Bitcoin Forum

Over the past couple of days, I have noticed that a couple of threads with phishing/malware links have been posted in the Wallet child board of Development & Technical.




The thread is locked, so no one can respond in the thread with a warning. I am sure that I and others have reported this thread to the moderator for deletion. However, the thread is still up after 3 hours without getting deleted. I and others have also added negative trust ratings; however, this isn't likely to do anything since trust scores are not displayed in this child board. I am wondering if we should start displaying trust ratings in this child board, or would that be unfair to posters, since this is really a moderation issue? It would just be nice to give people some kind of extra warning in such circumstances until the thread and user can be purged. I realize HCP (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=867786) started a thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=867786) to warn people. However, I think we need as many tools in our arsenal to counter these attacks before nuking action is taken.

How about something like this?

https://i.imgur.com/DLwu0kh.jpg

USER STATUS could contain data like
- BANNED
- Inactive
- JUST WOKE UP

That certainly would be helpful in this case.

That's as good an argument as any for showing trust there. It would help any newbies who actually find the right place, but are still naive to how many scammers there are out there. This would also help the non members who are browsing with the implemented warnings on trust enabled sections (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5100111.msg50788835#msg50788835). It's not a stretch to think of a non member finding these posts through a search the same as they could find the marketplace.

It is unfortunate, but there is some downtime between when moderators are on and active. This might also be an argument to have the Cryptios team (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5138349.msg50958367#msg50958367) on some sort of schedule to handle these luls, if they are predictable in any way.

I once thought it would be a good idea to be able to "Pin" your topic to follow another on the board, to combat locked self/moderated scam threads, possibly as a revocable privilege if used for trolling.. Might have been useful in these cases.

Is there a specific reason the trust rating isn't shown on all boards ?

I can't think of something negative about that.. Except maybe that scammer with a negative rating won't be taken seriously on the whole forum anymore (instead of just a few subs).
Which is quite a pro-argument IMO (at least for everyone except the scammer).

Is there something i am missing ?

I'd like to see whether someone has scammed a user with gift cards in any sub. Whether Development & Technical Discussion / Technical Support / etc..

I would rather the trust ratings be visible all over the forum. Perhaps initially it was rather much more tied to trading, but nowadays it seems to have a broader use, and scams such as the one mentioned on the OP could take place anywhere.

Sidenote: By the way, the Ann section, although showing Trust, seems to have a late new craze: Ann threads are cloned from the original ones, and their links to Github downloadable wallets are swapped for pointers to fake wallets (see  SCAM - Ulord(UT) FAKE ANN and FAKE Wallet to Spread Malware. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5141275.msg50974721#msg50974721)). Trust is viewable there fortunately, and helps mitigate the issue, but it’s an unfortunate wave that just piles to the case indicated in the OP.

Because in some sections, the user's trust doesn't matter like P&S etc. In such sections it's mainly discussions going on and people don't need to see the trust ratings of the person before starting a conversation unlike Trading and other sections (Marketplace etc.) where it's necessary. This is what Theymos decided years back and I feel it doesn't need to change now.

This topic will be deleted because of rule 6.

I do not agree with showing trust in those boards, except Project Development & some child board of local boards.


Red trust affects the credibility of topics/post, especially in the technical sections.
Since we can not be sure of 100% of the truthfulness of these allegations it is unfair to show trust on discussions boards.

Click "Report to moderator" then (move to Digital goods)

     Unfortunately, is has now been over 13 hours and the thread still remains. I hope this attempt is so obvious that no one falls for it. Unfortunately, many people have been falling for fake Electrum wallets. we quite frequently get posts by victims who are basically told there is nothing they can do about their lost BTC now, but are given great advise on how to avoid it in the future.

Done. The topic has been removed and that user has been banned.

What do you think of the request of a special "Global Moderator" to deal with phishing links?

It's worth giving a try as every reported post with the comment "contains phishing link" will be his to review and will be less time consuming as it took some reasonable amount of time for this reported case of post containing phishing link to be deleted but with an active global moderators specifically for handling such cases, it won't take that much time. Maybe a volunteer (active reputed users) should contact theymos for his feedback using this reported case (this thread) as an example.