Bitcoin Forum

Hello fellow forum members.  :)

I'm in need of some serious advice and help.  I have another account here under the name hieroglyph so that I can take advantage of offers this account isn't able to participate in.  I signed up for a paid signature service for the first time and was posting away and doing my best not spamming.

All of a sudden I realize the account was banned and my posts were being deleted.  As I said I was not spamming and was working hard making sure not to do so.  Right away I contact this email(banappeals-w6pquw43@theymos.e4ward.com).  I Asked why this happened on December 14, 2013 the same day the issue started.

I've sent atleast 2 emails and 2 pms with no reply and it's been over 20 days.  Also asked for a 2nd opinion from the person buying my sig space and they also didn't understand why my account was banned.  So I'm hopping I can get my account back or at least get the Admin here to give this matter the the time and attention is deserves.  I'm having issues getting my paid for the sig service because of this issue and would like admin to respond sooner then later.

Any constructive advice is very much appreciated and any mods that can help get this matter on the path too being sorted out please contact me asap thanks everybody.

So was the account banned for spamming? I'm starting to think these paid signatures are not the best idea they are basically promoting people to spam.

 Wat ?

Yes, the account was banned for spamming.  I however was not spamming, imho I was making sure I made constructive posts.  I don't think paid signatures are the problem I'd say the issue is if a person posts constructive comments that stay on topic.  I hope you understand I'm not aiming for a debate on that issue right now,just wanted to answer you question.


self explanatory . please stay on topic.

 Actually, it's not self explanatory, hence the "Wat ?"

 What sort of offers would your "counter" account - a Senior Member - not be eligible for, that another, presumably less senior account would be eligible for ?

This account isn't eligible for the offer, it deosn't matter what status the accounts have.  Your misunderstanding the topic and veering the thread off course from the topic please stop posting off topic questions that are nonconstructive. 

I can answer these questions in pm if your not understanding something, thanks.   

 So exploiting multiple accounts on the forums for material gain by spamming advertising links.

 Yeah, I'd say the ban is probably legitimate ;)

can you both speculate somewhere else this thread isn't the place for that.  this account has a different offer completely and I didn't do anything wrong nor did I spam.  Try and wrap your mind around that before you post here, thanks.  ;)

I've been saying that from the beginning, it's because they offer them on pay per post terms.

What signature deal was you participating in and do you have a link to your banned account or posts, or are they gone from the system now?


I think they're fine as long as the rules on posting/spam are enforced better and anybody found to be spamming is given a warning and then either banned or refused payment if they continue. I don't think people would even dare spam or post crap if they're not going to get paid out a cent/satoshi.

Is this your account: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=101576;sa=showPosts;start=0

Was you maybe using TOR or posting from several other accounts?

I honestly think the staff need to seriously think about what they are going to allow. Because, I've seen people with 50 odd activity and 2000-2500 posts. It's getting ridiculous. Before, it wasn't so bad but it seems it's ust getting out of hand I don't know if it's because they have switched to pay per post or not.

Well I fall into that category but I don't spam or post rubbish. Obviously there's always going to people who abuse the system and ruin it for everyone else, but if spammers are dealt with appropriately I can't see it being much of a problem. I actually see the most spam/crap and trolling from people who don't even have sig deals.

 Try and wrap your head around the fact that you are more than likely gaming the forums for your own monetary gain. That's probably why you got banned.

 Let me spell it out for you. Having one account advertising for Primedice, and another account advertising for coinrollit, is probably what got your account banned.

You were spamming for both of them I'm glad the mods are cracking down on it.

We are currently thinking about what needs to be done, we have been discussing it since the latest influx of paid advertising spammers. The question is, do we just get more strict on spammers, or do we go as far as to disallow paid advertising, or even remove signatures.

Hopefully just having more defined rules and being more strict on spammers will be enough, however no one has come to a decision on anything, those are just ideas that are being tossed around.


When I became a Global Mod, the other Global mods were teaching me standard banhammer protocol, we used you for example hilariousandco. You were what we defined as being OK despite the huge post volume.

IMO, ban the paid sig ads. It's the answer to all our problems.

Aww, well that warms my heart haha. It'd be such a shame for these deals to get banned. As I and others have mentioned, I think policing them and making the rules stricter would cut down spam and I'd be more than happy to help out with that in any way. These deals are a great way for newbs to get a bit of Bitcoin and for those who are willing to put in a bit of extra work can actually get a decent amount of coin. I hope some workaround or compromise can be achieved without an outright ban.

I agree, as long as people don't spam I don't see the a problem and I don't think they should be banned as they do help me out and others, I know people find the signatures annoying but they can always hide them. If people just reported the ones that spammed they got banned without warning would be something

@mods:
Allowing per-post rewards for sig ads encourages spamming.
Allowing multiple accounts helps scammers.
Allowing selling of accounts - see above.
Threads like this are the result of an ill-defined & inconsistent forum policy.

It's good to hear that you are looking to do something about this. I think the only way to deal with this is too try being more strict on spammers first, if it doesn't work within a certain period of time then banning them is the only option.

The staff already have enough to do without the extra work load of dealing with hundreds of spammers. So I can see the current work force struggling to keep it under control and eventually the paid signatures will have to get banned.

... says the person with the 22 point red font paid advertisement in their sig.

I suggest the forums just disallow paid signature schemes altogether.

It clutters the place up too much IMO and promotes posts with little substance.

SaltySpitoon, I know that what users say won't change much your (mods) decision but I don't think being more strict would help
This will only bring more dispute, more unhappy users and more work for mods
I think that moderation rules should be as manichean as possible: either something is allowed or it's not

Even though it's late IMO, it's good to see mods about to take decisions about this problem

Well thats kind of the thought. I think it would be preferential to allow everyone to continue doing what they are doing, and just hit the spammers harder. The problem with that is how much additional oversight it could take, which we may or may not be able to provide.

The majority of the forum rules are not black and white. They are really up to judgement by the moderator of the board. This however isn't really a problem, first because its always been this way, and second because in order for any more damage than a deleted post or two to occur, it is discussed, evidence is compiled, and appropriate actions are made by multiple parties. Mistakes are made from time to time, however with how the system is laid out, getting an unwarranted ban or worse is almost unheard of. You have to try really hard on this forum to get banned, if you haven't been warned more than a handful of times before being banned for anything other than posting malware or very obvious spamming, chances are, you aren't going to get banned if you make a bad decision and post a few things you shouldn't, you will end up with a warning.

Can moderators be an accurate judge of paid advertising spamming vs regular spamming is the question. If you are spamming because you are getting paid to, that is more severe than letting your emotions get the better of you, and spamming a few posts. If we can't tell the difference easily, then cracking down on paid advertising spammers won't work, and more drastic measures would be taken, such as not allowing paid advertising in the first place.

The goal here is to allow as much freedom as possible without letting those freedoms disrupt others.

I know rules are not black and white, it's just that I fear that many people will complain a lot if you prevent them from receiving their sig money
And I don't think moderators will be wrong often, but I do think that some will cry about how you're censoring them and that full white or full black rules make censorship not credible
Hopefully I'll be proven wrong though

Not sure it would be a bad thing

Also, out of curiosity, do you keep an eye on users with posts count/activity>10 (or 20 or even more)? I think that could help catching some spammers

I find it ridiculous when users have only been here for a month or two and they are already hitting 2000-3000 posts. I know we had a lot of spammers before the whole sig thing. But, the way they are doing it now paying per post it seems it's getting worse. Spammers are trying to hide it too. They are posting in threads which they wouldn't be interested in and don't add any value to the subject in matter. I have seen the off topic section for example be flooded with one persons name commenting on every thread. Surely, they haven't got anything to add for every single thread posted here at the forum, it's not so much they're posts are constructive because anyone can sting a few sentences together.

I found the weird time requirement to make your first post on here annoying. Almost to the extent I'd rather have discussions elsewhere.  Once I was past that, I'm all for the signatures though.  They promote community etc.

What about all those "reserved" posts.  Ban those guys.  Some shitcoin and 1/2 a dozen guys reserving the first page.  For what ?

 It is easy to go through a thread like that and just clean house.  Look at "ANN RES" for an example of this.

What do you mean by it promotes community? 

Sometimes they try sell their post on a popular coin as an advertisement. Not sure how successful they are though.

They'll get over it.

Maybe I wasn't clear, I'm actually worried about the forum getting spammed by these complaints, not about the whiners ;D

Oh.  ;D
Well I find it more entertaining than another thread about avatars or whatever. I'm actually surprised it's taken this long to get a thread complaining, there have been quite a few banned so far. I guess most are too embarrassed to post, or know they don't have a leg to stand on.

Community in the sense that it keeps coins circulating etc by the advertisements.  I'd rather see the various projects in people's .signatures than paid advertising from just the guys who have the capital to pay for ads.  Coins are given value by services. I don't find signatures obtrusive and I'd like to think when I have a bitcoin/altcoin site, I'd be able to put it in my signature.

 Not sure about the big red fonts being allowed, etc....

I'm not sure banning paid sigs will solve anything. It will just sprout in another way.

What if avatars come next? I see lots of spammer sock accounts that act as ardent defendants in specific posts/communities that would gladly wear the paid logo..

On the other hand, it is a given that spammers do make themselves notice. It's not like you can spam "on the low".

We all see them and know them. I don't know how much more work it could really amount to. It's just a matter of harsher policy imho.

How about if you had an option in the account setting which allowed you to disable the display of all signatures for your user (login).

This way members who don't want to see spam , beg-addresses, signatures can turn them off themselves. No input required by moderators. All users can be happy? Hopefully it's already an option in the forum code, as I doubt bitcointalk.org would have enough money to hire someone to code such a change if not... /s :D

I guess in the long run, if this were an option, the # of paid sigs would naturally decrease, as advertisers realised they might not be getting as many views as they thought they were...

Fine then!

This option already exists...

Its not the big flashing letters in the signature that people are concerned with, like jackjack said, there is already an option to not show signatures. Its the 15,000 posts per week of people trying to boost their pay count at paid advertising.

I'd hope that the first step is putting the smackdown on those who abuse paid signatures, if that doesn't work, then disallowing paid signatures, if that doesn't work, remove signatures all together. Hopefully they would stop with just more smacking.

I'm glad some of you feel comfortable whining about paid signatures on a thread that is about a different topic.  At the same time calling me a whiner, complainer, spammer or whatever nonsense you can come up with. Basically ridiculing someone for posting a thread about the total lack of response to emails and pms for my account being banned with no warning and 50+ posts being deleted in an instant.

After 20+ days of my account being banned with no response I basically get trolled for doing what any logical rational person would do.  I guess I'll be the bigger man and not feed the trolls.  I'll pm SaltySpitoon and see what advice I can get as that seems the only rational option.


Yes that is my account.  I don't use Tor and these are the only accounts I have on this forum.

One for the road...  U R A MORON   ;D

Salty can't help you and neither can I. And no it's not likely you're going to be unbanned so you can claim your spam payments. You're gonna have to deal with it and move on, and just be glad this account hasn't been banned as well for ban evasion. I don't know how much more clearly that point can be made. Being ignored isn't a lack of an answer, it IS your answer. Stop trying to waste our time.

Oh I'm sorry BadTroll didn't mean to bother you as you have been so very helpful. I can see how much of an asset your mod skills are around here and I wouldn't want to disturb that..

Even though you just admited you don't control if my account gets unbanned you say I have to deal with it and move on also you continue to insist I was spamming which is false.  Your reply only shows why I contacted SaltySpitoon and not you.  Saying I had was evading a ban is laughable.  Your a joke, get over yourself and get a life.

Yep, waste of time.

 Excuse me ? Are you or are you not complaining about having an account banned that was involved in .sig space advertising ?

 Do you believe it reasonable to have multiple accounts to use for multiple payouts from various .sig space advertising offers ?

Really? Do you honestly believe that? Please explain, because I don't see how banning paid adverts is the answer to all this forums problems, nor will it stop spammers or trolls.


This is exactly how I feel. Can we honestly refuse to ban the selling of accounts and be lax on scammers and trolls, yet paid signature deals need to be banned? There's no logic to this.


Get strict on spammers regardless of Paid Signature deals or not. Why is it certain members can posts nonsense continually, yet it doesn’t seem to be a problem unless they have a signature. I find that the biggest trolls on this site who post the most crap don't actually have signature deals. The majority of Prime Dice participants don't post crap either, it's just a small handful of newbs who get greedy and spoil it for everyone else. If they are threatened with a warning that if they continue posting crap they will lose their entire payment, I'm pretty sure they'll heed this.


Hit the spammers harder. This is all that needs to be done.


I'm also a little tired of people like you being unnecessary condescending and whining at something that shouldn’t really affect them. If you don't like signatures and argue that they should be banned, go to your profile settings and turn them off and/or ignore users you find annoying. That's you sorted. Then just let the mods deal with spammers in whatever way spammers are dealt with with or without a signature. I don't understand how if somebody is trolling and posting crap it's fine as long as they don't have a signature, but if they do then it's OMG spammers! And oh my eyes are blinded by PD signatures everywhere. Come on, be reasonable.


Again, I fall under this. Is that level of posting ridiculous? Maybe. But define ridiculous? What does it matter if somebody is making 2 posts a month or 2000 as long as it's not spam. It doesn't. Spammers will spam and trolls will continue to troll regardless of whether we ban signatures or their deals.


This will happen. People will then start selling their little 'Personal Text' thing, and whenever avatars come back I'm sure they will be sold per posts or on a rented basis. People will probably also sell accounts with domain nanes in and offer to make 2000 posts a month for a payout etc.


Again, this is all that needs to be done. Stunna seems to be a pretty reasonable guy and I've personally seen him refuse payout for people who have not met his terms, and he has publicly stated that if you make him aware of people who are gaming the system he will refuse payout. Just make sure all the Signature Deal providers are aware that it is potentially becoming a nuisance and warn them to become more stricter and to enforce their rules tighter. This should hopefully work. Mods don't need to do any extra work, just deal with spammers as you normally deal with them.


Do you believe it's reasonable to have multiple accounts for any reason? According to the rules its ok. It's also apparently ok to have several accounts to (try) sell, so multiple posting accounts should be of least concern as long as they're not spamming. I can't comment on the user above who was banned as his posts were obviously deleted so I'm unaware of their content.

 Ok. Did that. No more .sigs visible. The spammers have won, and the community loses IMO.


 I believe using multiple accounts is duplicitous. I'm not a fan of them.

Depends what you're using them for. If you maybe want a business account and a personal one; then fine. But if you're going to use them for nefarious purposes; then no, but the question is how do you spot or police these duplicitous accounts?

And I'd rather see sigs than none at all. People who have paid sigs are not all spammers, but any people spamming with or without a sig should be treated equally (and dealt with by whatever the forums policy on spam/spamming is). I don't like or agree with spam or trolling either, but I also don't agree with unnecessarily banning or removing stuff. Punish spammers, not everyone else.

Obviously, hilariousandco & counter need to be ignored :)

hilariousandco: You don't actually contribute much to the conversation and appear a bit trollish at times.
counter:

Really? The only times I've ever done anything that could be even remotely called trolling is with scammers or perhaps my Tom Cruise Bitecoin Loan thread (which was a parody of the Islamic Bank one), but there's a difference between trolling and having a joke, but I'm sure there's a few people going through my post history as I type to try find something to use against me :D. This is one of my problems though, it seems you can troll and spam as much as you want, only providing you don't have a paid signature. Hey, at least none of us are scamming because it would be unprofitable to do so  ;D.

And I don't think people need to write thesises* with every post, but I've had some pretty lengthy political/philosophical discussions with people here. I'd say out of all the Signature participants I'm probably one of the people that contributes the most, but this is beside the point.

*No idea what the plural of thesis is (thesi?)  ;D.

 Theymos should have little issue tracking dupe accounts to IP's, and could perhaps make hashes of user IP address linked to each account and made available to moderators.

 Beyond that, I would agree that it's a challenging issue to resolve (VPN or Tor can complicate things), and look forward to whatever solutions (if any) are implemented.

 Perhaps something as simple as removing colors and font size changes over a certain point size may help mitigate the spam in .sigs, but not sure that's a reasonable solution either.

He will do, but as it stands at the moment multiple accounts are allowed.

Colours don't bother me; I'd actually prefer to see them as opposed to just standard black or whatever, but I've noticed a few people posting with multicoloured lettering that is a bit of an eyesore, and wouldn't miss that if it went.