Bitcoin Forum

If a forum member have been lable "good for the forum", that's a users that have helped contributed positively to the growth of the forum either by quality contributions, scam/spam busting etc, I believe the 1-2years ban from wearing signatures is just too much. Maybe a lesser punishment should been introduced, I'm ok with the 60days or more temporary ban as the case may be but for the signature aspect, I suggest it should be reduced to months. Maybe maximum 4-6months and if they commit same offends whether with past or future post, they get permanent ban.

I know they have already received some mercy by not getting permanent banned like regular users but the forum administrators should show more mercy as these users have showed interest in making the forum better, it should be reduced to months as this will definitely affect their activeness on the forum.

From a concerned forum member who haven't be affected in any form.

If having no signature affects their activity on the forum - maybe they're here for the wrong reason to begin with. The 1-2 year sig ban is good enough. A 1000-merit penalty (or deranking to Newbie) would be even better so that they would have to earn their way back (now they just need to wait it out).

IMO 1-2 year signature ban is fair.

The forum is not a place in which people can earn income for doing low effort tasks, and it not a place where posting should be considered a "job". You should post if you have a genuine interest in the topic of discussion, and any signature income should be an added bonus.

Completely disagree with you. I think that 1-2 years signature ban is the best solution in this situation. Plagiarism, even if it was done years ago still deserves strict penalty. 60 days ban + signature ban for few months isn't enough in my opinion and it wouldn't have big effect. In past users who made this mistake didn't got second chance and now they got some mercy. I don't agree that we should make this penalty even less strict. Actually, signature ban isn't strict penalty in my opinion at all. Very well said by suchmoon - if user can't use forum without wearing signature, probably he joined Bitcointalk for a wrong reasons.

First they have not been labeled "good for the forum" They've been labelled a "net positive" and there is a difference. At whatever point in time, these members plagiarized something and until now had gotten away with it. Some have done it more than once, luckily for the older members though they flew under the radar long enough to redeem themselves. However if the punishment is a slap on the wrist, then it's not a strong enough deterrent, it also has to be punitive enough to not make the permaban seem overly severe.

A minimum 1 year ban seems fair. I second suchmoon in regards to their priorities if they choose to become inactive. I think most of these members could find their way back from a deranking, but think that it wouldn't demontenize things enough unless you meant on top of the current punishment.

Let's not forget that not so long ago, appealing to get unbanned after getting permabanned for plagiarism was like one trying to "chew water". It was mission impossible.
Currently, I think 1-2 year signature ban is okay rather than lose your account forever which would now be the case to all offenders had a second chance and signature bans not been considered yet.
So one step at a time....

Deranking to newbies after remove permanent bans might make them mad, especially whom are here to work for campaigns. They mostly won't be able to come back (repromotions) to higher ranks. Because some (or most) of them even are not earned too much merits (or a single of merit) after 14 months since the birthday of merit system. Therefore, such deranks/ demotions might results in another chaotic situation (due to massive complaints and appeals) in the forum, that might not what we expect for. Additionally, I don't think mods expect that (at least in near future) because they actually have huge workloads recent days due to perma-ban appeals and plagiarsim reports.

It's a perma ban that was reduce to sig ban only, users who were granted that reduction of punishment should be thankful.
This forum is not only about signature campaign, and I believe if you are a good contributor to the forum with the post you are making, your contribution will never change even not wearing a signature.

Like I always read, signature is a privilege and because one made a serious offense, temporarily that privilege was taken.

my 2 cents.

I am a member of the forum which account is banned, not just on signature but for posting and sending personal messages and it's far worse than sig ban. IMO I don't want to make a living out of signature campaigns but I'm dazzled by generous rewards for participants so I participated. Being a useful member of the forum means "Stop the bias on your shitty posts and make it real" which many of us did. Sharing your knowledge with the bias of earning money isn't helpful for the forum and healthier bitcointalk could be seen 1-2 years from know with this decision. If you're a good forum member, you must think of this as a preservation of the forum from unsolicited spam posts.

I think you must be thankful for the signature ban (Not all is as lucky as you), as you are saying that you are a good member of the forum you should not use this as your main source of income but rather a better place to converse with fundamental and technical topics around bitcoin and cryptocurrency as a whole.

Well, you’re breaking forum rules right now (ban evading), so forget any chance of getting a temp ban.

Word, that's the first thing I thought as well.  Too many people are here just to use their signature space for advertisement, and someone ought to consider themselves lucky that they got off with a temporary (albeit lengthy) signature ban instead of a permaban.

Lol.  No time for reading the rules when you're so busy writing I guess.

So have many other members, but I assume you took the lazy and dishonest method of producing posts thought plagiarism, so right now you need to de-dazzle yourself.  You blew your chance.

Alright. You are telling me that I am ban evading, now if I am banned for posting plagiarized contents, would you still ban a user with no plagiarized content?

Btw, that account is BANNED FOR LIFE, so I must never use the forum ever again as you are implying? I bet not.


I can't argue if that is plagiarism or spam, but I think it's more of spam because I always use signature for campaigns. And yes, I might blew that chance but congratulations, I learned my lesson and I think it's more for the better.

If you got a permaban (which means permanent = for life), then yes. You can never use the forum again (only read as a guest).

By creating a new account, you are evading this permanent ban, which is against the rules. This already results in a new ban (on the evading account) regardless of any other rule you broke (like plagiarism).

Could you please link me to that rule. I'm not aware of that

I guess you should have read them first: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=703657.0

This looks like bye bye bitcointalk. Btw, If I found out bounty participants that previous account is blocked and would link their social media thru their new accounts, then they would be banned also? Cool HAHA

You make a value point and I can also see you're very active without wearing signature, cool. About the deranking punishment, it will be nice experimenting on it maybe some affected member can be used as test subjects to be given the punishment instead of waiting for the 1-2years of signature ban to expire and moderators should monitor the progress of those accounts. This punishment might just be the best solution (for 1st timers) as it will discourage creating of alt account as they just have to rebuild their current account.

I guess instead of proving to good for forum as overall, to qualify for sig ban, we can directly temp ban , sig ban and some merit penalty like 20 for each offence. If after deducting penalty if your merit balance falls beyond 0 , then your temp ban will be permaban.
(Might it help in reducing the appeal threads.)

I wrote about it there: A round of applause for @theymos, global moderators, and forum staffs (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5144006.0). Users whom need their accounts back to do business don't care about signature bans, one or two years, I believe. For someone whom receive 60 banned days, and 1 or 2 years of signature bans, they should say thanks first; the same for rejected ban appealers.

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I just have crazy thoughts that what happen if next one or two year, demotions will occur?

My dozen of cents:
- When there is no alternative for permanent bans, users ask for alternatives;
- When there is alternative for permanent bans: temporary bans + signature bans (for now); users ask for less period of signature bans;
- What next if period of signature bans reduced to 6 months; users might ask for reduce the period to 3 or 1 month;
- What next if period of signature bans reduced to 1 month; users might ask for temporary bans only (60-day temp bans).
For the group of forum rules, why do we need such group (that likely a perfect place for spam)?
There is Unofficial list of (official) Bitcointalk.org rules, guidelines, FAQ (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=703657.0). Moreover, the topic is opened for discusions.

I want to evaluate this whole plagiarism stuff as a mental disorder like robbery - reaping where one didn't sow. Plagiarists are intellectual thieves.

I like this maxim, "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime."
 
The affected accounts should peacefully serve out their ban.

That might actually not be such a bad idea! It would be like cooperating with the authorities for a slightly lighter sentence.
The banned members could wear a custom signature saying:

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I was banned for plagiarising content. This servers as a warning to everyone to never copy and paste without providing a reference to the original source. Please read the rules and don't copy and paste!

How about three days and also give them 100 howeycoins for being such great guys?



Please let us know why should we care about people who haven't earned are unable to earn merits and are here only for "work" going "mad"?


Yeah, let's also stop issuing parking tickets cause we have to hire people to hand them down.
How many ban appeals are there? 25? 50? 617 gazillion?

We've had lots of bans in the past, not as big as this one but after a brief period of posts flooding the meta there was a period of peace with one or two appeals a week. Besides, it's not like all the 2000 accounts that got banned will make a topic, some were already junk, red tagged, jr members with 0 merits.

I've browsed through the modlog and I saw lots that were last active since 2018 and even 2017.

 ;D Fine by me also it'll be more interesting if they get offered 100 merits and $100 cash price each

Yeah, this won't be a bad idea. It will the biblical writing of the covenant on the hearts of all through a constant reminder. It surely will go a long way to deter many prospective plagiarists.

Although true, some cases of plagiarism are older than the unofficial forum rules (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=703657.0) (July 21, 2014), and not everyone had bad intentions back then.
But if you've been here 5 years, a year without signature shouldn't stop you from posting. It is a long punishment, but still beats a perm ban.

Duration of ban depends on moderators and admin. Likely they are deciding case by case and based on contributions. I have seen few are banned for a years and few are banned for two years signature. I think this punishment is appropriate at least although mod could reduce it based current on contribution. So current ban period fair enough instead of permaban. If their intention is just join signature and earn money then perhaps they deserve permaban. Signature ban isn't really batter than permaban? Just say thanks to theymos because of this mercy. So overall I am not agree with OP.

You give people an inch and they want a mile. One or two years sig ban is better than not being able to post at all ever again. There's no excuses for copy and pasting other than greed and laziness and that should come along with a harsh punishment but it's certainly not as harsh as it was a week ago.


Why do you care so much about this? If they're good for the forum then they can continue doing what they do and monetising their signature is irrelevant to that, but they should be grateful that we've relaxed the rule at all.