Bitcoin Forum

1/21/2021: I'm re-opening the thread. Please don't reply to this thread until you read this quick edit, as well as the entirety of the current discussion.

I've now waited over a year and a half for an answer that hasn't been speculation by forum members (as thoughtful and reasonable as they have been). During this time, I took a year interim as a period to acknowledge the obvious mistake I made in the past. I've clearly not a perfect person, so I ask that you keep that in mind in any discussions.

I'm only turning to bump this thread again because my emails to the ban appeal email have gone without response, with months in between to generously allow for one. I believe my ban appeal will be useful in this meta discussion of it, so I'll copy it over from my email to this post. It's not short, so feel free to just skim over it.


Cheers.

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Hi all. bitcoin revo here.

Original profile: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=372249

Logged into the forum a few weeks ago, saw that I was permanently banned with no reason listed. I'm posting here with a new account because I haven't received a response to an inquiring email I sent 15 days ago.

Why was I banned?

Best regards.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1101336.msg12477276#msg12477276

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1101336.msg11724341#msg11724341

OP was probably edited after the account in question posted his/her opinion on the topic.

plausible. but it seems that post was plagiarized too. it seems to be copied from this reddit post made on march 9th of 2015.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2ybt00/whats_your_biggest_problem_with_bitcoin/

Wait, for real? I got nailed for a post in '15? I've been reading through a few similar threads about users being similarly hit by plagiarism posts a long time ago and - yes, it's plagiarism despite when it was - but this seems a little far fetched. I can't even remember writing this post, but I assume that it was in my phase of "wow, look at these signature campaigns!" that I thought I had taken care of deleted accordingly, but it appears not.

4 years ago - 4 years of genuine, positive contributions I've made to this community - and I'm banned off of this? I'd be happy with a temporary ban - those who are close to me know that I'm on vacation right now anyways - but a permanent ban disregarding what I've done this community for two damn lines 4 years ago is infuriating.

Right off the bat, I offered free hosting exclusive this community and maintained it for quite a while. Does that deserve no consideration as you guys pursue justice in this case? What about the many thousands of dollars that I fairly exchanged on this forum? I say this because I've been in your shoes, but I urge you to try to imagine this in your position, to your own account.

You actually can take your second chance with temporary ban and signature ban for one or two years. You can get it or not, depends on your past activities (things presented below are not mine, I describe perspectives of global mods that I read during the banwave in many appeals). There are some factors:
- Total posts that you plagiarised.
- Percentage of plagiarised posts / your total posts (more than half - 50% - will wipe out your second chance, surely)
- Time points of your plagiarism (before or after the rule on plagiarism applied in the forum)
- Your past contributions.
Everyone whom got permanent ban will feel happy with a reduced sentence for sure. However, whenever you are back from vacation, you can make the appeal better (that somehow increase your chance) by collecting and presenting posts or threads that you thought are most constructives from your past (before your ban day).
I scanned your post history, that looks good (at least not a pure shit poster), so I think you might have chance, but it is not my position to say anything about this.
There is even a user (maybe more, but I know only one) that even come back without signature ban.  :)

Good lord. How do you people manage to dig up plagiarized posts from that far in the past? Especially snipped up statements like that.

Someone designed a powerful plagiabot, run it, started the banwave, and made the forum to a period should be called as "Chancellor on brink of plagiarism collapse".  Please check my guide and note it down for later use. ;)
[TIPS] to avoid plagiarism (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5133485.0)

Not yet, and maybe will not be published. I believe owner(s) of the plagiabot want to keep it fully anonymous.

If you edit a post it shows as being edited if you hover over the title. (Unless it is edited withing a few minutes of the initial post)

This post does not indicate that it has been edited. But I'm not sure when displaying that a post has been edited was introduced as a function.



Plagiarism is a serious problem and copy and pasting does not contribute to the goals of the forum.

But automated systems can also lead to serious problems :

Positive contributors can get banned for forgetting to put things in quotes.
Sayings and common phrases could potentially lead to a ban.
Deliberate manipulation of external websites can lead to bans. (It has in the past)

While it is a plausible theory... unfortunately, it isn't a correct one. ;)

if you look at the bottom of Page TWO of the thread, there is a post (#40) quoting the OP, which already includes the "EDIT": https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1101336.msg11770815#msg11770815

https://talkimg.com/images/2023/11/15/z9rd5.png

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My understanding from the various comments made in the posts in Meta, is that the banning is NOT automated... only the reporting of possible plagiarism is automated. The bans (in spite of the "Autoban" name on the Modlog) are still done by a human who needs to check each report before issuing the ban.

Having said that, anyone reported is at the mercy of the overworked mods... but one would like to think they do more than just click the ban button when a report is received.

This is not the only message which you copied. Almost all of your first comments you took from other members or websites.

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It doesn't surprise me that a plagiarized post can be discovered in years past, because there's an especially ambitious member (or a bot) seeking these posts out.  What's alarming is that a member like bitcoin revo is getting banned--he's a good guy, and I've traded with him a couple of times.

I do hope OP doesn't get a permaban, because he's a decent member, regardless of that copy/paste.  He isn't a serial plagiarizer, a shitposter, or a scammer.  This is another one of the instances where I think someone should be given a second chance.  But yikes, this is crazy to see.

Whoops, I didn't read the whole thread before posting.  Holy shit, OP!  You plagiarized that many posts?!  Big sigh.  Those are all really old, but still. 

@OP - did you buy your account? When? Who did you buy it from?

If you were the person doing this plagiarism, I think your published should be more than a 60 day + 2 year signature ban.

If you were not the person who plagiarized all these posts, I think theymos (or Cyrus) should take some time to look for any current alts of this person and ban them all permanently.

I haven’t verified all the instances of plagiarism claimed, and my above post assumes they are accurate.

afaik the creator of that software wishes to remain anonymous; I just recognize some of the patterns that plagiarized posts sometimes have (punctuation, new lines, sentence structure, etc. just feels 'off' when I look at it) and literally just search the phrase and see if a match pops up.

This is another instance of aTriz, gator and many others abusing you and other people who are lenient with worthless PayPal related positive trust. I guess I can repeat this quite the number of times, but it does not seem like these people are willing to listen as it causes cognitive dissonance.

Well we did deals and bitcoin revo became one of the members I came to trust enough to leave positives for, and I'd trade with him again if the opportunity arose.  I sent first on those deals, so I took the risk, and I don't think I got duped by him just because he's got an old history of plagiarism.  Anyway, I hear what you're saying and I'll mull it over.

Now I'm wondering this as well, because the copy/pasting obviously stopped being a habit for him years ago. 

I would be in favor of opposing leniency until he provides as much of this information as he can, and admitting his account was bought.

Looking at his post history, I would have guessed his first post was here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1028110.msg12478216#msg12478216), which was posted on September 21, 2015, 02:20:15 AM, and his password changed here (http://archive.is/mAR4S#selection-6789.0-6796.0), approximately a day later. 



aTriz didn't have any DT ratings (from who are on DT today) until he went into business with you. He was then shielded by you once he was seen to be very shady.

That post was plagiarized as well.

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In this case account bitcoin revo (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=372249) possibly changed hands after September 22, 2015, 02:57:55 AM.

That post was the first, while quickly browsing his post history that did not look like one liner nonsense posts. My working assumption had been that the farmer was not outright incapable of posting something that was not incoherent. Perhaps he just got lucky in what he chose to plagiarize.

Right. He most likely fully took over the account at 4:33 PM (http://archive.is/mAR4S#selection-6477.0-6484.0) that day, and made his actual first post (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1185587.msg12495060#msg12495060) a few hours later.

Sorry for the late reply, folks - as I mentioned earlier, I'm on vacation.

Well, yes - cat's out of the bag. It was a bought account. I don't say this as an attempt to shield myself with it as an excuse, but I was introduced to the forum through the type of shady members that buy and sell accounts, and the normality of such practice was exaggerated in my mind. Quickly, I came to realize that that was an unwise move, but by then I had considerably invested in my presence here and figured that, since the majority of my activity was mine, it would be something to blow over. Evidently not, but I'm okay with it. Took it off my conscience, even though it may not have been in the best way.

However, I do urge the community, especially Lauda, to reconsider (if even briefly) the understandably hostile position that one may default to. I agree - account and trust farmers are despicable. However, neither of those terms are applicable to me. You'll see that I only dealt in the PayPal to BTC transactions that my lifestyle makes most convenient, and the DT ratings that I picked up along the way were simply byproducts of such. I dealt with many more non-DT members during my time here (among which was my largest transactions with the people that I trusted, even though they weren't necessarily on DT) as seen on my trust feedback.

I should have come clean of my own accord before this, explaining my situation and that I didn’t have ill intents, I know. But I do hope that the relationships that I built during my time here help attest against that as well.

Best wishes.

Do you remember the account you bought your account from? Do you have the wallet file you used to pay for it? If so, can you post the TXID?

My personal opinion is that you should not be punished for buying your account 4 years ago via your trust score. I am willing to debate anyone who disagrees with this, and anyone who is unwilling to defend the trust ratings they leave has no business anywhere near DT.

I believe you should be unbanned if you really bought your account, and there was no plagiarism after you bought it. Unfortunately, the prior owner plagiarized a lot, and this person probably should have all their accounts permabanned. Also, unfortunately, it takes a lot of effort on the part of the administration to verify the claim your account was sold, and I don't know for sure either of the admins will be able to take the time to verify your account was actually sold.

It's really funny to see someone who bought an account and then sending negative feedback to possibly bought accounts. It even took a ban for you to finally admit. 

The positives he got are justifiable for keeping his end of the deals he made,  the negatives he got and going to get are also justifiable.

However the funny part is that when someone buys an account they want to enjoy every single benefit of the previous owner's achievements ( possitive feedback, merit, activity , repuation) but nobody wants to take any responsiblity for the mistakes.

Having said that and given his contribution - i think a temp-ban is a good enough punishment.

I'm starting to really hate this can of worms that theymos decided to open for bill gator. So now every asshole will be able to weasel out of a ban with some whining and helpful hints from an account farmer/trader? And why should this one get a temp ban? Just unban him altogether and give him back his signature, he's got a perfect alibi ::)

Speaking of bill, I don't recall him bringing the real plagiarizer (the person who sold him the account) to justice. Should be the minimum requirement for getting any kind of lenience on the grounds of an account purchase. Just shows how those account buyers don't really care much beyond their signature spam.

As I said before, a lot of people are going to use this excuse and it's going to be something that is hard to verify (and most won't be able or willing to provide proof that they bought the account either). There's also the issue of who we unban and don't. I keep getting messages asking for unbans because people have started to notice we're doing them now, but it's meant to be for people who are a "net positive" to the forum (which is obviously a very subjective thing anyway), but a lot of people who are messaging me either have no earned merit or only one or two or handful at best. These people usually don't really fall under the 'net positive' term, but is it still fair that a Hero/legendary account gets banned for one/two/a handful of copy and pastes whilst others get off?  Maybe we should consider some sort of fee/fine to get their account (or signature) back for the others who don't qualify. As recently discussed the money could go to charity. I would see it like paying a speeding fine. Whilst copy and pasting is still a serious offence here it can sometimes still be quite harsh to get a death sentence for it, especially if it's only a few copy and pastes and there's a lot of people who aren't going to meet the net positive terms and it's a hassle for staff to keep having to decide who does and doesn't get lenience and the ones who don't are going to whine and pester us about it. Maybe paying a fine to charity will just make things easier. Yes, people shouldn't have copied and pasted in the first place but we could see this as paying their debt back to society so at least some good comes of it.

maybe i dont know too much of the site laws ,but should selling account's not be an ilegal stuff? many people proposed that but i find it quite unfair and non ethical,for the reputation of the site such things should be aborded.

See, I trust bitcoin revo based on our interactions, which is why I left him positive trust--and I still trust him, despite the fact that he bought the account.  There's no official statute of limitations as far as tagging people for account dealing, but what he did is far in the past IMO.  

The fact is that after taking control of the bitcoin revo account, the present owner hasn't been a shitposter, a scammer, or even a plagiarizer as far as I know.  Plus he's been honest in his transactions with me.  This is why I'm comfortable leaving the positives I've left for him intact.  Not disclosing the fact that he bought the account isn't a transgression in and of itself, and I certainly understand why he wouldn't advertise that fact.

I'm open to dissent, but I'm pretty sure I'm doing no harm by doing nothing in this case.

My opinion is that account sales ought to be banned on the forum, but Theymos obviously doesn't want to go that route.  Nor does he want to ban scammers for that matter.  That's why DT members have been tagging both--to make up for this glaring shortfall of rules.

[Thanks for explaining your thought process. I wasn’t referring to you in my comment though.

I would generally agree with your logic in this case.

First feedback:
Risked BTC amount - 0.01567000
Date - 2017-04-08
Bitcoin price on this date - 1172 $
So, risked usd amount - 18 dollars and 28 cent.

Second feedback:
Risked BTC amount - 0.02
Date - 2019-03-25
Bitcoin price on this date - 3972 $
It's approximately 80 dollars.

18.28 + 80 = 98.28 $

Average cost of legendary account is about (as i know) 1000-2000 dollars for now.

Yep, trustworthy, without a doubt.  :D

I gave negative feedback to accounts that I felt were at high risk of being used for taking advantage of their status or reputation to scam by their new owners, and I will remain by those feedbacks even now. Yes, I played judge and jury and executioner with my subjective view, but your oversimplified statement overlooks the fact that this account was either a Jr. Member or a Member (can't remember) when I acquired possession of it and it had no trust feedback whatsoever - nothing like the accounts I chose to tag.


You might be referring to the basis of trust that The Pharmacist has for me, but it sounds like you're trying to derail my "trustworthiness" to 98 dollars and 28 cents so I'll ask you to scan through the rest of my trades as well. It may not compare to full-time traders here, but it still exceeds the amount that you posted - if that's any scale to how trustworthy one may be, which isn't. There are other factors such as timeliness, reliability, etc etc which I hope I exemplified to The Pharmacist during my interactions with him here, of whom will likely be taking those other factors into consideration.

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As biased as I am on this case, I get it. I do. Seeing a shit ton of people using this excuse and knowing that some of them may just be using it as a deceptive second chance at spamming for a few extra coins is infuriating, and there needs to be more thought put into this so that this isn't used as precedent for one of those fake cases to succeed in the future as well. However, I do ask that context is considered and I'm not grouped together in with yobit spammers or trust abusers that take advantage of account prestige.

Luckily for you, I'm not making those decisions... I don't envy hilariousandco and other globals&admins though :)

Set minimum requirements for appeals, so people will know their odds from the beginning and will bother you less.

After reading this I can see some posts are certainly copied.  But I bonded multiple posts that would be gray.

Sometimes things do get repeated. Word for word.

“There was a thunderstorm today so I turned my gear off”

This may be often repeated.

The op did more then enough  copies to look bad. But some of the ones I bolded may not be copied.

Or maybe they were.  The ones I left alone really look like copies.

Considering that a large part of the first hundred comments of bitcoin revo (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=372249) were borrowed from other members, the probability of random coincidences is extremely low in this case, I suppose.

In addition, OP has admitted (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5150253.msg51355160#msg51355160) that he bought the account from plagiarist, and now the administration is probably thinking to satisfy his appeal or not.

yeah I have visited the article just to check if it was really being copied and yes OP does copy the article. A legendary account now is useless after the ban. Besides I not see if theymos or the MODS has consider the account as ban for signature only because it was not being specified but for sure it was permban. Good Luck OP on finding your next crypto forum to continue your cryptocurrency endeavors.

Alright, let's open this bad boy one more time.

There is a quick edit in the original post of this thread that provides useful context to this bump that I'd really appreciate anyone skim over before replying. It includes my actual ban appeal. :)

I didn't intend to add this part onto this bump, as I'm drafting this up, but... I've grown quite fond of this forum back when I was a regular here. Here's to hoping that I'm allowed back in at some point!

Cheers, if you made it this far.

Even if your account is once unblocked, I suspect that all positive feedback will be deleted since you are not the one to whom it was addressed, not to mention getting multiple new neutral or negative tags. It's up to the moderators anyway, although I think you just want to get your money back by unblocking and selling this account ...

No, that’s not true. I bought the account many years ago, when it was something like a Member or something as trivial as that. All the feedback pertains to me, and I’d argue that its image was cultivated directly by me.

Bump. We're nearing the two year mark on this. I feel like my case at least deserves a look, but I still haven't gotten a word from staff.

I like this idea. Plagiarizers a paying a fine to get their accounts back sounds good to me. Even make it increase steadily after each ban to discourage repeated plagiarism. It will certainly help people like OP whose offense was made several years before the permaban.