Bitcoin Forum

We all know how the marketplace section is messed up every day by newbies creating daily new accounts for the intention of scam and also when one of their accounts gets red painted, they creates a new one. Maybe a criminal mind individual has tons of accounts. Aren't we unintentionally supporting this?

Why not create a system for newbies to pay a fee upon creating a sales thread specifically for Goods, Services, Lending, Auction, Currency exchange boards and Marketplace (alt)?
If possible, include Marketplace otherwise, they will start creating threads in this section.

Please share your opinions on this matter. I think a lot of criminal minds will run away and won't come back again.

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I'm not sure if this topic has been discussed before. Please refer to that thread if it has been discussed. I will lock this thread immediately.

I am very active in the marketplace area and I don't think this is necessary and would just keep people form participating period. The mods do a good job in the marketplace section. We are aware con artists use multiple accounts, they can hack and buy them too, so this fee would stop nothing.

Maybe instead of introducing fees, limit posting in some boards for users with certain ranks, for example a member or higher, or possibly copper (which in fact will be close to your idea).

Entering fees for placing advertisements may result in a significant reduction in adverts - people generally do not like paying for similar activities, and the limitation such opportunities to certain ranks (in my opinion low level like member will be enough) should be enough limitation to reduce spam / scam ...

If users utilized the multiple number of forum escrows available, or didn't try to buy shady goods from shady users, we wouldn't have the need for any of this anyways.   You think making them pay a 2 dollar fee is going to stop them from trying to scam? Why would you blindly send money to a user without protecting it? Bottom line, take precautions when trading or buying.


You would have to limit it to staff only. All other account ranks can be bought for a few bucks.

This one seems better than paying the fees. But on the other hand, genuine promoters might be confused on how to rank up or find it inconvenient just to "waste" time on the forum before gaining the privilege to advertise.

There are then account sellers and merit sellers in this forum. Anyone can easily buy account/merits or create new accounts to post multiple threads. So it again comes down to this.

There is a better solution, been proposed a dozen time, do NOT allow newbies to make locked / self-moderated threads where they can fake vouch with suckpuppets and avoid legit questions regarding any suspicious.

most victims read the fake feedback on the self-moderated thread , jump in to conclusion that this is a legit seller, send him some btc , he never replies, you give him an "untrusted feedback" which nobody sees, start a scam accusation topic, and till he gets tagged by a DT member he would probably have scammed another person or two and already setting up his new newbie account.

let alone the poor souls "guests" who can't see the trust rating and keep falling for the same scammers everyday.

Honestly, I think this issue is long overdue. It should be a welcome development if only Theymos would implement it. At least it will reduce the proliferation of threads scamming community members. Also, I would like to see a situation where restrictions are placed on posters of certain ranks opening "restricted threads"

Disregard newbies completely, and only allow sales thread from minimum member position or copper memberships.

Good point but still don't you think it will create a mess if competitors go on trolling the thread. It also enables others to post in the thread and promote their shop. I've seen many digital good sellers posting in other's thread promoting their shop.

Rest even if it gets implemented, it doesn't eliminates the task of taking precaution while buying for the buyers.

I don't think it's going to help prevent spam. We can see most of spam post on Altcoins Announcement section. They will pay fee and will continue spam. I think there should be limit of rank like Investigation section. So below that rank will not able to post on specific board like Altcoins Announcement. Also people's will attempt to buy rank account but at least it will reduce spam post in my opinions.

It would be more helpful if you report that kind spam post so moderators will handle. We should help forum as much as possible to create a decent environment.

..I don't think that this is a better idea..why not creating a section for newbies and limit some post..we are all aware that some people are'nt infavor in paying fees..We were all once started as a newbie and we know the feellings of being a newbie in this forum,,that's why we need to give them a chance..

Similar ideas have been proposed before, but I don't think it's going to happen:

I'm personally not in favor of this idea, it would needlessly punish those people who have a genuine service to offer.
Maybe I'm a little bit biased because I'm currently helping out a newbie with a thread in the Services section.

It's just that I think most of the responsibility is on the buyer in the first place.
It's pretty easy to avoid getting scammed, you can usually spot the scam threads from a mile away.

Plus, it would go against the libertarian nature of this forum, which is the main reason why I've joined and stayed in the first place.

This would seem like a better solution, though not a perfect one by any means.  It's certainly better than requiring a fee, because if that was the case scammers would just increase the amount of the deals they're trying to do in order to cover the fee--and that would probably work, too.

However, if I'm not mistaken we've talked about this a number of times and Theymos has kept silent on the matter.  I don't think he wants to inhibit trade here in the name of increased security.  Ultimately it's the responsibility of each member to keep themselves safe and not the forum's job to play nanny--and I sort of agree with that.  I also don't think any of these proposed solutions are going to fix the problem or even alleviate it to any appreciable extent.  The only thing they would do is make it more inconvenient for everyone to do business here, and I don't think that's what Theymos wants.

Right on the money.  Should have read the entire thread before posting, but I would not have thought of the word libertarian had I not seen your post.

If we release this suggestion and some other similar ones, then ask me on one question, how logically it sounds: Centralized forum was created to support coin which was created to offer us decentralization?
I think theymos is against paying any fees for creating thread in any section, even in altcoins and ico threads.
We don't to blame others if we got scammed, you have your own brain, when you see newbie or someone red trusted, use escrow if you are afraid of getting scams. On another hand none action can 100% protect you against scam.

I see the problem is two things: locked self-moderated topics and Auto-Buy URLs.
Setting the rank and imposing restrictions on newbies will not solve the problem because you need 30 days plus one merit to rank-up.
Also, showing trust will not solve the problem.
I hope that the solution is related to trust as the main purpose of the trust system is the market & the solution will be as follows:


 - less than 1 trust rate=  Restrictions on creating locked self-moderated topics and Auto-Buy URLs.
 - 10 trust rate= Auto-Buy URLs
 - 20 trust rate= creating locked self-moderated topics

that would work if the trust system was only used for trust purposes, which is not , many people get positive trust for being nice, many others get negative rating for having a different opinion, there is a good number of  examples for members who are highly trusted but have a bad trust score.

What I mean is the blue number above. We are talking about some filters in order to prevent the abuse of some features.
Newbies can create new topics but to create self-moderated, a locked topic and Auto-buy URLs should have some trust before getting those privileges.
Setting restrictions for all (newbies & jrmember)  accounts or preventing them from posting is a negative behavior.

The fact that there are currently some low ranked members who are active and a net positive to the marketplace makes this idea overly restrictive. I used to think the same way more inline with rank specific restriction, but have changed my view on that. Anyone should be able to come here and use the marketplace, who are we to decide whether or not that's the right way to get involved in the forum. The fee would place a barrier that no one else has to pay twhen using the forum for other reasons.

Perhaps the Marketplace just needs an overall restriction on these features. The overwhelming majority of sales threads do not use self-moderation, or constant locking/unlocking. I'm personally unfamiliar with the "Auto Buy Urls's" so I don't know what if any positive they bring.

Personally I would impose these restrictions to the Marketplace.

1) Once locked a topic cannot be unlocked -There are not a lot of reasons to repetitively lock and unlock a topic, except to maintain a stranglehold on the sales message.

2) Remove self-moderation as an option -If someone is trolling or off-topic they can be reported.


In regards to Auto-Buy URL's are these directing people to a business site to purchase items? Is there any benefit to these?

If not could we not ban the use of them in the same way referral links are not allowed.

Imposing restrictions based on trust score is a good idea but it also won't work. Its not that hard to get that much trust score and after that they will be back at it again. It will bring in trust farming issues.

Personally I am totally against auto-buy platforms (ofc they are convenient in using but they are not escrow and they mention that in their site, so whats the point in using such platform. only bcoz its convenient?).

Bad idea, a criminal will never hesitate to pay a slight few if his/her intention is to scam people.
Newbies can never be trusted either they are allowed or not allowed to post in these sections.
And the most worst thing is that many scammers buy high ranked accounts to build trust so they can scam easily.

I once suggested to not allow newbies to create new threads other than beginners and help section but unfortunately it wasn't much apprecited.


Anyhow it's your own practice to investigate before dealing with these people.

I tend to agree with yahoo that user need to be cautious while dealing with others irrespective of rank. Asking a fees d0es not look good solution.
I guess lending section is worst hit where you find newbies asking for no collateral loans.

Anyone can scam and anyone can decide to misuse his trust and become a scammer one day and the rank doesn't matter. Setting these restrictions only on Newbies is wrong in my opinion. And theymos is right when he talks about newbie jail. The rules should be the same for anyone. If we want this community and the crypto movement to prosper we can't set restrictions on new members because it is counter productive to what we all want to achieve with Bitcoin. There have also been cases of high ranked members turning scammers so this will only prevent one group of potential fraudsters.