"Am I a node now?" with reference to incoming traffic ON or OFF:
@ACBbits
@ranochigo
Thank you for your clarifications. To paraphrase, you say that:
a. A Full Node is a Full Node even when incoming traffic is ZERO,
b. Even when "a" is the case, one is supporting the network's consensus mechanism.
If a and b are true, then:
1. Why bother enabling 8333 port forwarding? There must be a reason why
bitcoin.org recommends
[/The bandwidth sharing guide describes installing Bitcoin Core in detail as well as opening port 8333 to allow other Bitcoin programs to download blocks and transactions from you.quote]
2. A few years ago, when I had trouble enabling 8333, there was strong pushback at this forum suggesting that my "Full Node" was incorrect as is and in question.
This is a technical question and I'm not sure we have a clear answer.