While I rarely read or posted in the Trollbox, it was a feature that was 'exclusive' to Poloniex and one that many of their users really enjoyed.
Poloniex cited the need to reallocate the moderators from the Trollbox to more pressing issues, which is something that I am skeptical to believe. I personally think that Poloniex determined that the Trollbox was using to space/activity on the site. I'm not sure how many of you know that there were open interviews several months ago for new Trollbox moderators, which leads me to believe that the requirements for moderators supervising the Trollbox have different requirements than the moderators supervising trading activity and support tickets. I know that Poloniex is very behind on support tickets, so it is completely possible that the moderators have been directed towards handling those. While the Trollbox was not a reliable source of information, many active users really seemed to enjoy it and use it frequently.
Long time users and customers of Poloniex who utilized the Trollbox may feel a bit angry that it was removed so abruptly. While the removal may help Poloniex improve its site efficiency and catch up on some of the tickets, it really shows just how far Poloniex is behind. Not only behind in terms of support tickets, but also behind in their ability to scale their platform to the speeds required. The increased activity on the site has been present and increasing for months, but it seems like Poloniex is only becoming farther and farther behind.
While the Trollbox served very little practical purpose for many, it gave users the ability to connect if they chose to.
Many cryptocurrency traders have always loved to chat with others while they trade, the Trollbox gave them an easy ability to do just that. While its likely that most of the active users were likely smaller users, it is still a product that many of their customers enjoyed. The removal of the Trollbox is making me worried for the future changes Poloniex will enact if they cant get things in order.
While this is much less likely, but the idea of Poloniex removing their margin and lending markets over the following months is a becoming a possibility. Like I said this is not likely and this is pure speculation, I think that if push comes to shove and they still are this far behind in several months a temporary shutdown of the margin/lending markets may be their only choice. While Poloniex would try to do everything else before taking a measure this drastic, not only because they would likely loose customers, but also because they make tremendous amounts of money off of lending profits and the increased volume that margin markets create.
While the removal of markets is a slim possibility, Poloniex has took a serious and potwentially dangerous action today with the removal of their Trollbox. Their long time users and customers may feel a bit betrayed, asnd rightly so. While the removal of the Trollbox will likely help the platform improve efficiency and support times, it will likely not be anywhere close to enough of a change. Poloniex has been running a very difficult to use platform for several months now, and things only seem to be getting worse and worse.
I really hope this post was helpful or enjoyable for you, and I urge you to leave any comments, questions, ect. in the comments below! Thanks for reading!