Bitcoin Forum

I have a question regarding ban evasion (for plagiarism) on official accounts which I'll like to ask the mods. This is in not in direct relation to any signature campaign which was launched recently, just a question I have been meaning to seek clarification on.

When an official profile representing a business is banned, is it a ban on the business or the exact rep behind the account and how can this be determined?

I like to think that it depends on what type of plagiarism results in the ban. If they are caught copying and pasting official content, like their ANN thread it should be a ban on the business, but if it's a personal post it should be a ban on the account that shouldn't limit the business from returning to the forum.

What is the official stand of the mods on this?

On a personal level, if an account is banned for any reason especially for plagiarism whether it's of the main account or a representative account it has an effect on the business.

If the business comes with another account it might considered evasion because the representative has already caused a bad reputation for the business.

I believe the officiality of this will be subjective.

I think theymos will have to be the one to answer this question. But I think if an account is banned because of plagiarism, any account related to that person known on this forum are also going to be banned. It is not about business or not business. If a company is affected because the person they hired is banned, the company can appeal for the ban.

A registered company is an entity, different from anyone representing the company. This means the company can be sued and can sue. But in the context of this forum, it's somehow complicated.

• Let's say a business has an account here which more than one person manages.
• If one of the persons managing the account caused the account to be banned, there's no way to determine whatever than to believe the business is banned.
• If the business returns and informs the forum that a new person is behind its management, there's no how the forum will know if it's true or not.

The best thing is to avoid being banned as a business. But if banned, come to meta and appeal rather than making another account. Unless you are willing to change your domain name and every other things related to the account.

It's supposed to be applied to the person but because we do not have KYC, it is difficult to determine who is creating the second account. If the second person works under the same company then the community will think that it's the same person who created the account after receiving a ban.

Ban is on a person, not account of a brand representative or a signature campaign manager.

There was a drama that a ban evader used personal account and business accounts of some companies but I remember the business accounts of companies hired that banned person, were not banned at all.

Forum rule on bans for ban evasion seems to be softer for brands, companies if they only did not know that a person worked for them as a signature campaign manager, a customer support staff was banned before.

It's complicated actually, it will give a bad taste to the community for a business representative having such reputation here, to it's business directly in general. Of course, mods will stick to the rules of the person getting banned not the business itself.


But is there any incident like this happened before?

Yeah, that's why I directed it to the mods, hoping one of them gets to chime in.

With the lack of KYC it can even be argued that the banned profile is not affiliated with the project at all and I would consider it unfair to ban a business from the forum for a personal mistake made by a rep, especially if that mistake has no benefit to the business activities here on the forum.

You have a good point. In that case someone with bad intention can damage a business from advertising and building up a reputation on the forum. I think Theymos needs to relaunch the April fool KYC 😂

It is complicated now it's even more complicated for the community members. There are some users who are actively looking for ban evading accounts and they will have false positive in their researches.

The possibilities are slim but there is always that probability.

Now I think about it, the mods may not havevan answer for this and will have to understand all other complexities of the case should such a situation come up before making a decision. Asking for a simple, "Yes, it's ban evasion" or "No, it's isn't" is sending them down the river.

I'll leave the thread up for a few more hours and if I get no answer I'll assume there's no direct answer to give and lock up the thread.

Just leave the thread open and accommodate some opinions from different users - but I'm not sure if a case like this has happened before.

I know that this is a complicated question for the average user to answer - but that doesn't mean that all of their opinions are wrong based on the existing rules. If a representative of a particular project is found committing plagiarism then the account will be banned and every second account representing it will receive the same treatment. The effect is clear for their business or project - it clearly reflects that they are not ready to build something good and quality.

There is another potential negative consequence of such a decision. What if someone creates a fake account and falsely claims to be an official representative without the company's knowledge?  If this person intentionally does something to get banned, it could harm the company's reputation, and they might not have the right to create a new official account to defend themselves.  This would put companies in a bad position, forcing them to prove their innocence, which I believe is unfair.

I think I have seen such a thing play out before, one of the accounts representing a business was banned, but then other accounts claimed that they were different people and as far as I know the other accounts did not get banned.

The critical part is if there is a link or proof that the banned account and that one that is still active are being represented by the same person. A company, project, or business can be wide.

I think it should be the rep that should be banned and not the business. The company can reprimand the rep for representing them badly here but I feel it is not ideal banning the company because their staff violated the forum rules. It is just like placing a ban on a company because someone who wear their signature violated the forum rules and got banned.

If they copy and paste content on the ANN thread,  I think the right thing to do is to ban the account that made the post in the ANN thread because that is who violated the rules and not the business. Businesses have ways of violating the forum rules and that should be the only way a business can be banned in the forum just like mixers were banned after the admin felt they had to go due to the stand of the authorities on mixers.

I don't think I agree with you because a business can recruit a representative here who might breach the forum rules and receive the maximum punishment. You can't punish the business for the sins of their staff, I think that will be like going too extreme.

In this case it's the business. The ANN thread more often than not is an official content which the business shares and passes through different levels of assessments before it is posted publicly. Deliberately taking it off from competing brands shows the business isn't keeping to ethical standards and I wouldn't mind them getting banned from the forum.

If the person operating the account that got banned due to plagiarism or something along those lines, then it's likely they would be willing to do from a personal account as well and IMO we just don't need the users like that in the community.

It's just proof that people are stupid and we provide them with an out if we allow them to stick around. No accountability!!!

Yes, I agree with that, but I think the OP's question is about whether the ban should apply to the entire business that was represented on the forum through that account, i.e. whether they should be allowed to create a new account with a new representative?  I think the key thing here is how do we define an "official" representative? Someone can simply lie about it in order to deliberately harm a business, so I believe that the ban should apply only to that specific account and the person who used it.

We all know it. The complication is how would one prove that they are not the same person but a different person.

Let's say the forum does not ban the new account came under the business by another person but there are forum users who will leave a negative feedback and no one will ask a question. Leaving negative feedback are too easy these days, the feedback giver does not even need to prove that his punishment had a solid evidence to identify same person.

I don't see any mod answering here so it seems they haven't seen the thread or decide to ignore it since they don't owe us any explanation but you can send them some DM to see if they'll honour us with some clarification. I'm with what most people have said here, you don't punish the business but the account. They're free to come with another representative and rebuild their reputation. Just imagine a business getting banned for the mistakes of the signature or ANN manager because we're all just external bodies managing the business and not the business itself. If a business account gets banned for plagiarism, the business should be welcome back but with another account and a different handler.

The problem is how can we verify if the new account isn't being handled by the same old user, the writing style can be used or the business has to give the forum an assurance of a new representative and if found to be lying then banning of the business on the forum can be the final punishment.

That's the worst part of it, it could fall to abuse from business' accounts and also can be prone to honest mistakes due to negative tags given. I don't think any ways to avoid this, only to accumulate evidence and other than just to believe what the rep will say/excuse. But regardless what happened it will probably taint their reputation on this community.

Oh no! I was so feeling you but, I almost lost it even though, I could see value in what you’re presenting.

I don’t think it’s any complicated. In anyway, given that the entity is different from the persona, even though it happens that there is an individual behind the management of the business, banning of this individual shouldn’t affect the business. I mean, it might have some effect as to how users on the forum might perceive the business but not in the terms of a ban on the business.

That doesn’t mean, the business wouldn’t solve its problems. Of course if it comes with a problem under which ever name, the issue has to be solved.

Let’s not forget, a business could hire a known manager on the forum to help manage their operations, should the manager be banned, does it have anything to do with the business? Obviously not.

That’s how distinct a business could be from the person managing it.

Only if ban was done by theymos that came in package with updated forum rule, like it was in case with mixers ban.
For anything else this should be case by case, and some common sense is needed but I wouldn't ban entire company if one of their accounts made a mistake and got banned.

Online and offline companies can hire and fire representative, even though we have no way to know  if its the same account or not, so they should be given a chance, only if the offense is light but if the company is guilty of scamming members of the community then they should not be given a chance.

This is only my opinion its really up to Theymos if he wants it implemented to all account regardless of individual or one that represents a business.

I thought about this, but I didn't want to burden anyone with having to reply my inquiry. Posting it means they could easily ignore it if they don't have a answer.

Ironically a company which has been proven to scam users are not at any risk of being kicked off the forum, they only get negative community feedback.

Since you asked this and there is no specific answer to your question, the rules apply to ban evasion on the account regardless of whether it's a personal or business account. When joining this forum, we are not asked if this is a business or personal account.

When some incidents happened recently, my thoughts triggered this question, and I was able to settle it within myself even though there is no admin clear statement on this particular peculiar situation, because if the campany representative got banned for such offense what happened next to their promotions here in the forum, this need to be clarified ASAP so as for us to have a clear standing on cases like this because I am sure, we are going to encounter more similar situation in the future.
But what I ordinary believe is that, a company trasend an individual representative, so regardless of what happened to a representative account it may not have a direct consequences on the company, just as companies can hire and fire a rep at anytime, brand is bigger than an individual.

The thing there is that, is not easy for a person to act as a representative of a company because being in such position requires you to have basic information about the company and as you all know scammers are lazy, and only a lazy and greedy person fall for scams because there is always a line between each scammers speech that reveals the secrets of him being a scammer and if you are wise enough, you should be able to pick between those lines, so if any account just come up to claim a brand the user will face some obvious question from members of this forum that will at the end expose him as an intruder and tag will be given to the account appropriately to warn other forum members about the nature of members.

I guess it depends on the reasons for the ban.
If the account of a service representative got banned for plagiarism, then their personal account(s) should also be banned. If the ban was issued because the service itself and its existence on the forum is against the rules, I think it's going to be a ban on both the person running the account and the service.

It gets complicated, though. An account of a service banned for plagiarism could return and say, we fired Larry, the old forum representative because he didn't respect the rules, but now we are back with Mark, who will make sure to not commit the same or other infractions. How would theymos and the admins know this is true and why would they care even if it is?

@Upgrade00
PM theymos and ask him directly. I am sure he will reply back to shed some light on it.

I may do that eventually, if it becomes really necessary to get an answer. I'm sure he'll have some more pressing PM's to attend to, would not want to clog that pm some more t satisfy my curiosity.

I'll.be locking this thread now as enough time has passed to get a response from mods or the admin. Appreciate all the contributions gotten.