Bitcoin Forum

As in subject, one of legendary staff members started promoting obvious ponzi with avatar/personal text just because they are paying more. Whoring?


...and is ok, that those kind of guys are in default trust list? How can anybody believe default trust members (level 1), if they are whoring like this?

related SA thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1074272.0

edit: dserrano5 changed his mind: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1092890.msg11654940#msg11654940

we don't need this thread anymore - LOCKED

http://media.news.harvard.edu/gazette/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Hello-Kitty-Wallpaper-37_605.jpg

Actually he didn't join signature campaign AFAIK, but still promoting a ponzi scam. I said this before to someone else, so I will repeat:


dserrano5, did you read all posts in the scam accusation topic (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1074272.0)? You are promoting a ponzi scam, the only reason why cloudthink can get any victims from bitcointalk is because of people like you. They don't even have an announcement topic since they know it will have relevant/non-spam good questions that they cannot answer. The avatars/signatures are literally the only way for them to promote their scam here. Do you really need money so bad that you let others be scammed for it? Sounds like really bad morals to me. Please read the scam accusation thread if you really have doubts and want to do the right thing. As a legendary staff member (who is on level 1 DT) I really think you give the wrong signal promoting ponzi scams like that.

For those saying "they didn't scam yet", please read the scam accusation topic (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1074272.0). I cannot imagine anyone can give them the benefit of the doubt after reading the arguments. Let's not support/promote scams, especially as members who have been around here for a long time.

@NLNico I'm pretty sure he knows that he advertises a scam.

honestly, if he knows it, it is even worse. I really don't want to think about side effects of his greedy decision..

It is beyond me how a staff member can't check trust of a campaign manager: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=354495

it's so obvious. can anyone confirm that Staff Acc is NOT compromised?

I just posted this in the Scam Accusation thread and think it's relevant here, so I'll cross post it if that's ok.

Wow look ma, I've become famous :).




(or my PGP has been compromised as well)

edit: a better signed message.

You didnt really answer to the topic, did you know that they are a likely scam? Obviously you do know now and i see you still have their avatar, as i said i know its not 100% confirmed scam but still..

Judging by your response are we to assume not a fuck is given on this matter?

If so, that is extremely worrying.

Yes.

IMHO he should be removed from DefaultTrust trust list but should be allowed to remain in default trust depth 2.

So newbies who are highly likely to regard BCT Staff members as reliable indicators of trustworthy services should basically go fuck themselves because you feel like taking advantage of your position to earn yourself a few dollars?

Nice morality you got there, does it come in 'decent' or do you only do 'I got my satoshis so fuck you'?

those poor and desperate enough to participate in paid signature campaigns do not deserve to be taken seriously

obviously not anymore. this is actually, why I created the thread..not because some hero/leg member promoting obvious ponzi, but STAFF member with highest possible trust level on whole board - this is something new, what I never saw here before..

Looking forward for reaction from other staff members/administrators, because this is simply unacceptable behavior without single excuse. His reaction just showed us his attitude, which is also not so cool at all..

I agree the problem here isn't he's on default trust, or Legendary, the problem is he's the moderator of the Spanish sub-forum, and therefore Staff everywhere else.

I mentioned this here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1091932.msg11642388#msg11642388) (in Spanish) and he said scams are not moderated and he's just a regular user whose opinions or mesages shouldn't be considered as official at all, which of course is true. The problem is that a lot of users, especially newbies, don't know that. I strongly believe several people will see it's promoted by the staff and will think "great, this is certified by the forum, it can't be a scam". And no they don't deserve to be scammed for wrongly thinking so.

While he's on his right to promote it I do see a problem here. It's not the same not moderating a possible scam than promoting it. It can be misleading for a lot of users.

Edit: I see the payouts were just greatly reduced (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1084422.msg11650275#msg11650275), let's hope that helps.

…should develop a brain of their own. I've already said this.



Well, I used the softer term "burned" ;). Back in the day I was burned in the dozens of coins because I trusted the words of someone else that I considered pretty trustworthy.



Because they haven't a brain of their own.

I'm taking advantage of my hard earned legendary position to get 0.1BTC/week in advance with zero posting requirements. Anything wrong with that?



A few coins.

---

Edit: worry not, people, payouts have been decreased. Next tuesday night (Europe) I'll revert my avatar. Fame is so short lived…

Back in the day, there was no trust rating system.

Now is situation little bit different, because you had highest possible trust level here, believe or not, but for majority of users are those Staff guys with level 1 DT really trustworthy..it is really hard for you get the point or you just don't want to admit to yourself, what are you actually doing and how you are harming community here..

omfg..

Great to read this :)
I think it's for the wrong reason but it works anyway.

So because you got fucked over you believe others should be too? wow, just, wow.



They may be unsure what to believe but I can guarantee you this, because you are a staff member there *will* be users who see you are supporting this scam and will think it must be ok to have the backing of such an esteemed member of the community. Attempting to dismiss such concerns on the basis that you want to claim they "haven't a brain of their own" is to completely ignore the realities of the responsibility you have here as a person in a position of power.


Being 'legendary' isn't the problem, being 'staff' is. So, yes, there is a great deal wrong with you taking advantage of your official title in order to promote a known criminal enterprise as though it were legit.

I think he should stop promoting what is obviously a scam.

Granted it is the responsibility of individual users to do their own due diligence when deciding to do business with someone or deciding to invest in something. However with that being said, when someone credible advertises for someone then a certain level of credibility is given to that business and someone may give less weight to the fact that there are red flags this is a scam.

If dserrano5 wants to remain reputable then he should remove the avatar and stop advertising/promoting an obvious scam. If he does remove the advertisement then he would receive a certain level of additional of respect in my book as he would have essentially admit he made a mistake and quickly rectified the situation.

If he continues to advertise a scam then I do not see the logic that he should be trusted to maintain a trust list that includes only people who are reputable enough that will reasonably include people who send accurate trust ratings. Nor can I understand that it would be reasonable that he would send accurate trust ratings.

If he wants to earn a little bit of BTC by selling his avatar then I am sure he can find a competitive avatar campaign that would pay him to advertise while he can maintain his credibility.

Yes the forum has advertised what turned out to be scams in the past however, to my knowledge, nothing has been advertised that was clearly a scam at the time of advertisement. BFL was showing signs of problems and had a reputation of major delays, however to my knowledge there was no solid evidence available at the time that they were intentionally delaying shipment of their miners. They is has also rejected bids on forum ads from what were clear scams.  

Even I was a bit surprised to see, not only a legendary but a staff member promoting this.

Maybe they need to increase the payouts of staff :D

Ignorance is bliss I guess. you'd expect staff members to work for the community and prevent scams not support them.

Thats like the guy who paid a loan after 1 year to have his red trust removed, it just doesnt work like that and this guy shouldnt be staff anymore.

Even though he is promoting an obvious scam, I think he is moderating forum well. Theymos most probably remove him if he is abusing his power.

You represent everything that is wrong with Default Trust given your attitude in regards to this matter - shilling for ANYTHING as a staff member of these forums.

But then again, seeing as how Theymos has greatly profited off these forums, I'm sure the staff sees no moral or ethical issues with shilling and abusing their positions of "power" for self-profit.

I guess Theymos should decide what's the role of staff members in the first place.

If I'm not mistaken this has already been discussed in the past, and it was established that the role of staff is to prevent spam - no further policing whatsoever, and no protecting users from possible scams.

This is what I remember, and if it is like this the trust system is quite flawed indeed - but I really don't see how this should be dserrano ''s fault,

It's his fault for knowingly promoting a scam. It's as simple as that.

Being staff in local section is being selected by discussion. I'm sure everyone has their own decision to selecting him as staff.
Being staff also carrying burden, they must keep their honor. That's a quite heavy task.
When staff want to promoting something illegal, it means he/she ruin their honor  :(

You cannot expect staff to judge whether or not a specific service with a referral scheme is legit or not.
So there's only two possible solutions to the dilemma of staff sometimes accidentally (or willingly) promoting scam:
1. forbid advertising for staff
2. let them do whatever they like
I personally would opt for 1.

I think it is pretty clear that in this case the site that is being advertised is a scam. That is the major difference, sure someone could get duped into advertising what turns out to be a scam, however the evidence is clear.

I think that anyone who advertised such a obvious scam is someone whose word should not be trusted, and is not reputable and the forum staff, and more importantly, the people on level 1 default trust who be trusted and should be reputable.

Possibly. But I still don't think the burden of judgement should be on the shoulders of staff.
There may be other cases (and have been in the past) where the situation is not as obvious, and where the advertising by staff might have lured a lot of newbies into believing some scam to be true.
That's why I'd personally discourage staff and legendary members from promoting any business (except for their own, if they have).
Making that a rule for staff or e.g. users on DefaultTrust would be a good idea.

I agree, but I'd prefer a solution for the future over making an example of this singular event.

I think it is more clear then most that this is a scam. There are a number of people pointing it out, and generally speaking even many of the people who are wearing the signature/avatar are in agreement it is a scam, however they have no issue with whoring out their signature/avatar
If he were to remove the advertisement then there would be no issue. I would be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he was not aware they were a scam when he agreed to advertise for them. He can simply return any money he received and advertise for someone else.

So what can we expect from staff then? If you guys cant tell if something its a scam or not and you cant tell if someone is spamming or posting insubstantial posts, what are you guys for? Im just wondering

this is fine, because it's not role of staff members to witch hunt scammers and mark ponzis. eveybody should use own brain. anyway, point is different, just read previous posts..

This is bad that a staff member does not do his due dilligence before applying to advertise a clear as day scam, not only that the guy has been flooded with negatives from trusted default members and this staff member promotes anyway.

He chooses not to give a shit and carry on even after it has kindly been pointed out to him what he is doing, what is left is that he knew before he wore the avatar that it was a scam and didn't care.

This is the guy we have on default and staff, if he sells out so easily he should be removed from default look at the damage he could do if he was offered a few dollars.

Trust, the kind I gave to that "someone else", has existed for millenia. The trust system in this forum is solely related to trust feedback, which is itself oriented towards the marketplace sections. Both trusts shouldn't be mixed up.

It's an interesting mental process, you followed there. I haven't a clue where you extracted that "revenge" bit from. I trusted the words of thay guy, "well if he says it, then it must be true" and months later I got what I deserved after following such a flawed logic. We all agree it's a flawed logic, right? That's ok, shit happens, I learned my lesson, end of the story. This is not a personal crusade to obtain some ego out of the losses of others. It's just how life works. Those without an own judgement will be parted of their money in one way or another.



While I keep strongly disagreeing with that, now at least you've made me think.




Being staff means that I've been entrusted to keep a specific part of this forum from derailing. Staff aren't counsellors.

If could be argued your prominent shilling is, in itself, derailing.

The burden is on you to prove that accusation. Best of luck…

Is the proof of cloudthink.io being a scam strong enough to accuse dserrano like this?
Also, if dadice turned out to be a scam (which it isn't, but just giving an example) and im promoting it with my signature and avatar, I would've been still be promoting it until I realized because im not checking every single thread daily.. it could have been 1 month+ more until I see it.. so if someone makes a thread accusing X campaign of a scam, I wouldn't know, so during that time one wouldn't be liable for it, because you think you are promoting something legit. The difference is tho, dserrano has already seen that thread with the supposed proof, but he seems to genuinely think what he is promoting isn't a scam..

dserrano5 shouldn't be part of the staff of Bitcointalk.

He is a really really bad moderator, I'm spanish and his labour as moderator is totally unacceptable. He feels the boss of the spanish subforum, his behaviour is totally opposite to Bitcoin philosophy.

Btw, I remember he was against advertising signature campaigns and look at him now... Even selling his picture to a scam website. Ridiculous.

Being staff means that you represent the forum. By promoting a ponzi, you've not only sold yourself out for a pittance. You've also the forum out.

Yes I think he should be removed from the default trust list but not from his position of 'staff member', this was only my personal opinion (and it is obvious that someone will not agree with me ;)).

But cloudthink is 99% scam, he never said he thinks what he is promoting is not a scam, as seen in this thread he just doesnt give a shit, have you even seen the admin of cloduthink trust? Last time i saw it, it was at -64. He just shouldnt advertise anything that its more than just likely to be a scam, he was even inviting other people to join the campaign therefore making people think cloudthink is a good site.

Moderation in spanish subforum is a real shit,


They think they are god and they go every thread making stupid corrections to people and erasing posts I don't think they should erase

They should have been kicked a long time ago

Some of moderators are promoting gambling websites which is illegal in lots of countries.
If you're "idiot enough" to invest in ponzis does it matter who promotes it? Ponzis are kinda gambling for most of people; They're investing ponzis consciously.
I don't see any problem for a mod to promote some shit.

entertainment and ticoti, his moderation skills aren't being questioned in this thread. If you don't agree with what he does and how he does it, please make a thread about it or send Theymos/Badbear a message. It's off-topic in here.

He is as stupid as he can on spanish section.
He feel like a god for be Mod on bitcointalk,

In my opinion, Theymos need to kick him to have the spanish section more friendly but he have too many work with the new forum...

The moderation, and specific Dserrano5 is fucking the spanish section.

As user, is stupid too, but less that when he post as a moderator


Futhermore, he sell himself promotic a scam for few satoshis :o :o

A message to Theymos/Badbear? That's a good joke. I have sent them around 7 messages each one about my hacked account with signed proofs of ownership, and link to my topic: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=877377.msg9688652#msg9688652

I didn't get a single answer from them. If they don't answered me I really doubt they answer someone for a Mod complain...

There's no burden at all. It's right there as your avatar.

https://i.imgur.com/BX7liW6.png

https://i.imgur.com/Lc8cF1X.png

But it is really strange, why a staff member should promote a 'scam' site? This is really a no-sense thing.... I think there is a second reason behind his choice to promote that site (not only for a few satoshi).

I dont see a reason for a big disussion here though. dserrano5 is basically saying: "Im doing nothing wrong", so just remove him from your trust list
and be done with it. Its not like they have that much feedback to make a big difference. Its also probably worth to take a look at those on dserrano5's trustlist and deceide whether you want to add them to your trustlist or not.

Done ! However we are discussing that he should be removed from the DefaultTrust (user) so theymos should remove him directly, without the use of this *trick from us (*~dserrano5). He is (probbly) not doing anything of wrong, but promote with your avatar + personal message a probable scam site it is not a good thing (especially from a 2-defaultTrust user staff member).

Its ok if he is a legendary member
Its kind of ok if he is a staff member. In my books its a no no.
Its NOT ok if he is on the default trust list.

I personally don't use the default trust list (~DefaultTrust) so I should not be affected.

it's not ok for any level of member to promote obvious ponzi. and I don't think excluding DefaultTrust does anything cuz I just tried it and I still see greens actually, it seemed to have worked... but excluding dserrano5 alone should do for now

That's not the same.
Removing him from your trust list like this will only make you ignore his trust feedback for others and ignore his respective trust list, both of which might still be valuable for you.
If you specifically no longer trust him personally for what he's doing, and/or you want to warn others about his behavior, you should give him a negative trust rating yourself.

give negative trust rating to staff member with 1level DT? sorry, don't wanna to ruin my acc here..

edit: omg, I just realized, how this trust system is sick.

I haven't read through the entire discussion but I think that he shouldn't be advertising it for one main reason. All people who are new to investing and cloudmining may see that a staff member here has its avatar or signature . Most of the times they would likely not doubt it and without doing any research might just invest in it. This also happened in the past with a dice site where people invested because some trusted member had its signature. But ultimately the site went down and had scammed.

I don't think the solution is to remove him from the trust list or the staff position. But have theymos request him to remove the advertising as it may lead to people losing money on a clear scam.

I never realized it until now, but you're right. This trust system is sick.

The trust system is good, just has some small flaws. For instance, there should not be a *default list*. Let members make their own; or share their trust lists.

Another scam??... it´s posible. ::)


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=705523.0   (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=705523.0)  :-* :-*


Your interpretation??  Ok, sorry. 

Oh! he Spanish?!?

In that case all is forgiven :D



Just kidding! I have a few good Spanish friends.

I think it is quite clear with the last intervention of @vgo why the people complain of moderation in the spanish subforum. This kind of arrogant comments is the norm in the subforum.

Once again, if you have a problem with the way dserrano5, vgo or any other moderator moderate, please create a thread about it or send a PM about it (with solid proof) to theymos and BadBear. It's off-topic in here.

So move this to Scam Accusations if you feel this is not appropriate discussion here.

This is completely relevant in a Meta discussion.

Look, the issue is one of Staff members failing to recuse themselves from profiting due to their elevated status (read: Staff) on these forums.

It should go without saying that Staff members of these forums should try to maintain an air of neutrality or objectivity - Not profit from signature or advertising campaigns. If you can't see this yourself, I contend your moral compass is broken.

It sends a message that corruption is OK on these forums.

Actually, now that I've said that out loud... it's starting to make a whole lot of sense considering the history of these forums.

If two on DT level 1 do it, they are essentially gone from DT as this propagates through the trust network as well as adding someone to the list. Or is it one on the same level and two on a level below? Im not entirely sure on the numbers, but IIRC thats how TECSHARE was removed.

That is not true. He would still be on level 1 default trust. You can only have an impact on other's trust network if you are on a lower depth level then the person you are excluding.

For example, you are on level 2, so two people on level 1 would need to exclude you in order for you to be off of default trust, if two people from level 2 excluded you then nothing would happen (except for people who are using custom trust lists).

In order for him to be off of default trust, he would need to be removed by theymos

Yes, it's fits into the Meta section, but it is not relevant to the subject of this thread. This is about dserrano5 wearing a signature and avatar for a website that may or may not be a scam (my personal opinion does not matter in this context), not about dserrano5's and vgo's moderating skills. If you discuss their moderation skills, it's off-topic and should be done somewhere else.

The text under the avatar is a strict requirement of the campaign. In no way it proves I'm an accomplice or a customer of mirjangka. Also, your usage of "shill" again later in the thread signals that you use the word pretty lightly.



Ok, this has been brought again. I guess that by disagreeing with that line of thought, a compelling case can be made that I'm facilitating clueless people to be allegedly scammed out of their money. I can perfectly sleep in a parallel universe where theymos, at his sole discretion, removes my entry from DT. I can, and will, perfectly sleep in this universe in which I've received at least a negative feedback (last I checked). I can perfectly sleep in, probably, this universe where several members have added "~dserrano5" to their personal trust lists—that's their call after all. But it would take me some additional minutes to sleep thinking that I could have been the stepping stone upon which someone could have made a wrong decision. They're probably going to make a bad decision anyway based on the perceived trustworthiness of someone else, and they will appropriately learn the lesson, but at least I wouldn't be involved in the negative aspect of that.

In clear blunt words: suckers gonna suck. It's one more of those sad realities of this world. Thanks cryptodevil, erpbridge and others earlier in the thread for making me realise that.

My following immediate steps, provided that my internet connection doesn't fail precisely now :), will be to restore my previous avatar and to publicly contact mirjangka to give him back his payment.

Last but not least, I want to add that I haven't been contacted by the admins regarding this.

Dude. You've just defined "shill" right there. You are enticing others.

I use the word "shill" when it's appropriate. You've just admitted yourself as a shill for participating in the campaign.

Sorry that I need to spell this out for you.

I'm really glad to read this! You're making the right decision. I'm sure at least one person won't be scammed because of this.

wow, thank you. I can't even express now how positively surprised I'm..nice dreams :-*