Bitcoin Forum

DO NOT REPLY TO THIS POST WITH ANYTHING OTHER THAN SUGGESTIONS FOR A BETTER SYSTEM THAN WE HAVE NOW

IF YOU SIMPLY WANT TO KEEP IT AS IT IS THEN DO NOT POST AND CLUTTER THE IDEAS OF PEOPLE WHO MAY WISH TO CONSTRUCT A BETTER SYSTEM



Now that I know hillarious and co can reinstate banned people we could probably do something like this simple and fast solution


1. anyone wants to appeal after copy and paste of serious nature found in their posts (not film quotes for humour, memes, news posted on correct project)
Needs to pay 0.5 BTC fine and have a 6months - 1yr month sig ban automatically..

2. 1 btc held with escrows(mods). Thread dedicated to it with user account details with start of ban, end ban and link to account

3.  If caught using sig  during sig ban time then instant perm ban and loss of all funds. Funds split between finder of copy and paste, mod (escrow) , and person discovering sig usage during sig ban time. (Proof of sig use must be provided for public to see and mod should witness really)

4. Those abiding by sig ban will get back 0.5 btc at end of sig ban term and be allowed their sigs back but zero tolerance copy and paste after point of appeal.

this could be run on a thread in reputation really....copy and pasters named and shamed post.

Sticky put here in meta or could just have link in the ban to the copy and pasters thread where it all takes place.


I'm not a game theory expert so perhaps lots of holes in this.

I had thought up a more elaborate plan with full history reviews but it is a huge task and I guess great poster is quite subject and matching criteria on huge histories on every posts is impossible.

I mean I expect a lot of copy and pasters will not go for this because there is little point for them ...sig bans, fines and instant bans if they do it again. Most will not appeal.

This is goes for every copy and paster too so no favouritism. Except perhaps pure crazy copy and paste pure ico sig spammers ...perhaps they could be just denied access to the discipline program.  


Of course many will have better systems but this could instantly cut out a lot of time and energy and reward reporters for locating, mods for reviewing and escrowing and other reporters spotting sig use during ban time.

Hillarious could take care of it all if he can ban and unban.. seems theymos will not have to review or spend time coding anything.

For alternative systems that improve on what we have now just post below and  perhaps we can together reach a good solution.













 

Wouldn't the sensible solution be to NOT COPY AND PASTE? I've said it a million times, these cheaters do not deserve another chance. They know they are doing wrong when they do it. I'm sure they have been educated about some rules of the forum prior to opening accounts here to earn for their campaigns. They also have access to the meta area where hundreds of posts weekly are able to be seen and read that deal with accounts being banned due to copy/paste.

Do you have an army of banned accounts or something? You seem awfully interested in bringing banned accounts back. I'm trying to stay objective to your opinions but this idea seems a bit nuts to me.

Let's see what everyone else thinks though. Maybe I'm off on an island alone here

They could probably buy dozens of high-rank accounts for 0.5 BTC. Or a few hundred coppers.

Doesn't make sense.

Someone is off on an island somewhere, but it isn't you.

If I wake up one morning and find a flaming bag of shit on my porch, I'm not going to bring it inside and try to nurse it back to health.  That doesn't even make sense, right?  Well, that's exactly what I think of OP's idea.  The plagiarists are the flaming bags of shit, and they need to get the fuck off the porch.  Mods have been damn good with the fire extinguisher and porch-cleaning, as have been the members reporting the plagiarism.  No sympathy should be expected or given to these people, no second chances, no nothing--just a ban, and as I've written in recent threads, they should be given one example of something they've plagiarized in the ban PM and that's it. 

The ban appeal threads are getting monotonous, and these people are not the folks most of us want around bitcointalk.  There's no complicated solution necessary for these idiots' actions.  Ban.  Boom.  Gone.

We can't fix lazy uses stupidity, everyone is the master of his own destiny.

What is this nonsense??

I said reply if you have a better idea than the current system.

If you do not want to change how it is now then don't reply here I am asking for ideas to improve the situation.

Yeah I have an army of accounts I want to buy back for 0.5 BTC with no sigs allowed for a year. Can you refrain from asking me stupid questions unless you have some evidence I have any alts. What if I asked you do you take back handers for letting people on the sig campaigns you manage? because I have been told you do?  Now be positive make alternative good suggestions or just go to your own thread.

If you have no alternatives and dont want change from how it is dont post.

The same goes for Thepharmacist - Who I consider here to be contradicting some of his previous comments on copy and paste threads by saying they are all akin to bags of shit that are on fire. I mean why would you feel sympathy for a burning back of shit and recognise they made some good posts?  .

Now both do not post again unless

1 you have a good alternative or want to discuss this one

If you have no interest in change at all from insta perm ban for all that is fine but no need to post here.


WOW 20 merits given out by Tman - you must never want to see anyone that has ever copy and pasted get a second chance? why not?

I mean I don't wish to get into a huge discussion about anything else other than Improving the situation but who feels strongly enough to give such support to NEVER EVER letting copy any pasters having a second chance under any conditions at all. 
Do you really mean that? Seems harsh??

Isn't this contradiction?

Maybe just to permaban signature without paying part and user can use forum to post.

Yahoo disagreed with your idea and this thread because they think system is good. I don't see this as a nonsense, rather meaningful and sensible post of valuable member of this community.

Sorry but you do not get to dictate the free expression of ideas/ideals which contradict your own. If you are interested in a sanitized echo chamber make use of the self-moderated thread. Yes you a very interested in coming up with a new idea to help those you feel made a mistake, and there is nothing wrong with that.

You should expect that every time you have an idea for this, people who are fed up with these shitposting thieves trying to turn this forum into their workplace will express their opposition.

---

The forum itself does need some changes, assisting plagiarists is far down the list IMO. I wouldn't be opposed to some (So far 1 maybe 2) of these copypasters receiving a second chance. Really though, it's none of the people who's threads you've posted in , someone usually finds many other plagiarized posts. Those members are not victims they are a problem, and keeping them here promotes this problem.

The problems I have with your fix are that you are only assisting Hodlers and the wealthy with the rates you set up. If someone could convince the Admins of their true ignorance to the fact, and fitting with theymos's own views on the matter - "Not doing so for financial gain" - I would give them a chance with no signature for 18 months, No [ANN] threads for ICO's or bounties or businesses.

These members would also be placed on a review list, so that there posts are scrutinized for further wrongdoing.

Trimmed quote

I do not believe my answer/reply was nonsense at all. It is exactly what needs to be done. Users don't need coddled. They know exactly what they are doing.

I'm not trying to be difficult for you, I'm voicing my opinion like you have done over 12000 times since becoming a member here.

Why do you want to save these people is the better question? Bitcointalk as a forum is losing nothing by losing these offenders. If anything the few hundred that are banned are serving as the lesson for those considering copy/paste activities.

Okay cool sorry.

Well to be honest I have seen a couple that seems I think deserved a fair chance at another go. They seemed to be mistakes from a while back many years and some of their recent posts were actually very good. I think some people start off here a bit shaky and improve.

I am not just interested in helping copy and pasters at all. I have been called to many posts to help anyone that wants some help.

I just think in this net we are casting it will take down some good eggs and some net positive individuals with it. This is more of a carrot and stick approach to guide people into being net positive rather than a head shot to anyone that steps off the path even for a moment.

@Steamtyme

I wasn't trying to stifle any free speech. They can say anything they want on topic or anything else off topic.

I don't see a point though of turning this thread into pages of people who just say " all plagiarist get insta perm ban" because it makes the conversation for others trying to think up another system much harder.

I read your post and it was a good one. I agree perhaps the rates can be reduced slightly.

Can you point me to the ones that got banned you would give another chance to? I didn't think I missed any hero or legends out because originally I was thinking of a max 1.1000 ratio .... but the reviews and closer scrutiny especially for those with 1000's of posts is a lot to review. This system is quick and fast and could introduce tomorrow.

Let's face it purely financially reward spammers will not appeal so saves time listening to them if they are bad eggs.

Ok so the only solution would still be on a case by case basis. The only problem I would have with allowing any sort of review is who exactly are we reviewing?

How do you know the account has not changed hands multiple times? Or is not involved in a network of cheaters? Do you realize how much work would go into looking into these things?

Hilariousandco most likely does not want the headache of doing the investigative work and neither would anyone else honestly. Unless it's a paying job from the forum administrator, then it may be a possibility.

I guess it should be as it was and now is !

Copy and Paste ( plagiarism )  gets you banned as in the rules written !

If you in real life , use a other work for something to get yourself an advantage or make money with it , you will also be punished if someone gets out that it is not your own work !

Best example are pictures , if you use others without permission to use it and they find it out you will punished !

The most reason i guess is that 80 %  on the forum (special new Users ) dont read the rules or know them or dont care about .

Ignorance does not protect against punishment.

With this system there is no review as such apart from the initial one where the copy and paste is discovered really.

If it has changed hands and the copy and paste happened before they bought it that will be the risk you take when buying an account I guess.

Also really you should build your own account from scratch I think.

I did think up a kind of system that was more elaborate to vet the entire histories but was such a lot of work it would need to cost them a fortune in btc to get anyone to do it.

I’d much sooner suggest banning for 7 days and/or permaban and charge a 1mBTC fee.

Once a second offence happens then permaban. Although I’m satisfied with the current rules, it’s no problem to me or anyone else who abides by international copyright laws...

This is not simple and fast at all. You're basically letting plagiarists to buy their banned accounts back from the forum for 0.5 BTC and with strings attached (signature not permitted).

First of all, there is no "customer base" for that. Too expensive and too restrictive for shitposters, who can buy another sig-capable account for far less. Not needed for mistakenly banned users who should win their appeals. This appears to be targeted to the elusive "only plagiarized 1 post out of 1000" demographic, of which I've seen perhaps 1 or 2 examples.

Second, even if the "only plagiarized 1 post out of 1000" is an actual problem that we want to solve and we lower the cost to an affordable level, this is a horrible way of doing it. Somebody needs to be the escrow, somebody needs to watch the signatures, somebody needs to enforce the zero-tolerance policy for each previously banned account. It doesn't scale. Yahoo's solution makes far more sense. Don't copy-paste, not even 1 in 1000.

If theymos could implement an actual enforceable signature ban then I'd be ok with it for certain cases. Better yet, make it a max(500, merit_score) merit penalty and if the score is negative after that - permaban stays. That way it can only be used by high-rank accounts and would automatically kill the signature.

I don't see that happening anytime soon though so why don't we focus on solving the shitposting problem rather than helping shitposters.

And who decides all those exceptions?

That is quite true especially who decides who are the crazy copy and paste shit posters.I guess they would not bother to appeal anyway so perhaps no need to add that exception. If they can buy other accounts for cheaper they will do that anyway.

I agree this only really targets people who really are not spammer and are real enthusiasts who have made a mistake in a 1000 and want to retain their accounts here and their ID here. I don't really care that much about others that dont fit into that bracket anyway. Non enthusiasts can just go spam other forums.

However to the scaling...

1. Do we think there will be that many that apply for this ?
2. The work you do now would be paid in theory ( i know you don't care about that) but others might start helping with financial incentive. This also provides incentive to the mods to escrow and the reporters to keep any eye out for sig ban evaders. I think if anything you will get more people looking for bad guys and watching they stay in line if they are paid from the fees.
3. after the get to go back to normal then they will just get caught again and their usernames will be on the thread prior so go to insta perm ban.

That was my first point. There will be no one applying at the 0.5 BTC price. When a new Copper account costs $10-20 you're basically placing a $2000 penalty on honesty - if someone wants to evade a ban they'll just create a new account, and if someone wants to play by the rules then it's way too expensive. For it to make sense it has to cost about as much as Copper membership give or take a few bucks, if you consider sentimental value vs loss of signature vs ban evasion.


It's still a lot of hassle for zero benefit for most people involved. I'd rather spend that time cleaning out 100 other shitposters than babysitting one ex-convict.

In this system though you would not be doing anything different you would be finding the culprits same as now. Your job in the system does not change you don't need to be the mod or the reporter for people evading sig ban. You still get to go after the other 100 shitsters.  The actual only difference for you is you will get a split of the fees. Even if you do not care about that it may encourage others to do like you are doing now for their bit of the fees.

Then mods who already have to make the decision after you report and also supply the reasons etc and listen to the appeal will just shove the fees in a cold wallet and keep ledger. They will get their fees too. and not have to listen to so many appeals.

Then other people who want to spy out for sig evasion to get some fees or even - maybe  scripts can be made 3rd party keep an eye on them anyway....but anyone watching them gets a split for finding them..

I agree not a huge amount would want go through this appeals process  but i have seen some legends on the appeals offer to pay 0.25 btc for review. People do get attached to their accounts and are certain they are net positive now.

I mean I agree if theymos opens up an option to ban sigs through the forum console that would be even better.

Also those appeals we are seeing here all the time now they will read the appeals process and just think no chance if they are not 100% sure they are net positives.

I mean not many will apply but we are not bothered about saving many only those that are real enthusiasts and it will cut down on appeals also i think. Most are hoping atm we will not find another bunch of their copy and pastes so they try it on claiming yeah 100% i only did it once or whatever but now they wont appeal at all. If it will cost them 0.5btc and no sig for a year then I think they will not be bothering to even appeal. So meta will get drastic drastic reduction in appeals.

I mean another slightly different idea could be

Appeals process is this - want to appeal and say you only made one or less than 1 in 1000 or some ratio - send 1 btc to mod and if no more are found in 3 months time by anyone on the board then money back. If more cases found then money split between original finder and new finder. Of course a smart original finder could find more already....this is now the risk of the copy and paster.

I think that will cut down on people appealing only done it one time or less than 1.1000

perhaps that could be easier.

I don't think so. Free appeals are still needed to rectify mistakes that occasionally happen. And there will always be opportunists using the process either because they're naive, or fishing for better shitposting strategies, or just trolling.

As for the whole financial incentive side of it... you're right, I don't care. And I'm not sure if I'd trust people who do it for money. We already had a case of someone getting framed and that was without financial gain involved.

The "sensible" solution for plagiarism would be this.

a button on every post labeled with" Click me NOW" , takes you to another page where you need to quote the original text, the two texts along with the timestamp run in simple query that checks the integrity of the report by matching the two texts, if it matches , BINGO ! that account gets INSTANT BAN for a limited period of time which equals to his lifetime.

and yes , the button should be available to everybody including newbies so that they can ban higher rank members who copy and paste.

I can tell you this is going to be a 100% plagiarism free forum, as everybody will be watching over everybody else.

and this to me is the ONLY "Sensible" punishment for somebody who steals the words of others and present them as their own.

We already have that, it's called "Report to moderator". Works quite well.

Personally, I think there would be no use in applying a fine of 0.5 BTC to copy pasters as they are already very low valued peoples with no personal brains functioning.

If you would not get an appeal( I think we would get none) then it is an unfunctional system with no advantages and you should not expect a sensible appeal from a person about his forum ban if he doesn't know the basic rules of Bitcointalk or any forum in the world which is NO COPY/PASTE.

I personally think a better alternative for the current situation of copy paste would be just sending them a warning about the message for which they are banned (parallelized post ). Also, we can see an update by @theymos about the new message for paralyzed account ban and you can see a suggestion thread here. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5083247.0) We can just also add the post link for which the account is banned and this could be the best solution to reduce the copy and paste appeals in meta.

I think coding is a better solution than just putting all the appeal loads on a single person.

How about only seriously consider appeal if :
1. The member have good reputation or known to help others
2. They have high rank or/and received lots of merit (earned in correct way)
3. Many members agree to unban. This is should be easy and good way since so far i only see 2 banned member got support from other member to be un-banned

Additionally, escrow some Bitcoin is unnecessary and limit to those who have lots of Bitcoin. Simply remove signature space 1 year - forever is easier solution. If the user only care about earn money, he will leave while actual member will stay and continue being helpful.

Copy and pasting is obviously against the rule of the forum there is no better warning than a lay down forewarning many users plagiarise for various reasons
: to increase there post count
: there bounty project requires it
: hunting for merit so they copy a nice article they find in the internet and paste it here.
 Etc

  Just like in the normal frame of law where ignorance is not an excuse no one should say he/she did not know plagiarism is not against the rule it's always important to read up the rules before engaging into a forum.

Plagiarism has been the major reason as to why people get banned well I would also say every one can change if there can be a jail term giving to those found guilty of plagiarism the forum my be losing potential great minds(if they turn a new live) by giving a permanent ban to them.

The reason as to why offender was jailed would be sent to you via email or on offenders account the jail term would prevent offenders from posting but can watch

If after the term has Been served the person is still an unrepentant individual he/she can be completely eradicate from the forum

I guess it is better to see if there are improvements to be made by listing issues as they are now and issues after new system.

The more I think about it the more the other way seems a bit better than my first idea although I still feel the first idea could help and I would have to do a advantages and disadvantages to that later..

So problems the current system has

1. too many appeals  hinging on the fact they are hoping no other serious copy and paste can be found with NO risk to them for us wasting time finding what they hope we will not.
2. Only an appearance of an appeal once infraction substatiated because a/ if there is one case it is perm ban b/ not man power or incentive enough to scan  entire histories for others to validate or deny their claim so we dont know..
3. Is possible for a net positive poster that is telling truth about only doing once or less 1.1000 to be lost ..or person that made a mistake early on but has for years been a good poster
4. some people may (believing perhaps wrongly there is only 1 case or 1.1000) think some of them get rough treatment


New system where we find one copy and past and if they want to have a chance of a real appeal after actual infraction is confirmed then 0.5 btc (or some fee) put with escrow for 1 month (mod) if anyone finds more or more than 1.1000 then (fee) split between original finder, mod for escrow and first person to post information demonstrating exceeding of the 1.1000 or more than 1 if have not made 1000 posts. If they were telling truth (or more not found in 1 month) then money back. Then zero tolerance after that.

1. less or zero appeals from real bad eggs because there is now risk to them ... before they had no risk
2. chance of a real appeal ...1 month for anyone to find more
3. Real net positive will never be lost
4. everyone gets to find out the truth or far more chance of finding the truth about the person and no more guessing should we feel sorry for them or not.

There are still free appeals to those if it is a total mistake because that will be spotted at the outset. I have not seen any of these total mistake ones as yet. I have only seen 90% of real scammers and 10% I am not sure because how to know if they are really have made no other mistake or just lying hoping we can't find more because they have no punishment for lying right now because nothing more gets taken from them if we find out they are lying.

I would be in favour of this for probably one or two cases in the past year, but theymos disagrees on the most obvious one of those:

Not that I would favour a change of rule on this matter, but brainstorming on ideas around it is fine, and the outcome will likely be one of those let’s agree to disagree ones.

By principle, any change on the rule should give everyone equal chances, and having to escrow 0,5 BTC (or whatever relatively high value to many) to have a proper appeal, is creating a justice that is segmented by class from the start (no different to real life, buy I don’t think it should be a starter).

Whatever system may be devised cannot be one that takes up bags of time from mods/admins, so a thorough search for the plagiarism ratio of a given user should not be down to a semi-manual search. That could in any case be on the table if there were to be a back-end admin tool to perform such a task, but until there is some high degree of automatism to the process, the required time is better served on moderating tasks.

@ETFbitcoin though seem like a sensible set of criteria to make exceptions for those that are net positive. Ok justice on different levels again, but the underlying principle is that the postulant is a clear net positive, has been so for some time, and that resources to look into the case are spread over, and not concentrated solely on admins/mods.

A couple of things could be added in general terms:

-   Just as in real life crimes prescribe after a certain period of time, there could be a limiting timeframe to allow for personal redemption and change of ways (i.e. plagiarism rule infraction limited to last 2 years).

-   A bit wild, but one could accept being deranked a couple of levels as part of the penalty (for the top ranks only).

I agree with a lot of your points

However if we make it too small of an amount then it kind of lowers the risk reward ratio. I mean say if they only had to pay 0.05 then it is not much risk for them to put us through the trouble of scanning the history looking for more so they will still all appeal...and I don't think would inspire many people to try and find additional copy and pastes. I guess we could make legends pay more than noobs because they have larger post histories to scan so it is more time consuming to locate additional infractions? also legend should have more money? not essentially true either i guess so perhaps just cut it back to 0.25 if people think 0.5btc is too much. I mean remember if not guilty of more they get it all back.

Also legends are going to be getting something more the other way with the 1.1000 rule so it is swings and roundabouts.

Also the finding of extra infractions is a rewards structure for anyone or first to find enough for perm ban exceed 1.1000

I think merit reduction as suchmoon said could be good but people know my opinion on merit and noobs have none anyway. I guess it could work since very high merit earners (although may not be the best posters on this board) but they are probably very unlikely to be copy and pasters so perhaps the merit reduction could work because that would reduce rank usually anyway.

I mean if it was possible to disable sigs in the console of the forum this would be great at some point and could easily become part of the punishment then without messing with merit nor rank because they cant join sigs whatever then for 1 year.

@ etf i like those ideas too but I think a list of strict criteria is better than a group who decides without a list of criteria to match against.

Cutting down appeals from the real spammers who know they are spammers is key because that cuts away most of the waste of time.
If you get only 1 or 2 appeals a week or less from REAL good posters who know okay I have messed up or been lazy or done something someone didnt give a toss about years ago but It will easily be evident i am net positive under close scrutiny.... you have almost already solved the issue. Well you still need to detect

This post is simply brain storming - I'm not saying I do or even would support the ideas that follow.

I do not think it should be linked to payment at all. As mentioned, this is creating one rule for the rich and a stricter set of rules for the poor, and gives off the message that you can "buy" your way out of problems (to an extent). Bitcoin, and by extension, this forum, should be equally accessible to all, regardless of financial background.

I do think there are different "levels" of plagiarism, if you will. Compare the newbie bounty campaign spammer with >10% of their posts plagiarized solely for meeting their campaign requirements to the legendary with 1 or 2 posts out of thousands which were plagiarized but were posted to provide info or answer questions asked by others. Having said that, the former massively outnumbers the latter.

I think an argument could be made (not that I'm making it per se) for some leniency for this (very rare) latter group of users, if the user is a clear net positive to the forum. As ETFbitcoin said, this could be quantified by their rank, earned merits, or recognition from other members. Their number of good reports could also be a useful metric in this regard. Whether the user is a net positive could also be a decision for staff (as a collective group) to make on an individual case-by-case basis.

In terms of these users, then a punishment like a 6 or 12 month signature ban, or penalising of ranks and merits, for the first offence only seems appropriate. A second offence would result in permanent ban as it does now.

Having said all that, I think the cases that this would apply to are in the single digits, compared to the thousands and thousands of accounts being perma-banned for plagiarism. It would require a lot of time and energy from the admins/mods to set up this new system for the benefit of a tiny handful of users, and that time and energy could be much better spent elsewhere. The bottom line remains the same - if you don't want to be banned for plagiarism, then don't plagiarize.

That's not a good idear at all... For example, if i had some kind of grudge against somebody, I could just copy one of their original posts and paste it on my blog with a backdated timestamp, so it looks my blog article is older than the original post my victim made... Then i could just click the button => BAM autoban.

I could even up my stealth so i wouldn't face any punishment if somebody found out the victim was autobanned due to my scammy methods... I could simply register a free .tk domain, then create an account on a free webhost and create a blog there (all over a VPN or tor)... Then copy somebody else's work and post it on my blog with a backdated timestamp... Then i could create a newbie account on bitcointalk over my VPN or tor, and get a senior member autobanned... Sure, maybe the ban wouldn't stick, but the member would still lose access to his/her account for a while untill the admin has time to look at his ban appeal and unban his account.

I'm not in favor of an automatic ban mechanism...

For the rest of this thread: i'm not a political person... I , personally, wouldn't like to see somebody getting severely punished because he or she copied my work, but i completely understand if other members do have severe problems if their work gets copied... It's against the law to plagiarise in many places around the globe, so i completely understand Theymos has to make a point here, it probably would reflect poorly on him if he let people plagiarise without punishment.
I wouldn't be opposed to the fact of unbanning somebody if the violation happened a long time ago, and if the member has behaved in a suitable manner for a long, long while. In the law of my country, there's something called a "verjaringstermijn". It basically means that if you commit a crime, you can only be punished for this crime the next x years after the crime. The amount of time needed for a crime to become "unpunishable" depends on the type of crime.
I don't know if there's something similar in the US (afaik, that's where the bitcointalk server is hosted), but i can imagine a member who joined in 2010 and commited the crime of plagiarism once in the first year he's a member but never commited the crime again in the next 8 years (while still remaining an active member) could potentially fall into a different category than a shitposter.

These are all good points. However to me the system we are all describing is basically the same to ID the users that are net positive matched to a set of criteria that demonstrates this. My proposal simply takes the load away from a few people and with the reward system decentralises the work load. If innocent you get your money back.

Nobody is going to pay 0.5btc to get their account back. It'd have to be a reasonable fine relative to what their account is worth. Somewhere between $100-$500 maybe. I possibly wouldn't be against some sort of fine but not sure it going to staff or the forum would be a good idea. People will just whine we're banning people for the money. We could tell them to donate it to charity which at least then some good would come of their behaviour and nobody but a good cause benefits. You could maybe give people two options: You can either have a sig ban indefinitely and earn your signature back by getting sufficient merit (say maybe at least 100) or pay a fine (that goes to charity). As I've mentioned before I'm strongly in favour of more donator ranks that give you a bigger signature and maybe they could get their signature back by purchasing one of them. I think we should also give them the option or earning it back via merit so at least they have two options and if they don't want to pay anything then they can earn their signature back by contributing something worthwhile.


This. I would personally prefer that users just stop doing the plagiarism then we wouldn't have anything to worry about. I think theymos should probably link to the rules somewhere so new users are made aware of them or even better constantly reminded of them somehow. I think some bright red warnings when they go to submit a post like DO NOT COPY AND PASTE/PLAGIARISE CONTENT OR POST REF LINKS would also help.

With all my respect to you, I think you don't understand the main reason behind banning copy pasters.

It is not just to punish these membres but to keep the bright image the forum has as the biggest forum dedicated to bitcoin and blockchain and all its content should be unique.

How would you approach multiple offenders?
Plagiarists rarely copy and paste as a mistake. It's a deliberate act, and they are likely to have done it more than once.
Would their offense be counted from when they are caught? Do you think multiple offenders deserve a second chance?
I'm more disposed to have issues handled individually, considering the number od copy and pasted, and situation leading to the offense.

These are all actually very good ideas. There are many ways to tackle this with out losing net positive members to head shots. Carrot and stick to keep people net positive is best. Perhaps 0.5btc is too much although we need to remember those that are within the ratio will get it all back. Those that actually lose it even after sensible consideration are actually quite worthy of some punishment if not total deletion.

The reward money will just go to any person finding extra copy and pastes open to the entire board to be split with original finder and  escrow fee for mods. So anyone can claim. But your other ideas sound quite fair too as good alternatives.

If we could arrive on this thread at a few different ideas then set them up as polls all over the board.

1. shit posters will freak and start deleting their own spam
2. they will be very aware we dont tolerate financially motivated copy and paste spam.

so that alone is part of curing the issue too.

Moderators could simply apply their discretion in the handful of cases that deserve that. I know there is the concern of setting a precedent (if we let one off the hook then everyone will want the same) but honestly most of these suggested "second chance" schemes wouldn't be any better.

Understood. I just felt it needed saying as that point of view is important to still have present for this discussion to move forward. To effectively overhaul and implement any major change those opinions serve to show what the new system has to overcome in opposition; or at least appease for support.



I honestly never tracked them or gave it much more than a passing thought. The one that I thought had been brought back was ChibitCTY, I actually thought they had been unbanned that's how little I followed it. It was only recently I went back to review.

After going over it again that case falls outside of where I stood on drawing the line. I have since adjusted my thoughts on that case, only in terms of the punitive measures. The original story is gone, but the recent explanation states it was done specifically to fulfill requirements for a SIG, does lean towards out of duty to the manager, but that's not the point.

In this case I feel enough members came out to vouch and show that at least in a certain segment of the community they were an absolute net positive. For that I would bring them back, with a permanent paid SIG ban.


I may not have been super clear in my monitoring idea. It essentially would be a board like the ModLog, where the list of unbanned users would be displayed. Anyone and everyone could access this list and if they chose can review posts of these users for further infractions. I don't expect this list to be very long, as there are not many users that would win their appeal. I don't know who we would allow to be the jury so to speak, maybe a pool of members chosen at random, much like a possible idea floated by theymos in regards to the trust system.

All in all I would stray entirely away from a monetizing this appeals process, but would be in favor of long term or permanent signature bans, as well as my previously mentioned advertising or [ANN] creation for monetary gain.

Cutting down on appeals isn't really necessary. It's a tool that works out, generally within a few minutes someone has explained to the fake ignorant exactly what they did wrong and someone follows up with 3 more examples immediately after they say it was the first time. This seems to be the trend of most appeals anyways. Then people just have to stop feeding the thread with replies. Instead we could overhaul the ban message that then states "this was plagiarism these are the posts and the source you stole from" then as part of the appeal process have them put the full message in their appeal.


I learned from the ChiBitCTY thread that there was a precedent set in the past, in regards to LoanShark I beleive. I really don't know anything beyond that not everyone agreed, and that they had been unbanned. Since it came up in a plagiarism thread I assumed the ban was related to this.

A 0.01BTC fine seems like a good idea though or something that small to redeem yourself. Although we’ll end up with the same number of people just saying they’re unfairly targeted... members that have been here long enough should be able to afford the fine, those who haven’t won’t unless they put in work to educate themselves.

And as Leo said, there aren’t many that get banned for copy pasting it’s just quite a large amount of the banned ones that’s why we’re noticing them. It’s not like you can unconsciously plagiarise.

Something similar has already happened against OP in the report topic, check this:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1926895.msg48790244#msg48790244 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1926895.msg48790244#msg48790244)
Newbie account with one and only post

That steemit thing is bollocks because cryptohunter clearly is replying to the post that has the link. Sloppy posting but probably not a bannable offence.

However the set of dash links that gets copied over and over - I don't see any attribution or anything else that would indicate cryptohunter is not the original author. I'm genuinely interested what the excuse is going to be.

The link to the text is at the bottom of the post where all sources of that post can be found.

Now you spineless jackal and part of a gang here trying to silence me and anyone else who does not do what you want are about to get banned yourselves for this kind of abuse.

I mean red trust attempt that i beat back proving abuse yesterday
NOw 1 day old puppet account trying to get me banned and you all talking and rejoicing (Early) but this will back fire this entire think stinks and nobody will fail to see it now on this second attempt. Using a brand new account to report proves what spineless jackals you really are and how you are not to be trusted at all.

Good bye suchmoon but which one of us leaves here. It will never be me I can assure you.

See whilst I beat your power hungry bullying little mind into pieces in public with observable events and corroborating evidence and raw data over and over again and reduced you to a barely functioning mess shouting out ludicrous pathetic statements like "most pre merit legneds are spammers " and " that I was an idiot for saying i believed some of the 99.93% of the users here are capable of making posts as good if not better than some of the 0.13% of users" and then you running away and refusing to go back on those statements or answer questions regarding them you were left wondering how. 

How had your bullying tactics and all of your even more foolish gang together allowed you (and them to get destroyed absolutely destroyed in public over and over and over again" ???

Because you are of mediocre standard and only believe your high merits mean you are more valuable than anyone else.  You are certainly not smart enough to defeat the truth. Sorry.

Now because you have tried to silence me through disgusting abuse of this board and its systems I think it is time for you to be removed from any positions of trust or power and that goes for the entire gang.

Filthy bunch of cowardly jackals. Before you slink away to your holes like you have in every other encounter I want you to list your accomplishments on this board that are publically observable . I challenge you to do it now. There must be some BIG difference you made here apart from playing whack a mole and trying to silence people with your bully tactics.

Soft and steady language of some of you does not mask your deeds here. Given time I will demonstrate you are all bad eggs.

Can you please contain your personal grievances in the thread created for this purpose: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5086297

dont u wish

CH is wiping the floor with every bit of face you have exposed world wide
u hve meet ur accumulative matchs, show some respect

I think that there is no more changing rules about copy/paste, no chance at all to be given since copy/paste or plagiarism itself is a crime.

Provide grounding. Don't just say you think something  has been said here before 10x with no reason behind it..  That means you are pointless and net negative to this thread. We want to reach optimal opinions here so if every thread is polluted  with 100's of posts just saying the same thing over and over with out providing any case for to support their opinion

"Copy and paste or plagiarism is a crime"??  where did you get that impression.. this is not as black and white as you may believe and motive is the very most important factor.

I think polls on serious matters need to be manual and also people need to provide reasoning in the thread on their opinions so we can see just who is voting for what and why. I mean why should a vote even be given any consideration if it is demonstrated the person voting is basing his vote upon corrupt or incorrect information or is demonstrated not to have the capacity or training to give an opinion that can be anything other than a pollutant to logically reaching the optimal decision or implementing the guidelines/rules that have an optimal effect.

How about bringing some reasoning behind your statement and how would a few copy and pastes that were not financially motivated from posters that are hugely net positive getting banned be anything other than 100000x worse that someone who just gives out opinions and nonsense that contributes to incorrect decisions. I mean they are net negative and should be deleted if we are being sensible.

Look it really is this simple - the forum is like a bank and you want to accumulate the most money ... people are measured by how much NET sum they pay in. You don't want a bunch of people who pay in 0 ever telling you that you need to get rid of people that pay in 50k per year and occasionally draw out 10 bucks ...


@Steamtyme

good post actually and yes this loanshark one is an interesting one .



We just need a set of criteria which can separate net positive people getting occasionally sloppy and lazy vs those that are intentionally using other peoples work to gain from it financially. This is common sense.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement#Criminal_law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement#Criminal_law)

a lot of this copy and paste here does not come under copyright infringement

Show me some copyright infringement please from examples of banned people lately.

this is not to do with breaking international copyright laws. .. not one person whom has been banned would quality for that description


I can show you plenty of memes that will all soon be breaking europes laws....


So now we are saying we will ban people for breaking no legally enforceable law world wide

but

we will not ban those breaking actually legally enforceable laws in other places in the world and if they are linking from europe based hosting sites then....


the obvious thing is we need to ban those people that are copy and pasting for financial reasons to spam this board because they are not net positive and can not even construct a good post that adds value to the board.

A 7 days ban is a weak solution and wouldn't deter anyone from plagiarism,as they simply can do so,get off and chill out for 7 days and they are back, it just doesn't make sense.
This looks most sensible to me,but wouldn't it be difficult to ascertain those who plagiarise for such reasons,i mean how are we going to go about it determining those who cheated simply to earn from the forum.