Bitcoin Forum

Since the merit system is introduced in the forum, everyone is complaining about someone getting merit points for none deserving posts & someone not getting merit points for deserving posts.
If the main motive of this forum is to introduce quality in the forum then they have to ban multiple accounts rather than giving a merit system from one peer to another peer.
If these things can't happen, then they have to introduce a panel of experts who will give merit points to quality posts without any discrimination.
This will introduce stability and people will actually work for the quality with proper power.
What do you think??

That panel of experts is called as "merit sources" as per the new system.

One of the good things about the forum is anonymity, so a KYC appart from being expensive would scare many people that want to speak freely. Perhaps you come from a country where that is granted.

Regarding the panel, and as the previous post says, you have the merit sources that, at least in theory, should be acting for the better of the forum.

However, I do find some "merit" in your post as per having a bit of a clear criteria on what is quality and how much merit could you expect for a brilliant post, etc... But I guess that the system has yet to mature.

If you really think that a crypto anarchist / cyberpunk / anyone reasonable/rational/knowledgeable (i.e. any desirable user) is going to submit KYC to become a merit source or even to register here, then you are a nutjob.

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I wonder why Jet Cash merited this shitpost.

Tor user here.  Cypherpunk who remembers that it took an excruciatingly long time to generate 4096-bit RSA PGP keys on 90s hardware.  I am strictly pseudonymous.  I am so dedicated to encrypting everything, everywhere, all the time, that I even encrypt all my forum posts with the military-grade ROT26 cipher.  I am not fodder for your dragnet. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2527738.msg25852987#msg25852987)

I’ve never submitted to any “KYC” identity-rape doxing for anything whatsoever even remotely related to Bitcoin.  On principle, I never will.  Why the hell would I?  In principle, my finances are private—mine, and mine alone.  As a practical matter, I don’t need to worry so much about history repeating in some fashion the time that gold was banned for four decades (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2552381.msg26015394#msg26015394) in the country which ignorant twerps call “the land of the free”.  I also don’t need to worry about the kinds of kidnappers and armed robbers who run from laws instead of making laws.  My literal and metaphorical gold is immune to all criminals, whereas nobody knows who I am, where I am, or what I have.

I know that theymos would never even consider doxing people.  I also know that if he did, this forum would be promptly reduced to a small circle-jerk in the alt speculation subforum, hyping how Govecoin With Anti Four Horsemen KYC/AML Cavity Search Technology is going to the MOON.

So, you want my dox?  “...from my cold, dead fingers.”

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For my part, it doesn’t matter where I happen to be located at any particular moment.  Nobody “grants” me the right to speak freely:  I grant that to myself.  If you wanted to shut me up, you’d need to find me first.

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Me, too.

...you were saying?

An inspiration for us all...so how do you buy Bitcoin?

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Because Jet Cash doesn't like the system. S/he feels they got screwed out of reaching Legendary status because they were close to hitting the range as the merit system was deployed. You'll notice that Jet Cash has a lot of schemes to try to get people to spend their merits on his/her posts, which are usually thinly veiled to appear as though he's a promoter of the system.

I think the most fitting answer, ironic but serious, would be:  “None of your business.”  Of course, I have “bought” Bitcoin (viz., exchanged fiat funny money for real money).  Indeed, most of my life savings wound up in Bitcoin (then most of that, in a privacy-oriented altcoin where I took a very painful loss—but that’s another story).  Whereas I have never bought Bitcoin on an exchange which does KYC.

Nobody anywhere has any record that I’ve ever owned even a single satoshi.  Most people who know me in real life don’t even know that I know what Bitcoin is.  And I would not brag about that, except under a nym made for the purpose of privacy and security work and activism.

There are plenty of other ways.  If the question were rephrased, “How might someone buy Bitcoin without a KYC-requiring exchange?”, then there are many forum threads, several websites, and at least one peer-to-peer network devoted to this exact question.  I note this without endorsing anything in particular.


I think that Jet Cash would need to speak for Jet Cash.  Anyway, arguendo, dislike for the merit system would not adequately explain giving merit to anything “KYC”.

@nullius. I do like the cut of your gib.

You are what is making the merit system awesome. A non pajeet Inteligent and eloquent poster and guess what.. you have received a fuck ton of merits for your rank..

Keep it up fella, can't wait to see you with 1k merits so I can point the moaning pajeets at your profile and tell them to fuck off as you are proof theymos was correct with the implementation

Arguendo, yes! I like that word, thank you for introducing it to me.

Jet Cash liked the original post. The original post mentions nothing of KYC. What the original post does mention is a direct criticism of the merit system for not doing enough to accomplish the intended benefit. Therefore, my contention remains that Jet Cash merited the post because he doesn't like the merit system.

And...on your anonymity, I look forward to never knowing who you are.

Cheers, HabbyB

Maybe they should stop complaining. People will get the merit eventually but it's not going to happen with every post. Keep making quality contributions and you will increase your odds.


I wouldn't be against certain restrictions like one account can only be created per ip, but banning alt accounts isn't as easy as just saying the practice is now banned. How do we police this? It's going to be something only admins can enforce and they pretty much never look into the things that need looking into as it is, nevermind giving them the mammoth task of now policing the no alts rule.


How can any panel of experts be free of 'discrimination'? People will still disagree or complain about points they do or don't give out.

Still  unable to understand what is meaning of  title of this thread?   We will need governance not KYC.  Members on this thread love their privacy.   

Thanks.  Feel free to point to me already.  For my part, I’ve been flaunting my merit score to whiners of all kinds.  Some might take that as tooting my own horn; but I don’t care, because—well, zeroth of all, I just don’t care about that.  First of all, I needn’t boast when the number is printed right below my name.  But it sure feels good to rub it in the faces of all the self-entitled nincompoops who loudly demand that they should be able to rise in rank, when they can’t or won’t make good posts.

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Cheers!

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That.


As a Tor user, I would strongly object to that.  It is likely that many accounts have been created from whatever exit IP I happened to use when I created mine.  I paid the requisite fee to absolve myself of that IP’s “evil”.  But had there been any restriction on accounts created per IP, then I would not be here at all.

Whitelising Tor for multiple accounts created per IP would not be a solution.  Tor is not the only anonymity solution; and moreover, a whitelist of Tor exits would simply mean that all users who wanted to create many accounts would use Tor for that.  It’s likely that many of them already do, anyway.

Of course, as an anonymity network user, I focus on that aspect.  What about ISP proxies and carrier-grade NAT?  Due to IPv4 exhaustion, carrier-grade NAT is increasingly common nowadays.  A single IP address can map to many people, each of whom has no choice in the matter other than to swich ISPs.  In a market with an ISP monopoly, or where all local ISPs use carrier-grade NAT, they may have no choice at all.

The notion of some quasi-bijective mapping between people and IP addresses is a common fallacy; as such, IP addresses are far too much abused and mistaken as some sort of identity token or identity limiter.  The worst part is, professional spammers, blackhats, and other net abusers have access to huge collections of IPs.  They suffer the least from such restrictions.  I recall theymos saying that part of the reason why his homebrew anti-DDoS system failed was that attackers had “thousands of IPs”.  So do many other abusers.


The whole point is to discriminate—to be highly discriminating between high-quality and low-quality posts.  As a discriminating conoisseur of fine words, I urge discrimination and intolerance against worthless drivel.

What Naitik evidently desires is that merit be awarded indiscriminately, to forum poetry and one-liner garbage posts alike.  I think that speaks much as to his motives.

With all these smartasses around no wonder why crypto is turning into shit. This is crypto forum not a bank, if you don't like system you can always go to other crypto forum. I can give you a list if you want.
*KYC for crypto forum, some guys are very funny.

I understand that your pill addiction can sometimes make it difficult to exercise critical thinking, however there is a difference between a "shitpost" and something you disagree with.


I believe the ultimate purpose of the merit system is to make it more difficult to earn via signature campaigns if you are unable to make coherent posts.

This is not an exchange, it is a forum. We do not need KYC.

(Funny, that.  I was just now perusing forum archives, trying to learn more about the trust system and DT.  I got quite an eyeful about QuickSeller... and here he is!  It figures that he gave merit to OP.)


I understand that your blind hatred for Lauda can sometimes make it difficult to exercise critical thinking; but a post in broken English vaguely describing a half-baked, nonsensical idea somehow, implicating KYC privacy-rape in an unspecified manner, does indeed meet common criteria for being described as a “shitpost”.


(Boldface supplied.)

...thus, deterring the spew of illiterate morons who use this forum as their personal free money machine.  Works for me.

People can first find a clearnet connection to sign up with first then use tor. I wouldn't be against users signing up via tor paying a (bigger) fee, and have in the past suggested that all connections are blacklisted once used to sign up via, but a user could then bypass that by paying a fee or buying a member rank etc to whitelist it for themselves. The point is to make it so creating multiple to hundreds of accounts just isn't financially worth it but people should be able to have one or two or as many as they can afford or pay for. I guess with the merit system the number of accounts you can have now for signature campaigns requires more work and will slow farmers down greatly but I think people will still find ways around it by trading or buying merits etc.

I saw a guy uploading certificates and other personal stuff in another thread on this forum so yeah people in dire circumstances are fucking desperate for money and could do anything. I am not sure which group is bigger - the one consisting of narcissistic douchebags or the one comprised of desperate earners.

No, no, no!  Mixing Tor and non-Tor use for the same login is a privacy cardinal sin, the kind of thing you find in FAQs on foot-shooting and “what not to do”.  It has already happened that I advised a user here to totally abandon his account and make a new one, after Google refused to serve him a login CAPTCHA and he gave up and signed in via clearnet; I doubt he heeded me, but what I told him was sound.  Please do not ever advise people to do this, much less consider it as a basis for policy.

(Perhaps I read too much into it, but if you meant more than explicit in the word “find”—no, an open wifi hotspot should never be mixed with Tor use.  I mention this, because it’s also FAQ fodder.)


Interesting.  Do you have stats on how much abuse is actually coming through Tor?  I’d presume much, but I wonder how much; it is never good to proceed based on assumptions.  As for abusive account signups specifically, is the current fee not enough?  That would surprise me, given the economics of spamming and the nature of the payment method (no stolen credit cards!).

There is always a delicate balance when abuse issues collide with the privacy interests of legitimate users.  One of the things I most appreciate about this forum is its friendliness toward Tor users, with good precedent insofar as theymos says that Satoshi “always used Tor” (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=178330.msg1869406#msg1869406) (I presume with no mixed clearnet use!).  I am also keen on fighting abuse; I actually didn’t use my account for eight months after signing up, because the quality here has been so bad that I didn’t want to waste my time.

If you’d care to discuss this further, perhaps on a new thread, so would I.  I have not inconsiderable expertise on the Tor side.  I also have some substantial longstanding familiarity with net.abuse issues, though not much at all with those specifically affecting this forum.  I’d like to help somehow.


I think ultimately, the merit system will succeed if and only if it becomes a social solution applying technical tools, rather than a technical bandage applied to a bleeding social wound.  That’s why I’ve been so intent on posting about this in Meta lately.  Technical obstacles can be hacked and gamed around.  A cohesive merit culture would not be so easy to fool.

Can you add link to that thread ? Was it added to show identity proof to a campaign manager ?

What if the uploaded data is not his?

I don’t know what you mean by “certificates”, but I presume you refer to some sort of identity info.  There is a thriving black market for such things.  —  (Edited to add:)  This could be an easy means to “cash out”.

(Somehow, I overlooked this before.  Thanks for highlighting it.)

I'm guessing it's a reference to this: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2544574.msg29396753#msg29396753

Not sure what the notarized documents were supposed to prove. Notaries or not, on the internet, you can be a dog. If you go back earlier in the thread, he volunteered photographs of himself (and wife) which were then used to dox him.....

You seem to know your privacy stuff. I respect people who work on their opsec.

Agreed. I dislike the merit system as a solution for the problems that we've been facing, given the other simpler solutions that could have been implemented. However, my dislike of the system is not going to manifest itself in giving merit to someone who wants KYC on a crypto-forum.  

The reason he gave OP merit is because I called out the Jet Cash for giving him merit. Had I not gotten involved, he would not likely have given any points here. It's quite obvious and most people are just sick of his vendetta bullshit (hence his -1k rating).

People who do that should explicitly be banned from participating in any campaigns. People who are desperate for money via campaigns are up to no good and are contributing to the problem.

Here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2544574.msg29396753#msg29396753. Tl;dr: User and his alts got busted for shitposting and abusing campaigns. He then proceeded to claim that *his whole family* is behind those accounts, i.e. 1 person per account. I don't buy it. Abuse is abuse.

1 - not everyone speaks english as their 1st language, and the OP cannot post this thread in a local section.

2 - A variety of KYC-like proposals have been discussed over the years to allow for people to do certain things, however the political views of most of the long standing members around here would probably be against this. I understand that other forums and marketplaces do require KYC to enable various functions.

3 - Similarly, many people have made proposals preventing members from having multiple accounts via various technical means.

I don't agree with the OP, however to classify something you disagree with to be a "shitpost" and to describe someone you disagree with as a "scammer" both blindly, does nothing other than make this plan an echo chamber.

First off I am a 75 year old "him"

Now to cover some of your points.

I don't feel that I've been screwed out of legendary status. I invented the term LAMP to differentiate between Legendaries who obtained rank by shitposting and promoting their sig bounties, and legendaries who make valuable contributions to this forum.

I have suggested a lot of ideas because I remember the forum as it was when I first joined. At that time the forum was well moderated and very valuable as an educational source. Right now it is an omelette, and it is very difficult to find some topics as they can be buried in a variety of boards. The merit system is clearly being abused, and I don't think the soup kitchens and food banks are a good way to overcome the problems of moderation in the current forum.

I give out my points as I see fit, and I can't remember the post in question, but obvously I considered it to have some merit at the time. Actually I think I did post a justification somewhere.

I don't promote any sig campaigns. I have looked at a number of them, but I have decided to use my signature to promote sites that I believe in, and not those that pay the highest bonuses. These are unlikely to be any of the over-saturated campaigns advertised here, Because of this, there is no advantage in my being promoted to Legendary. The sig limits are the same for Heroes and Legendaries.

I think your posts are far more targetted towards the acquisition of merits than any of my posts, and I'm sure that the promotion to Legendary is of much greater importance to you than it is to me. I would be grateful if you could stop attempting to trash me so that, in my own small way, I can continue to help Bitcoin Talk to return to the valuable training resource that it was a few years ago.

Apology HabBear that i could not explian the meaning of KYC Registration.  I meant to register here with full proofs that a person should allow one account per user. The Hoard of making posts is very fatal in earlier. People making no,of profiles at a time and do rubbish post because they only want to increase it activities.
 surely I don't explain my self.

Come on.
Someone has question with regards to Merit system, let's give him a solution rather than taunting him.
 A person is trying to get possible outcomes to obsolete the drawbacks of merit system so everybody is happy and stop complaining about this unique concept of Merit system. He is a junior member right now, it means he don't know about all the parameters and he is here to learn something.
Look at your journey right now. You never failed in your life?
When you failed in the past, then someone came & told you are crab or something else. How do you feel at that time.
So stop criticizing & give him a solid reason to their question.
If someone don't know about something we have to came & Help that person. So he will try to learn and explore something.

Coming to the answer  
It is not possible that a KYC will be applicable here.
You should have to elaborate each factors why are you thinking so.
A suggestion to you next time you should have to give reason why you ask the question?
If you do so everyone will be connected with you and give all the possible outcomes that you will definitely clear your doubts.
All the best!

Reading the previous comments more than an hour I found out that the above rank helping each other doing investigation. Merit system seems cleaning the garbages in this forum. Hopefully this post of mind is not shitpost.

Unfortunately such cases when a weak post get merited became so usual that this problem just cannot be stayed covered. I think the main problem here is multiply accounts, where a present move merits from one old profile to a new one. The idea that you suggested seems good to me and fair, I hope creators of Merit system will take it in wiev and do something about it.

Taxing my memory, I think also-two-spaces-after-a-full-stop Satoshi echos your sentiment.  ;) ;) ;) FWIW, at least your posting habits are such that you'll never be on anybody's radar.  ::)

In that spirit ...

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/User:Nullius


One more thing. I'll pay if you tell me which Internet pipes you use that don't travel through ...

The merit system needs to mature. The merit comes from the merit sources, so even if people at first merit underserving posts, it will eventually come to an end.

I also use Tor just like nullius, and theymos is pro-privacy so I doubt you'll ever see KYC stuff in here.

theymos took a big enough of a compromise going the Cloudfare route to stop the insane ddosing which it seems unfortunately he didn't manage to mitigate any other way. He also made the compromise of adding that annoying Google captcha. I can understand these compromises, but KYC would be overkill and directly against the spirit of Bitcoin.

Treat anything Bitcoin-related as a potential scam as anyone smart will advise you to do. Using Tor/VPN is basic because anyone could try to get your IP and proceed to try to dox you, let alone if you are stupid enough to upload a pic of you holding your ID. Not safe here and not safe on any of the exchanges, which is why I stopped using them. ALL exchanges will eventually be hacked and their databases posted on the darknet. Not fun.

Authorities: Do you comply to KYC regulations?
Entity: Sure do. In fact, that's the first thing we did. We collect as much vitals on our users as humanly possible with the intent of selling the data on the Darknet using the excuse, "Oopsy! We've been hacked." In Cryptoland, the name of the game is Inside Job. Wanna play? Here's a link to our signup form. Trust us!