Re: Theymos (operator of Bitcointalk and Bitcoin subreddit) is censoring Bitcoin XT
I'm impressed at the level of Bitcoin knowledge of bitcointalk.org users compared to /r/Bitcoin users. 
Most of the people in this thread and other similar threads are interpreting the issues correctly (or at least with some evidence of actual thought), unlike most Redditors.
Bitcoin's hardforks (though some people don't classify them as hardforks) were done with consensus among the the Bitcoin community/economy/experts. In the current state of the debate, any max block size increase won't have consensus, though I think that consensus on a compromise proposal might be achievable in 6-18 months.
Activating a hardfork based on what miners do is really bad. You could easily have a situation where 75% of miners support XT but none of the big Bitcoin exchanges or businesses do. Then miners would start mining coins that they couldn't spend anywhere useful, and SPV users would find that they can't transact with the businesses they want to deal with. The currency would be split, and in this case XT would be in a far weaker position than Bitcoin. The possibility of this sort of network/currency split is what makes XT not a "legitimate hardfork", but rather the programmed creation of an altcoin. A consensus hardfork can only go forward once it has been determined that it's nearly impossible for the Bitcoin economy to split in any significant way. Not every Bitcoin user on Earth has to agree, but enough that there won't be a noticeable split.
Bitcoin is not ruled by miners. In a hardfork, miners barely matter at all. (Softforks are different.) What's important is what the economy does.
Most of the people in this thread and other similar threads are interpreting the issues correctly (or at least with some evidence of actual thought), unlike most Redditors.I don't think it makes sense to call Bitcoin XT an alt-coin anymore than it does the current version of Bitcoin Core, which has hard-forked several times since it was introduced. Furthermore, Bitcoin Core will only fork away from Bitcoin XT when XT has 75% of the hash power behind it.
Bitcoin's hardforks (though some people don't classify them as hardforks) were done with consensus among the the Bitcoin community/economy/experts. In the current state of the debate, any max block size increase won't have consensus, though I think that consensus on a compromise proposal might be achievable in 6-18 months.
Activating a hardfork based on what miners do is really bad. You could easily have a situation where 75% of miners support XT but none of the big Bitcoin exchanges or businesses do. Then miners would start mining coins that they couldn't spend anywhere useful, and SPV users would find that they can't transact with the businesses they want to deal with. The currency would be split, and in this case XT would be in a far weaker position than Bitcoin. The possibility of this sort of network/currency split is what makes XT not a "legitimate hardfork", but rather the programmed creation of an altcoin. A consensus hardfork can only go forward once it has been determined that it's nearly impossible for the Bitcoin economy to split in any significant way. Not every Bitcoin user on Earth has to agree, but enough that there won't be a noticeable split.
Bitcoin is not ruled by miners. In a hardfork, miners barely matter at all. (Softforks are different.) What's important is what the economy does.