high DPI) surrounding it.

Score Threshold
There is a minimum score threshold an answer must meet (currently 6) before it will be shown on the main site.
You can check out the ads that have met the threshold with basic click stats here.

This is a demonstration post to indicate how this should look when an ad is posted. It also doubles as your twitter ad, but it's up to you if you wish to promote it by voting

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

sort: votes


text:
Why so hostile towards all cryptocurrencies except bitcoin?
How do we remove the hostility and radio silence for cryptocurrencies which are not bitcoin on this site?
Recently I posted a question about bitcoin-cash and it was met with hostility followed by radio silence.  People here seem to want this site to only be about bitcoin, so when their comments get removed for being hostile, they seem to resort to I guess an online form of "passive aggression" by possibly choosing not to answer any questions which are not about bitcoin.
It seems this sites scope is currently about all crypto currencies.  If this is the case, is it possible to open the minds of the hostile ones, so they can look past their personal opinions and just help?
Would it be worth creating a new SE site called cryptocurrencies.stackexchange.com where it becomes obvious that the site is about all cryptocurrencies and changing bitcoin.stackexchange.com to only be about bitcoin to make it easier for people to understand the scope?

+1 for creating a cryptocurrencies.stackexchange.com for altcoins not served by a specific community such as bitcoin.SE or ethereum.SE, and then no longer allowing non-Bitcoin questions on bitcoin.SE.

Also check out Nick's related answer here: https://bitcoin.meta.stackexchange.com/a/667/5406

@DavidA.Harding, do you know how to make that happen?  Can anyone create a new SE here?  I've never tried or looked into it.  If anyone here has experience in this, could you make this happen?  However, to make it effective, bitcoin.se would have to be locked down to bitcoin (btc) Q&A only IMO.

How do we remove the hostility and radio silence for cryptocurrencies which are not bitcoin on this site?

The answer to that is not new: to change this, we'd need more contributors taking an active interest in these topics.

It seems this sites scope is currently about all crypto currencies. If this is the case, is it possible to open the minds of the hostile ones, so they can look past their personal opinions and just help?

Yes, the scope of the site includes other cryptocurrencies. However, that doesn't mean that any individual contributor is obligated to volunteer time answering questions they are not personally interested in.
It's a bit of a catch-22: we don't seem to have a critical mass of users that are interested in maintaining and answering questions about altcoins, so in turn no new contributors for that content are lured in, which in turn means that there are fewer interesting questions to entice competent answerers.
Frankly, this would be solved if every altcoin had one or two contributors that subscribed to the relevant tags and edited/answered every corresponding question such as e.g. Rene Pickhardt has been doing for Lightning Network questions lately.
I and probably others as well have spent time advocating this to altcoin communities, yet the situation has not improved: most altcoin questions still get really low engagement, don't get cleaned up, and also don't get good answers.
In a weaker form, the situation could even be helped, if bad questions in general got culled more effectively, so that any interested party looking at unanswered questions in these tags would not see a heap of trash. So, in a twisted way, altcoin questions getting more scrutiny might actually be working in favor of altcoin questions (although maybe not in your specific case).

Would it be worth creating a new SE site called cryptocurrencies.stackexchange.com where it becomes obvious that the site is about all cryptocurrencies and changing bitcoin.stackexchange.com to only be about bitcoin to make it easier for people to understand the scope?

This has been proposed multiple times in the past, and a few attempts to start a new SE in Area51 had been taken. One of the reasons this didn't succeed was because Bitcoin.SE was covering that topic.
However, the combination of narrowing the topic of Bitcoin.SE to Bitcoin-only and starting a Cryptocurrency.SE has not been tried before. I could see this getting support from both Bitcoin and altcoin proponents. It might be that the time for this idea has come.

I guess Cryptocurrency.SE can be tried, though the situation might be already bad enough when there are too many specific cryptocurrency proposals on Area 51, fragmenting Cryptocurrency.SE...

@Murch, how do we make this happen?

Lock down bitcoin.se so only bitcoin (btc) questions can be asked.

Create a cryptocurrencies.se for everything else?

When people on bitcoin.se post about altcoins, we can direct them to cryptocurrencies.se and vise versa.

I've been talking to a couple people lately, some of them are interested in championing this change. I hope that they will open a corresponding meta discussion soon.

@oshirowanen: See https://bitcoin.meta.stackexchange.com/q/1005/5406

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Proposal: Narrow topic of Bitcoin.Stackexchange to questions applicable to Bitcoin
Bitcoin.stackexchange.com (Bitcoin.SE) appears to have been misnamed as the scope of "allowed topics" is much wider than Bitcoin. Originally, in Area51, the proposal was for only Bitcoin, but then it was suggested to enlarge the scope to include all cryptocurrencies. As a result Bitcoin.SE currently allows topics on:

Cryptocurrency or technology derived directly from Bitcoin such as Namecoin or Litecoin
Distributed cryptocurrencies not derived directly from Bitcoin such as Ripple, Ethereum or NXT

There have been discussions on the recap of rules related to allowed questions and changing Bitcoin.SE name so as to be more welcoming for other cryptocurrency topics. But there hasn't been a discussion to narrow the allowed topics on this website to only Bitcoin since the creation of Bitcoin.SE back in 2011. Almost 8 years back it was understandable to include topics broader than Bitcoin, as there were only a handful of other projects. Since then, the cryptocurrency world has undergone a paradigm shift in terms of the amount of deviation that they have related to Bitcoin (eg. IOTA).
I would like to open this topic up for discussion on the narrowing the topics and two options which can be considered:

Narrow topic of Bitcoin.SE to only Bitcoin and create a new Cryptocurrency.SE site for altcoins not served by a specific community such as Bitcoin.SE or Ethereum.SE (more here). Once that is done, cease allowing non-Bitcoin questions on Bitcoin.SE
When bitcoin is undergoing forks (like BCH), allow questions on the proposed fork until the time of the hard-fork, but then treat it as an altcoin question as time progresses.

What about questions on the ᴏᴍɴɪ layer ?

@user2284570 I agree with AndrewChow. Omni defines a completely independent and separate protocol that has its own transactions and data formats. It's only use for the Bitcoin blockchain is to store data.

I'm speaking on how the layer itself interact with Bitcoin.

@user2284570 questions like how Omni interacts with the Bitcoin blockchain can be considered on-topic. However, if a user wants to ask question about Safecoin that uses the omni protocol, that should be considered off-topic and should belong to cc.SE.com

It’s something we agree.

Disclaimer: I'm obviously biased due to my long-term involvement in Bitcoin.
I am in favor of narrowing the scope, and based on comments and close votes by some of the more active contributors here, I believe there is sufficient mass for this. My reasoning is that people come to the Bitcoin stackexchange for questions on Bitcoin, and (mostly) low-quality noise about other things is primarily of interest to just the question asker, and generally reduces the quality of search results for most visitors.
I don't really care about the creation of a general cryptocurrency SE site, as most active cryptocurrencies already have their own SE sites, and sufficiently generic things should probably remain on topic here anyway. A separate SE site will at least need some group of people willing to spearhead that, and I'm doubtful we'll find those among the currently active contributors of this site. In any case, I don't feel that should affect the decision to narrow the scope here.
As I've suggested before, I think the criterion should be "applicability".
To be more specific, I think questions should be about technologies that are applicable to supporting the bitcoin currency, in the past, present, or future. This includes things that are generic for multiple currencies, or developments in altcoins that Bitcoin might adopt in the future, even hypothetically.
So examples of questions that are acceptable could be:

How did multisig work before the introduction of P2SH?
Help! BTC sent to my Electrum wallet doesn't show up!
Why does Bitcoin use a UTXO model rather than an account model?
How do Lightning nodes learn the channel graph?
What are the challenges in bringing Monero's privacy technology to Bitcoin?
How do hardware wallets for cryptocurrencies deal with hardware failure?
How do I safely build a site doing [cool stuff] using lnd as a backend?
What are some recent advances in zero-knowledge proofs that could help improving privacy?
How do I safely access my FunCoin (FUC) after the chain split? Site X asks for my private keys.

As examples of things I think should be off-topic, at least the "How do I create my own coin (for learning purposes) doing X by changing a line of code?" and "How do I do X in the smart contract language of altcoin Y" are a regular mild annoyance to me that I think don't have much value to most visitors.

I agree that we should narrow the scope of Bitcoin.SE. If you look through questions that are tagged as altcoins, you'll notice that many are left unanswered, and many are also fairly low quality questions.
I would suggest that we don't narrow down the topic too far. I think we could take an approach similar to what Bitcointalk.org does - to also allow questions that are about cryptocurrencies in general and not specific to one particular coin. For example, if a someone asked a question such as "what is the difference between Proof of Work and Proof of Stake", I think that should be allowed as it is a conceptual question related to cryptocurrencies in general. However questions specific to a coin like "How does coin X implement Proof of Stake" should be considered off topic.

It the question was about how proof of work works in Bitcoin, then sure.  But proof of stake is not, and will not likely ever be, in scope for Bitcoin Core.  In my opinion, only tech that relates to bitcoin should be on-topic for bitcoin.se

There are stack exchanges sites such as ethereum.SE.com, which have a scope that is restricted to Ethereum. There are some other altcoins that have sites in Area 51 as well. The Bitcoin.SE.com site includes altcoins, because at first it was the only cryptocurrency SE site, and so of course it would make sense to allow altcoin questions.
Now, years later, the 'cryptocurrency space' has clearly changed, so I think it is interesting to consider how we might form these stackexchange sites today, if we started from scratch.
With that in mind, I think it would make sense to have a Bitcoin-specific site, as well as a catch-all 'Cryptocurrency.SE.com'-- and of course any other altcoin-specific site that can sustain itself, such as ethereum. So I am in favour of restricting the scope to just Bitcoin-related questions.
I do believe this would have to be done in conjunction with the creation of a cryptocurrency.SE.com site, otherwise we're going to get a few upset users that now have nowhere to post their Qs. Once a cc.SE.com site is created, it would be simple enough to migrate all altcoin questions there (and that would help a new cc.SE.com site get traffic).
Likewise, I agree with the treatment of persistent chainsplitting hardforks: allow questions insofar as they pertain to Bitcoin and Bitcoin users, but as time passes questions pertinent to the non-BTC coin should be increasingly seen as off-topic.
I think it worth mentioning that situations like hardfork splits can be messy and unclear in the moment, and I could see someone making an objection to the above paragraph based on this. But I think there is plenty of room to allow BTC-fork questions, while making altcoin Qs off-topic. As @AndrewChow said, the scope could be restricted, without being narrowed down too far. In any case, StackExchange is a more objective Q/A posting board, so if there is a noteworthy fork coming up, users should be free to come post their questions here, and receive objective technical answers. Questions of opinion are off-topic, and as such StackExchange doesn't seem to be used as a soapbox all that much anyways.

Is there anyone that would be willing to spearhead the creation of a cryptocurrency.SE.com? Who are the most active altcoin-question answerers?
Are there any other issues or considerations to be addressed?

While true, I think having a separate site just for the ᴏᴍɴɪ layer is a bit far fetched.

@user2284570 Questions about Omni would go in the general cryptocurrencies.SE.

@AndrewChow I think the example ᴏᴍɴɪ is really tied to Bitcoin in order to ban them.

@user2284570 How is Omni tied to Bitcoin in such a way that questions about it would be appropriate for Bitcoin.SE? How would questions about Omni be applicable to Bitcoin users? Omni defines a completely independent and separate protocol that has its own transactions and data formats. It's only use for the Bitcoin blockchain is to store data. A quick look at the questions tagged as Omni indicates that most questions are about using the Omni protocol itself and using it effectively as an independent platform. As such, it should be considered off topic.

@AndrewChow yes, but I think questions which discuss things like this since they are about the links between ᴏᴍɴɪ and the Bitcoin ledger.

Hmm I think OMNI layer questions could be considered on topic, since they are tied to bitcoin at the basic level. Same for sidechains, or lightning network (both of which are arguably ‘more related’ to bitcoin, but I think Omni is still more related to btc than an actual altcoin).

@chytrik questions like how Omni interacts with the Bitcoin blockchain can be considered on-topic. However, if a user wants to ask question about Safecoin that uses the omni protocol, that should be considered off-topic and should belong to cc.SE.com

Given this change appears to have happened, should all old questions that are now out of scope be closed?
There still remain a lot of open old questions and tags which give the appearance of being allowed, but when a new question and poster comes along, the question is closed. It seems like it would better convey this policy change if all old questions were closed.

Most corresponding tags should have a "... is off-topic" as their first sentence. They get closed when they bubble back up, but presumably nobody felt like going through thousands of topics just to close-vote them.

It seems plausible that no one wanted to close the old questions, but then it makes it seem like the question topics are still relevant today to newcomers and disappointing when the questions are closed.

Since then, the cryptocurrency world has undergone a paradigm shift in terms of the amount of deviation that they have related to Bitcoin (eg. IOTA).

Yes, but there are many cryptocurrencies for which this situation still stands, let alone coins like ᴏᴍɴɪ which use the Bitcoin’s ledger. For some of them the situation is nearer than with Bitcoin through hard fork (if we compare to Litecoin at original creation time). All of those coins use Bitcoin’s software or at least Bitcoin Scripting system where some questions share knowledge with Bitcoin so can be answered by peoples who only know Bitcoin.
Restricting the scope to such coins makes sense (so rejecting things like Ethereum or Ripple).
For comparison, Super User is supposed to be restricted to ᴘᴄ. But in practice, anything which behaves like a ᴘᴄ at software level is allowed (this is how Raspberry pi question are allowed).
I especially think that when the scope of the site was enlarged, questions about litecoin were in mind. Let’s keep them on topic! So my point is :

Cryptocurrency or technology derived directly from Bitcoin such as Namecoin or Litecoin (keep those questions on topic)
Distributed cryptocurrencies not derived directly from Bitcoin such as Ripple, Ethereum or NXT (make them off‑topic)

So I disagree on

When bitcoin is undergoing forks (like BCH), allow questions on the proposed fork until the time of the hard-fork, but then treat it as an altcoin question as time progresses.

Because in that way, they would remains always on topic as long as they share code with Bitcoin core.

There are no hard forks of Bitcoin. Bcash and co are chain split altcoins. 2) I have no clue what Omni is (since I tend to ignore scams) but from what I gather here it's like asking questions like "How do I format a table in MS Word?" on the networking stackexchange because MS Word happens to use networking functionality somewhere. In other words: totally off topic. If Omni uses OP_RETURN then questions about OP_RETURN might be on topic.

@Jannes this is something we agree on. The reason of current design largely apply to things like litecoin at the time it was chosen. My answer is rather restrict the scope but let s keep questions not about bitcoin asked at the time of the scope was enlarged on topic.

Oh, you mean keep (not delete) existing questions+answers but don't allow new ones anymore? Hadn't thought about that yet tbh: what to do with already existing "offtopic" questions.

@Jannes no, as I said, I think the initial choice to broaden the cope of this site was made in consideration of Cryptocurrency or technology derived directly from Bitcoin such as Namecoin or Litecoin but not Distributed cryptocurrencies not derived directly from Bitcoin such as Ripple, Ethereum or NXT which appeared later/after. I think it should remain possible to ask questions about software internals of the first case without having even to refer to bitcoin the sae way it’s possible to ask Raspberry pi quesstion on Super User without referring to Linux.

But this site is not and shouldn't be just about the Bitcoin Core codebase and related topics. Sure, Litecoin's reference implementation may share parts of the code with Bitcoin's, but the same is not true about the rest of its ecosystem. I don't mind generic questions that apply to several/many cryptocurrencies as I stated in my answer, but I feel that Litecoin-specific questions would be mostly uninteresting to the site's audience, and be unlikely to get good answers.

@PieterWuille this is called a disagreement. I think this policy would allow to stay in line with the original choice of enlarging the scope of this site.

@user2284570 You're of course free to disagree with me on what the site's scope should be. I'm only pointing out that being "Bitcoin derived" isn't a very relevant criterion.


text:
If the site's scope is narrowed, what should the updated help centre text be?
Background
There is a proposal to narrow the scope of the bitcoin.stackexchange.com that has received positive feedback from a large majority of users that have engaged with it.
The vote count on the meta post is currently at +11 (+13/-2), and the answers that agree with the proposal are also overwhelmingly voted positive (the top answer is +14 (+14/0)). The meta post has been up for a month, and has received more attention than most meta posts (with +11, it is currently T-18th for net vote-count, out of 391 meta posts), so I believe this level of engagement suggests that the majority of our engaged, regular users are in favour of the proposal, and thus it is worth exploring what the language of the updated scope should be, in more detail.

What text needs to be changed?
I believe the following pages will require an update:

https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic

https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/help/closed-questions (I believe a new option for closing an off-topic question should be added)

After a quick search, it appears all other help section pages that mention 'on-topic-ness' just provide a link to the 'on-topic' page listed above, rather than repeating information about what is on- or off-topic. So (thankfully), the amount of text that needs to be changed is reasonably small. If I have missed a page with text that will need to be changed, please post it below!
This is the relevant text from https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic, with items that will require change highlighted in bold:

The Bitcoin stack exchange is for users and enthusiasts of Bitcoin and related technologies. If you have a question about …

how to use or accept Bitcoins
the Bitcoin network or protocol
the open-source Bitcoin client or other Bitcoin software
a cryptocurrency or technology derived directly from Bitcoin such as Namecoin or Litecoin
distributed cryptocurrencies not derived directly from Bitcoin such as Ripple, Ethereum or NXT

and it is not about …

programming technique
investment advice
politics or philosophy
a site or software recommendation

What should the new text be?
Below is my proposal for the updated text. I have used @Pieter Wuille's suggestion of 'applicability' as a defining criteria, but have also added a point about 'relevance to Bitcoin users', because I believe this language slightly better captures situations like chain-splitting hardfork 'airdrops' (wherein the Bitcoin network itself is unaffected by such events, but Bitcoin users will find relevance in related questions).

The Bitcoin stack exchange is for Bitcoin users and enthusiasts. It is a place to ask questions about …

how to use or accept Bitcoins
the Bitcoin network or protocol
the open-source Bitcoin client or other Bitcoin software
technologies or events that are applicable and relevant to the Bitcoin network and users, in the past, present, or future

and it is not about …

programming technique
investment advice
politics or philosophy
a site or software recommendation
any cryptocurrency or technology that is not applicable to the Bitcoin network, Bitcoin users, or Bitcoin developers

For the new off-topic question-closing option:

Questions about cryptocurrencies or projects that are not Bitcoin, and are not applicable to Bitcoin, are off-topic.

Optionally, a link to the meta thread proposing the narrowing of scope could be included, to provide context for this new off-topic closing option (this would be similar to the link included in the 'service recommendation' off-topic closing option).

Please offer your suggestions and critiques.

What does "Bitcoin network" and "Bitcoin users" mean? If by Bitcoin you mean the blockchain or its technology, that's a bit of a circular reasoning. I think explicitly stating it is about things relevant to the bitcoin currency is less ambiguous.

@PieterWuille Hmm I meant it in a rather pragmatic sense: the specific network that is called 'Bitcoin (BTC)', and the users of that network. I understand your reasoning, and I honestly don't disagree, but I wonder if just using 'currency' gives the wrong first impression of the scope being more... financial in nature? For example, a question about the gossip protocol between peers is related to the currency, though somewhat indirectly. I'm really not too strongly opinionated on this point in particular, but I think its best to find a balance between nuanced precision, and upfront clarity.

I don't think we disagree at all; I just think that "The Bitcoin network" may be misinterpreted as only referring to just the P2P protocol, and even "Bitcoin users" may be misinterpreted as people who interact with that network. As it's clearly wider than that (e.g. the Lightning network, or the protocol used between Electrum clients and servers), I think saying "technologies that support the bitcoin currency" is clearer and preciser (it clearly includes things other than just the blockchain, and it clearly does not include things that are specific to other currencies).

Fair points, I think that is all quite reasonable. I was going to suggest something along the lines of "technologies or events that are applicable and relevant to the Bitcoin network and users of the Bitcoin currency...". I do also think the explicit mention of 'currency' is helpful in clarifying that questions related to specific OMNI tokens would be off-topic, which my original proposal does not address as effectively.

There is going to be a problem with the provisions barring subjects directly related to the Bitcoin technology and framework.
In trying to unravel and organize how new sites are created, it was stated that Bitcoin would continue to support applications running on Bitcoin and the technologies derived directly from Bitcoin as a framework.
I have since closed many proposals for new sites on that basis… at the request of this site.
I understand the reasoning for removing non-Bitcoin-related technologies from your scope, but if you start needlessly splintering off these niche (but related) subjects into hundreds of sites, someone is more likely to start slashing and burning these subjects (maybe sending them back to Stack Overflow) rather than putting many thousands of hours into a massive refactoring of everyone's scope.
Blockchain subjects are a mess on Stack Exchange. I'm still hopeful that the space will eventually consolidate down to a few major technologies and the applications running on those platforms (we're already seeing some of the smaller sites closing as abandoned efforts). But if the leading technologies aren't willing to be more inclusive in their own scope, this can never happen.
I cannot see that ending well.

Since the time that this site was created, many thousands of cryptocurrencies have been created. Many have designed protocols that are so vastly different from Bitcoin that the only thing they share with it is the name "cryptocurrency". Yet such questions have remained on topic here even though they go unanswered and have zero applicability to Bitcoin all because they share the name "cryptocurrency". The goal of this scope change is to drop questions related to such coins because they are, for all intents and purposes, completely unrelated to Bitcoin.

Hey Robert, I was previously aware of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Monero, Iota and Stellar having their own SE sites. Now, there appear to also be EOS, Augur, and Tezos, while NEO and Beam got closed. All of these nine were started while they were considered on-topic on Bitcoin SE. It seems obvious that Bitcoin is not working as the "catch-all". Wouldn't it then be cleaner to let Bitcoin cover Bitcoin and create one cyptocurrencies/blockchain site that covers the general space?

I'm not sure I follow the reasoning that bitcoin.se being more inclusive in it's scope will promote the consolidation down to a few major techs. I would sooner argue that the opposite is true: having a focused site allows quality content to shine more brightly, and thus will be more efficient in educating newcomers. If the goal is to avoid splintering into many SE sites, I'd echo Murch's suggestion that unrelated altcoin techs with smaller user-bases should live in a catch-all site, and Bitcoin-related techs should live here.

My personal view is that almost all cryptocurrency projects fall into two categories: (a) ones with an entirely different design and challenges, so much that they likely want their own site (already the case for e.g. Monero and Ethereum) and (b) essentially clones of Bitcoin so much that their questions are equally applicable. By restricting the scope to Bitcoin we don't lose generally applicable questions about (b), while most of (a) has already moved to other sites.


text:
Proposed Timeline for Scope Change
Following up from the proposal to change the Bitcoin stackexchange's scope and the proposed help center text, we propose that the scope change occur on Monday July 1st.
This scope change will result in:

changes to the help center text indicating the new scope
a new off topic close reason
editing altcoin related tags to note that they are no longer on topic
closing of all unanswered questions that become off topic

We will not be changing:

old questions with answers that were on topic at their time of asking/answering

I support this proposal

We moderators perceive these changes to be in line with the explicit wishes of the contributors to Bitcoin Stackexchange. - Murch

Would it be possible to add migration options to other cryptocurrency SE sites as close reasons (for not just moderators?); already discussed in https://bitcoin.meta.stackexchange.com/q/952/208 but will become even more relevant.

So where altcoins related topics belongs to? There are a few dedicated SE site, but many coins exists now. These topics does not fit well to the SO site, not always related to coding. And there is no generic cryptocurrency site.

A generic cryptocurrency stackexchange can be created in area 51: https://area51.stackexchange.com/. If that gains enough traction, then altcoin questions can go there.

@andrew-chow: personally don't think now that can take the effort and responsibility to suggest this new site at area51, by myself, time and knowledge constraints are missing. But it would have place imho, a generic cryptocurrency and/or a blockchain site. I would follow and join it at least.

Finally could not resist and created the proposal.
See
Cryptocurrency proposal
and
Discussion at Area51

Do you think this meta SE site or the Bitcoin SE is proper place to announce it, in form of a question, to gather followers?

@HoZong Yes, the meta site is the correct place to announce this. Stack exchange sites do not have any sort of way to post announcements and such. Questions in the meta site are the correct way to do it. Note that we are following the example of other stack exchange sites which have done their own scope changes.

Well until now the result is only loosing reputation for me, for the innovative experiment. Not good. So I feel resistance to post it anywhere. It seems was not a good idea, should I delete the proposal?

I just stumbled across some additional text that could be changed for better clarity:
An Eth-related question was posted on Bitcoin.SE.com, and then migrated to Ethereum.SE.com. If you follow the link to the (now migrated) question, it includes this text:

This question came from our site for Bitcoin crypto-currency enthusiasts.

Here is a screenshot of the text in question:

I'd propose cutting out the "crypto-currency" bit, just for clarity.

Yeah, sounds fine, although I'm not sure that it is part of the details that we can change.

Please read my response to the help center before moving forward with this. You will need to reconsider some of the Bitcoin-related technologies you're booting from your scope.


text:
Progress tracker of implementing the scope change

On-topic help text -- updated
Introductory paragraph of Tour -- updated
Asks and Don't Asks of Tour -- updated
Off-topic close-reasons -- updated
Update altcoin tag descriptions -- in progress
Close unanswered open questions that have become off-topic -- in progress

I've updated the introduction on the tour.
Before:

After:

I've updated the Ask & Don't Ask section of the tour.
Before:

After:

Andrew and I updated the close reasons.

Questions on current or future market values, energy costs or service provider availability are off-topic as the answers are changing too frequently to be useful to others.
Questions seeking product or service reviews are off-topic because they tend to attract subjective, low-quality, and spam answers. On the other hand, offerings in the Bitcoin space are still evolving rapidly which often renders answers outdated quickly. For more information see this meta-discussion.

were folded into

Questions seeking product or service reviews, current or future market values, energy costs, or service provider availability are off-topic because offerings and estimates change too quickly which renders answers outdated quickly. Furthermore, these questions tend to attract subjective, low-quality, and spam answers.

Additionally, we've added

Questions about cryptocurrencies or projects that are not Bitcoin, and are not applicable to Bitcoin, are off-topic. For more information, see this meta-discussion.

The new custom close reasons are therefore now as follows:


text:
Canonical Answer for "my payment went through, but the sender is not acknowledging it"
I just answered Bitcoin successfully deducted on sender wallet but did not reached receiver wallet, and I think I've seen a few similar questions in the past months.
Let's collect similar topics here, then pick or write a canonical question so that we can close the others and future duplicates in its favor.

Related: https://bitcoin.meta.stackexchange.com/q/950/5406

RedGrittyBrick just wrote an epic answer on a duplicate question here: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/a/93149/5406. I'm proposing that we'll move them all onto one question.


text:
How many users does this forum has?
I am interested to know some information about this forum.
How many users use this forum?
What is the total number of posts on this forum?
What is the total number of topics discussed on this forum?
Please, provide any links related to the statistics of the forum.

How many users use this forum?
72000+
What is the total number of posts on this forum?
23000 questions + 33000 answers = 59000+ post
What is the total number of topics discussed on this forum?
I think post and topics are the same things, unless you are talking about the comments ?
Here is where you can see the data: https://data.stackexchange.com/ (search bitcoin)


text:
Semi-broken link in tour page
The Tour page links to https://augur.stackexchange.com/ .
Augur Stack Exchange closed and this link now redirects to an Area51 paged informing visitors that Augur closed 3 months ago.
That is arguably not very useful.

Thank you, I've removed the link to the Augur page.


text:
Is this question (about blockchain generally) on topic?
I found What can blockchain do that normal databases systems won't?. The text of the question asks about blockchain advantages and real life use cases outside of cryptocurrencies.
I would like the answer this question, but I can't see how to do it and stay on topic. Obviously, the answers wouldn't say anything about bitcoin because bitcoin is entirely designed from the ground up to support a cryptocurrency use case.
If questions about non-bitcoin blockchains are off topic, how is this on topic?
(For the record, I strongly opposed the change in scope for bitcoin.SE precisely because it would make it impossible to have these kinds of discussions.)

Pieter said it well: "sufficiently generic things should probably remain on topic here anyway". Other answers on that discussion appear to also endorse general cryptocurrency/blockchain questions.
From what I understand, the main frustration was with being the kitchen sink for all the hyperspecific, lazily written, or obscure altcoin questions that hardly got any attention by anyone other than the asker, whereas multiple of the bigger other cryptocurrencies got sites delimited to their own coin specifically.
Interesting questions about blockchain fit fine, please answer away.

Then, at a minimum, the site needs a "bitcoin" tag so people can mark questions that aren't about blockchain generally. If such answers are on topic (but completely different from bitcoin-specific answers), questioners need some way to specify what kind of question they're asking.

Given that the majority of this site's content is about Bitcoin, a [tag:bitcoin] tag would not be a useful means to categorize content.

It would if it was used specifically to indicate that a question was intended to be limited to bitcoin (where it's open to a more general interpretation). The alternative would be have a tag like "blockchain" to indicate that the intent was not to get a bitcoin-specific answer. But it's unlikely people would actually use that tag. Ack, I just checked. We have a "blockchain" tag, but IT IS BITCOIN SPECIFIC! Argh.


text:
What sites are for distributed computing?
Blockchain is a kind of distributed systems.
I was wondering what sites on the StackExchange network or on the Internet (like reddit, quora, etc) are for discussion and questions and answers for distributed computing?
Thanks.

Following sites in the Stack Exchange network would be relevant to specific discussion on the distributed computing aspects such as Consensus, Fault Tolerance, Partial Synchrony, etc.

Stack Overflow
Computer Science
Theoretical Computer Science


text:
2019: a year in moderation
It's New Year's Day in Stack Exchange land...
A distinguishing characteristic of these sites is how they are moderated:

We designed the Stack Exchange network engine to be mostly self-regulating, in that we amortize the overall moderation cost of the system across thousands of teeny-tiny slices of effort contributed by regular, everyday users.
  -- A Theory of Moderation

While there certainly are Moderators here, a significant amount of the moderation is done by ordinary people, using the privileges
they've earned by virtue of their contributions to the site. Each of you contributes a little bit of time and effort, and together you accomplish much.
As we enter a new year, let's pause and reflect, taking a moment to appreciate the work that we do here together.
And what could be more festive than a big pile of numbers?
So here is a breakdown of moderation actions performed on Bitcoin over the past 12 months:
                 Action                  Moderators Community¹
---------------------------------------- ---------- ----------
Users suspended²                                  0         35
Users destroyed³                                140          0
Tasks reviewed⁴: Suggested Edit queue           148        528
Tasks reviewed⁴: Reopen Vote queue                9         36
Tasks reviewed⁴: Low Quality Posts queue         42        257
Tasks reviewed⁴: Late Answer queue               46        287
Tasks reviewed⁴: First Post queue               170      1,665
Tasks reviewed⁴: Close Votes queue              248      1,034
Tags merged                                      23          0
Tag synonyms proposed                            16          0
Tag synonyms created                             16          0
Questions reopened                                9          0
Questions protected                               0        119
Questions migrated                               10          1
Questions flagged⁵                               26      1,599
Questions closed                                749        311
Question flags handled⁵                         658        967
Posts unlocked                                    0          4
Posts undeleted                                  12         39
Posts locked                                      8        338
Posts deleted⁶                                  921      2,609
Posts bumped                                      0      2,883
Comments undeleted                                7          0
Comments flagged                                  0        508
Comments deleted⁷                               229        932
Comment flags handled                            79        429
Answers flagged                                  43      2,637
Answer flags handled                          1,842        836
All comments on a post moved to chat              5          0

Footnotes
¹ "Community" here refers both to the membership of Bitcoin without diamonds next to their names, and to the automated systems otherwise known as user #-1.
² The system will suspend users under three circumstances: when a user is recreated after being previously suspended, when a user is recreated after being destroyed for spam or abuse, and when a network-wide suspension is in effect on an account.
³ A "destroyed" user is deleted along with all that they had posted: questions, answers, comments. Generally used as an expedient way of getting rid of spam.
⁴ This counts every review that was submitted (not skipped) - so the 2 suggested edits reviews needed to approve an edit would count as 2, the goal being to indicate the frequency of moderation actions. This also applies to flags, etc.
⁵ Includes close flags (but not close or reopen votes).
⁶ This ignores numerous deletions that happen automatically in response to some other action.
⁷ This includes comments deleted by their own authors (which also account for some number of handled comment flags).
Further reading:

Wanna see how these numbers have changed over time? I posted a similar report here last year: 2018: a year in moderation...
You can also check out this report on other sites
Or peruse detailed information on the number of questions closed and reopened across all sites

Wishing you all a happy new year...


text:
Community Promotion Ads — 2020
2020 has come! But… oops, where did the time go? It’s already March! Belated as it is, it’s time for a refresh of Community Promotion Ads!
What are Community Promotion Ads?
Community Promotion Ads are community-vetted advertisements that will show up on the main site, in the right sidebar. The purpose of this question is the vetting process. Images of the advertisements are provided, and community voting will enable the advertisements to be shown.
Why do we have Community Promotion Ads?
This is a method for the community to control what gets promoted to visitors on the site. For example, you might promote the following things:

handy cryptocurrency related resources
cool events or conferences
anything else your community would genuinely be interested in

The goal is for future visitors to find out about the stuff your community deems important. This also serves as a way to promote information and resources that are relevant to your own community's interests, both for those already in the community and those yet to join.
Why do we reset the ads every year?
Some services will maintain usefulness over the years, while other things will wane to allow for new faces to show up. Resetting the ads every year helps accommodate this, and allows old ads that have served their purpose to be cycled out for fresher ads for newer things. This helps keep the material in the ads relevant to not just the subject matter of the community, but to the current status of the community. We reset the ads once a year, every December.
The community promotion ads have no restrictions against reposting an ad from a previous cycle. If a particular service or ad is very valuable to the community and will continue to be so, it is a good idea to repost it. It may be helpful to give it a new face in the process, so as to prevent the imagery of the ad from getting stale after a year of exposure.
How does it work?
The answers you post to this question must conform to the following rules, or they will be ignored.

All answers should be in the exact form of:
[![Tagline to show on mouseover][1]][2]

   [1]: http://image-url
   [2]: http://clickthrough-url

Please do not add anything else to the body of the post. If you want to discuss something, do it in the comments.
The question must always be tagged with the magic community-ads tag. In addition to enabling the functionality of the advertisements, this tag also pre-fills the answer form with the above required form.

Image requirements

The image that you create must be 300 x 250 pixels, or double that if high DPI.
Must be hosted through our standard image uploader (imgur)
Must be GIF or PNG
No animated GIFs
Absolute limit on file size of 150 KB
If the background of the image is white or partially white, there must be a 1px border (2px if high DPI) surrounding it.

Score Threshold
There is a minimum score threshold an answer must meet (currently 6) before it will be shown on the main site.
You can check out the ads that have met the threshold with basic click stats here.

Why I cannot add tag to my AD proposal @JNat ?

Not sure what "tag" you meant and how it would help... could you clarify? (Btw, you cannot ping JNat on this comment thread because he hasn't commented on this post)


text:
Do we have a canonical question and answer pair for the watch-only scam?
I think we have had about a dozen questions about imported addresses that can't be spent or watch-only wallets that can be turned into spending wallets with "just one more payment" this year. We should either designate one of those as the canonical question and answer pair, or create a new question that broadly addresses the issue, so we can close them all towards that canonical question.
Please add examples of these questions belong for processing, and feel free to propose which one should be the canonical question in the answers.

Doing a quick search, there are a lot of questions from users that are likely victims of this sort of scam. However, given the fact that this scam preys on uninformed users, pretty much all of the question posts frame the actual problem poorly. In many cases, you have to sort of read-between-the-lines to realize OP is a scam victim.
So I think a good candidate for duplicates would describe the set up of the scam (often, the scammer sets up a blockchain wallet for the victim), as well as the 'problem' of trying to spend from a watch-only wallet.
In that light, this question is reasonable: [ I've been asked to share wallet credentials to participate in mining. Is that a scam? ] but it doesn't actually mention watch-only wallets at all (and that seems to be the point at which many users realize something is wrong, and they come here to ask a question). Perhaps it could be edited to include the watch-only-wallet part of the scam?
As another idea, this question [ What are the most notable cases of Bitcoin scams? ] could be updated to include info about scams of this nature.
@RedGrittyBrick's answer here has a list of many relevant questions:
How can I get a private key for this address


text:
Where can I ask questions related to other cryptocurrencies?
Since questions about cryptocurrencies have become off-topic on Bitcoin Stackexchange, where I ask about other cryptocurrencies? I couldn't find a list of relevant Stackexchange sites.

Where can I ask cryptocurrency or blockchain questions?

I think we can forward this question to this community wiki on [meta.se]: https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/363121/232061


text:
Where can I ask questions related to BitcoinGold?
I got here since my question about BitcoinGold was closed. Search brought me to a similar topic:
Where can I ask questions related to other cryptocurrencies?
But where to ask a question about BitcoinGold?

The Bitcoin Gold community appears to be organizing themselves via bitcoingold.org. The page links in the "Our Community" section to:

Forum
Discord
r/BitcoinGoldHQ


text:
Help - New user wishing to post University Survey
I'm a Uni student who is currently conducting research into determinants of cryptocurrency investment behaviour. I have a 10-15min survey that I'd like to get responses from people who are trading in cryptocurrency.
Before I post it and post the link, I just want to confirm that these sorts of posts are acceptable. I'm new to stack overflow so I couldn't work out how to message the Mod's.
The survey also has an option to enter a prize draw at the end to win crypto of your choosing to a certain value.

https://stackoverflow.com/help/advertising

Thank you for asking about this first instead of just posting it, as most people did in the past. Unfortunately, your question is off-topic and could even be considered spam. Here are some relevant references on Meta Stack Exchange:

Is it allowed to ask developers to complete a scientific survey on Stack Overflow?
Are research survey questionnaires spam on Stack Exchange sites?
Are research survey questions expected to be handled with close votes?

We're not a discussion forum, the tour says what we are:

With your help, we're working together to build a library of detailed answers to every question about technologies supporting the Bitcoin currency in the past, present, or future.

thank you for your question. As Glorfindel already explained, that sort of content does not fit our scope. However, I'd like to suggest another online community that might fit better: reddit.com/r/bitcoin has 1.4m subscribers and allows this sort of survey. You may also want to check out reddit.com/r/bitcoinmarkets!


text:
Should private-key-format and wallet-import-format be merged?
I noticed yesterday the tag private-key-format. Given that wallet-import-format already exists and has three times more questions, should the two be combined in some form? Is one of them a subset of the other, or are the two topics distinct in some regard?
Should private-key-format and wallet-import-format be merged?

To me, private-key-format is a superset of wallet-import-format as WIF is a private key format, but other private key formats such as xprv are not. However tagging WIF questions as both is probably not useful, and we tag questions about the other private key formats as such. Then we could remove private-key-format, although I would prefer to keep it as catch-all for questions about a private key format which is not known.

I think as a catch all, just private-key would suffice - if someone doesn't know the format, they also might not know that the piece of information they're missing is the format. However, you generally would know that you're dealing with a private key

@RaghavSood: Folding everything into [tag:private-key] sounds like a valid third option. Perhaps you should make that an answer. :)

Personally, I would assume that private-key-format is a superset, covering WIFs, mini keys (such as from Casascius coins), unencoded keys ("My script says this key is wrong!!!" -> "Because it should be a byte array, not a string"), potentially even xprvs.
That said, the utility in maintaining it as a separate tag, as opposed to having dedicated tags for the mini private key format and letting BIP32/44 cover xprv seems low.
I vote for merging.

So, to clarify, you suggest that we merge everything into [tag:private-key-format]?

Ah, no - I'm suggesting we merge private-key-format into wallet-import-format, and retag extended key questions to be under the relevant BIP tags, as well as start a mini-private-key tag to handle those questions. Happy to help with the retagging efforts


text:
Omni layer - not bitcoin?
many times I'm seeing OMNI layer questions being closed as not related to bitcoin, but there is no such behavior for Lightning Network.
Lightning network is L2 while Omni data sits purely on bitcoin chain.
Can someone explain the reason for such behavior (closing omni related questions)?

Note that some discussion about Omni occurred in the comments on https://bitcoin.meta.stackexchange.com/q/1005/5406

Lightning network is a caching layer for on-chain Bitcoin transactions. The transactions are denominated in Bitcoin, expressed in script, and can either be squashed off-chain or written to the blockchain. Most lightning wallets encompass LN and on-chain transaction capabilities. IMHO, LN is part of Bitcoin.
Omni/Tether is a completely separate protocol that transfers unrelated assets. Its only relationship to Bitcoin is that it writes data to the Bitcoin blockchain in form of OP_RETURN outputs for its own benefit.

My personal, and probably not universally, held opinion.
The Bitcoin stackexchange site is for questions about technologies that support the bitcoin currency. That includes on-chain transactions, but also other layers.
Omni, in my view, does not support the bitcoin currency. Rather the opposite, it uses the Bitcoin blockchain to support other assets. I consider that usage parasitic: if it provides any value it's censorship resistance for those unrelated assets, and does so in a way that forces costs onto Bitcoin infrastructure without providing benefits to the bitcoin currency.
I think a grey area exists for questions about Omni's interaction with the Bitcoin blockchain. However, almost all Omni related questions I see here are specifically about support for some other token, and those should definitely be off-topic in my view.

As bitcoin usage is mostly price speculation, and tether (currently) allows less frictionless speculation I'd say it's complimentary. But I also understand your view and share similar position on it as a fan of censorship resitiant technology. But it's highly opinionated topic and it's hard to be unbiased that's why the question.

I wouldn't call price speculation "usage", but admit that that's a personal opinion.

I think the last question that was closed: Where can I see a list of dates when Tether burned UDST on Omni Layer? is mostly related to TETHER and less about Bitcoin or Omni layer. Since tether is a centralized token managed by a company and issued on several chains it's difficult to answer this and looks off-topic.
If the question was something related to how Omni layer assets use Bitcoin blockchain or a new project which is WIP: OmniBOLT I think someone would have answered it and not closed.
Counterparty is also something similar in my opinion and One question that I remember answering related to it was:
Why do I see a Bitcoin address prefix starting with 4?

And here you are wrong. Tether is just an asset on Omni layer and it doesn't differentiate it from other assets. Omni allows for Freeze Property Tokens and Revoke Property Tokens, which is a burning type. If you would be more open minded, you might enven know about it :) But it's easy to have an opinion without knowledge.

I agree USDT is an asset issued by https://tether.to on Omni layer and few other chains. Maybe I misunderstood the question because it looked offtopic and something https://tether.to support can answer in a better way


text:
2020: a year in moderation

As we say goodbye to the old year and welcome the new one, we have a tradition of sharing moderation stats for the past 12 months.
As most of you here are aware, sites on the Stack Exchange network are moderated somewhat differently to other sites on the web:

We designed the Stack Exchange network engine to be mostly self-regulating, in that we amortize the overall moderation cost of the system across thousands of teeny-tiny slices of effort contributed by regular, everyday users.
-- A Theory of Moderation

That doesn't eliminate the need for having moderators altogether, but it does mean that the bulk of moderation work is carried out by regular folks. Every bit of time and effort y'all contribute to the site gives you access to more privileges you can use to help in this effort, all of which produce a cumulative effect that makes a big difference.
So as we welcome 2021, and in keeping with tradition, let us look back at what we accomplished as a community... by looking at some exciting stats. Below is a breakdown of moderation actions performed on Bitcoin over the past 12 months:

Action
Moderators
Community¹

Users suspended²
0
22

Users destroyed³
72
0

Users contacted
3
0

Tasks reviewed⁴: Suggested Edit queue
81
377

Tasks reviewed⁴: Reopen Vote queue
6
27

Tasks reviewed⁴: Low Quality Posts queue
14
380

Tasks reviewed⁴: Late Answer queue
3
229

Tasks reviewed⁴: First Post queue
8
1,690

Tasks reviewed⁴: Close Votes queue
78
2,593

Tags merged
5
0

Tag synonyms proposed
5
0

Tag synonyms created
5
0

Revisions redacted
2
0

Questions unprotected
1
0

Questions reopened
16
0

Questions protected
4
105

Questions migrated
3
1

Questions merged
11
0

Questions flagged⁵
68
1,105

Questions closed
391
607

Question flags handled⁵
542
632

Posts unlocked
1
2

Posts undeleted
7
34

Posts locked
11
294

Posts deleted⁶
698
1,476

Posts bumped
0
2,730

Comments undeleted
5
0

Comments flagged
1
63

Comments deleted⁷
214
438

Comment flags handled
34
30

Answers flagged
65
1,913

Answer flags handled
1,413
566

All comments on a post moved to chat
1
0

Footnotes
¹ "Community" here refers both to the membership of Bitcoin without diamonds next to their names, and to the automated systems otherwise known as user #-1.
² The system will suspend users under three circumstances: when a user is recreated after being previously suspended, when a user is recreated after being destroyed for spam or abuse, and when a network-wide suspension is in effect on an account.
³ A "destroyed" user is deleted along with all that they had posted: questions, answers, comments. Generally used as an expedient way of getting rid of spam.
⁴ This counts every review that was submitted (not skipped) - so the 2 suggested edits reviews needed to approve an edit would count as 2, the goal being to indicate the frequency of moderation actions. This also applies to flags, etc.
⁵ Includes close flags (but not close or reopen votes).
⁶ This ignores numerous deletions that happen automatically in response to some other action.
⁷ This includes comments deleted by their own authors (which also account for some number of handled comment flags).
Further reading:

Wanna see how these numbers have changed over time? We posted a similar report here last year: 2019: a year in moderation

You can also check out this report on other sites

Or peruse detailed information on the number of questions closed and reopened across all sites

A big thank you to Shog9 for writing the queries and script to facilitate fetching and posting this data to all the sites in the network, and to Brian for the subsequent work making the whole thing more user friendly.
Wishing everyone a happy 2021!


text:
Revisit close reasons in 2021
MCCCS brought up in the 2014 discussion 'How could our “Off-Topic close reasons” be improved? What would be another useful one?' whether we could add another close reason regarding legal questions. We cannot, since we're at the limit, but we could rewrite, remove or improve one of the existing close reasons, or just start over from the scratch.
This is what we currently have:

What would the best three custom close reasons be for us in 2021? Please share your thoughts what can go, how things could be changed, and what should get improved.

I've always thought that the 'service provider availability' reason for close is perhaps better grouped with the 'product or service reviews' category. There have been a number of times I've seen Qs that ride the line between these two closing categories end up with a bunch of votes split between the two.
Perhaps reword the second to 'product or service availability and reviews'?

Would you perhaps like to provide a concrete proposal of what the three close reasons would look like after your changes are applied?


text:
I flagged an answer as a comment and the generated flagging-comment was transferred in error to another answer?
During review I encountered an answer that began "This is meant to be a comment ..." so I flagged it.
https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/review/low-quality-posts/74601
The answer I flagged was subsequently transferred by a moderator into a comment on another (good) answer. All good.
Unfortunately the comment created by my flag also got transferred across to the other (good) answer - to which it definitely does not apply.
I suspect a bug or a slip-up - should I just delete the misplaced comment? (if its a bug I probably should wait?)

There's no real bug here; this is a minor slip-up by the ♦ moderator; when they convert an answer into a comment, they have the option to migrate the comments as well.

You can save them a bit of work by deleting the comment yourself.

Thanks, will do


text:
What is the distinction between the tags [network], [p2p], and [peers]?
We currently have network, p2p, and peers. It seems to me the tags largely overlap in the topics they collect, and I am considering to make p2p and peers synonyms of network.
network is described as:

This tag should be used for questions related to the Bitcoin network and communication between different nodes on the Internet.

peers is described as:

should be used for questions related to the peers of the bitcoin network

p2p does not have a description.
In the vicinity, we have the tags nodes, connection, peer-discovery, transaction-propagation, and relay among others.
Does someone see how the tags are distinct topics and why I should not? (Please upvote this question to support merging, reply to disagree.)

I could perhaps see a distinction between network and p2p, with network being for questions with a more big-picture network-architecture sort of scope, and p2p being for questions that are more specific (eg how individual peers talk to each).
This made me wonder if there is a gossip tag, and indeed there is... with only 1 (!) question using it.
Anyways, I think I agree with the merge, I'm just replying to point out that it might be useful to add gossip to the appropriate questions in tandem? That could allow the questions which are more specific to the P2P protocol to still have their own tag gossip, while catching all the wider network/P2P questions in the other tags (network, p2p, peers).
ie, I'd imagine that gossip would be a subset of network.

Yeah, I introduced [tag:gossip] late last year.

Your recommendation is not completely clear to me. Do I gather correctly that you would recommend merging [tag:peers] and [tag:p2p], but would keep that separate from [tag:network]? Additionally, you would like the tag [tag:gossip] to be applied to more questions?


text:
How to ask closed question to be migrated to the site where they are relevant?
For example, How I can ask to migrate this post to worldbuilding stack exchange?

You can flag the question for moderator attention (this would apply to non-closed questions as well). See the FAQ about migration; but it also contains a warning:

If the site isn't in the list of available migration targets, or the question got closed without being migrated, first read the below points and consider if migration is/was really the appropriate action (in many cases, it isn't).

You have to consider not only if the question is on-topic there, but also if the answer you got complies with what the target community expects from an answer.
In many cases, it's better just to re-ask the question (and perhaps link to the one on Bitcoin.SE) and adapt it to the guidelines of the other community.

Tried. declined - flags should only be used to make moderators aware of content that requires their intervention while both the answer and the question are acceptable. See also https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/213790/is-it-ok-to-post-the-same-question-on-several-stack-exchange-sites#comment688528_213793

I declined the moderator flag the first time, because I didn't think it would be a good fit there, but I see that you have some reputation on that site, so I've migrated it now.

First reaction by worldbuilding users is that it's a bad fit.

@Murch and similar biology question from mine was well received on worldbuilding, so I thought it would be Ok.


text:
Should we highlight the invoice character of addresses per renaming the [address] tag?
The authors of BIP179 suggested that a Bitcoin "address" should rather be referred to as "Bitcoin Invoice Address". We still frequently get the question of how a shop owner could distinguish between payments of different customers buying products for the same price. It seems to me that referring to Bitcoin addresses as "Bitcoin Invoice Addresses" could help clarify why they should not be reused and how they apply to this issue.
Should we make address a synonym for a new tag bitcoin-invoice-address?

I don't think this is a good idea, as the term isn't common practice and using it this way would just confuse people.
It would be great if this name was the common way of referring to that concept, but I fear we're about 9 years too late to change that (this is also my criticism on the BIP itself).


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When are altcoins offtopic and when not offtopic?

When should a question be considered offtopic related to altcoins? And are there any rules for answers that mention specific altcoins when it can be avoided or not mentioned in the question or considered controversial/unethical/scam?

Are the rules same for everyone including moderators?

If we are allowed to mention specific "altcoins" on "bitcoin" Stackexchange how do we decide which altcoins are good enough to be mentioned?

My questions are related to this: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/a/102275/

When should a question be considered offtopic related to altcoins? And are there any rules for answers that mention specific altcoins when it can be avoided or not mentioned in the question or considered controversial/unethical/scam?

The word "altcoin" is not outright banned (nor should it be) and questions and answers may mention altcoins if the question/answer is generic enough to be applicable to Bitcoin. Questions and answers are not removed for simply mentioning or discussing altcoins. They are only removed if they are only applicable to altcoins and not related to Bitcoin at all.
There are a few meta questions about this site's scope. The most relevant is probably the proposal to change the scope to just Bitcoin. You may be able to find better and more complete guidance through there and the linked discussions.

Are the rules same for everyone including moderators?

Yes. Are there any instances where you think that a moderator's question/answer was not deleted but a similar one from a normal user was?

If we are allowed to mention specific "altcoins" on "bitcoin" Stackexchange how do we decide which altcoins are good enough to be mentioned?

IMO any altcoins can be mentioned so long as it is relevant to the question and the question is also relevant to Bitcoin in some way.
For example, if there were a question about why Bitcoin doesn't implement a feature in that is present in altcoin X, I think it is perfectly reasonable to have such a question on this site and for altcoin X to be named in the question and answer. Such a question is relevant to Bitcoin and the altcoin is relevant to the question and answer.

In the proposal that you shared, your answer mentioned using altcoins when it's about a concept and not specific coin. I agree with that approach. 2. No I never had any issues with removal of question or answer related to altcoins. I wanted to make sure I know if it works same for everyone. I respect all mods for their contribution in bitcoin and stackexchange and would have replied or edited the answer itself if it was done by a new user. There have been few answers by new accounts to shill their altcoins.

Agree if a question has an altcoin mentioned and involves comparison with bitcoin, it should be mentioned. Also it's good to answer such questions many times to avoid confusion or debunk things spread by marketing teams of altcoins.

I have few things to add: A Imagine a newbie searches something about bitcoin on Google, gets few results from Bitcoin SE, reads few names of other altcoins in some answers by users with good reputation. Assumes things. Is this good or bad? B Vitalik is proud to make premines legitimate with his altcoin. Are we helping people like him unknowingly in some Q&A? C Bitcoin SE should help devs & users interested in Bitcoin and looks better than few others. Can we improve it and get more devs interested to build bitcoin projects?

D Some of the questions and answers from Bitcoin SE are used as reference on other platforms in lot of discussions.


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What's the best Q&A to promote to the canonical answer for "advance fee scam" questions?
We have been getting a lot of questions about variations of "Do I have to pay an advance fee to unlock a withdrawal/wallet?". I'd like us to designate a question and answer pair to the canonical Q&A on the matter so we can just close any new instances as a duplicate of that.
I'm considering RedGrittyBrick's answer here as a potential candidate:
https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/a/103018/5406
I suggest that we would convert the question to a community wiki that we would then edit to introduce the topic broadly, then RedGrittyBrick could amend their answer and other people could add more answers to cover other aspects, or we even merge some other questions into the topic to move their answers there.
Does someone have a better candidate or comments on how to proceed?

I closed I can withdraw my BTC on cryptoayo and they insisting on me to pay an amount ...?? How can one unlock block chain and be independent and withdraw? as a duplicate to it today already.

I have created a canonical question in which I attempt to better capture the scope of the questions: Is it normal to be asked for an advance fee on a withdrawal?


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Why can't we ask questions about services related to bitcoin?
I recently asked a question asking if there were any websites that provided stats on bitcoin tx fees (Has anyone created a webpage that shows average price per byte for a tx at different times of day and days of the week?) and the question was closed under the guise that it was soliciting "reviews", which it was not.
Can anyone shed any light on this? Should the question have been closed? If so, should the wording of the explanation be changed, given that it was not soliciting reviews?

Thank you for bringing this up. I voted to reopen the question, because I agree that the reason given does not apply to your question.
Bitcoin Stackexchange has been getting a lot of low-quality content lately especially with the price rally (we're flooded with questions about lost wallets). Perhaps, users are a bit too quick with close votes lately.


text:
Should we ask Ravencoin questions on Bitcoin?
I'm proposing a new site for a cryptocurrency called Ravencoin, which is a slightly modified and more private version of Bitcoin. Because it's foundation is based off of the Bitcoin project, should questions on the Ravencoin system be asked on Bitcoin Stack Exchange, as it is very similar in terms of encryption, blockchains, halving processes, etc? Or, should I continue in creating a separate proposal for the Ravencoin cryptocurrency?
Proposal: Ravencoin

If someone wanted to ask a question that applied to Ravencoin the same way it applies to Bitcoin, it could be phrased so it is applicable to Bitcoin and would probably get an answer quickly. Questions specific only to other cryptocurrencies are off-topic and would get closed as such.

Ok. I'll keep the proposal, as there are some significant differences.


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Is it possible to get a chosen answer changed?
There's a question that was asked 4 years ago - this one - Can I cancel a transaction that has not been successfully broadcast yet?
The thing is, the chosen answer doesn't work well - as the comments later show, and also takes a long time, whereas the answer I gave isn't getting any visibility given it's way down and has zero votes.
This might not be the right place to ask this question, as perhaps it's more specific to the stackexchange platform than to the bitcoin stackexchange, but the question is - is it possible to flag an issue with the fact that the chosen answer might not be the best one?

i can't say if accepted answer can be changed (i doubt it), but i reviewed your answer and i suggested a small edit (in the word, but the substance is quite different), see if you can agree.

The asker is the only one that can accept or unaccept an answer to indicate which was most useful to them. You could:

Comment on the accepted answer to indicate that it is outdated and request that the answerer updates it
Downvote the accepted answer indicating that it is not useful
Suggest an edit to the accepted answer to introduce an update to make it useful
If it were really bad, flag and request that the accepted answer is deleted (which doesn't seem to fit this case)

According to their profiles, both the asker and answerer have visited this site in the past two months, so trying to engage with them may be fruitful.

The accepted answer can only be changed by the question asker. You will need to find a way to contact the user who asked that question and ask them to change the accepted answer.


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FAQs related to Bitcoin mining and energy
Can we create a megathread kind of question in which answers cover all the FAQs related to bitcoin mining and energy?
Similar to link mentioned in https://bitcoin.meta.stackexchange.com/a/967/
Reason: I expect 2 genuine questions and 8 concern trolling in 10 questions related to mining and energy.


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What's the difference in scope between the tags [opcodes] and [script]?
I've seen opcodes pop up on a lot of questions lately. I was wondering how the scope of that tag differs from script. Should opcodes perhaps be merged into script?

I think this makes sense.

Sure, if that's your preference @Murch. I don't feel strongly about it. Perhaps there is an argument that the opcodes tag could be for questions about specific opcodes and the script tag could be for questions on how to construct scripts or script execution generally. But feel free to merge them.

If we went with your suggestion, we should probably go through the questions tagged with [tag:script] and retag them to use [tag:opcodes] where appropriate. I'm not sure whether the distinction is worth the effort.


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How should we deal with "Sybil"?
For over a year now, we have seen an individual post lengthy, vociferous questions multiple times per week from ever new accounts. The idiosyncratic, entitled tone and repetitive lines of inquiry of "Sybil"  have led to multiple regular contributors independently discovering the pattern. Unfortunately, numerous attempts at providing feedback on the delivery of their inquiries have been met with little understanding and no improvement.
Some of Sybil's favorite topics include:

Complaining that Bitcoin Core doesn't support Lightning Network
Ranting that earning interest on bitcoin holdings requires giving up custody and KYC
Moaning that opensource software isn't a white glove experience
Railing that Bitcoin's exchange rate isn't increasing after good news

Note that the majority of Sybil's content is deleted, and the above samples are selected from the more palatable specimen. Usually, repeated subpar content would lead to a user's account being banned from asking more questions, but since Sybil creates a new account for each post, they evade Stack Exchange's standard mitigations.
Frankly, I find Sybil's activity tiresome and consider it a time-sink for regular contributors. I'm writing about it here to a) spread awareness, and b) invite discussion of how to approach the situation.

Does Community Management know of these ongoing problems? If not, you might try reaching a CM in the Teacher's Lounge (the chatboard for mods on the SE network).

Hey @ToddTrimble , I've tried reaching out in TL once or twice, but the only advice I got was to try to flag it as spam to get their IP banned. TBH, I haven't tried emailing CM directly about it yet, but I guess they might have more powerful tools at their disposal. Thanks for the suggestion.

I'm a mod at MathOverflow, and we've occasionally had really determined users who use many accounts. It seems to be true that enough deletions/destructions of hydra-like accounts as spam eventually has the effect of wearing them out, but it can take a long time, and I think your issue merits a more hands-on approach using stronger tools, yes. Good luck!

After initially spending some hours on editing a number of Sybil's posts to their sporadic viable kernels and providing feedback how they may improve their questions' reception, my approach has now been to

close obvious repetitions as duplicates
liberally downvote low-quality questions of the described pattern instead of expending further effort on them
only edit actually novel questions to a workable distillate

and would like to encourage other users to help cull bad questions.


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Community Ads for 2021
September update: Community Ads are now live network-wide. Since there were no ad proposal submissions on this site, none will be displayed — go to the main post on MSE for a list of the ads that are being displayed. And stay tuned for 2022's edition for the next opportunity to submit more ad proposals!

JUNE NOTE: This post has now been locked and new submissions are not being accepted. Ad submissions are now undergoing review by the Community Team, and this question will be updated once the ads are live.

We're almost halfway through 2021, and in case you missed it, Community Promotion Ads are gonna be a bit different this time! TL;DR: submit and vote for ad proposals before August 2nd!
What are Community Ads?
Community Ads are community-vetted advertisements that will show up on the main site, or on other sites in the network. They can show up in the right sidebar, or in banners in question pages. The purpose of this question is the vetting process. Images of the advertisements are provided, and community voting will enable the advertisements to be considered by the Community Management Team to be displayed.
Why do we have Community Ads?
This is a method for the community to control what gets promoted to visitors on the site. The goal of this initiative is for future visitors to find out about the stuff your community deems important. This also serves as a way to promote information and resources that are relevant to your own community's interests, both for those already in the community and those yet to join. You may want to promote external resources, or Meta guidance for newcomers, for instance.
This initiative has an added goal of providing your community with an opportunity to showcase exemplary questions from your main site, as well as frequently-linked-to guides from your Meta site. While the latter makes sense to be shown solely on this site, the former can be shown all across the network. These should avoid hot button topics, and instead focus more on evergreen questions that show what your community’s all about.
Why do we reset the ads?
Some services will maintain usefulness over the years, while other things will wane to allow for new faces to show up. Resetting the ads every year helps accommodate this, and allows old ads that have served their purpose to be cycled out for fresher ads for newer things. This helps keep the material in the ads relevant to not just the subject matter of the community, but to the current status of the community. Historically, we've reset the ads every year — since this is the first run of a new format, we'll run the ads collected in this post through the end of 2021 and reassess the rotation cycle then.
The community ads have no restrictions against reposting an ad from a previous cycle. If a particular service or ad is very valuable to the community and will continue to be so, it is a good idea to repost it. It may be helpful to give it a new face in the process, so as to prevent the imagery of the ad from getting stale after a previous exposure.
Are there restrictions to the ads I can post?
All proposed ads need to abide by our Code of Conduct. Our ad creative guidelines also generally apply (note that the first 2 bullet points on the “Tracking” section do not apply, and a lot of the guidelines surrounding claims, comparisons, proof, etc., while still applicable, may not be particularly relevant). Finally, ads can not be promoting products nor soliciting programmer time or resources for: knowledge sharing or collaboration tools for technologists, or for sites where ad buyers are primarily targeting technologists.
How does it work?
The answers you post to this question must conform to the following rules, or they will be ignored:

Each answer must relate to a single ad submission. Please do not post multiple ad submissions in the same answer.

All answers must be in one of the below formats:

If you have an image for the ad you want to display on this site (must be the case for ads to external sources):

[![Image name. Example: "community_ad_name_300x250"][1]][2]

  [1]: https://image-url
  [2]: https://clickthrough-url

If you want to create an ad for a question from your main or meta site, to be advertised on this or other sites in the network (staff will generate a frame for the ad with this site's theme, for brand consistency):

Question title
Question URL
Ad size (right sidebar or banner ads)
Site(s) to be displayed in. Can be:
  - "self" for ads to be displayed on this site
  - "all" for ads to be displayed all over the network
  - a specific subset of sites

Please do not add anything else to the body of the post. If you want to discuss something, do it in the comments.

Image requirements

The image that you create must be 300 x 250 pixels for right sidebar ads or 728 x 90 pixels for banner ads. Images can be double that if high DPI.
Must be hosted through our standard image uploader (imgur)
Must be GIF, PNG, or JPG
No animated GIFs
Absolute limit on file size of 150 KB
If the background of the image is white or partially white, there must be a 1px border (2px if high DPI) surrounding it.

Selection process
This post will remain open for ad submissions and voting until August 2nd. At that point, the question will be closed/locked, and no more ad submissions will be accepted. For ad submissions to be considered for selection by the Community Management Team, they must have a minimum score of 6 at the time the post was closed/locked for submissions. Given this is the first run with this new format, we may adjust the score threshold to be a bit lower if we see ads struggling to get to it (especially if the ads are not getting downvotes) by the time submissions and voting are closed.
Reporting statistics
Once this cycle is over, at the end of 2021, the Community Management Team will provide you with reporting statistics, as described in the "reporting" section of this post.

Feel free to use the question's comment section to ask for any clarifications.


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Is there a Cryptocurrency Stack site anywhere for non-Bitcoin questions?
Is there a Cryptocurrency  Stack site anywhere for non-Bitcoin questions?

Please see: https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/363121/232061


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Which question should be featured in an article about BSE's tenth anniversary?
Bitcoin Stack Exchange is turning ten. The Stack Exchange team is going to write an article about our site and a few others that are celebrating anniversaries. They asked us to suggest topics from our site that would be noteworthy, outstanding, or representative to share in the article.
Please suggest a single topic per post and include a couple sentences of explanation or motivation why the topic is a good representative for our work here. Topics can either be sourced from the main site or the meta site.

I'm going to take the top three in the answers and feature those!

One of the first Qs that comes to mind is: Will there be 21 million bitcoins eventually?
The question is easy to grasp even for the layman, and Pieter's answer is both interesting and instructive. Additionally, the hard-money/21-million meme is very strong in 'bitcoin culture' these days, so I think it is quite relevant.

There are lot of interesting Q&A that have helped me and others I know to understand technical things about Bitcoin. Most of the answers by Pieter Wuille, Andrew Chow, Murch, Gregory Maxwell, David Harding, Raghav Sood, Michael Folkson, RedGrittyBrick, Chytrik, Rene Pickhardt, Darosior and others are useful.
It is difficult to select one topic but scaling is discussed a lot in crypto groups and I have used the below link to share the concept of scaling in layers:
What is the difference between on-chain scaling and off-chain scaling?

I think this question could be a good contender. The lightning network is a very exciting part of bitcoin development imo, but mainstream knowledge of it is almost nonexistent! A relatively simple explanation of what it is and how it works could be very helpful to a lot of new users.
How does the Lightning network work in simple terms?

How to securely store bitcoin is always a relevant question, no matter if you're a complete newbie, or a longtime hodler. Not having your coins taken from you is of course a primary concern, so maybe this question will catch interest and pull some eyes in:
How can government "seize" bitcoins?

Pontificating about the supposed advantages of a proof of stake system is quite trendy these days, so another good candidate might be this question.
Why doesn't Bitcoin migrate to proof-of-stake?

This question is maybe a little less accessible to newbies with minimal knowledge about the bitcoin protocol, but any sort of attack will probably be exciting and interesting to read about, so perhaps it is still a decent candidate.
What is time warp attack and how does it work in general?

This question does a good job of grounding what can otherwise be esoteric discussions about mining/security into a more relatable context. Disclaimer: I wrote the top rated answer on this one.
How does proof of work inspire trust when the work is just guessing?


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Serial voting was reversed
I see this notification that 150 points were deducted and reversed because of the reasons mentioned in https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/help/serial-voting-reversed
I don't remember a single user voting randomly on my different answers in last month. Is it possible to get the details of this reversal?

No, unless someone told you themselves that they've been voting for you, there is no way to find out for a user who voted for them.

Hmm I was wondering if mods could see those details because the link I shared in question mentioned sometimes reversal can be manual and done by mods after investigation.


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There appears to be multiple projects that contain bitcoinlib in their name
Should questions about the "bitcoinlib" installed with pip be tagged under "python-bitcoinlib"?
They're clearly two different projects, and fortunately python-bitcoinlib uses the namespace bitcoin and the version of bitcoinlib installed via pip uses the namespace bitcoinlib. Are there other projects that could cause naming conflicts as well?

It seems to me that Peter Todd's python-bitcoinlib should be tagged as python-bitcoinlib, while bitcoinlib should be tagged as bitcoinlib. Unfortunately it appears there is a .NET library under the same name though, and bitcoin-lib-php which is similar.


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How should now off-topic questions that were recently edited be treated?
I just came across a proposed edit in the suggested edits review queue, on an answer to an old question that is now off-topic (its about litecoin).
The edit is useful (it updates the answer to include more current segwit info), but since the question is off-topic I'm unsure what the proper course of action should be.
Screenshot with part of the edit visible, for some context:

In my opinion, it is fine to edit old questions and answers like the example you provided if they're already answered and are good questions, even if they're now off topic. If they're not closed then they might as well be correct.

Yeah, even though we don't collect more questions about altcoins, I wouldn't want to delete existing content. People spend a lot of time collecting information, and they probably still get a decent amount of hits. I'd definitely say we should merge improvements.


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2021: a year in moderation

As we say goodbye to the old year and welcome the new one, we have a tradition of sharing moderation stats for the preceding calendar year.
As most of you here are aware, sites on the Stack Exchange network are moderated somewhat differently to other sites on the web:

We designed the Stack Exchange network engine to be mostly self-regulating, in that we amortize the overall moderation cost of the system across thousands of teeny-tiny slices of effort contributed by regular, everyday users.
-- A Theory of Moderation

That doesn't eliminate the need for having moderators altogether, but it does mean that the bulk of moderation work is carried out by regular folks. Every bit of time and effort y'all contribute to the site gives you access to more privileges you can use to help in this effort, all of which produce a cumulative effect that makes a big difference.
So as we say goodbye to 2021, let us look back at what we accomplished as a community... by looking at some exciting stats. Below is a breakdown of moderation actions performed on Bitcoin over the past 12 months:

Action
Moderators
Community¹

Users suspended²
0
36

Users destroyed³
112
0

Users deleted
1
0

Users contacted
3
0

Tasks reviewed⁴: Suggested Edit queue
125
479

Tasks reviewed⁴: Reopen Vote queue
4
78

Tasks reviewed⁴: Low Quality Posts queue
16
423

Tasks reviewed⁴: Late Answer queue
1
300

Tasks reviewed⁴: First questions queue
9
403

Tasks reviewed⁴: First Post queue
24
2,040

Tasks reviewed⁴: First answers queue
2
149

Tasks reviewed⁴: Close Votes queue
40
2,090

Tags merged
42
0

Tag synonyms proposed
20
0

Tag synonyms created
20
0

Revisions redacted
2
0

Questions reopened
27
0

Questions protected
1
137

Questions migrated
17
0

Questions merged
3
0

Questions flagged⁵
82
1,477

Questions closed
579
745

Question flags handled⁵
661
898

Posts unlocked
0
1

Posts undeleted
13
46

Posts locked
3
485

Posts deleted⁶
821
1,907

Posts bumped
0
2,706

Escalations to the Community Manager team
1
0

Comments undeleted
18
0

Comments flagged
2
79

Comments deleted⁷
314
592

Comment flags handled
56
25

Answers flagged
145
2,443

Answer flags handled
1,821
768

All comments on a post moved to chat
1
0

Footnotes
¹ "Community" here refers both to the membership of Bitcoin without diamonds next to their names, and to the automated systems otherwise known as user #-1.
² The system will suspend users under three circumstances: when a user is recreated after being previously suspended, when a user is recreated after being destroyed for spam or abuse, and when a network-wide suspension is in effect on an account.
³ A "destroyed" user is deleted along with all that they had posted: questions, answers, comments. Generally used as an expedient way of getting rid of spam.
⁴ This counts every review that was submitted (not skipped) - so the 2 suggested edits reviews needed to approve an edit would count as 2, the goal being to indicate the frequency of moderation actions. This also applies to flags, etc.
⁵ Includes close flags (but not close or reopen votes).
⁶ This ignores numerous deletions that happen automatically in response to some other action.
⁷ This includes comments deleted by their own authors (which also account for some number of handled comment flags).
Further reading:

Wanna see how these numbers have changed over time? We posted a similar report here last year: 2020: a year in moderation

You can also check out this report on other sites

Or peruse detailed information on the number of questions closed and reopened across all sites

Wishing everyone a happy 2022! ^_^