Bitcoin Forum

**UPDATE: Sent PM to theymos on 2/19.

Overview:
I believe we should remove the option to self-moderate topics for certain user groups within areas of the marketplace. This can be used as an additional way to reduce and prevent scamming while allowing for further community moderation.

Some reasons for the change:
1) More and more scammers are using self-moderation as a shield to prevent users from calling out any illicit activities.
2) Moderators have always taken a stance to not get involved in the marketplace. (I am not saying it is right or wrong, just stating a fact.)
3) Threads posted in the scam accusation section can go unseen by potential victims and new users.
4) Newer users may be unaware of the trust system and unregistered users do not see it at all.

This is in no way a replacement for any of the current systems we have in play.  I am only suggesting we utilize this along with the current systems.  
ESCROW usage is, as always, key, and it is always up to the user to do their due diligence before entering any trade.  This is just another step to make it more fool proof.

NOTE: The option to close/lock a topic can be easily used in a fashion similar to self-moderation.  This suggestion will also require the removal of the option to close topics.

Affected forum areas:
Self-moderation should specifically be removed from these 2 sections of the marketplace:

• Goods(Computer hardware, Digital goods, & Collectibles)
• Currency exchange

Any other section can be included if it is deemed worthwhile.  

Affected user groups:
Full Member, Senior, Hero, and Legendary users would NOT be affected.  Those groups would keep the ability to self-moderate in the decided upon marketplace sections(credit to akamit).
It would also be advantageous to have this benefit become disabled if a user's trust becomes negative(credit to ralle14).  Loss of benefits would apply regardless of their user group.

Only users with the rank of Member or below would lose their self-moderation options.

This change could become an added benefit for user groups, similar to the expanded PM space or reduced wait time between posts.

--------------------


There should not be many downsides to removing the self-moderation options for the lower user groups within certain marketplace sections.

What do you think?

Okay  I see lots of marketplace abuse with self modded threads and locked threads.

I am a well known seller on marketplace and I do self mod.

I would like to think I am not abusive of that privilege.

The problem is what is a good way to discourage abuse in the marketplace.

Ban new sellers?

I do not know if op has the best idea but at least he is trying.

I think it is a fantastic idea, you don't have to ban new users to discourage abuse in the marketplace, but if they scam people then they should not be allowed to self moderate a thread.

I would go one step further and also stop anyone below full member from being allowed to lock their threads.

If this was implemented it would be a large step forward in stopping scammers here, the way it is at the moment this site is a haven for scammers and they flock here by the droves, this would save me a lot of work calling out scammers in the digital goods section.

Please Admins take this onboard and consider this.

I fully agree with your idea, it would be a good step against all scammers that bump their thread all the time to be read by newbies. It's quite hard to see that a thread is self moderated, so prevent new members to create some is a must in every place where goods or services are sold.

Another risk of self moderation is that the posts in a scam thread that serve as evidence of the scam (and would be included in any scam accusation thread) could be deleted. We give the accused criminal the ability to delete the evidence of their crimes!

I'm a fan of this idea.

At least this forum has always maintained the 'buyer beware' mantra because they can't prevent or fight all the scammers that appear.

How difficult it is to buy a Full Member account on the forum ? The scammers would simply buy higher ranked accounts to start self-moderated threads..By the time user's trust becomes negative,he would have scammed a good amount of money to buy a new account..
I'm not saying this wouldn't work but scammers would find loopholes and keep doing what they intend to.

Would work, but might be a bit too extreme and hard for people to get behind, haha


I had it in there, but called it the "close option", I added lock so people know what I am talking about.


You are absolutely right. There is no way we will ever be able to completely stop scams.  All we can do is try to make it a little bit harder for the scammers.

One good thing about this merit system is the fact that higher ranked accounts will soon be harder to come by.

I know we had a tough go of it the last time around, but you might be surprised to find that I have no problems whatsoever with the way this is worded, or with the idea in general. I am hard pressed to find any examples of lower ranking members using the self-moderation feature properly, and it is almost a guarantee when you see them using it that they are abusing it in some malicious manner.

This is a good way of at least remedying a small amount of the malicious behavior in these sections. Of course some will just buy Full Member accounts, but it certainly would deter at least a certain amount of them from doing so. The scam may not be worth ruining a Full Member account, or they simply don't have the funds for example.

I like how careful you were with the wording of it this time, because all of my previous disagreements have faded away and I am in full support at this point; unless someone can provide decent proof that these lower ranking members do for the most part use self-moderation admirable (which I doubt is the case).

Yes, and I apologize for our previous interaction, but that back and forth, as you said, did help me a lot in creating this thread properly.

Now we can move forward and hope this catches the admin's eye.

That was all I was trying to do, and I'm happy we eventually arrived at that. I did not mean to offend or get into a foolish exchange.


As it stands right now, this is probably the only disagreement I would have and it's not necesarily a hard disagreement. There would be ways to make it work, but I think it would have to come with another change on Mega-Thread policy. I know newer members don't often lock their threads, but for the one's that create mega-threads and wish to lock them it might go a long way towards combating spam. I don't know if they ever do that to begin with, but I know it would be helpful if they did and so I'm wondering if anybody has any information on this?

Agreed and a very great idea but I have been asking for that for 2 years and the answer I always get is "people should be smart enough to figure out scams." 

Banning people from selling accounts would solve this, wouldn't it ? As soon as a thread is started selling accounts, it would be reported and Moderators can then delete it.

Unfortunately I don't think moderators have any interst in dealing with that stuff just like they don't want to deal with scammers, even the most blatant and obvious ones (JAAC aka Skelder/CESAR09 & the likes of "accountservices2" (Kimb0Jamz and 20+ othjers).  I'd love to take that job!  :D

It takes a lot of time to check bad apples scammers etc.

I run three mining locations. Small but still take time.
I build rigs for miners and support them.
I run the long alt coin mining thread.
I do reviews.
I have a small YouTube channel.
I pop in and out of threads on this site.
I do some escrow.
I sell some in marketplace here.
I spot check twenty five sites for gear.

All of the above is a one man show.
Damn list is long is it not?

I am retired or it would not be possible to do it all.

I also look for scams.

Lastly I liked the first thread about this and decided to poke my nose into it as milkz and bill gator were both bringing up good points.

About ten days ago maybe 13 I saw so many scammers on the first two pages of market place I was impressed enough to post a warning thread. Hoping to save some people grief .

I would support this being restricted to higher level accounts as I agree it is massively abused by scammers. With that being said, users doing so are usually big red flags and immediately set off alarm bells.


These sorts of scammers likely won't buy an account for this because it's not really worth the risk. At the moment anyone can create a new account and try their luck and hope they get some victims. Many would-be scammers quickly get tagged as such but they just create a new account and try again because they have nothing to lose. If they had to buy a new Full Member account each time I doubt these two bit scammers would even bother.


I'm not against banning the sale of accounts here but it wouldn't stop their sale elsewhere.

I 100% support the ban of sold accounts, however, I don't think staff wants to tackle the extra work or simply cannot because of the lack of man power.  

What I am proposing in this thread should be easy to implement as long as the existing forum software can do it.

Thank you for making this post, you presented the main points much more clearly than I did (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2642429.msg26909057#msg26909057). I think this is one of the issues with the forum that is actually fixable. Self-moderation is a privilege, not a right. Most forums I've been on don't even allow it as an option, and it is clearly being abused in the marketplace section. I think locking self-moderation behind copper membership for those below member is a reasonable solution, I seriously hope the administration will consider this.

It's not that much extra work and is no different than staff trashing the threads of people trying to sell hacked web accounts or people selling merit etc. There's nothing to really dispute as people selling accounts is pretty cut and dry. The community doesn't really tolerate it anyway so I don't see the big controversy in just prohibiting people selling them here in the first place.

They are big flags to everyone EXCEPT the vast majority who buy from them :D which are 90% newbies who find the scammers via Google search who have no idea on how to read TRUST or more importantly "UNTRUSTED" TRUST which remains hidden.

I had to go surf through about 10-pages of information about the copper membership to figure out if this would be a fair proposal. I've concluded that I have no problem with this, but I would've if the Copper Membership was cheap. It seems like the copper membership was about $40, which is a fair price to pay for something that gives you so many privileges. For example, if it was only $10 for copper membership it would seem too susceptible to abuse.


This would seem to be a good argument to remove self-moderation from those with negative trust from Default Trust members. I think that may be a good addition to this, because there are higher ranking members that abuse self-moderation and our DT users could handle them.

True, but most of them get tagged by people who see this behaviour, though I know from experience even this doesn't always stop idiots from sending them their money.


I wouldn't be against it being a perk of paid copper membership but I'd rather it just be earned over time with rank than just bought, because I think most newbies who come here wont want or need to self-mod anyway so some scammers will inevitably likely pay the fee to enable it (though most won't bother).

I had the same thought, but then I was thinking if something like copper-member exists at all then there might as well be some interesting perks to see how it is used and if it is still abused by the lower-ranking members who decide to buy it. I was thinking most newbies that come here won't want or need to embed pictures within their posts, and if they do it would most likely be extremely low-quality or even off-topic altogether. My point is that, this logic could be used to refute any of the perks that copper membership offers; they would probably all be better off being earned, rather than bought because of potential abuse. It would be interesting to see how it would play out, but obviously if it would do more harm than good, like making scams easier, then keep it restricted outside of Copper.

I honestly don't know if Self-moderation or Pictures by newbies (when it was available) gets abused/misused more often; Copper Membership and removal of this privilege for newbies has gone a long way towards thwarting the abuse and it might do the same for Self-moderation.

I would be against self-moderation being a perk for copper. Copper is only ~$20 right now(https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=credit;promote), would be much too easy for the scammers to buy that compared to buying a whole account.

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Everyone seems too over concerned with merit for us to get any attention, haha

Have you received any feedback yet from staff regarding this ? Would it be worth while messaging Admin to see if they would implement what you have proposed or is this thread just a waste of time ?

Self-moderation topic should raise first red flag, whenever I see such topic my first thought is there is something wrong with this.
Only if they don't do research. Bitcointalk isn't only source for information and people should not rely on only one source. Never.
Trust is hidden on several boards and it should be visible on every board. But before making deals people should click on user profile and they will see trust, if red color under trust doesn't mean anything there is nothing much you can do. Red color usually means alarm, stop, something is wrong.
It is not rocket science to create new account and it is not time consuming.

No feedback from staff yet and I imagine theymos gets flooded with a hundred PMs a day. This thread was posted here to hopefully catch their attention and gauge the communities interest/concerns with this suggested change.

..but yes, I will contact him soon..

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@ zikabra
It looks like you only read some of my post.  I will copy and paste what I said here for you:
"ESCROW usage is, as always, key, and it is always up to the user to do their due diligence before entering any trade.  This is just another step to make it more fool proof."

Great idea! The vast majorty, if not all, self moderated topics in the digital goods board are scams. Allowing self moderated topics is basically allowing scamming to continue.

I agree with this as well. Now that the merit system have been implemented, it would be really hard for scammers to do their evil deeds when partnered with this restriction for self moderated topic.
To think that they still need to make quality posts in order to reach the full member rank, is for sure will be a long and "boring" path for them. Some of them might give up on the run.

For the copper member, I guess it isn't bad to restrict it too for them.

I’m in. Self moderation and thread locking are scam tools. New accounts are almost always the main culprits. I saw one recent thread on the goods section selling phones:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2962934.0

I reported it but it’s still frustrating to see them get away with posting this drivel. The thread is untouchable, except by the section moderators.

I sent a PM to theymos yesterday, hopefully he reads it   :)

Here is are 2 recent examples of scams by the same person that could have possibly been prevented:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2973800.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3014635

here is a fresh one

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2838538.0

From a scam report about the OP in my previous post

I would of thought some feedback in this thread from staff would of been appropriate, considering this is a very serious problem on this site.  :'(

I'm here because I saw EcuaMobi's warning thread in the Marketplace. I didn't see yours, and I've included the Marketplace board on my watchlist. Sad, because it just goes to show how many scammers are starting new threads lately.

---

I also came here to say that I fully support the idea of restricting self-moderation options for newbies. I hate to say that people should be able to easily identify scams and avoid because we all know that it wouldn't keep happening if people were just a bit patient and did some due diligence before making purchases. Unfortunately, as much as the staff don't want to get involved with the ecosystem of the boards, scams within the marketplace here contribute to a negative view about the forums overall. I, myself, have been scammed for a service here (and I'm pretty tech-savvy), and every time I posted my experiences on the thread, it would be deleted immediately.

That brings me to my next question. Is there any reason at all to keep the self-moderation option for newbies? I could understand that they want to keep their topics clean and organized, but isn't that what the top-post is for? I'd imagine that a simple edit (and inclusion of quotes, if necessary) and maintaining a well-organized top post would fulfill the same duties as self-moderation, amiright?

I'd love to see the admins at least acknowledge that they've seen this topic. I see no use for newbies to use self-moderation features in the marketplace.

I didn't see philipma1957's warning either. Unfortunately every non-bumped thread gets lost pretty soon there. A fair warning should be sticked on Digital Goods especially.

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I just want to show my support to disallowing self-moderation for newbies. I'd also forbid them to unlock threads.

Locking is sometimes required for them. I've warned several newbies asking for loans without collateral for example, giving them a chance to immediately close and lock their threads instead of getting negative trust.
When a newbie locks a thread, a warning should be shown telling them they won't be allowed to unlock them, so no more bumps for them. Locked would really mean closed.

---

Done

DT members, please replace my red trust on this thread locker's post with yours:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3057667.0

I will then remove mine.

I tentatively tagged the account to prevent some gullible members from being lured into his whatsapp trap.

Thanks.

I was thinking sending a PM every couple weeks?


Yep, I have that in my original suggestion. Locked threads can just as easily be using in the same fashion as self-moderation.

This subject has been discussed to eternity. On the off chance that you think somebody is misleading or doing fishy stuff , make a post about it in the scam accusation board, or leave frickin neg trust. Just don't believe any individual who makes self moderated threat with suspicious reason or other shady shit .What making a self moderated thread stays in this forum is different perception of people , so it might be normal to be skeptical just like us

Really, newbie? It's been discussed to eternity? You've been a member of the forums for less than a year, hardly an eternity :D

But I think that this point is raised constantly because there hasn't been a valid solution that has been implemented. And until theymos or Cyrus answer in any of these topics with a definitive answer, they will continue to be asked. Additionally, requiring a member to check the Scam Accusations thread before purchasing anything and trying to navigate it to find a relevant post with the possibility that their seller will have a thread? HORRIBLE user flow, and highly ineffective. Which is why posts like this keep popping up.

I think you are just wasting your time, the staff will never implement changes to stop scammers, even though they know you are correct, even though they know it's the right thing to do, their pride will get in the way.

A lot of people have said the same thing about spammers and shit posters. It took years, but the merit system was introduced as a self-governing way to combat the problem.

If enough people make noise and show concern here about scammers and their blatant/obvious attempts to scam people by utilizing certain tools/features that they have access to, then it's just a matter of time before the staff see this and explore the options and variables that are being brought up.

While this forum is not a democracy, the staff actually do listen. But I do understand your frustration; it may hold more value if theymos actually addressed some of these concerns, whether it's in favor of the suggestion or not.

Exactly

bump for a major problem that needs fixed

I think we've hit a minor milestone. EcuaMobi's thread "[WARNING] Avoid auto-buy links, especially by newbies, locked or self-moderated (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3035620.0)" has been stickied to the Digital goods (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=93.0) board.

While this isn't exactly the solution you've recommended, it is at least an acknowledgement by staff that there is a problem with [at least] newbie accounts that self-moderate their threads.

However, I still believe that there is a need to remove the feature from the marketplace altogether, so I'll continue to bump this thread occasionally until it is implemented, or at least addressed.

Yes, that helps some, definitely better than nothing.

Do we have any idea what mod stickied that thread?  Maybe they can contact the admin.. :)

It kind of happened under the radar, and afaik, no one took credit for it. Maybe ask EcuaMobi?

I don't know who made that thread sticky. I don't have any information. I just hope it helps reducing the scams, especially against newbies and non-registered users.

---

I just saw this, sorry for the late reply:


I know you included locked threads in OP. My point was that I'd forbid threads being unlocked rather than being locked.
Allowing newbies to lock threads can be useful (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2929216.msg31301817#msg31301817) some times.

My fault, I see now

Removing the ability to unlock threads would allow them only 1 bump before they had to lock it, however..  The scammers would then have to create a new thread and quickly lock it every time they wanted to bump.  This would circumvent our new limitations and create more spam.

I think the ability to delete a thread would suffice for what you want?

You're right, that would be a problem. There could be rules for newbies and jr. members to prevent them from creating a new thread after several days they've locked one, but that would probably bee too complex.

Yes, I guess. But considering only moderators can delete threads (I mean the whole thread and OP, not only a single post) then I think it's too much to ask to allow newbies to delete their threads. Besides it can delete other's warnings and important information.

Oh, I didn't know the delete did not work for an entire thread, I have never tried it.  Well they can at least edit the main topic to avoid negative trust.

Appreciation from my side, I agree what you have said, self moderation topics are heaven for scammers and to restrict users to create self moderation topics in marketplace will help to reduce their impact on forum.
If administrator or staff don't want to implement it for all members then this would be the best option indeed.

Please tag this account:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3189236.0

Registered today and very first post is a locked post on the Goods section.

I pm'd him a few times asking him to unlock the thread but as usual I expect to be ignored.

Post it in EcuaMobi's thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3035620.0

You're more likely to get a quicker response from there. Or simply sending EM a PM (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=pm;sa=send;u=169515) is probably the quickest way.

It just sucks seeing the self-moderated and/or locked topics keep popping up in the marketplace. Every time I see one, I think to myself that another sucker is about to get got... :(

Well let hope this doesn't take years to implement. I believe this is a matter of urgency and the longer it takes the more people will be scammed.

t

Yet more reasons why this needs to be implemented, how many more people need to be scammed ?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3035620.msg33231264#msg33231264

https://ufile.io/k4zr4

Yep

I am sure it happens a lot more than we know about.. and it will continue.. they bump their threads every hour filling half of the first page of digital goods with scams -.-

If we are going to implement what you are suggest Milkz, then we would also need to take EcuaMobi's newest thread into consideration when doing so. It may be a little known fact, but there exists exploits that would enable a user to take advantage of a thread as if it was self-moderated, even without making it self-moderated.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3191518.msg33077273#msg33077273

I'm not sure about all of the nuances, or exactly how this would play into what is being suggested, but it certainly cannot be discounted if removing self-moderation from lower-ranking members is something that is to be taken seriously.

I bumped into a Jr. Member today that had a self-moderated thread, in which they were blatantly a scammer that was deleting any critical comments, reasonable questions or pretty much anything except for vouches (from their alts?) and self-bumps. After a few other members jumped in on their thread to warn potential victims they resorted to locking their thread. I imagine this user will unlock their thread when they feel it is safe.

TheQuinn suggested an auto-lock after X days without a post and I thought this might work nicely in conjunction with what is being proposed. Auto-lock after X days, not allowing lower ranking members to self-moderate their topics, fixing the loopholes as pointed out by EcuaMobi and potentially not allowing these members to unlock their threads as well. All of this would play nicely towards a more tidy and strict on newbies approach that would almost certainly benefit the forum in a major way.

This shouldn't be a problem, if you took away the ability for newer members to self moderate then they would not be able to self moderate, no matter what forum they moved their thread to, right ?

It may or may not be a problem. I was simply trying to bring up relevant information and point out that our current system is able to be abused even if they are unable to self-moderate in a particular board. There just constantly seems to be something we are failing to consider, which leads to an exploit of some kind to some degree. Something fell through the cracks, and so those places where staff has decided that newbies cannot self-moderate on these boards are still able to be self-moderated. I'm just saying we need to be wary of our past mistakes and not to allow them to slip through in our future solutions and implementations.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3198529.0

I've been trying to post warnings on this users thread, they've already been tagged by DT members, but it's still annoying seeing them bump their thread, while deleting any critical comments. Freely allowing them to spam their scam, without anyone being able to jump in. I'm in full support if we're being honest.

I wasn't even aware we could move threads, let alone exploit it.  I completely agree with EcuaMobi, the exploit would have to be removed.

EDIT: theymos took care of the exploit already, check ecuamobi's thread for his response

Feeling depressed because staff won't take this problem seriously.  :-\ :'(  BUMP

The scam threads on the digital goods section is horrible, they have like 15 threads bumped to the first page every day

I know right.

I can not find any self moderated or locked threads or both from reputable members in the digital goods section, they are all scammer threads, makes me wonder why this site allows these scamming tools, no other site does.  ???

That is usually the case. In a way I don't feel bad for the scam vicitims. Generally it is greed that overrides common sense and that will almost always lead to them losing their money.


I also find it slightly suspicious that several of us higher trust traders have voiced our concerns about this and it is still a thing. If we know that a high percentage of scammers use the same method to scam and we do nothing about it we are guilty by an act of omission(assuming the person has the privs to solve the problem). I don't have the permissions to remove self moderated threads from digital goods or I would.

I'm not a fan of negging people without proof but I think I may start leaving negative feedback for self moderated threads in digital goods. I've been thinking of something like the following:

"This user posted a self moderated thread in digital goods which has an extremely high chance of being a scam. If they remove the post and repost without self moderation I will remove this negative feedback"

Unless you are a dt member no one will see the very well hidden feedback, especially newbies. Even then the best way to stop the scammers is to remove the scamming tools this site happily provides to them, that is self moderating threads and locked threads.

Another Brand New member (AnarchySelling (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2016541)) with a couple of self-moderated threads that includes autobuy links:

• [GiftCards]VISA | Steam | PSN At Affordable Prices [60%] (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3286516.0)
• 100% Undetectable PUBG RADAR (Packet-Based) $25 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3286465.0)
• MSDN(Microsoft Developer Network) Invites $30 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3286568.0)

Can a DT member please red tag this user? Thanks!

A scammer who makes probably thousands of dollars from scamming wouldn't hesitate to spend $40 to get some of the  "copper privileges."   Just like they sometimes buy and give away or sell a REAL gift card to setup what looks like a real "vouch."  

Oh look. Another newbie who got screwed out of some cash whose posts get deleted because the seller has a self-moderated topic...

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3295830


Seriously, why is self-moderation still a thing in the marketplace boards? Has anyone brought up any valid points as to why anyone would need self-moderation in these boards?

I disagree.

There are many legitimate sellers who've been harassed before in that section. I can see a lot of DT/trusted users getting spammed with negative comments/spam due to them tagging a scammer. This would make it nearly impossible for them to operate.

However, I do see an issue where new users would see no negative comments and go ahead and trust and then purchase a scammer's goods. Making this into a Member/Full member/Senior member-only feature would not help also as these accounts are being sold for affordable prices and would still making scamming profitable.

Here's what I will propose though.

Instead of the hard to notice

Change it to a bigger alert so no one would be able to miss it. And change the message to something like


That user was tagged as a scammer and had the
Warning: Trade with extreme caution!
so, I guess it isn't all the self mod's fault.

Without a little bit of clarification I am unsure if I'm understanding the question right. Are you speaking in general, or are you speaking about newbies/lower-ranking members? Earlier in this thread and in the thread that preceded this discussion I had brought up a bunch of what I believe to be valid reasons for self-moderation on those boards.

You do realise that nearly all, if not all of these sellers who say they are selling Member/Full member/Senior member accounts don't actually have these accounts for sale ? they are scammers who take the buyers money and then disappear without providing an account, if they did have these accounts then the marketplace would be full of Full member/Senior scammers scamming people, it's nearly always members,junior members and newbie sellers that are scamming.

What MiLkz  proposes in the first post is the best solution to this problem.

I strongly support your proposal .

I am new to this who Forum things. I have been always on social media stuff. and just decided to join the forum. as a Newbie it was kind of hard for me to learn about this ( self-moderated ) or ( Locked ) topics. so i went in and i was like . ohh no scam alert posts on this guy, he must be legit or else tons of people would have called him a scammer! . and then by chance I saw the 'LOCK" symbol so i did my research and then understood the idea behind self-moderated and locked topics.

so i posted on one of the topics if the seller was going to accept escrow and suddenly my post got deleted. i visit another topic and check his "selly" link and found lotsa bad reviews on him so i asked "whats' up" ? and again my post got deleted.

so i came to realize the almost ALL self - moderated  / locked on the market place are nothing but a bunch of scammers.

i do realize the importance of these functions for some legit members but the harm it causes to the community is much higher than the benefits.

i strongly side the ban of these functions at least on the market place.

Thanks

Well, I'll have to disagree with you on that one. MiLkz proposal is a solid solution to this problem, but more realistically the best solution would be simple education/information that leads to prevention. "Prevention is better than a cure." Since informing these unfortunate souls seems to be nearly impossible, at least to any sufficient degree that would lead to prevention, we can assume that it is the most practical solution to this problem.

If the scammers were unable to profit from these methods then they would disappear, except for the adventurous newbie-scammer that would pop their head up and get a bright idea once in awhile. Although, it would soon fizzle out when they realize that their scam attempt is not sophisticated enough. For the same reason "hot local single, in your area." is such a joke now, is because people used to fall for it and now everyone knows the deal (you get a virus or stolen information/money).

So nothing has been done yet? guys look at the market place. there are more locked - topics which most are scam than real topics. this thing is getting frustrating!

There is more and more being done each and every day. The admins are working very hard to combat the issues that are most prevalent around the forum. We've gotten the merit system, which did a heavy number on spammers having incentive to continue their obnoxious habits. That was probably priority number one, because it was making this forum a wasteland to navigate. I imagine that scamming isn't something they enjoy seeing around here, and there has been increasing limitations on lower-ranking accounts due to the abuse we've seen coming from them. Their ability to have clickable links in their signature, for example, was removed with the implementation of the merit system. So I am wondering if maybe we will see the removal of their ability to self-moderate with another simultaneous implementation of some kind.

with all due respect, you do realize that newbies do not understand all this merit / trust/ ranking stuff? i am not just assuming i am talking from a newbie point of view.

kindly read my personal experience as a newbie here > https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3369863.new#new

I know it must be hard for you to understand my point of you, I am a programmer and when i see code it looks as familiar as my native language i can spot a syntax error from miles away, when other people look at my code they do not see a thing different ! everything seems the same.

this is how an average newbie would see the Market place's topic. nothing but a bunch of people selling stuff. ranking , merit, trust are things that the average user may not even be aware of their existence !!

I honestly do not see an point of keeping locked/self moderated on the market - place. name me 1 pro and i will get you 10 cons on the other hand !

I am aware of the effort put to educate people on identifying scammers but this is like letting a bird fly just to catch it again when it's already in your hand!! really just have a lock at the top 20 topics as for now, and you as an experienced member will be able to tell that 90% of them are scams !.

the least thing that the admins can do for us "NOOBS" is to give us a sort of filtering function where we can hide all locked/self moderated topics.

cheers !



 

Ok, so if someone opens up a new account to solely purchase a gift card from jaac how would you "educate" them before the purchase ?

Yes prevention is better than a cure, that's why if you remove the sites scamming tools from scammers then they would be prevented from scamming people.

Why would this user have 100% feedback on that website if he's scamming people with it constantly? Even if we removed this feature people who use autobuy links are still going to get scammed. I wouldn't be against removing the feature but there are a lot of trolls that just atatck other peoples sales threads that would benefit. I think a better compromise would be to disallow it from lower ranks because the chances of them using it for abuse are much higher.


I would disagree with this. People use new accounts because they have nothing to lose if the scam gets busted. Accounts may be "affordable" but not to throwaway every day after another busted scam. Most people wouldn't bother with these two bit scams if they had to actually invest money up front either. They do it because it costs nothing to make another throwaway account. Bump the thread every day and hope you catch some fish. If you don't then you've lost nothing but eventually someone might probably take the bait so it's worth doing. Use a bot to bump the thread and it needs no effort from them at all.

i think it is obvious that the devs want the most traffic to their website, and since we know that almost 50% of the topics are scam related !. you know their income will be reduced by HALF. they won't do that. i wouldn't if i was them to be honest.

but soon enough this place will be full of only scammers trying to scam one another.:D

Yes, but not as many.


Really ? any evidence of this ? I don't see this as a major problem on other sites that have a marketplace, why is this forum different ?

Another bump.

Hey mods, any chance of yous manning up and giving us a reply on why this is being ignored ?

There are many trolls and sale trashers on this forum, and thats why I use self-moderation (also I got an answer for moderation that I should do it, they dont have time for that).

I dont know why is that such an issue, you can always open Scam Dispute if you get scammed.

For bigger sums use escrow.

Perhaps another idea is for some sort of list of deleted posts at the bottom of self moderated threads so that if people want to read what has been deleted, they have the option.

This certainly could be a nice alternative.  It might add a lot of clutter to some peoples posts though.

My only qualm with this suggestion is that it still limits the visibility of any evidence or accusations that this suggestion was originally meant to protect the visibility of. I really like the idea, for general-purposes, but in the context of "the lazy newbie that falls for these things" it would be rare that they read through the "deleted posts" section of a thread.

Why should they be exempt when those accounts are readily available to buy on here?

It was a necessary evil. People actually use self moderation legitimately.  Most sold accounts get hit with negative trust..so,  that would remove their ability to self moderate regardless of rank.

Really it's need. I was also make a similar post about remove self moderation from Marketplace (Altcoins) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=161.0). I know self moderate prevent spam. But for this section need to or even scam. Due to self moderation true comment about project will be deleted. If we found some suspicious activity any ICO & we comment negetive about project than they will delete it. If negetive comment there and no self moderate than it might be help prevent people from scam. Scammer is more than important from spammer. So better if possible remove self moderate from Marketplace.

Bump

bitcointalk helped facilitate fraud by allowing a scammer to prevent feedback from being posted to his thread. My bitcoin is gone now.

Self moderation should not be allowed for digital goods.

Scam thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5090315.0

True but it works quite opposite too. People may start trolling there too. You need to clean up the posts. Lots of people spam those sections too and self moderate thread helps to clean them.

That is why we have it limited to only certain user groups.

I am glad this is still being discussed..

This problem/situation still persists till date. Honestly, I don't know why this hasnt been nipped till now. Apart from people getting easily scammed by these Newbie OPs, self moderation threads are autocratic and dictatorial. We are trying to make the world a democracy for crying out loud!

I think the reasons cited for self moderation in those boards is a lot like the informal logical fallacy "overextend outrage". Overextend outrage is a form of poor statistical thinking where one or more statistically rare cases are implied to be the norm or the trend (without evidence). While that is not the full description/definition and this isn't a perfect match it is close. The number of unmoderated threads far outweigh the self moderated threads and instances of trolling are fairly rare. The number of self moderated threads started by scammers is much higher than the number of trolling incidents in those boards. Basically I just dont buy that argument

it's been so long, and nothing yet. let us just keep Bumping this thread every now and then, hopefully one day theymos will make it happen.

I'll give you another bump, self-moderation is damaging. Legitimate sellers don't ever need to use it, all information should be open and transparent!

Still a major problem.  Giving negative trust is not enough to stop their scams.

This I agree with.
Self moderation is an anachronism and should be completely removed from the forum.

So not being able to delete posts like the one below is what you want?

“Fuck you die you mofo.  Btw his address is available via a pm”

Posted by a newbie with nothing to lose.


A self mod when properly used is a good tool.
I self mod almost every single thread I make.
 And if I do delete a post I quote the post. Unless it is a post like the fake one in quotes above.



If you look at most threads I do I don’t have to self mod or delete much . I like to think it is because people know i will mod it fairly.

I understand, but I'd have thought that a report to moderator for an insubstantial post would be just as useful in cases like that.


You agree that you don't have to self mod much.
That's my point, for every one of you using the self mod facility responsibly but actually needing it only occasionally, there's many others abusing it to project a false image of their threads and of the claims in them as being unquestioned and uncontested.

I would like to remove self-mod completely, but I myself do use it in rare occasions. I currently have a thread self-modded to prevent the scammers I go after from posting.  Regardless, in this thread I am proposing the removal of self-mod for users below senior level(maybe full).  So the users who should be using it properly are left with the ability to do so, like you, philipma1957.

This seems to be the best compromise.

It's not unknown for scammers to buy high ranking accounts if they see the need for one.
Generally I'm against the current apparent policy of "perks" for seniority, merit accumulators etc. It seems logical but it encourages a 'them and us' scenario that can deter genuine new users and also is easily corrupted because of the ease of account selling.
I think I've only ever started one self modded thread and that was way back, when I needed specific answers to a specific question and wanted to be able to delete signature spam.

No doubt I would like to remove it completely, but its been over a year since I made this thread.  I am willing to take anything at this point...haha

In the main post, I also suggested the removal of self-moderation for anyone with negative trust, so rank will not matter.  If someone buys a legendary account and gets tagged, there goes their ability to self-mod.

This is something that has been discussed ad nauseam in the past. We shouldn't be stripping down features of the forum when the trust system, report to moderation, and making your own threads are more than sufficient. I was around before this feature existed. To this day a similar problem sill exists, and to a lesser extent still does, of users trolling the marketplace posts for their own amusement or to target certain members and prevent them from trading legitimately, then claiming they are simply warning people of XYZ for example and cry censorship when they're asked to stop. They may also object to the specific good being offered and do their best to prevent it from being traded, leaving the seller with few options to trade legitimately.

This might not seem like a big deal to those who don't sell in the section or only do so occasionally, but it really doesn't take much to turn people off of a sale. Most buying habits are compulsive, so a little thing like one guy making up some bullshit is possible to stop the vast majority of sales. Self moderation exists in those sections for good reason.

I understand.  That's why we can either limit certain user groups or, even better, keep allowing it for everyone except those that have/get negative red trust.

Seems simple doesn't it? Limiting it to ranking members might be a solution, but your other metric would mean I wouldn't qualify to use self moderated threads. Because of an abusive negative rating by Vod for criticizing his behavior, by your metric I would be excluded in spite of my 8 years of trade history here.

No, one negative would not be enough.  It would be like those new flags for scammers, where you need the support of multiple users.  The user would have to be "red" and have received multiple negatives by DT users in order to lose the self-mod ability.

Sorry for not explaining properly  ;D

Unfortunately even flags get abused. I am not fond of the idea of basing forum usage rights to the trust system, it is too heavily abused.

True, there is no easy solution, but what about eliminating it for just Newbies and Jr. Members which are 99% of the time the people who abuse it.

I would consider that a reasonable compromise.

The link to the escrow services should be prominently encrusted into those postings/offers.
From there on your responsabilty is void.