Bitcoin Forum

We've had a discussion on https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1200989.msg12632059#msg12632059 about the best way to unite all lenders on this forum to fight scammers together.
In the discussion, several very good opinions were voiced by several members...

This is why i created this poll: what would be the best scam-fighting tactic according to you?
If you vote for a certain tactic, i think it's only fair if you try to follow the community's choice afterwards...

Also, and this goes without saying, please don't use alt's and shills to vote, and only cast your vote if you are a lender on this forum (or plan to become a lender in the very near future)

A small overview of the different choices

my own idear, of making a central ledger, unfinished demo (many features and layout will be added if this option is chosen): http://www.altcoinhosting.com/ledger/
pro's:

• system with all loans in one place
• I can make an API so the tool can be incorporated into other projects (this works both ways => add new loans using a scraper or using the ledger as a database in your own applications
• Can be expanded in the future, for example: lenders could have a little dashboard displaying their open loans, with a payment calendar or something (just thinking out loud)
• I have both the hosting and the knowledge to write this for free

cons:

• It's a tool that's not hosted on bitcointalk.org
• it's centralised
• it's extra administration
• it doesn't scrape the forum, so it has to be manually maintained (Vod's comment)

UserVVIP's idear of making a browser extension
pros:

• you can add loans and lookup loans from your browser!
• it can be combined with a couple other idears

cons:

• i more or less think it HAS to be combined with another idear (the extension would need a database afterall)

MrPeoples' idear of a loan bot
This is one where i need some help: i don't know reddit's loanbot... The only obvious con, is that it'll cost some community bucks. So we would need a fundraiser..

monbux' idear to enforce all bigger lenders to maintain their thread
pros:

• it would take no extra effort, everybody already has a loanthread :)
• it's the easyest sollution, it keeps everything on bitcointalk.org

cons:

• you would still need to search before finding out if somebody already has an open loan or not

--Encrypted--'s idear to leave a neutral comment for everybody taking a loan
pros:

• Simple and elegant solution, i think this will actually work
• it keeps everything on bitcointalk.org

cons:

• using the unmoderated trust feedback. In case a lender falls off the grid, the feedback sticks to the lendee's profile (comment by --Encrypted--)

Sir_lagsalot's idear for a lending subforum
I think we already have one ;). Opening a new subforum might work for a while, but i think in a matter of weeks/months it would be exactly the same situation it is today?

TheGr33k's idear of a loanthread
pros:

• Simple
• it keeps everything on bitcointalk.org

cons:

• you still have to browse the whole thread
• it takes an equal amount of time to enter the info in the thread as it takes to enter the info in a custom tool

I personally don't vote any of the above , if you ask me .. the best thing to do is not allow Members and below* to take loans and that should reduce the spam on the topics of the lenders and they can maintain their threads just fine and without issues.
however some of the ideas given are pretty good , and I guess it should be taken seriously by the developers of the new forum .

Not casting your vote is a vote by itself ;)
I'll add "none of the options" to the selection right now.

Thanks for your input :)

Big KISS to --Encrypted--  (Keep it Simple, Stupid)

This is by far the best and easiest idea to implement.  We can't "force" lenders to do anything, but this is the least amount of work for them.

In the case a lender goes AWOL before removing feedback, a DT member could compensate by applying trust that said the following loan has been repaid and can be disregarded. 

In my opinion this would pass the burden of the system to the lenders, which is natural, since they have the most to lose.

Although I am not a lender here, I would like to give my 2 satoshis since I have been burned before by loan scammers on bitlendingclub.

I think --Encrypted--'s idea is good, since it marks accounts that have active loans.

I also like a combination of MrPeople's and TheGr33k's ideas. We could create a bot that crawls the loan forum and checks for the statuses of all loans. Then it posts the information to a thread in the lending forum which shows all of the loans in the OP of that thread. The bot can just edit the continue to edit the post for each new loan it finds.

i like the neutral comment idea myself. remove it when loan is paid or make it neg trust if not paid. would be cool if members on default trust also stepped in and made the neg mark big and red for em if they dont pay

agree.
but, does not rule out the possibility if full member and higher member is do a scam, it's can be manifold motive, got hacked, sold account, ect. in this case it's need more monitoring account who want to do a loans.

I totally agree with the fact that it would be a really good idear to stop lending to newbies and junior members... Altough i personally think it's a different topic, and more or less unrelated to this poll :). Even if we only allowed senior, legendary and hero members to take loans, a ledger of some kind might still be a good idear (imho)

Also, i heared that there used to be a newbie jail on the forum... That would also be a good sollution to the spam that is currently going on (altough my remark about this is kinda offtopic)

i still like the hosted solution from you the most. until we find something i did a copycat from TheGr33k lists here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1207414.0) as he is 1) not a active lender and 2) didnt update the thread in time.

Thanks :)
Obviously, i like my own sollution the most to, it doesn't require a lot of effort to run, and it's custom made, so it can have all the necessary features a loan ledger needs... But i need to know most lenders will use it before i invest a lot of time...

let see how it turns out. i was thinking of putting in loans that dont get reported, but to be honest i dont want to read every loan thread and it would mean i have to follow all that loan. thats too much time. i just hope more people will report their loans.

I think the best thing to approach this is by leaving a neutral feedback, but by a DT member, so that you can't really miss it.
I'm sure there would be a member or two from DT that would have no problem to do this when approached by lenders with this request.

yeah thats also possible but it means DT members have to read all requests and follow all threads.

Not really, the lenders could all agree to provide fast and simple way after the agreement is made between them and loan takers,(maybe a form) to certain DT member(s). Anyways, it's not too big of a deal to
check the conditions of the loan(s).The DT member could also serve as an escrow for the deal if collateral is involved, taking share for his time through that. (usually 1% from what i can see)
And just to add, there isn't that much of loans per day anyways.

The amount of loans has indeed slowed down (at least for me)... On the other hand, i give out a lot of micro loans, so the idear to involve DT members for every loan might be overdoing it... I mean, i guess they'll have better things to do than to supervise a 0.01 loan 20 times/week... And even if they had enough time, i think they should charge more than the intrest to keep things interesting for them...

Ofcourse, when we're talking about bigger loans (+0.1BTC), this might be a good idear