Bitcoin Forum

I'd like to get the community's thoughts on possible alternatives to permabans for things like copy and pasting/plagiarism. One that seems to have the support of quite a few people is instead of a permanent ban a user has a signature ban instead (IE the signature is removed so they can no longer earn here). The signature ban could be permanent, temporary, or indefinite until the user has proven their worth over time and then it's reinstated. We could even make it so after the user has received x amount of merit then their signature is possibly reinstated (it would have to be a lot - at least one hundred in my opinion). I think there are several levels of severity in plagiarism and not all are equal and in some cases a permanent ban forever can be a little harsh (especially if it was just one silly mistake). I think there's a big difference in someone quoting something from Wikipedia to answer someone's question, and those that purposefully copy someone else's post here or 'text-spin' it just to earn from signatures (I'm really not sure if those users deserve a second chance, but good luck to them trying to get hundreds of merit to get it back). To be honest, removal of their signature to signature spammers might as well be a permanent ban and most will probably just give up immediately if they can't earn here, but for others it would be shame if there's no chance of forgiveness especially if they've been an active or helpful member of the community and just screwed up one time. Theymos has mentioned before signature bans and blacklists and was something that was supposed to happen with the signature campaign guidelines but maybe he could make this his next priority after the account recovery tool.

Alternatively, what do people think about paying some sort of fine to get their account back? The money probably wouldn't go to the forum or staff but to a bitcoin-accepting charity instead. That way at least a good cause benefits and they're still paying a financial penalty.

You could maybe give people two options for those that are banned for plagiarism: You can either have a sig ban indefinitely but are allowed to post, or possibly even allowed to earn the signature back by getting a sufficient amount of merit (say maybe at least 100), or just pay a substantial fine (at least $100). As I've mentioned before I'm strongly in favour of more donator ranks that give you a bigger signature and maybe they could get their signature back by purchasing one of them. I think we should also give them the option of earning it back via merit so at least they have two options and if they don't want to pay anything then they can try earn their signature back by contributing something worthwhile.

You can vote for two options on the poll just in case you are for both a sig ban and paying a fine. If you have any other alternatives or issues with the current options then please state so. You can also discuss how much a fine should be or how much merit a user should earn before they get their signature back.

I vote for banning signature and one question. What is the difference of a temporary signature ban to an amount of merit they should earn? I guess it is better option to let option 1 be in permanent only and let the temporary choice be on option 2.  Somehow option 2 is sounds a temporary signature ban too.

I'm open to suggestions.

By the way I vote for option 4 too. I guess there's no harm if we stick to the classic.

As I mentioned in the other thread, I'm against fines because it is discriminatory. If we are setting a new a rule, it should be the same rule for everyone, regardless of wealth. There shouldn't be an option that allows those more well off to buy themselves out of a punishment.

Out of any of those options, I would be the least against a signature ban, but only for users that weren't obviously plagiarizing just to get paid from a signature campaign - these spammers should still receive an outright permanent ban. In those who do get a signature ban, it should be either permanent or based on them earning x amount of merit. I don't think it should be temporary - most would just abandon their account until the ban is up, which is no real punishment at all. They should have to work for its reversal. 100 merit is on the lower end of what I would go for personally, but I appreciate my views are probably quite skewed here. Perhaps @LoyceV or @DdmrDdmr could provide us with some numbers - how many users have earned over 100 merit since the system was introduced?

Another possibility to earn their signature back would to be make x good reports - this would need to have an additional requirement of >x% accuracy to prevent spamming the report button. Say 5000 reports with >95%?

Having said all that, my preferred option is still the status quo - zero tolerance.

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Edit: Spelling mistake.

What about spammers who are paid for posting?
They are often stealing posts from other users to bump topics, I doubt that signature ban will stop them.

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BTW I saw an identical message about temporary signature ban in some of users profiles:


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1040537
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1254681
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1320777
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1352938
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1590420
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1900506

Well that’s pretty quick to draw up (as of today):

Number of forum members with >= 500 earned Merits: 34
Number of forum members with >= 400 earned Merits: 57
Number of forum members with >= 300 earned Merits: 96
Number of forum members with >= 200 earned Merits: 176
Number of forum members with >= 100 earned Merits: 463
Number of forum members with >= 50 earned Merits: 1036
(I wouldn’t go any lower than that).

It is a rather limited set of people, and again, it would create a “wealth” class distinction if used in someway to get a pardon granted.

If they have been banned signature temporary until they have earned X merit then they can continue to plagiarize and earn that needed merit to lift the ban of signature so this should be moved from the suggestion.

Best alternative is banning signature temporarily for their first case,if they did second time then permaban the signature,if they really want to help the community then they can post without signatures too.

Temporary signature bans will never work.
They will just create an army of bot accounts that will make the job impossible for moderators, you can ban let's say 1000 accounts a day for 90 or 60 days, they will just create 91000 and once you're done with them the first ones will come back online.
Permanently removing the signature will probably mean for 99.999% the same as a ban.

I'm against the fee thing, it might serve a good cause but it just doesn't sound right.

So, just leave it as it is. Plagiarism=Permaban.



Theymos playing around as we speak?

I probably wouldn't be for it if it was just the fine by itself, but if there's two options: you can either pay the fine or earn the merit then I see no issue in that. If you have a problem with the fine for whatever reason then just earn the merit instead.


I think this would be too easy. It would be quite easy to rack up reports given the amount of spam there is here.


Then they would just be permabanned if they're caught doing the same thing. This is an attempt to give them a second chance. There wouldn't be a third.


Not sure what you mean here.


This is just about plagiarisers really. Other spammers can be dealt in other/the usual ways.


Wasn't aware that was happening. Maybe it should be rolled out officially or give Globals the ability to do it since it's probably not something theymos would have time for.


If this was true then the same would be true for permbans, even more so. There's no other option to pay for your sins here once caught for plagiarising so most will just create a new account anyway. At least they've got the option of earning their signature back or paying a fine for it.  

Agreed! But those cases are very rare, I think I've seen it only twice in the past year. I would estimate it's less than 0.1% of the plagiarism cases that deserve a second chance, and I don't think this should be something that's offered to all banned accounts.

Some thoughts:

• Merit can be gained through abuse.
• Instead of removing a signature, it can contain some public shaming saying it's removed because of plagiarism and user has to earn xx more Merit before it's enabled again.

See this list (http://loyce.club/Merit/all_users_who_earned_Merit_2018-12-14_Fri_08.08h.txt) (with data from last Friday). This includes Merit abusers and already banned accounts.

You mean bump bots?
I think the few cases who deserve a second chance wouldn't be banned in the first place if it wasn't for the massive spam from bump bots and signature spammers. Even without plagiarism they only add spam to the forum, and we're better off without them (and their alt accounts).

Most of them haven't posted for 6 weeks, and I wouldn't be surprised if they're all owned by the same person. That just means someone stops using a fraction of his spam farm until August, then continues again.
Unfortunately, the "banned from signatures" message only shows in their profile. If it would show up under their posts, it would act as a warning to others.

Alternatives:

• Pay (a part of) the fine to whoever reported that user, that will trigger a real witch hunt by giving a financial incentive to report plagiarism.
• Punish a user after an unban with red trust, like you did with Lone Shark (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=909705).
• I've made this suggestion before: a user banned for plagiarism can get an unban if he reports at least 2 other users for plagiarism, and those users must have a higher Rank than he had. That motivates the spammers to help clean up the forum.

If you forget once to add a link source or a quote tag yeah that's what I would agree to consider as "a silly mistake" and a permaban is harsh, maybe a 3-5-7 days (or more) ban rule could be added.
Other than that, do we really need alternatives?  A permanent ban is rude ok, but reading plagiarized posts all over the forum is rude for my brain too. Without the permaban rule, the forum would get more spam than BCH transactions.

- sig ban indefinitely but are allowed to post: why not (but if the behavior continues, no question asked, he's kicked out for good)
- to pay a fine: will it really be efficient? If I plagiarize Snoop Dog to make "smoke bitcoin everyday" I will pay a fine, then what? I am free to plagiarize Lady Gaga to make 'BTC, the edge of the glory'

I vote for No, nothing should change, except maybe for people doing a "silly mistake" but I am afraid to see more people creating a thread in Meta for their silly mistake.

1 mistake can be done, maybe a permaban is excessive especially when the only one infraction it's done a long time ago without the purpose to scam a signature bounty.
I like the option to disable temporarily or disable till x merits earned.

Of course, if the user is a serial copypaste or text spinner a permaban is necessary.

The plagiarists reduce the quality of discussion in the forum, and I do not support their paying a fine day enable them continue spamming the forum. The forum should not profit from such actions.

Disabling signatures is a good option in cases of 'silly mistakes', but when a user regularly copy and pasted contents in order to complete bounty tasks, or to try and gain merits, they should not be given a second chance.
And this category constitutes the majority of bans, very rarely do we see users not wearing signatures get banned for plagiarism.

Here are my thoughts,
1. When and How often the plagiarism was committed should have a huge impact in it's consequence; I have seen not just (absurdly) highly ranked member but established and reputable get banned for a post they copied as way back as they could not even remember. ChiBitCTy (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3432369.0) is perfect example, A lot, if not most users that are on the forum were driven by the motive to earn, and ignorant to forum rules initially, but some along the line discover that there's more to the forum than just earning, Do you think they don't they don't deserve a second chance ? I think they do, Some are willing to let go of their sig space since that's the reason they had plagiarized at first, just so they could be accepted back on the forum what more could we want, it should come at a cost but not their account or the reputation they've managed to build along the line after a considerable bad start.

A user that's only motivated to earn, will always find it easier to buy another account(s) no matter how many times they get banned, but an established/reputable member gets to lose everything they have built. A reputable member shouldn't have plagiarized in the first instance ? Of course! That's why I stated that when the offense was committed should be taken into consideration. Because logically, the forum has more too lose in ChiBitCTy being banned (for a single and very old post), than several other legendary accounts being banned for consistent plagiarism.


2. On what could be a solution, is just like that the trust system. It should be debatable there should a be forum delegate of up to 5 - 10 on necessary cases only (It doesn't have to be a forum mods, as I guess there hands are filled) that'd would decide if it should be a permaban, ban or sigban (with duration or not) subjected to their understanding of the plagiarists reputation putting into consideration
a.) How often the user has plagiarized (and the last copied and pasted post)
b.) The reputation of the user and/or time spent on the forum
c.) Values that user adds to forum (Why or why not they should be allowed)



PS: I'm not appealing on behalf of ChiBitCTy, neither is my post about him, I have never had an encounter and I think he was probably banned before I was a user of the forum. It's rather just an example who could have deserved a second chance, not just in my opinion but, according to a lot of reputable members who would do anything to rid spammers off the forum.

Yes.

And only apply that to users who actually have a signature to lose, e.g. Sr. and up. Lower ranks should stay permabanned. Most plagiarism is done by newbies so they wouldn't be deterred by a sig ban.

I would imagine many shitposters would simply abandon such accounts and try to buy new ones.


There is no feasible way to detect that.


Highly subjective and would just devolve into massive flame wars.

I voted for "No" because I don't think that current punishment system is bad. But your ideas is worth to discuss. That's true that people make mistakes and sometimes they copy paste not intentionally - they forget to provide link of source or something.
Maybe if only 1 copied post was found, user should be banned temporary - for one month for example. If there are more copied posts - ban should be permanent without any questions and excuses
About signature bans - permanent ban of signature for most users here is almost same thing like ban of bitcointalk account. Getting signature back by accumulating x number of merits - I don't think it's good idea, because Merits can be bought or received in other dirty methods. And in many cases ban of signatures wouldn't help - if it was Newbie caught, ban of signature wouldn't affect his account until he will receive 1 or more Merit.
Paying a fine to get unbanned sounds bad to me. Ok, user will pay a fine and he will able to continue copy pasting until he will be caught again? And what's next - he will pay again and story continues. And I'm almost sure that theymos would reject this idea. He said that forum and he don't need for more money and all accounting of forum money gives him enough headache.

I would be in favor of forcing users to pay a fine to get unbanned along with possibly a second fine to have signatures reenabled. Also, the users signature would have less functionality than it would normally otherwise have. One option might be to have a ban result in negative merit and activity to keep things fairly simple.

I am not a huge fan of the merit system, but if it remains, it would be logical for merit to play a role in being able to use a meaningful signature again. 100 merit is probably too high though as very few have received this much merit.

Oh, I said that because a large %age of the highly ranked member that gets banned were for post made as further back as 3-4 years,

Yes, but that'd be up to the delegates to decide. I'm sure that regardless of how irrational a reputable member's opinion could be, they'all are against serial-plagiarist/spammers and it shouldn't be too hard to detect when one is found, considering how the plagiarists thread get busted with their copied post almost instantly after they create a thread to the know why they got banned.

How do we determine it's a single case of a copy and paste? Let's say user X has 5000 posts and he is caught and reported for just 1. How do we know that there are no other plagiarized posts? Who will audit these many messages and prove that it's "just one silly mistake"? Note that different plag. checkers give different results. What you get with plagium and seotools may differ from a quick custom google search. Then there are the spinning tools which are very hard to catch, let alone many other ways to fool detection.

I can't believe that there are five people who voted "Pay some sort of fine". That is some bullshit!

But how to find out that the user really "forget" add a link and quotation marks or s/he did it intentionally?
Anyway I agree that administration could make a warning to members and not banning them in controversial cases.
This warning message could be displayed under the user's avatar or instead of a signature, as it was suggested above.

I like the idea of a temporary ban or disable the signature temporary. Nobody is perfect, and everyone surely made mistakes. Giving permanent ban on one person who does not deserve it, is far worse than banning 10 bots (just figuratively).

But who will determine whether a person deserves a permanent ban or not? Staff? DT member?

As LoyceV said, merit can be received through abuse and it can't be a solution (Although I have voted for that option too before reading the discussion). I think the current rule should be continued since copy/paste is really a bad practice.

I don't think it's a large percentage. Do you have data to support that?

And even if true that doesn't mean they haven't copy-pasted for the 3-4 years since and it's nearly impossible to prove.


I wouldn't worry about that too much. How many of the 5000 users who get banned every month would be able to claw their way back via merit abuse? Would they even do that on an account that already has one strike? Seems far more plausible to create or buy a new one. But this could work for genuine "mistaken" users.

I actually already posted a potential solution to this

If the member isn't citing Wikipedia as the source, then I don't see any difference at all between those two cases.  I've seen a lot of cases where people are copying stuff from all over the internet in order to answer questions and passing it off as their own original answer.  That's plagiarism.  The text spinning stuff is more devious, but we're talking about the difference between a criminal who leaves his fingerprints all over the doorknob vs. one that tries to clean up the crime scene--the offense is the same.

I don't think there's a problem with the way things are now, except that not all plagiarizers are created equal and there are two that I know of that I wish had gotten some leniency--but I also understand how important it is to be consistent with rule enforcement.

Hilariousandco, you know that when people get permabanned, they go right back to doing it with a new account.  Hell, you've even suggested it a few times and I've begged you not to give that kind of example to people.  So I don't think a signature restriction would work at all--they'll just abandon the account.  The merit solution has problems, too, unless it's a very high amount.  We know merit gets traded and sold. 

Part of me wants to see leniency for established members who may have fucked up early on.  Maybe there could be an amnesty date set somewhere in 2016 or something, i.e., if you plagiarized after x/x/16 but have a good post history/positive trust/[insert whatever else here], you'll be banned like everyone else.  It's definitely a tough call, because if you show mercy to some based on subjective standards, there's going to be an outcry from those who didn't get any mercy (and probably other members, too). 

I voted for keeping things as they are.

That's not a solution. 1 of 20 is still horrible and who's gonna track the ~1000 users every week?

Then it's equivalent to permaban for those users - great. But it gives the option for the few that might be genuinely remorseful.

It should be a high enough amount to force most shitposters into a voluntary permaban. 50-100 should do it. If one or two buy/hack/etc enough merits to get back to spamming we'll get them next time. Now that I think about it - if someone wants to waste merits (legit or not) on this - more power to them.

I voted for the merit option AND to keep as is. Not my fault that voting options are bipolar :)

It's probably not possible to determine how many they have in fact copied, but you can usually tell between the serial plagiarisers and the ones who have done it once or twice. Either way, they can still all be treated the same: One copy and paste = one signature ban. Either earn the merit or pay the fee or whatever.


It's not that bad. For anyone who has fallen foul of being banned for a silly one-time mistake I'm sure they'd happily pay the price. It's a small price to pay instead of being banished for life.


Probably staff, just like they do with current bans.


It's going to be very hard to abuse 100+ merit without being spotted. If there's any shenanigans going on they can either be just banned or left negative feedback (which is as good as a sig ban in most cases).


It's still technically plagiarism but it's hardly a capital offence that deserves a death sentence. Sometimes it's just down to naivety more than being malicious. Imagine if you've made years worth of contributions without a single copy and paste, and then someone asks a question and you help them out by getting the answer from Wikipedia or somewhere else but don't properly attributive it. This is a web forum not a test for a degree in English Language and people don't expect to be banned for such a thing. This probably wouldn't get you a ban on any other forum but this board is  obviously unique in that there's a real issue with plagiarism due to signature campaigns and hence why it's treated so harshly, but not all copy and pasters are the same. We really need more awareness of the rules and that's why they should be told about them upon sign up or have reminders. Hoping that new users just randomly stumble upon the long and complicated list of rules in Meta really isn't enough.


I'd say it's more like giving the death sentence to both a murderer and someone who goes 1 mile over the speed limit. Both are crimes but don't deserve the same punishment. However, I have no sympathy for the people who text spin and maybe they shouldn't be given another chance, but then again I wouldn't be against them be able to get their account back if they prove they're here to contribute and earning a ridiculous amount of merit might be a good enough penance for that.


Well that's the problem right there. There really is quite a big difference between a one-time offence and someone who's only here to copy and paste but at the moment everyone is treated the same, but I also want there to be some consistency because we can't be giving special favours to certain people whilst others are banished for life.


Then what does it matter if they're still going to be here? Doesn't make a difference either way.


Newbies might abandon their account but what about Senior or Heroes? It's incredibly difficult to achieve those ranks now so most aren't just going to do a drake and start from the bottom, but if they are then again, it doesn't matter because they're still here just under a different name. 

I haven't submit vote. Because I don't think parmaban should be cancel and I am not fan of fine. But by considering merit system ban duration would be appropriate. In my opinion temp ban just keep same as now. Instated of parmaban extend it for six month. It could be call strike I don't mean that parmaban will cancel, but if someone got 3 strike then he should got parmaban. Since merit earn is very hard thats why consider strike system.

So my vote for implement strike system.

I like the initiative, I support either permanent signature bans, or permanent bans. You know as well as I do, that there are never cases where someone gets punished just for mis-citing an article or something like that. Its always blatant spam that people are trying to disguise to get their post count up. In that case, a permanent signature ban is just as effective as a permanent ban. If you can't spam for profit anymore, your account is useless, and its the same as if it had been banned.

I hold extreme prejudice against copy and paste spammers. I personally find it to be the worst offense on Bitcointalk that one can commit. Of the handful of rules here, the purpose is to keep the boards clean and usable. There are always extenuating circumstances for offenses that go against the rules, that make it a little more understandable, but copy and paste spamming is the one thing where there should be no tolerance. Its spitting in the face of every member here, and the staff. To make a mistake and go off topic and spam a thread is a human mistake. I see copy and paste spamming as malicious. If you can't spend 2 minutes to even formulate your own ideas to post, you do not belong here. If your intention is to come here to make money from paid signature advertising, thats absolutely fine. If you post in topics that don't interest you because you must keep your post count up, fine. Who cares if you are feigning interest in a topic? As long as you aren't detracting away from other users who are there because they are genuinely interested, no one cares about your intentions. When you join a discussion with no intention of even trying to add to it, its time that you leave.

On a side note, I'm not a fan of the fine idea. Sure it'd dissuade people from getting caught, but there is still the opportunity that its profitable enough for them to continue spamming if they are only caught with a certain frequency.

This looks to me similar to approach like if cop sees some rash driving, then instead of giving ticket immediately ,he should watch/follow to observe driving for next 10-15 minutes ?

There should be no leniency if someone copying the post of others or from articles from other website.

Only leniency can be given to those who copied official announcement types post without declaring the site.They can be given temp sig ban.

I am not in favor of any financial penalty.

I vote to remove bans and disable signature space

This is exactly why we need to thrash things out to get some completely different opinions and then try to find the optimal course of action. There are quite a few factors to consider

There are some differences here. Based on Hilariousandco's statement

 Motive -  

1. wiki guy -  Doing it to help someone.  There is not essentially any financial reward for his time and effort. We don't know for sure he is trying to claim this work for his own either he could just see nothing wrong with posting some official stats from wiki on populations or gdp figures. He may assume that people realise he did not just take a huge head count of the entire populace of the world or construct a 2000 character table of figures himself in the 2mins since someone requested it or it became relevant to post in the thread or he just may have got a bit lazy.

So he put effort, tried to help , got nothing back financially , may even consider it is quite obvious that this is not his own work.



2. text spinner - doing it to help himself, knowingly doing something wrong, trying to claim it as his own work,


I mean the act is the same but the motives and type of person to do commit both infringements are likely to be very different. 1 type i think will work well as part of a community and become net positive after a slap on the wrist. The other type has already demonstrated a clearly devious and self centered trait that will need to have a much more serious punishment to help him see things in a different light. I mean text spinners to me should not have another chance.

that is just my opinion - nothing is black and white


PM's sent to everyone that there is now zero tolerance after this date. I am sure that would choke most of them off doing it.

Basing anything on merit right now is not going to be feasible. I mean I see some excellent posters that have not even earned more than 30-50ish after all of this time. I mean top tier posters - they post on the discussion boars more than places like meta.  

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That makes no sense setting up an x good report limit, this has been discussed before.
Imagine your life depends on x good report (escaping permaban). Would it be hard to register 10 or 100 or 500 fake accounts and post that x copypaste post with them, and your original account would report those and voilá, you just managed to get to the required x good reports, and you're free...
And the forum has managed to get another x unnecessary spam posts...

As previously mentioned I believe that it has to be decided on a case-to-case basis. If someone has been blatantly plagiarizing for a long period of time just to get paid from a signature campaign they should not be able to have the ban lifted. If someone has done it once or twice over the span of thousands of posts while they are actually contributing members to any community at this forum it should be reviewed. A temporary ban and then a disabled Signature until x amount of merit received would be the best solution IMO.

I know of one case where the user got perma banned although a lighter punishment would have been more deserved.

Needless to say, I believe in second chances (Unless people are scamming). So that's what I voted for.

Normaly i would say " Nothing should change and permabans remain "


For higher ranked Users , alternatives to permabans for plagarism should be to set there Merit count back to " Zero " if they have some and includes a 2 or 4 Week ban.
If they get detected again for plagarism  they should get perma banned !

Thats just an idea.

But personaly i say there should be no second chance for Copy and Paste banned Users , because they have know it from the Rules !

80 % of all that Users that doing plagarism dont care about the Rules !

their should be a statute of limitations agreed upon for plagiarism
2 or 3 years especially if it is not related to signature spam or shitposting
if you are motivated enough to go through the many years and thousands of posts on my legendary account you can probably find some example of text copied from someplace on the net without a link or something as an excuse to ban me
it was not a major concern back then but now it is a ticking time bomb and major anxiety
all it will take is to cross the wrong person enough for them to put in the time to search it all - they will probably find something - and all of years of effort i put into this forum will be gone and i would not even be able to start again with a new account because it would be ban evasion
this is true for many good users old accounts full of years of banter
a permanent account ban is harsh enough but a complete ban from even being able to start over is ludicrous
what should i do ? spend weeks searching all my old posts in google and delete anything that matches ? what if the post has been quoted ? what about archives or waybacks ?

A mod could institute a ban that would automatically go into effect in the future and the review could be done if/when they appeal the ban.

Not sure how to break this to you gently but you're not really a Legendary.

It's just an opinion from someone who has a legendary account but just registered a new one to express this opinion (just in case if someone would start to review his/her older posts for copypaste, after...)

I get that, I'm just saying (in my clunky sarcastic way) that this is exactly the kind of topic where the words of a 1-post sockpuppet are completely meaningless. If this is a real Legendary user they're doing a disservice to the discussion by turning it into a puppet show but for all we know this could be someone who e.g. bought some accounts of unknown origin and is looking for a way out of the plagiarism crackdown.

I voted in favor to disable signatures of users that have been busted doing plagiarism.
Doing this alone will prevent to monetize their posts any further, or they need to start from the beginning.
In some occurrences, a non scrupulous, legitimate, user may copy/paste something occasionally from the internet, without having the reflex to source it nor the intent to abuse, but help.

Removing signatures will have the same effect as a permaban on a certain category of users.
Those creating accounts by the 100's just to squeeze a few more satoshis. As long as they cannot display their sig, they won't earn a dime.

This differs from the other ranges of users that have been banned, and whose contributions goes beyond simply this.

They shouldn't be confused for one another, and disabling signatures is sufficient to do the trick.

I agree that the forum will lose more if administration would handing out bans left and right, without a possibility for good posters being able to correct. I would vote for such option if it was in the poll:

Maybe it had been suggested upthread but a vouch system would be good. I know one guy in particular who I'd vouch for, but perhaps that is like earning merit too...

Banning someone for a post made years ago would probably be quite harsh, especially if they've since changed their ways. In these sorts of cases I would much prefer a sig ban.


Is this cryptohunter?

Seems the votes are pretty much evenly split between all options minus the fee one.

Theymos PMd me and said permabans for plagiarism don't have to be set in stone as there are no hard rules and we can use our own initiative on whether to ban certain users or not but I think there needs to be some consistency across staff so it doesn't look like we're giving certain favours to people as it will just lead to people whinging and bugging staff members that x was unbanned by y and therefore so should they.

Theymos has already implemented facilities to sig ban people and personally I think this is something we should be doing for those cases of users where they deserve a second chance, so hopefully he can roll out that feature to Globals so we can give them in appropriate cases. Maybe the sigs can be 'earned' back automatically after x amount of time/merit/contributions or after manual staff review, but at least those who are here to genuinely contribute something can still do so regardless.

Two cases that would probably be deserving of unbans/signature bans are ChiBitCTy & Roboabhishek.

Appeal threads:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3432369.msg35819856#msg35819856
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5079217.msg48408455#msg48408455

I'm not sure I buy either of their excuses (though they are plausible) but I'd be willing to give them a second chance as they were both active and somewhat appreciated members and have vouches from other respected members, but I think some sort of sig ban would be appropriate here given they were both essentially doing it for payment. They both seem to care more about just getting their accounts back and even suggested they're fine with a sig ban so I think this is something we should consider for review:

Money doesn't fuel posting here well that's how it should be. I think far too much emphasis is being put on signature campaigns here and the potential earnings. Do you really think banning signature rather than the account will do anything? Perma bans stop them from using their account and they probably just go and make another one. It would be the exact same if you were to ban them from using a signature but instead they get the impression that they can just continue posting their copy and paste bullshit. I think permabans should stay and send the right signals to those that are copy and pasting. If their intentions are to earn from campaigns then a permaban will prevent that from happening.

Paying to get your account back? No. I think as soon as you are permabanned that is it for you. You don't deserve to come back as permabans are only handed out on a few occasions. If you copy and paste then that's you out of the forum. I don't see any reason why theymos would want to allow copy and pastes the opportunity to get their account back when they have directly insulted him by not paying attention to the rules. Ok so we could argue that everyone deserves a second chance but that should be done via a yearly review of bans rather than allowing users to pay for their accounts back. The problem with allowing people to get their accounts back via a fine they might think that its worth copy and pasting just in case they don't get found and they can earn a little merit from it. If they get found out and banned they just pay for the account back but that post might of already got merit.

We are not perfect but I guess permbans if given the chance to lift it is to give him/her a fine for the violations being created. This way people will going to learn but still could be able to lift the ban in this forum. This way we could create a good community that instead of kicking them out we should care for them for we should consider them clients for they are also investing in cryptocurrency for sure. This forum has been enable me also to decide on to invest that is why we should care all users here in this forum.

I'd personally leave it as it is now, keep the permaban.
Plagiarism is just so easy to avoid, in almost all cases it's a deliberate action of the user and should be met with the harshest punishment possible.

Now, I do understand that there might be some cases where the user didn't intend to plagiarize and merely forgot to post a source link.
Those cases are pretty easy to spot though, thus before issuing a permaban, mods should be absolutely certain that the user's intent was to plagiarize.

Most likely.


If we're doing this we should probably add the honeymoon guy:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5056278.0

The excuse is about as credible at those other two and nobody found any other signs of copypasta yet.

I disagree with unbanning Roboabhishek BTW (having someone create posts for your sig campaign should be ban-worthy in its own right) but I'll admit that other reasonable users vouching for him is a fairly good argument that it's an uncharacteristic lapse in judgement and the person might be capable of learning from it. Let's just please not make this excuse a valid one going forward.

Is what cryptohunter?? more like such moon that idiot is more likely to have been creating puppet accounts than me if you take time to investigate that imbecile.

The motive is always the important thing here. People who are saying there is no difference here between any copy and paste are fools that have already had their arguments torn to shreds but do not reply and run away and hide.

Let me give you a simple stupid analogy that any one even suchmoon and perhaps even the pharmacist or maybe even loyceV can follow without his tiny brain collapsing in public and running away crying or saying you will go on ignore

1. I come home my garden fence has been damaged and several panels are missing. So is my dog.
2. I report it to the police.

scenario 1

Police find it is some asshole using the planks he ripped off for himself to make wooden objects for which he is getting paid for and my dog has escaped and ran under a car:(

scenario 2.

Police say some guy ripped the planks off to lay on to the frozen lake beside your house to save your dear dog drowning since it escaped and fallen through a hole people had been fishing through. He has rescued the dog which police  bring back but the guy is in hospital in a bad way.


Do you want us to apply the same  punishment in both cases???? let's punish them the same right...ripped my panels clean off the fence fuck the intention or result of the actions.

I would (especially as this poll is in meta ) request a public poll where people state their opinions and ground them with some reasonable case as to what the optimal action to achieve keeping net positive members will be.

There is no point counting the opinion of someone who does not clearly understand the problem if you want to reach an optimal result.

People should say their view and the justify it and make sure under scrutiny they understood what they were voting for.

Anyway the polls shows that the majority want other action that allows for financially motivated spammers removed because they are net negative and to retain net positive members even if they were lazy or made a mistake they can post just with no sigs.

I SAY REMOVE ALL SIGS FOR EVERYONE FOR EVER AND SEE WHO IS LEFT IS THE BEST IDEA.

I BET A LOT OF THESE TOP MERIT HOADERS , DT TRUST  ALL WITH THEIR HIGH PAID SIGS POSTING EVERYWHERE WILL BE GONE.

I CHALLENGED THEM TO REMOVE THEIR SIGS FOR A YEAR AND I WILL DO IT TO0. TO PROVE THEY ARE NOT JUST AS BAD AS THE NOOBS THEY DERIDE FOR TRYING TO MONETISE THIS BOARD. NONE WILL DO IT

PHARMACIST WOULD RATHER BOAST AS HIS BEST ACCOMPLISHMENT HERE ON THIS BOARD IS TO BE ADDED TO A TOP PAID SIG CAMPAIGN.

@suchmoon - you are a proven moron whom makes crazy statements about "most pre merit legends are scammers" and sticks to it. Disrespectful dumb ass noob.

Also part of a gang here trying to silence people via cowardly methods you scumbag. I just love crushing your mind in public and demonstrating you are a moron over and over until your mind collapses like a rotten pumpkin and you just sit there shouting ludicrous mad comments over and over.

suchmoon is such a fucking thick turd that he just attempted to use this copy and paste bullshit to get shut me down again after the red trust crap failed 2 days ago because i could demonstrate full abuse there. This is a tool they want to keep open for any mistakes they find.

I strongly suspect this cowardly jackal created a 1 day old  puppet account to report me for copy and paste and that i was claiming original source WHILST I WAS FIGHTING A REAL SCAM NOT HIDING HERE PLAYING WHACK AMOLE THINKING HE IS IMPORTANT AND TRYING TO SILENCE ANYONE WHO GOES AGAINST HIM. Sadly though that gang of dumb fucks are so retarded they can not even do that properly and fucked it up just adding power to MY ARGUMENT THAT YOU NEED TO SEE IF THE PERSON IS NET POSITIVE FIRST and what the copy and paste was about before trying to ban them.

How can you say someone is claiming the work as their own if the link to original source is listed in the same post 2nd link at the bottom? you dumb cunt suchmoron.

Even so that information was created by someone in anon coin to support my claim that dash was an instamined SCAM COIN THAT NEARLY PUSHED BITCOIN IN TO POSITION 2 AT ONE TIME and if we had not highlighted to the entire board through the largest war on the alt board ever that it was a scam and forced evan duffield to break down and offer an air drop THAT WAS AT ONE TIME WORTH BILLIONS  then it could have quite easily pushed btc into number 2 spot.

THIS gang of NO LEGENDS THAT HAVE ACCOMPLISHED NOTHING EVER HERE EVEN AFTER I CHALLENGED THEM TO PRODUCE THEIR FINEST ACCOMPLISHMENTS - guess what pharmacist lists as his best accomplishment here LOL HE JOINED A HIGH PAYING SIG CAMPAIGN  HAHAHAAH THIS DUMD FAILURE WANTS TO SEE ME BANNED THAT FUCKING RETARDED PATHETIC FOOL WHO SPAMS HIS SIG HERE FOR PENNIES AFTER BEING HERE YEARS???  you want to listen to the opinions of these fucking cowards and dishonest fools.

Get rid of this gang of jackals and scum. Corruption near the top is far more dangerous than some poor wretches at the bottom.... they can be dealt with quite easily.

TO SOLVE ALL MAJOR ISSUES REMOVE SIGS FOR EVERYONE. And break this gang into pieces and hurry up.

Don't even comment on my post unless you can refute with evidence what I say. The only people that want to comment without providing evidence for what they say and their opinions are either part of the gang or their dumb ass kissers hoping for some merit crumbs.

NOW BRING ME EVIDENCE WITH YOUR REBUTTAL OR FUCK OFF.

     I personally think permanently banning signatures from an account along with a temporary posting ban of 30 days should be implemented for plagiarism. By permanently banning the signature, you effectively make the account worthless for signature campaigns. This will combat the most common offenders of copy/paste spam: account farmers and sig campaign spammers. I also think a temporary ban of 30 days should be implemented as well. If an account farmer/sig spammer decides to move on immediately to post with their alts, if they get caught, then their alts can get permanently banned for ban evasion. I realize that linking alts together can be tricky; however, some of these copy/paste spammers make stupid mistake like using the same address to receive bounty payments.

Theymos has implemented "temp sig ban" feature in 2017 year. Strangely that Global mods still can't do the same thing.

---

Agree with a previous comment, ChiBitCty is a prime candidate for considering reinstating into the forum.

1)  You asked me for a list of my accomplishments on bitcointalk, which is the reason I mentioned being in the Chipmixer campaign.
2)  My point wasn't that I was in a high-paying campaign but one that is competitive, very selective, and doesn't employ shitposters.

I told you, I'm not bragging about anything.  All of those "accomplishments" I listed could be taken away from me in a heartbeat (DT status, being a merit source, being in Chipmixer), and I fully accept that.  

Other people thought I was worthy enough to have those things.  I didn't ask to be on DT or to be a merit source.  The only thing I asked for was a position in the Chipmixer campaign.  

I'm not boasting that I'm such a great bitcointalk member that I deserve those things, because that's not something I believe--those "accomplishments" are things I'm grateful for, because people have put their trust in me to do a good job in a sig campaign; to not be a power-tripper and abuse the trust system; to not use my merit source status for personal gain and to distribute merits properly; etc.  Those are things I have to do my best to live up to and although I can sometimes come off as arrogant or cocky, I'm not boasting.  

And FYI, I'm not looking to be a moderator (you made that assertion in one of your rants IIRC), and I clearly stated that in the thread where people voted for who'd be the best new mods (if any were ever chosen):

You are one to pretend to be nice and civil and humble and so nice. However, I have seen you bully noobs around with no mercy and I have destroyed you publicly in several arguments and debates demonstrating your mind is weak and vulnerable. I tried to leave you out of things but you sneak to other threads taking about me and colluding with the other gang members , meriting their nonsense and sniping now and then. You are afraid to really get involved because you know you are a liability to their agenda since you and loyce are observably weak of mind and collapse under even minor questioning.

Now don't try to prentend you were not part of this sock puppet reporting of me for plagiarism you cowardly little jackal.
You are a joke. Who would hand any authority to you? you brainless clown. You could even have a change of heart and try to do something really decent and good and still fuck it up because you are completely stupid. So of course you are powerless and a failure here and have accomplished nothing apart from trying to set me up to get banned and red trust you poor cretin spamming away for cents when every other legend is worth a fortune whilst every legend is worth a fortune now. How can you even lose of PIVX lol that was one of my free tips that created several millionaires from scraps they had to start.

Now take your bitterness and evil sneaky cowardly ass away from me because I will just crush you again and again and again WITH THE TRUTH ABOUT YOU AND YOUR REAL NATURE AND YOUR REAL ACHIEVEMENTS HERE. PROVEN WITH OBSERVERABLE FACTS.

Don't play this humble act with me anymore. You had your chance. Get back behind laundas skirt because that is all you have left. Get back to protecting him and wishing he were a mod again and a DT even though you tell me in the next breath you do not have the mental capacity to determine if the is a guilty of wrong doing. You worm.

Remove your high paid exclusive sig you broke bum and if you beg forgiveness I may let you sleep in my dogs kennel once a month.
Financially motivated posters are the cancer here right??? stop being part of that group prove you are better than this and a real enthusiast.

Remove you sig to take away my ammunition..... you won't will you because you like to milk the board like the noob desperados but you like to deride and pick on them. Make them feel like merit beggars whilst you have tons of this subjective nonsense.

Look at all the top merit holders in this gang of mental defective turds. All spamming the same sig and not one can produce anything they have achieved here of real note. All trying to push people around with red trust, and trying to get them banned. I mean their actions are so transparent and blatant it is shocking that nobody notices this crap.

REMOVE YOUR SIG PHARMACIST BEFORE I SEE YOU TELL ONE MORE PERSON OR LECTURE THEM ON FINANCIALLY MOTIVATED POSTING.

Same for loyce, malboroza, and all the other gang members. I CHALLENGE YOU TO PROVE WE CAN ALL POST WITH NO SIGS FOR 1 YEAR. LETS DO IT NET POSITIVE REAL ENTHUSIASTS.

Another idea might be that every user at Bitcointalk gets a PM from the system or admin with the clue that copy and paste is not allowed.

And if an account is found that has copy and paste done, it will be banned!
For new accounts this PM could then be automatically sent by the system!

So nobody can say he did not know about it!

And the handling of copy and paste stuff is punished with Ban!
Possible ban handling for the first time 2 months break for the user and 2 times perma ban!

Or as it is right now , direct perma Ban , because through the PM it everyone knows !

It's just an idea . 

You forgot to attach the evidence that we're supposed to refute. You're also off topic. Your personal grievances go here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5086297

I voted for:
..although second option looks much better because users will have to earn their signature space again and they will be forced to write constructive posts if they want to monetize account again.

---

You had your chance when I had removed my highly donating FJ signature in exchange to not payed signature because of dealing with ignorant people https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4598987.msg41512909#msg41512909

Don't worry because I am giving you an opportunity to set a good example All over again.

I just told such moon

Gang members will remove theirs for 2 years and I will remove mine for 2 years.

He has agreed to remove it and the others will do so soon too.

Can't wait. I know you will be certainly up for it too. Because you are a real enthusiast and not a sig spammer.

ChiBitCTy has been banned much longer than Roboabhishek. If he would have had a temporary ban, he would be unbanned by now. Roboabhishek would be the second best choice from what I've seen, although maybe less obvious of deserving it than ChiBitCTy. For reference: my opinion (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3432369.msg36030624#msg36030624) on ChiBitCTy.
Can we make those 2 a "test case", open for public scrutiny?

Can I ask why you need to be part of the decision process without

1. giving your reasoning behind which ever choices you voted for
2. demonstrate why someone like you who merits a report from an obvious sock puppet 1 day old with no posts to remove a legend that has posted nothing wrong should not be banned yourself at once.??? answer right now

I mean you are a div just look at some of the statments you have made on the merit thread when trying to respond to me

I would say such a person needs to demonstrate your opinion is even valid and not a pollution and distraction from reaching an optimal solution for getting rid of financially motivated spammers (like you with your high paid sig) and keeping net positive members here who make the odd mistake but overall pay into the system a lot more in terms of real value than idiots like you that just want to spam your sig and sound important.

I mean someone like you with no accomplishments here ever in the big scale of things trying on some twisted cowardly sock puppet report to remove a net positive legend that has had an illustrious posting history makes you actually WAY MORE NET NEGATIVE than a some new spammers who get less that your and tie up less board resources than your sig spamming dumb ass.

Get it now you are part of that gang that tried to silence me and I still see you begging on even though bones just told you you will need a lot more so keep looking you brainless cretin. Pull some more stats the same as I produced from some merits from your pals whilst demonstrating your merits are reduced to dust if you keep to the criteria i asked for in the first place which you refused to produce but still quote me in your op.

fucking net negative skid stain ALSO SUCH MOON JUST SAID YOU WILL REMOVE YOUR SIG FOR 2 YEARS COME AND PROVE HIM CORRECT. HE AGREED TO MY DEAL SO I ASSUME HE ALREADY CONSULTED YOU.

Can we keep this thread on topic, please?

Can you demonstrate where it is off topic....quote it here

I believe everybody desires a second chance no matter the mistakes they had have done. Permabans is basically not the solution to stop people from plagiarizing on this forum. Looking at the real world system of Justice,  before someone is convicted for a crime, the person is given the opportunity to be heard via the judiciary system. Once guilty, they are fined or imprisoned for either years or months. Deploying this system into the forum will be very useful than permabans. In terms of fining offenders, this income can help the forum.   

look @ them right now searching years of posts using plagarism as a weapon trying to silence cryptohunter


first marbroza trys to stop him with fake red trust and had to remove


then one of the gangs socks thought he had him on C&P but source was in the posts the entire time https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1926895.msg48790244#msg48790244



now marbroza  is try again with 2014 posts during the hight of epic battle against scammers giving valuable information without ""proper"" sourcing https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1926895.msg48828854#msg48828854


   all because  a merit argue


should not be applied other than cheating sigspam 4 post count

I thought cryptohuner is at gim.
How about cheating merit system? Or spreading FUD using words of other people and spreading them over and over again? Not saying anyone is doing or did this, I only say it could happen.
Where would you pull line?

It literally can work as a solution. Ban those users = they can't plagiarize anymore. Easy.

This is an online forum and not the judiciary system. There is no need to give the opportunity for them to "be heard" because they only get banned when there is plenty of proof of plagiarism. No one is going to get banned wrongfully for that.

In which way? They will just stay out of the forum or with alts waiting for the ban to run out, then they will come back with the spam. A permaban is a permanent and simple solution for the account plagiarizing.

The forum doesn't need more money.

I agree with you 100 %

We need not worry this forum has not become a place where the true legends of fighting scams will ever be banned for some sloppy quote from his friends whilst helping him fight the biggest scam ever. There were like 5 threads running concurrently for weeks on page 1 of the alt discussion board. The biggest war ever in alt coin history .  I sleep like a baby every night even though i realise these non achieving moronic snitching sig spamming ( THE REAL FINANCIALLY MOTIVATED POSTERS THAT LOVE TO POST THEIR GARBLED NONSENSE  TO EARN BTC DUST WHILS SAYING NOOBS SHOULD NOT ...HAHA )  scum want to silence me revealing for what they are. They should be banned for trying to remove one of the most proven net positive members in the history of scam fighting here and helping the ordinary people who followed him become millionaires from their rags and they have thanked him over and over.

Even should real legends with real achievements fall to these herd of jackals and cowards  it does not matter too much. Real legends live on clearly in the minds of their friends who will join and pick up the flame of their fallen LEGENDS and never let them be forgotten and never let these jackals rest. They can not win and real legends can not lose.

But be aware this goes beyond merit arguing they are corrupt and have gang mentality and are cowards and will create sock puppets who knows what else they would try. They are bullies and talk down to people all of the time. It is great to talk to them as I rightfully shall as one of the greatest scam fighters ever in cc history. They are non achieving coward moronic scum. That is how it is being recorded even now in the greatest ledger of crypto. I am relishing it and enjoying every single second. Those bunch on non achievers being legends is a joke to the term. It defiles it. Legends should be people who have done things that stand out in the history of crypto currency.

Just because most people hiding away on meta cowed down and dominated by this lowly bunch of cowardly jackal scum know very little to nothing of real history of alts and the communities that have resided there for years. Cryptohunters loyal friends will be sure to fill them in in the future I am sure.

thanks to you and I mean it to ... the one person who has joined in the battle against this gang of cowardly moronic losers and non achievers ....they are nothing ...just ask them they will admit that they are nothing and have done nothing and are capable of nothing except praying on the weak and snitching on the noobs that spam sigs just like they do.  They voice opinions on everything mostly foolish opinions just to earn some BTC crumbs and I have offered them a deal to remove their sigs and stop spamming them for 3 years....would they do it. In the words of thepharmacist the dumbest poorest wretch here with his bag of PIVx i sold him for 300x more than I paid.......".Hell NO " he needs that btc dust ....

@MORONBOZO

Which cheating of merit system? is that even possible hahah I mean ask foxy time travel can get you out of anything with that...provide evidence or slink back your other cowardly jackals of zero net worth.. and work on another plan to take down a real net positive legend ...


bring evidence of merit cheating or be banned for harrassing me and witch hunting such legend with such an illustrious history that is fully documented

I mean how can such a broken and circled system be abused???

Actually you are right I have abused the merit system before............................I confess...............................





















I think I gave you some once.....how do I take it back you faked being honest and fair once.... then I discover you are part of a fucking bunch of cowards and jackals that think you have power to ban people here for talking out against your sig spamming for btc dust and being a general fool. 

An abused system is quite literally broken. If the system is pristine and has no flaws then certainly it will be impossible to abuse. This is just a tautology.

Bans?

Hi Suchmoon,
Thanks for putting my case forward or at least membering it.

In my thread I welcomed the idea of getting  a permanent ban of signature. If my permapeal was successful.
I don’t mind if it make my account “worthless” without a signature. I don’t intend to sell it.

As most of my posts are in French. I did agree to pay for someone fluent in FR and EN to review my posts and check if I am a spammer and or a shit poster. I agreed to pay this person, or to pay a fine or to give to a charity. or to

I obviously understand than posting here in this thread (ie outside of my ban appeal thread) is considered at ban evasion. However my message is about my appeal and limited to meta and not with the purpose of “upgrading my account”

Signature ban, clearly.

The cancer of this forum are those people that are ONLY here for earning some bucks with the signature campaigns. They don't care about Bitcoin, the forum, the community, nothing. Cut them the signature and they are done.

If one member, after being banned from wearing a signature remains here he probably was here for something more and most probably has something to offer to the community. They will be very few among the banned ones... but it will be a pity to lose those few. Second chance for them... WITHOUT SIGNATURE.

Or even make the signature locked to one that says something like: "This user was signature banned for plagiarism".

Either permanent or temporarily... but I would incline towards temporarily with XXX (minimum 100) amount of merits needed to remove the ban.


P.S.: Temporarily based just on TIME absolutely not. Otherwise they would just let the account dormant until the ban has expired. That might be annoying for a "real" member, but no problem for bots, farmers etc....

I'm not in favor of restoring signature privileges based on how many merits someone earns. All this board needs is for one (or more) merit sources to go bad and game the system. Yes, it is prohibited for merit sources to sell merit. However, when greed comes into play, there are all sorts of ways to obfusticate what is really going on and go quite sometime without getting caught.

If a member needs 100+ merits to get restored..... do you think it would pass unnoticed if a merit source (or any other member) would give the banned user a significant push towards his goal?

I would be more worried about the signature banned user getting less merits than he deserves just because he has already been "marked".

And you already know how some people are scrutinizing the merit sources in a way I would even qualify as "overzealous" lol

Sorry, but I can't agree with you in this one :)

Don't get me wrong, I want all those useless signature campaigner BOTS/FARMERS/SPAMMERS/SHITPOSTERS out of here. I am just vouching for a way that would let an otherwise good standing member of the community to be saved/recycled for the good of the community. And I am only doing this because I have read some cases (a minority) posted here in the past months that I think the strict rules application has had (what I consider) a negative outcome for the community.

If the merit requirement to restore the signature is high enough it won't be worth for the "bad apples" to even try. It will always be "cheaper" to farm new accounts. Only real members would go throw the "punishment" of restoring their "reputation".

Required merits to back to normal status will lead to massively merit abusements.
Of course, abusers will be found, get punished later, but I don't like the idea.

It is so ridiculous if a old accounts (Hero or Ledgendary) does not know about forum rules on plagiarism. Therefore, they deserves perma bans if they intentionally and lazily violate forum rules, especially on plagiarism.
For Newbies, it does not matter with them if they got permanent bans, I believe.

In my opinion if the temporary signature ban will be implemented, then it is necessary that it be based not on the time but on the member's Activity points.

Permanent signature bans
For me that's the most reasonable,when a user is caught plagiarising,such user is banned permanently and isn't allowed to create any other alt account or such would be banned also(ban evasion)

Thus if we're to change things here,preventing such users from earning an extra dime on the forum is synonymous with a permanent ban,just that they will be allowed to stay on the forum,but on read mode,the only difference between it and the normal status quo is that they'll be allowed to make posts,reply posts and send PM

That way we do not change a whole lot of things all at once, and it would still act a strict deterrent as over 80% of users are all on signatures(earning from the forum),and wouldn't want to lose that privilege.

What to do with those who plagiarize, but do not use the paid signature? What is the alternative for such users?

I suspect these people are few and far between. Especially if you consider that some of these people are trying to rank up their accounts to use paid signatures in the future.

How do you define "few and far between"?

Most permabanned users are newbies. How many newbies get paid for signatures?

This thread is in regards to those banned for plagiarism. There is little reason for someone to plagiarize if they don’t think it will help them earn money, either immediately or in the future via a higher ranking account.

At least half of all permabans (probably a lot more) are for plagiarism. 75%+ banned users are newbies and brand new (nuked newbies most likely). So there seem to be other reasons for them to do it, for example to bump ANN threads every few minutes. They have no real chance to rank up.

You're wrong, believe me.

Why do you think these people are plagiarizing? What are their incentives to do this? Are they trying to rank up their accounts? Are they trying to use SEO to help their websites?

I would suggest that accounts get permabanned and this would get reduced to a signature ban (after an x day “hard” ban) upon the person appealing the ban.

Banning these bots that are cutting and pasting from the net just to bump threads does nothing.

It is likely automated mostly to rejoin with tons more of them immediately.

Let's stick to discussing the only thing you can tackle with sig bans or bans.

You are going to have to implement junior boards to get rid of fake conversation and bot bumpers.

Even then you will just move it to junior boards but at least the main discussion boards will slow down and there will be more collisions by real members that can write real content and posts. More real debates and discussions.

Perm bans do nothing for spam bots bumping topics or any brand new accounts because they have no value and are totally expendable.

Sig bans will have the same effect the account is dead for them now.

Oh God thank you @ hilariousetc

finally something happenin for banned members. ive asked for these  3 month ago, i was checking meta forum everyday to see if there is something new about Permabans rules or not
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5044571.0

"Ban my signature! Ban my access to market! Force to pay some sort of fine"  all of them! , i will do anything to get my original account back!

How is evading your ban gonna help your case?

You don't get a blanket permission to post anywhere you like in Meta:


You posted in 9 threads with this account. Some posts have nothing to do with your ban. I'd say you should stay where you are and stop dreaming about getting unbanned if you can't read the rules even after you got banned once.

OK. Sorry. accept my apology. i will delete those posts & will not post anymore.

Do we know if any progress has been made in this topic ?

Has the new team in charge of managing hacked and locked / banned accounts been given any directives?





Source = https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5089777

This is just suggestion but admin need to decide what need to be done,but looks like still the permaban is the result when someone got plagiarism and its most likely to stay in the future as well since he implemented the new ban message for plagiarist and says appeals are not likely to be accepted.

Perma bans are needed somethimes but should be issued with absolute care. Some people around here are adding a 100x more value than the single ‘mistake’ they made. A user who takes the time to fundamentaly apply for lifting his ban should be taken very seriously.  I would like to see this change! My vote is here.

Whoever is in the recovery team is probably just there to restore hacked/lost accounts and not cases of bans for breaking rules. Theymos has said there are no concrete rules regarding bans and we can enforce them as we see fit and be more lenient in certain cases, but I'm not going to give certain people free passes because it's not fair and is just going to lead to more issues and hassle when people start complaining that x was unbanned for y by so-and-so so why aren't they. The only way I'll likely start giving people second chances if theymos implements signature bans. That way there's some fairness across the board. You can have your account back but you just can't earn from it. I would be happy to review accounts if this was put into place but I don't think it would be fair to unban certain people and they can resume partaking in signature campaigns whilst others don't even get their accounts back at all. Several people have said they would happily forgo a signature if they can just get their account back so I think it's something we should look at. If that happens and they stick around and show that they're a helpful member of the community and aren't here just for payment then I'd even be up for reviewing whether they can have their signature back at some point as well, but I think if Globals start making up their own rules for who gets unbanned or not it's just opening up a huge can of worms that will only lead to more problems.

A curious question:

Does plagiarism ban cause evil ip fees?
Or in other words which type of ban/activities attract evil IP fees?

Yes. I think any permaban causes evil points. As for what other behaviours do I think theymos will have to answer that. I'm not sure what he wants as public knowledge or not.

My apologies if this was mentioned here already or somewhere else on the Forum (I did a quick search through the 5 pages looking for bounty and altcoin as keywords and didn't find anything).

How about preventing plagiarists from reading and posting in the Altcoin and Bounty sections + the ability to send PMs?
That way they would not be able to search for, participate or send bounty reports (make money off the forum) but they can still post in other sections of the forum. Not all users who copy/paste are merely shit posters and they can still contribute in some positive ways.

Then it will be possible to see the distinction between those who simply give up and leave since they cant take part in bounties and the others who actually want to participate in the forum and try to better themselves.

In real life common circles, people tend to use information and other people’s phrases freely, speaking then without having to cite the source (what a laugh that would be). But of course, common acceptance of plagiarism varies on the circle where it is being used, and even the communication form itself.

The forum has a couple of good reasons to consider plagiarism a penalty: it is more often than not being used to gain a personal benefit, be it by trying to build character and reputation to some (poor) extent, or to cut corners and save time instead of using the grey matter in conjunction with personal time.

The rule is not trivial to enforce as it is, since it requires people to report the plagiarism and others to asses it. Therefore, likely a fair share goes unspotted (but may spin back at some point down the line). Shifting the parts of the playing board where one can plagiarize without being punished and leaving other parts as inpunitive zones seems like a strange solution. I’d prefer keeping the rules simple, but perhaps, introduce a timeframe where these kind of reports may apply to (say over the last two years of the accounts posting history).

The concept of plagiarism by mistake doesn't really make any sense to me. I don't believe that a person can really forget to mention the source from where he just literally copied and pasted something into his post/comment unless they don't care, or aren't aware of the fact that plagiarism is treated as a crime in here and is dealt with a harsh punishment.

Mistakes are done by everyone, I agree, but why don't we commit this kind of mistakes? (I'm talking about everyone who are considered to be good members of the community). Of course we all require to search the internet in order to answer a few queries that we are not sure about, at least I do, but what I do is either confirm the thing first and then convey it in my own way, and if in a case where I need to quote something, I make sure I mention the source I've taken it from because I have some sense and I know it is not right.

The only excuse I can think of by someone who has plagiarized anytime in past (either by mistake or purposely) is that they were not aware of the rule. For that matter, The Registration Message thing should be rolled out which would be sent to every new account upon registration which would either contain a list of the rules or the link to the thread that contains them, along with the other important stuff a member needs to know before using the forum. Also, the message should be sent to every user account at the time of implementation to avoid getting complains and later excuses from the pre-existing user accounts that are still unaware of the rules.


I believe the current punishment of permanent ban for plagiarism has nothing wrong in it since it rarely happens when a user unintentionally plagiarizes and doesn't even realize their mistake even after reading so many things about the issue in the forum, and committing mistakes like that even after reading the rules sent to your inbox personally should be treated with the same punishment as others. Hence, I voted for, "No - Nothing should change and permabans remain".

When the "mistake" or "didn't know it's bad" argument is brought up I'm trying to imagine the user shoplifting and then trying to explain to the cops that it was a mistake or that they didn't know it's not cool to walk out of the store without paying.

So yeah, it doesn't happen accidentally. And it's not like in the store we see signs "don't go out without paying".

These two won't guarantee that they will stop from plagiarizing more post once the ban is lifted or the fine is paid, the chances of them doing it again will be higher as the days goes by. I also see that the permanent signature ban can cause a lot of affected members to spam the forum with their shitpost saying that the system is unfair and how they can't getaway from just one plagiarized post. I think the old system still works just fine. I don't see that their is a certain degree of plagiarism where a member can be forgiven plagiarism is still plagiarism, there is no creativity or effort behind it.

Then ask your friends if you have a lot of them.

Did not happen to them that they bought a lot of goods in the store, while unconsciously forgot to pay for the chewing gum, which was put in the pocket, when it was necessary to use two hands to get some goods.

If that happened, do you think they're thieves?

Now they can't go shopping, right?

Probably you will even stop communicating with such people, right?

In fact, they just go back to the store and pay for it and the problem will be exhausted, the forum does not have this capability.

You can deceive thousands of people and you just lose trust (as it was with Atriz) but you can continue to conduct their dark deeds...

Is that justice?

I think it's hypocrisy.

You like to compare things that can't be compared.

For you, even a person who unknowingly made one mistake is a criminal without the right to rehabilitation...

ps:

I can write the same thing about many favorite comparison with institutes.

Yes, you can make a diploma using someone else's work and you will be expelled, or you will forget to indicate 1 source in the list of used literature when writing a diploma project, for which you will not be expelled.

You have to understand the difference in these things.

There is a huge difference in when a person does it once and most likely unconsciously and when a person does it on purpose.

I didn't notice you putting emphasis on that.

I think that 1 temporary ban is enough for a person to understand that he made a mistake and should be more careful than to be sentenced for life without the right to appeal.

But this will only work if you're really fighting plagiarism, not trying to bury users...

How about the ban remains, just that the each time a user post a reply or opens a thread, there's a warning banner or notification against plagiarism?

That way, there's no grounds of appealing once he/ she gets banned.

Nice attempt to twist it to fit your agenda, but:

1) Copy pasta is not a mistake, it's a deliberate action often involving obfuscation as well.
2) Your ban evasion is also major offense so you either still haven't read the rules or you don't give a shit... I'd say that makes your posturing on the fairness of said rules moot.

Was there ever any update to this @hilariousandco?

I feel like if we were to at least try it out there's a perfect Candidate (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=904524) for it.

I ask you to pardon I did not know this rule and wanted to start life from scratch

Just this:



As above, I think the policy should stay the same right now because certain mods giving certain people free passes isn't fair and will only lead to more issues and hassle. I guess you can try petition the other Globals/admins as they may have a different opinion, but certain staff showing leniency is just opening up a huge can of worms to me and if you unban one hundreds will start pestering you, but they can obviously feel different. Hopefully signature bans will come into play at some point and I would happily issue them and maybe even consider reinstating the signature if they've proven over time that they're here to contribute. Maybe signature campaigns will be banned in the near future and then maybe we can unban everyone who was ever banned for sig spam and they can choose to contribute or not.

ChiBitCTy along with Roboabhishek were the two users I suggested for a sig ban:

Appeal threads:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3432369.msg35819856#msg35819856
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5079217.msg48408455#msg48408455

I'm not sure I buy either of their excuses (though they are plausible) but I'd be willing to give them a second chance as they were both active and somewhat appreciated members and have vouches from other respected members, but I think some sort of sig ban would be appropriate here given they were both essentially doing it for payment. They both seem to care more about just getting their accounts back and even suggested they're fine with a sig ban so I think this is something we should consider:

What abot this one "the honeymoon" guy he kinda got the support of suchmoon :



With even the user suggestion some kind of alternative punishment :

and :


But un-banning accounts is like opening pandora's box

People are already referring to the LoneShark situation each time they are not happy with their ban.

I continue to be a witness that users with one violation have the same punishment as notorious spammers, and it doesn't seem very fair.
If there has been a plagiarism then ban offenders which have junior ranks and remove signature from senior members (or write that a signature has been disabled because of copy/pasting), and demand from them to earn 100 merit so they can turn on their signature again. If member with a banned signature make one more copy-paste then block him permanently. I think this would be a better option for the development of the forum than is currently the case.

Hey, this is actually a very good proposal.
Members that truly value their accounts will make the effort to gain those 100 merits and won't mind being deprived of signature for the time needed to achieve it.

I want to focus attention that forum obtain much more benefits if guilty members wouldn't be banned at once and they will need to make good posts to get their signatures back.

I like this idea. Unfortunately 90% of the signature banned account would have been left there hanging, only 10% will care about those accounts. It's not easy to gather 100 merit nowdays, so if someone manages to gather it, that would be really good for the forum itself.

I think it should also be noted that if a newbie account created within a few days then it doesn't make sense to ban them for signatures as they wouldn't be allowed to carry signatures in the first place. The probably will be spamming to either rank up or do other shady activities like shilling. The above rules should be only applicable for Full Members & Above since they have taken quite an effort to react there and banning them would be a bit harsh.

I continue to think giving a fine would be the best option, but if this is rejected by the administration.....

For lower ranking members, perhaps for junior members and below, there will be no change, they will be permabanned for the first instance.

For higher ranking members, the ban functionality can be modified so that for someone caught plagiarizing, a three day temp ban will start will start once they acknowledge they should not plagiarize, and that future instances of plagiarism will result in a permaban.

The above would prevent people from claiming they didn't know they aren't allowed to plagiarize, and will prevent the promise they will never do it again because they would have already broken that promise. It would also prevent established people from being excluded from the community for a single mistake.

I think in the majority of cases, the above is giving more chances than necessary.

I also think anyone who is banned for plagiarism should have their ban message explicitly say this. Perhaps any mod who has the authority to ban for plagiarism should have the ability to give this type of ban. The ban message could also say the ban is unlikely to get overturned if you actually plagiarized. This should cut down on the appeal threads in meta of people claiming to have no idea why they were banned.   

Users caught plagiarizing should have their ability to earn merit permanently removed. While I think they should have to pay a fine, that could be viewed negatively and bring with it unique problems. Another approach along with the inability to receive merit would be a month long ban...

This is actually a great idea. My only concern is that we still need a way to penalize someone who has already obtained legendary rank. I'd hate to give a blank check to a legendary account to start employing a copy paste bot to sling their signature all over the place.

Ban them for a month and remove their ability to earn merit the first time. Maybe a 2 month ban for the second offense and a permanent ban for the third... I imagine users would be leaving negative trust to these abusers also.

Why? Even banned users can still earn Merit. Merit is supposed to encourage good posts, that shouldn't change for anyone.

Thinking out of the box and being plain evil: you could tie posts to Merit by removing all unmerited posts after a few weeks, but this too won't really help.

Their intent in plagairising is to receive merit, no? Removing their ability to earn merit should remove their incentive to plagiarize.

I don’t see how removing unmerited posts effects plagiarism at all.

Not necessarily. For many the intent is to hit a post quota so they are paid for their signature campaigns. For whatever reason, whatever they write themselves isn't acceptable (it isn't good enough to satisfy their campaign manager, they can't write English comprehensibly, their posts keep getting deleted, they just can't be bothered, etc), and so they plagiarise instead.

I'm sure many of the serial plagiarises have already come to terms with the fact they will never rank up with the current merit system.

My assumption was they plagiarize to earn from their signature. Plagiarism happened long before the introduction of Merit. I started my Report plagiarism (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1926895.0) thread in May 2017.
Removing unmerited posts (which is not a serious idea to pursue) would lower their post count, and force them to only create good posts.

Quite a few "banned" members have put forward the idea of removing their signature.
No signature, no campaign, no more plagiarism, right ?

Or putting back the signature after a quota of Merit has been earn (100 merit ? 200 merit ?) or not putting it ever, who care ?
if they can't live without a signature, then they just have to leave the place.

Like in real life, you rob a bank, you kill someone, you go to jail and then you get out.
On Bitcointalk, you copy a message once (a single time !) and you are banned from the board, no redemption.

Then, off course if someone is found guilty of doing it one more time, it should be a permaban.

For Jnr Member above, I suggest temporary or signatures ban for 14days for first time offenders. If a user gets banned from displaying signature he losses his campaign slot for paid Bitcoin signatures and losses 2weeks stakes for bounty campaigns then the reported plagiarism post should be deleted by mod to prevent repeat of report for that same post and a warning message should be sent to user to delete all formal plagiarism he has done (clean up his account) because any further report of plagiarism for that account will result in permanent ban.

For Newbies i suggest temporary ban for 14days for first time offenders, this will also cause user to loss  2weeks stake in altcoin bounty. Any of this two punishment can be a better alternative to permabans for plagarism for first time offenders.

14 days is not enought.
30 days for 1st timer and 6 months without a signature + need to earn merit (50 / 100 ?)  to have  its signature back (after the 6 months).

(other wise, you just have to "wait" and get all your privileges back)

Over the last few months, I've been somewhat involved in tracking and reporting plagiarists and I can confirm the two statements above to be absolutely true. The main reason for plagiarism is earning money from signature campaigns, many of them have and manage multiple accounts (ranging from 5 to 100), therefore, they fail to fulfill their weekly quota writing original content => copy posts.

Another large percentage of plagiarizing users are hacked or sold profiles, tailored to post as bumping bots, with their countless pyramid quote garbage in self-moderated scam ICOs. Jengo's army (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2502431.0) alone has over 200/300 high-ranked profiles (already banned) who have shilled in over 40 projects starting from August 2017 and Lust ICO and ending in late March.

Maybe that some of the ban members are bad seeds.
But there are also some, that have faulted but not to the extent you described.

Some where not even wearing a paid sig campaign when they did the plagiarism.
Some where not wearing sig campaign when they got caught.
Some only had a single account that did a mistake once in many years of presence here.

To be fair, the proposed vote is 25% yes stay banned.
75%, let's find another solution.


Question : "Should we have alternatives to permabans for plagarism"

Answer : "Yes - Signature ban indefinitely until they've earned x amount of merit"

This kind of solution (proposed by said banned member, FYI) is not detrimental to other members.
And believe me, only the "good" members that have been banned are going to go through the hassle of earning merit in order to recover their signature.

Like if we take your example, you have earn approx 130 merit in 4 months (mostly hunting plagiarizer)
If we put the threshold at 100 merit earned to recover the signature, it is not that easy to make.
Can you imagine the hard work it would take to make those merit if you that said banned member was a shit poster.
And also, at the next mistake it is permban for life.

I believe that most of the shitposter will just not bother and stay without a signature : no campaign, no money no quota ....

Alternative penalty might be a reduction in rank.
Let's assume, Hero Member was caught in plagiarism then s/he will be downgraded to Sr. Member.

Then take away their signature also.

What about those newbies though? There are some that don't care much about signatures if their posts are more visible.

The perfect alternative to permaban for newbie who can't wear signature is And for users who can wear signature and avatar, you can visit the quoted reply for an earlier suggestion i gave concerning this issue.

http://i67.tinypic.com/25rp5j7.jpg

Why not introduce new category for plagarism or spammer? if proven guilty, they will get new rank despite their previous rank and all earning rights freeze automatically including smerits.

Why ban? let them hang out here so that they can see what they are missing due to their wrong and illegal behavior.

This its was nice, with this badge we can identify the account. Everyone makes some suggestion cant use the signature if that feature has some a duration, I think they will repeat the same fault.

Smerits/merits are a reward gotten for quality posting and that shouldn't be take away from any user no matter the crime committed don't forget even red tag account still get merited because merit isn't a privilege but a reward for quality posting.

About tagging them with new ranks as suggested, that will only make accounts useless on forum because forum user will automatic see every post they write as not worth reading even when they got some quality under their sleeves so why not ban them instead as usual.

@CryptopreneurBrainboss

IMHO banning someone is very easy punishment, its like capital punishment and new ranks are similar to community service.

It would help in the "silly mistake" case. one can always rank up or recover the previous rank again by earning merit

Or fulfilling any other criteria, just like any other rank. Why give up on revenue visit per user. Every user is essential here.

The new rank badge will remind them that they did something wrong and other users can learn from it, that bad choice or cheating can lead to such kind of embarrassing situation.

Because the majority of users never get to hear or have any knowledge that someone got banned etc. 

I am not advocating about taking someone smerit etc. but Freezing smerit can help in terms of merit abuse.

JSRAW I really don't think that theymos or the admins will consider putting shitposter tags or images of shit on a users profile and make a freak show of this place.
Something similar was discussed not long ago. It was about marking banned accounts. I am going to quote my reply and o_e_l_e_o's reply on my post because it is related to marking/tagging accounts.

@Pmalek

Okay point taken, shitposter and the shit icon was a bad choice in terms of appearance. but we all call out the following user by the same inappropriate manner so why hesitating calling,

Spade a spade when taking action against them? We can still create a new rank for the following category with a more appropriate term, instead of a ban.

And I don't think that if any user tagged with a red banner or banned, it's going to influence my decision or other users in any way. I will be careful ( let's say he cheated someone or doing some illegal activity so will keep my distance but only in the following matter, its common sense, I suppose)

If his/her other posts are useful which is entirely different from his/her red tag activity, then red trust doesn't matter to me at all.

News from the forum administrator

I'll bump this thread, because I believe that an alternative to the permanent ban is necessary and will bring much more benefits to the community than the existing system.

The main reason of plagiarism is a posting for signature campaigns typically, so I suggest that users, with ranks more than Jr. Member and which have plagiarized, lose their signatures until they receive, for example, 100 merit - from the moment they were caught. When the penalized users gain required amount of merit, their signature will be available for them. Any Newbies must be banned instantly - to not overload the moderators.

After repeated violation of plagiarism should be a permanent ban, but nonetheless I think that users who will get their signature back will not repeat the same mistake again.

Agreed, while plagiarism is a definitely unethical offense, we have seen some examples of it where some local users copy pasted from other sources to better express themselves in english (without giving due reference, not totally aware of the strictness of the forum rules in this regard),

so for minor or innocuous infractions, it would make great sense to give a second chance (I voted for temporary signature ban and / or fine by the way)...

also your direct quote from theymos is a good reminder to some members who are fanatically crying out "please permaban"  ::) for whatever dirt they can dig up on Turkish users for over a week now all over Meta...

Won't that encourage posts "begging" for merits?

Perhaps just ban the privilege for 3 to 5 years which is considered good enough to dissuade many from continuing.

I suppose that improving the existing ban policy through the merit system will be more fair and effective because there are cases when senior members were permanently banned for only one copied message without reference, which was posted years ago.


Users that would be begging for merit have a high risk (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5099391.msg49306851#msg49306851) of being tagged by DT members.

So that's like what, 2 weeks? :P
Seriously though, 100 Merit isn't that much, but as a Merit source I don't want to get control over how long someone's signature ban is going to last. If I know someone needs 30 more Merit to rank up to Legendary, I sometimes look for some good posts to help him rank up. If the same action would lift their ban, I wouldn't be comfortable doing this.

I like the temporary ban plus removing their signature. Reaching that certain number shouldn't automatically lift the signature ban. Once the minimum merits are earned (100 in Veleor's example), the user should be allowed to make an appeal and mods (with the help of the community) will have to review the case again.

Why only two weeks? I think users who are able to honestly receive such amount of merit in such a short period can be counted on one hand.
If the user has plagiarized once but can earn 100 merit, then this is the main point of the alternative to a permanent ban. It proves that such user is a valuable member of the community, which can bring more benefit to the forum, being active.

I would agree that signature ban is better than permaban.
Earning merits is not easy, so they have to prove and write better posts to recover their signature space.

Permaban in most cases results in members just creating new accounts that are doing exact same plagiarism.

this pretty much says it all.

Signature bans are only allocated to deserved ones who have good net-effects. Not all of permanent banned users will get signature bans as alternatives.
If one permanent banned user received an alternative as signature ban, that one does not have to prove anything to get signature space back. When the signature ban period expires, signature space will automatically reappear.

The thing that user has to prove is good net-effects to receive a signature ban.
If one user put decent efforts for one account, and get permanently banned because of stupid things (mostly plagiarism) in the past, in early days, ie. I don't think that one will keep doing the same type of stupid things again.