Bitcoin Forum

Asking for merit  receiving negative feedback (http://archive.is/Q5GRQ#selection-1005.140-1005.168)
Giving merits to alt accounts receives negative feedback if discovered (http://archive.is/Q5GRQ#selection-1029.63-1029.104)

What about on selling merits? It only says: disallowed (http://archive.is/Q5GRQ#selection-1017.0-1017.28) but no clue about the penalty.

Any suggestions or update?
From common sense I am considering the penalty provably will be is  receiving  negative feedback. But I am not yet someone here to decide/assume, it will be an insult to all these people who are here from years with deep understanding of possible issues.

I have a thread where I am policing merit farmers/abusers (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3168616.msg32922385#msg32922385) and with evidence I am leaving them red trust following the forum rules. I need to be fair on my judgement.

One of them accepted that he/she sold merits. Although I left them a red trust but I think according to the rules I am wrong.
Should I remove the red trust knowing the person sold the merits?

Thanks

There isn't really any rule against it per se and it's not really enforced at an admin or staff level, so it's more of a community issue right now much like scams and other such shady behaviour. As far as I'm aware the only thing that is currently prohibited is merit sources selling their merit though I'm not sure what the punishment for that would be other than them being removed as merit source.

Merit sources aren't allowed to sell merit as previously stated. If they do, I think they'd probably get removed as a merit source and a 7 day temp ban. If a mod breaks the rules of that I assume they'll be demodded if they do it multiple times as they can't really ban an active mod.

If anyone else sells merit, I assume a member like Vod or Lauda (or anyone else on DT) will happily red them if they find all accounts involved as negging a throwaway doesn't really do much.

It is not necessary because no one is bearing our appeal what we have said . The things which are going on, will be continued. I wonder having too much proof of selling merits what is going in moderators mind. Who cares? We will be always there where we are right now. And the merit seller will get more high profiles as much as they can.

Assume you are saying giving red trust (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3168616.msg32922385#msg32922385) to the guy SparkyU (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=729995) was not any injustice from my side.

I guess selling of merit is happening out of the forum or through PM, so such cases are going to be hard to prove ones. But in the case if such deals will be uncovered I believe those users will get negative trust as well.

If they sold merit thein their red trust is deservant.

You might want to post a summary of your thread or a link to your thread here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2896910.0) if you haven't already done so just to ensure everything is in a centralised list.

Though you have to take trust as something that's a bit useless sometimes unless it is considerably valid. Take a look at my negative ratings to show you an example (my favourite is the final negative rating I got on here - I got a negative for not reading someone's username and analysing it before I made a post rediculous huh?).

How much do you sell 1 merit?  How many merits are there for sell?

How many persons will you contact before you get enough merits to rank up?

I think some of these threads are posts out of imagination. The only possible rank up from such practice is junior member to member. You possibly will have to approach not less than 5 senior members to sell their merits to you. It is not as easy as you possibly have imagined. I keep saying that the team that did the job of merit score did a great job.

I actually explained myself on his thread of why it WASN'T deserving, but he was unwilling to accept my explanation and simply resorted to dismissing me and name calling. The whole merit system is new, still heavily flawed with some rules not even clearly explained, and obsessing about it like some people are is frankly a bit ridiculous.  I mean look at this mdayonline guy, why are so many of his posts about merits?  This is a crypto forum, people should discussing more important things than going round and round about some minor rules.  If you want to solve the spam/low quality posts problem then getting more mods or having the mods ban more people who are clearly getting away with murder would be WAY more effective.  This is one of the most lax moderation forums I've ever been on, also one of the worst in terms of spam.

Well yes you did explain yourslef and it is against the rules to sell merit as a merit source. I would question why OP ever brought this to this thread as it just serves the hijack it and is a little off topic (hence why I tried to diffuse it - arguably unsuccessful) @OP keep stuff to one thread, don't duplicate.

The entire merit system is flawed, it was a good idea however it was executed in the wrong way I think (though Theymos did try at getting rid of spammers and it did sort of work).

And based on your post on that thread, yes you would lose it (apparenlty) anyway but using it up on a user is buys it makes it much less valuable than awarding it to someone because they made a post that you strongly agree with or believe is of good quality enough to earn those merits.

Well thanks for the first level headed reply, everyone else seemed out for blood regardless of what I said or how I said it.  "rules rules, nothing else matters muh rules1111!!"  Also I'm not a merit source, I think that means someone who generates it constantly if I'm remembering it right?  I just wanted to offload the merit I initially received when the system was activated because I had no idea when it even expired, that wasn't stated anywhere I saw.  I wasn't a fan of it and wanted to get rid of it, going 1 by 1 would've taken forever as I did receive a fair amount initially.  But yes I understand your point about how it should ideally work in regards to handing it out to deserving posts.  I didn't look over the rules indepth too much at first and just assumed they were given to each us and we could use them however we saw fit.  I honestly didn't think it would cause such a fuss with what I did, lesson learned.  Some of you guys take these internet points very seriously.

No, you should not.  Not even if they send you a message telling you their kids will starve to death because of your feedback (because that's a lie, as is any idiotic plea like that).

I've started tagging obvious merit abusers, because after thinking about this whole issue ever since the inception of the merit system, I've decided that abusing it is exactly what I was trying to fight when it got created--the ability of shitposters to participate in campaigns and thereby spread their Engrish manure all over the forum. 

It's so obvious, it's derp.  When these people get merits they don't deserve, they're going to rank up, earn more money in campaigns, and have incentive to keep doing this shit.  So I'm negging them, and I hope DT members keep doing it as well, AND I hope that the sig campaigns keep not accepting users with DT negatives. 

This guy is obviously going to listen to you because he seems to have an extreme hard on for following any rule regardless of circumstance.  Everyone is automatically guilty.  Nevermind that it was an honest mistake that I admitted.  Nevermind that the rules had poor implementation and explanation.  Nevermind anything else, RULES must follow rules at all costs!!11! no wiggle room for anything else!

I mean seriously, where is the understanding in some people.  The admins out of the blue created a bunch of new rules out of nowhere and gave everyone some points.  I don't even recall a description of how it all worked being mandatory.  Why isn't there a description somewhere each time you use them or a PM/email that was sent to everyone?  You know like in red letters saying something to the effect of "careful using merit points, misuse will drive people crazy and swarm on you like a hive of bees falling into your lap!"  If that happened I don't even remember it.  So I explained in detail how it went down and basically said whoops my bad guys, won't happen again.  Can you be a bit understanding about the whole thing?  NOPE, fuck you Sparky you're a piece of shit die slow and here is your negative trust.  No messages, no warnings, just bam here you go.  I just can't be ok with something like that.

Deals happening outside forum: If these are happening in online marketplaces, it can still be traced. It will require a lot of work on the part of staff though and I do not think they have that much free time. If you notice such a thing on any marketplace like Freelancer, you can bring it to the attention of mods.

Deals through PMS: Why are these hard to catch for the moderators ? Can't they check the pm of other members ? This is done on other forums I am part of .

This isn't going to happen. Only Admins (and the NSA  :D) can read people's private messages and they're not going to invade peoples privacy just to see if people are trading merit. Admins don't get involved in this stuff and is usually left up to the community to police or enforce certain standards.

As hilarious states only admins have access to PMs but they're extremely busy with other stuff to start wanting to police merit.

Also, since we're a forum based on cryptographic currencies, someone might encrypt their messages for the receiver to get with hashing algorithms.

You forgot about KGB  :D
I think even if moderators or managers have opportunity to read other users' PMs they can't to track each case, it is obvious that they have many other forum's work besides that.

The origin of the problem of any society is people failing to live up to ideals and expectation of the community. I can't imagine that some people are bent on frustrating this merit system to make it ineffective despite the amount of thought that have been put into bringing it into reality. I agree that it's not perfect but if everyone can just play their part and focus on doing the right thing rather than cutting corners, it would have been the best upgrade the forum would witness because whether we acknowledge it or not, its surely working.

For those selling merit as ordinary members, its a matter of time for it to get exhausted and nothing can be done about that. But for the sources of merit members, this should be frown at seriously by anyone who wants the best for the forum because to be regarded as a source of merit means some level of trust has been deposited into you which by selling merits, you have betrayed that trust and such individual should not be welcomed in the community. My opinion...

As far as I can read, they have red mark on their accounts, especially when they looked that their wallets had been linked together, and having red mark from D2 is hard to join in any bounty.

I agree users who are selling sMerits, exchanging their sMerits should be wipen out of the forum through permanent bans.

However, there is no official rules about banning due to selling sMerits (should call exactly as sMerits, not merits). Therefore, I think that Theymos should add new point of rules (#34) to avoid any serious arguments about permanenent bans due to merit exchanging.
Unofficial list of (ocfficial) bitcointalk.org rules, guidelines, FAQ (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=703657.0)

There are more than 200 accounts which banned immediately after found and banned permanently due to merit farming.
 More mass merit farming (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3024695.0)

$5 per merit, you should donate $5 per sold merit to the forum. selling merits to garbage posters would cost the forum, you should cover that cost. if you are going to pay, try to buy a copper membership and send $250 to that address if you have sold 50 merits.
This link will take you there. note that forum is not asking you to do this, I am suggesting you to do this and then show your TXID to the person who has left you negative trust. show some remorse. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=credit;promote

IMO, selling merit regardless of the posting quality of the user is an unethical behavior and must be punished appropriately. So tagging them or giving neg trust is okay. This wrongdoing creates more chaos in the forum about merits, like for example a certain user is selling merits to another that can be considered to be a shitposter/spammer, the merit awarded will be then questioned by the community as to how that kind of post got merited while their own posts who they thought to be much more deserving got nothing. A long, repetitive and useless discussion about it will eventually occur.

Members are always going to look for shortcuts and it will be time consuming for senior members to find the abusers. I do not understand that why the admin simple closes new registrations here or makes it paid or so. Members generally interested in discussions will anyway be ready to pay for this privilege. The members who do not want to invest any money for this can read the threads here without registering also. Currently, you are first inviting spammers, let them do spam and then spending time to ban them.

Some questions here:

1) Why is it allowed to send up to 50 merits for a single post ? No doubt, such cases are easy to spot and the member will be punished but what about the merit points wasted. Those 50 merit points should have been given to a deserving member.

2) Regarding buying/selling of merit, how are the deals happening outside the forum going to be caught ?

I just did as you suggested (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2896910.msg33038098#msg33038098) assuming this will help to be discovered by DT members.

I had bring a second thought in it eventually. With some terms and conditions am removing the red trust. Motive is to keep a proof that they admit their misuse. I wish I was a DT member or a high ranked member to save my ass.
mdayonliner's Red Trust removal T&C (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3186068.0)


If we take responsibilities (if possible) in our hand trying to find these abusers and find a way to warn them with proofs (i.e: my removal t&c (http://url=https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3186068.0)) then give them a second chance. After that if they do the same mistake/abuse then staff or moderators should ban them, no mercy (my opinion). May be we will see it will start to reduce dramatically.

The abuse worsens when you're on DT or a higher ranked member who actively searches for scams across the forum.
Aha yes, that's a good list of the so-far stuff.


That's not actually a bad idea in order to act as an incentive to stop users from trying to sell/buy merit. Get both members to do it, not just the seller.

If they have bad intention and try to take advantages then yes it's worse but someday they will get caught for sure.
In my opinion earning a high rank or getting a DT needs a lot of hard work. Someone with those ranks will not try to abuse anything by risking their hard earned reputation. Again yes people change.

- You do realise this will create more mess? Someone with money can be ranked easily.
 i.e:
1. You can be a Hero member if you are willing to spend $2500 to the seller plus $2500 to the forum. So it will cost only $5000 to have 500 merits to become a hero member. And someone who will spend $5000 to become a hero member will defiantly do everything to get return of his investment = scamming with may be ICO project?   
2. Same way to become a Legendary member you are going to spend only $10,000. If you have solid plan to scam people then spending these $10,000 can return you million.

-Now come to anther point. How would you think you will be able to identify all these merit seller/buyers? The forum will be a kios.
Bad idea, sorry.

Not finding all, just the ones you can find.
You forget it's not against forum rules to farm/sell accounts or to have alts here. Charging $10000 or ~1BTC is more expensive than buying a legendary account outright (depending on account quality).

You don't need to find all to convince people to not do something, you just need to find "most" to show you're making some sort of impact to those who participate in this sort of thing.

That would be seen as a greedy move. This forum was made to be a place for free discussion and for people to learn about cryptocurrencies. If people started seeing that they have to pay to be able to ask a question on a forum they would get discouraged. I guess i'm not ready for discussion because I wouldn't pay for registration. I'd move to free forums like reddit. Nobody is inviting spammers here. They are coming of their own will!

Selling or buying merit is not good for forum, thats is unfair for newbie or jr.
Stop to try sell/buy merits and i hope mods will be ban or delete account if they suspected farming merit abuse

It doesn't make sense because anyone in the forum can buy/sell sMerits (more exactly to called them sMerits buying/selling, not Merits) if they want, regardless of their ranks.
Additionally, your words make me feell like you are not able to buy sMerits (maybe lack of money, lol).
Honestly, I strongly think that those users who try to exchange sMerits have chosen the wrong way. It is side-effects of merit system, but only a small group of users doing this. Mostly come from spammers and account farmers.
Don't worry! Moderators will ban all of them when evidence shows up

This will ruin the idea of a forum so to speak.

-I was only using an example to explain my point.
Again this is why I think it's a bad one... that idea will bring more workload because these people will never come forward by their own to pay the forum.

I just realized i would probably have actualy paid for a copper membership if that gave me the merit to rank up.
That was a suprise, i really do not like that people are buying selling merit. Double standards from me then.. Or just a weak moment ???
Thankfully it is not an option  :D

Can we expect any update on this statement about selling merits by regular members like us who are not merit source.

What action will be taken if a regular member sells (to anyone) or exchange merits (with their friends).

I am seeking your attention (@hilariousetc) since FAQ: Everything you need to know about forum 'activity, account ranks and merit (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2766177.0) is your(Alt) post.

Thanks

PS: I just changed the title of the topic just to get your (@hilariousetc) attention.

Apology to everyone else especially jackg, jerry29@., greeklogos, MainIbem, The Pharmacist, sitnikov, audaciousbeing, Lehbane, tranthidung, digaran, Kim Ji Won, selezneve, krishnaverma, coolcoinz, Maldini07, ilcapitano, Ginzink. I appreciate the feedback you guys made. It means a lot to me however I really need a clear statement for reference. And IMO hilariousetc is the best one. Hope you guys understand it.