If you want to play games, you are welcome to. I'm not stupid, you are iApplelover, and I wouldn't make baseless claims unless I was 100% sure. If I wasn't sure, I'd say that I think you are iAppleLover. I however know you are, you know you are, and if you really reallllly want, I can give you all of the proof, but for the sake of both of our time, just leave. I'm telling you, I've seen plenty of scammers, the days of scamming and getting away with it are coming to an end. People can get away with it if they are good. You however are not, best to stop before it bites you.

I concur

I'm not quoting wikipedia articles, I'm quoting my business and criminal law text books 

If the point is that people don't want "shady" stuff associated with Bitcoin, that has nothing to do with the forums. These forums don't represent Bitcoin any more than Craigslist represents the US Dollar. Bitcoin is a currency, the only thing the forum has to worry about is its legal obligation, which should be satisfied. The forum is about freedom of speech and ideas pertaining to Bitcoin. Banning something that some specific people don't agree with is sort of against the whole idea of freedom of money. You are still restricted by what your country of residence allows, but why should we add more restrictions?

I'm not a user of drugs, ponzis, gambling sites, or other paraphenalia, but I don't see why its my right to tell people what they can and cannot do, outside of forum policy and legal restrictions.

Gah, I had a good reply written out but forum database error made me lose it. I shall retry to replicate it.

In U.S Cyber jurisdiction, what is used is the "Sliding Scale Standard" which classifies the sort of business is being conducted by a site, and then determines whether Jurisdiction is proper. There are three classifications

1) Substantial Business conducted over the Internet (contracts/sales for example)

2) Some interactivity through a web site

3) Passive advertising

In situation 1) Jurisdiction is proper, in 2) Jurisdiction is sometimes proper, and in 3) Jurisdiction is not proper. So lets classify the Bitcoin forums,

Does the forums count as having Substantial Business conducted over the Internet? No, this classification would be valid if it was the site owner or operator selling the goods/services in question, listings are done P2P. Oh what about Ebay etc you ask? Ebay is processing your money and is therefore a party in the transaction. If you use Ebay.com, you can't buy/sell things that are illegal in the U.S. If you use Ebay.co.uk you can't sell/buy things that are illegal in the UK, etc.

Does the forum require some interactivity? Yes, members are required to log in.

Are threads in the marketplace considered Passive Advertising? Yes, as explained below

"An internet communication typically is considered passive if people have to voluntarily access it to read the message, and active if it is sent to specific individuals."

When you see a sales thread saying "[WTS] Crack" it is up to the readers discretion to read it or not, the forum is not marketing it towards you. It is then up to the users not to be stupid and get arrested for something illegal in their own jurisdiction. If someone says [WTS] Crack and is selling it in a country where it is illegal, the mods will take it down.

For example a while ago, there was a thread where someone was offering prostitution services in France I believe, no one was offering to send the prostitutes anywhere other than France, so it was fine. I'm not sure if there is any country where Heroin is legal, but if there is, don't sell it anywhere besides where it is legal.

Nope, hosting is in the U.S, UK or Panama. I've heard all three tossed around. You can sell/advertise/buy things that are illegal in other countries, if you market them towards customers who live where whatever you are buying/selling isn't illegal. The site is a content neutral website that has multi national users. Theymos can't sell drugs/illegal things in the U.S himself through the forum, but individual users are allowed to do whatever is legal in their own jurisdiction.

I'm baffled by the amount of people that want to regulate what others can and can't do based on their own country's jurisdiction. If selling Beef is illegal for Indian members (in some states in India) should we ban it for the rest of the forum?

Maybe donate the money to help Dorian Nakamoto build a mote around his house?  Does anyone here know where we could get a good deal on Aligators?

I'm not saying you are Joey, I'm saying that you admitted to attempting to scam 1 BTC on iApplelover here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=469349.0

Buddy, take the hint and stop asking for handouts. Had you not tried to scam in the first place, maybe you could have got someone to invest in you if you had a solid business plan. Your best bet is just just work for the other 0.67 BTC you need. No one is going to deal with you here.

You kind of admitted that you tried to scam 1 BTC, for the love of god, please just walk away from all of this. You are too young to scam from people and then spend the rest of your life regretting it. That is my honest advice, walk away from the entire situation. Its a very slippery slope, one you can recover from if you stop trying to scam people. I think you should look into the case of Joey. He scammed a half of a Bitcoin off of someone, and the entire Bitcoin community took it upon themselves to harass him for what will probably be the rest of his life.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=242494.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=261496.0

Don't be a Joey

oh gosh, no offense, but you aren't the brightest...

Hmmm, well if people would like to judge the validity of Vod's feedback, I'd recommend looking here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=469349.0

See, I don't have to defend myself, because I don't especially care what you think, but when someone asks you a question about your decision making, and you can't answer it, thats when you know you need to change your own decision making process. I answered all of your points, so I am affirmed in my process.  

ie, I should have had to earn your respect in some way or another. Next time, don't automatically give me any, I haven't done the same for you.

Thank you.

*edit* also, if you would like to continue to discuss, I'd be happy to. But I feel we are derailing this thread, so we can start a new thread, or communicate via pm. Although, it won't be a very good discussion if either you or I don't read each other's responses.

No, you weren't allowed to use it for the reason that Theymos said, Important announcements are available to Staff/VIP/Donators to post in, but it is for things that are generally significant to Bitcoin as a whole, IE MTGox shutting down, or QT updates and the likes, its not for anyone to advertise their own businesses. I have not replaced John K, nor do I wish to. I wont accept large escrow amounts that I couldn't pay off if something happened to the coins, as I dont want to risk my reputation on any sort of error that I could make.

I defend Theymos because I like the guy and trust his judgements, however if you haven't noticed I have been critical in his new forum decisions. One of the reasons that I like Theymos, is he doesn't care if people question him (including staff) he like myself is open to any argument, and doesn't hold grudges when people question him or go against whatever plans he has. I'm an incredibly neutral person on most things, which is why I got the job as the Alt Coin moderator in the first place about a year and a half ago (November 2012), because I could fairly deal with the squabbling between coins that I may have had some sort of bias towards. I was promoted to Global Mod a bit after a year of working in the busiest section on BTCTalk, maintaining a generally positive history of handling situations responsibly, and fixing my mistakes responsibly. John K was a global moderator far before myself, and was promoted to Administrator before I became a global mod.

I don't do anywhere near the volume of escrow deals as John K, and the main reason people use my service is because I tend to be available for a large part of the day, and actively communicate with the people I'm working with to make sure everything is transparent for all parties. I gained what starting reputation I had by trading metals and buying/selling various other things on the forum. I started doing escrow for my friends before I became a moderator, and I am a large advocate of the escrow system (check most of my sales threads or threads where I buy things, I ask to use the service of another escrow agent) and I'm not dilusional by the sheer fact that my reputation has a calulated value that people shouldn't feel comfortable having me hold as well, and it is well below 100 BTC.



Agreed.

Porn is acceptable, it just wont be directly linked.


Also, I did not add the italics, that is in every advertising auction thread.

I still fail to see the difference between a ponzi and any other gambling site? Statistically everyone will lose (applies to gambling and ponzis), Lucky players stand to gain money, which is why they play (applies to both), the similarities are countless. What is wrong with a ponzi, as long as the site operators tell you its a ponzi, so you can weigh your chances fairly, in the same way that you can with a dice or card game site?

Again, for the record, I don't use any gambling sites as I'm not the gambling sort. I'm a bit too impulsive for my own good to gamble. I just don't see why people shouldn't use ponzis if they wish to? If you are getting tricked into a ponzi scheme, like the Pirate Passthrough, thats one thing, but with the name Ponzi right in the advertisment, no one is going to end up putting money into it that doesn't know that its a ponzi scheme.

Theymos however will advertise giant dildos, however just not direct links to nsfw sites. My point is, if we take the accumulation of laws from everywhere and put them all on here to protect every single user within their own jurisdictions, this will be a sad and incredibly regulated place. I'd rather not step in that direction. I'd rather people took personal responsibility, and didn't partake in ponzi schemes if they are illegal in their own jurisdiction or if they just dont wish to use them, and not limit those that can or want to. 

Nope I do not, nor would I advise escrowing 100 BTC through my services. The only real trust is mathmatical logic, it has little to do with past performance. If I stand to make 1 BTC in the next month by operating legitimately, chances are I wont steal 1 BTC from someone as I'd be hurting myself financially in the long run. One's trust has a value, if you can calculate what someone's trust is worth, you can come up with how much you can reasonably safely risk with them.

I'm not trying to blame people for using John K. he was indeed the most trusted escrow agent around, handling far more BTC in a month than most people will ever see in a lifetime, my point was that trusting anyone that you can't hold personally responsible for their errors is a flawed system, myself included. Feedback here should be held in the same esteem as someone's Ebay ratings. Personally, I don't think he would run off with 100 BTC, because he could have easily run off with far more. However he may have also been holding other people's coins which could change his decision to run. That or he legitimately could be incredibly busy, I don't know.

They are (google). The image I don't want to project is that we must take all of the laws of every country and become so restricted that Bitcoins can't be used for anything. I consider Ponzi schemes to be gambling. Online gambling is illegal in a ton of countries too, so should we ban all gambling sites from advertising as well? I resent it when government regulations place restrictions to "protect" me because I'm too stupid to make my own decisions. It is up to the users to make sure what they are doing isn't illegal in their own jurisdiction if they care, it is up to the users to do adequet research to make sure that their odds of winning in the ponzi scheme are on par with their expectations, and we shouldn't have to filter content for people because they aren't smart enough to make their own decisions. If you don't like ponzis, don't use them, if you don't like gambling, don't use them, if you don't like smoking/drinking, don't use those substances, but why disallow content that others may want to see/use just because some don't wish to? If you make the choice not to participate in ponzis, great. But what if I want to participate in ponzis? (I don't, I don't like gambling at all) but why should I say that you cant?


(Ponzi falls under this category)

I have escrowed a few deals for pcfli where he sold hardware to people, everyone has always got their stuff. That doesn't mean he would be trustworthy without escrow, but that does indeed mean that its worth double checking to make sure it was indeed pcfli.

Its also actually illegal to wear masks in public in a lot of countries. Shall we ban people selling masks in order to preserve Bitcoin's good name? Some laws are stupid and vary from place to place. If you are in the U.S or another country where ponzi schemes are illegal, don't use them. If you are in Zimbobwe, the Congo, or a few other assorted countries where no one cares about ponzi schemes, have at it. The forums doesn't restrict content just because its illegal or "bad" in someone's jurisdiction, Bitcoin is a global project, it would be stupid to limit it based on individual country's jurisdictions. If you want to obey your country's laws, great. Don't expect people not in your country to also respect those laws.

Having Trust in people you can't kick in the junk if they betray your trust is a flawed system. The trust system is just a feedback system, it isn't an absolute deciding factor in who you are safe dealing with. If you listened to the hundreds of people who gave John positive feedback for his prior work with them, its not the system's fault, and its not the people who gave him feedback's fault. Its his fault for whatever it is he is doing. People try to assign blame whenever something bad happens, but the only person to blame in this situation is John K.

While the entire debate is moot, as the section wont be removed for the reason Maged said on page one, it is not true that Bitcoin has never adopted features from other coins. In 2011/2012, I stopped using BTC for a while, because the QT wouldn't show 0 conf transactions. So I'd buy BTC on OTC and have to wait 10-20 minutes to find out if I was scammed or not. Solidcoin came out and showed 0 conf transactions and by coincidence or not, Bitcoin then had that feature a bit later.

While some of the copied coins are annoying, who cares? If you don't like them, don't get involved. There are a few rather bright devs out there experimenting with new features that could benefit Bitcoin. The Bitcoin community as a whole has figured out more or less how not to get scammed, give it a few more months, and Alt Coin traders will be pros at analyzing new coins for risks and potential as well. I'm at the point where I can look at a few factors about a coin, and instantly know if it will be at least fairly sucessful or not. Sooner or later everyone else will figure that out to, and Devs will pitch their ideas, the good ones will start, and the bad ones will go back to the drawing board, or never exist.

In the spirit of Cryptos, we vote with our hashpower, not by how many people complain about a topic in a forum thread. If it sucks, don't mine it. All the forums itself cares about, is spam and how many resources are going to the Alt Coin Section.