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.  

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.

These two users are almost certainly alts:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=933337     szpalata December 22, 2016
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=932795     megynacuna December 21, 2016

Registered a day apart, on the same sig campaign, and they always post back to back in the Cloudbet giveaway thread:





Another two who are almost certainly alts. Registered within a week of each other, both have 021 at the end of their name and have also given each other merit:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2288509     Cryptopotato021 July 17, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2278628     Nagesh021 July 13, 2018

You mean like this one:



That's an actual "book" by the way. I was tempted to get the audiobook from audible just for a laugh. My personal favourite though:




I think 99% of flat-earthers online are just trolls. It's easy bait for them to rile people up.

Nah, I don't think it's that. They almost certainly know what they've done 99% of the time but are really hoping we don't and have made a mistake or at least can't provide them with proof. Until they see concrete evidence they're not gonna let their cash cow be culled and will kick and scream hoping that it'll be reinstated because they've certainly got nothing to lose. It's only natural I suppose. If you were called into the managers office and told you were fired for gross misconduct without a specific reason given wouldn't you want to know why? They're probably like criminals who get arrested for a crime but think there's no (or not enough) evidence on them to be charged, so they play dumb and smug because they think they've got away with it and will be released shortly. Then they get shown the CCTV with them committing the crime on it and are like ohshiiii - you got me.

Also, a lot of these ones that have word spun might claim something like parallel thinking aka we had the same thoughts if the posts are significantly jumbled up.

Nobody is going to pay 0.5btc to get their account back. It'd have to be a reasonable fine relative to what their account is worth. Somewhere between $100-$500 maybe. I possibly wouldn't be against some sort of fine but not sure it going to staff or the forum would be a good idea. People will just whine we're banning people for the money. We could tell them to donate it to charity which at least then some good would come of their behaviour and nobody but a good cause benefits. You could maybe give people two options: You can either have a sig ban indefinitely and earn your signature back by getting sufficient merit (say maybe at least 100) or pay a fine (that goes to charity). 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 or earning it back via merit so at least they have two options and if they don't want to pay anything then they can earn their signature back by contributing something worthwhile.


This. I would personally prefer that users just stop doing the plagiarism then we wouldn't have anything to worry about. I think theymos should probably link to the rules somewhere so new users are made aware of them or even better constantly reminded of them somehow. I think some bright red warnings when they go to submit a post like DO NOT COPY AND PASTE/PLAGIARISE CONTENT OR POST REF LINKS would also help.

I'm all for badges for things like reports or high amounts of merit, but I don't think we need them for everything and not just for setting a trust list. People should be able to do that without a badge. Also, I think if we we're going to change the trust system we should probably just get rid of it and just have a basic feedback system where you can leave feedback and it doesn't effect your score. No trust system is perfect and whatever we do people will complain. I think the current one works fairly well in 99% of cases but obviously when people get negative feedback they kick up an extreme fuss about it. Sometimes people leave feedback for silly or incorrect reasons but I think those should just be dealt with on a case by case basis and maybe some users inclusion on DT should be reviewed.

It seems the 'outsourcing' posts is becoming a new favourite excuse here. Blaming someone else whether true or not isn't going to be an acceptable excuse. Imagine if you're employed by someone, and instead you pass off that work to someone else who probably isn't qualified and they screw up. The onus would be on you and it's you who would face punishment. Imagine if a moderator here was ill or too lazy to do the work and got someone else to do it, and instead they removed threads they didn't like and banned the users. Would the excuse well I outsourced the work be acceptable? Nope.


This is just another extreme excuse made out of desperation. People hope they'll have some sympathy and just give him his account back to "spare" his life. You see it with begging often: I'm going to kill myself if someone doesn't send me money. I'm sure op has another account or could just buy one. Losing an account here is likely rarely the end of their time here and I'm sure they'll be smart enough to work around whatever restrictions has been put in place for them.

No. We don't need a sub board for every faucet of existence. It would just be spammed in by sig spammers anyway just like Gambling Discussion is. In fact, people used to post about sports quite a bit in Off Topic but they soon found a loophole in that they could talk about sports in Gambling so that board became filled with threads for every possible sport and league in the world because most campaigns won't pay for posts in off topic but will in gambling and it's easy to chat shit about sports all day. It got so bad that we had to create the Gambling Discussion board for that express purpose because genuine businesses couldn't promote themselves amongst all the spam, but very little gambling discussion actually goes on in there. It's either threads just talking about sports that half of the people posting in there probably don't even care about and the rest is just spam shit threads like is gambling good, can you make money from gambling, does gambling annoy your wife/gf/family/dog etc etc.

You people remember, you just hope we forget or can't find the one you copied or more. Believe me, it's hardly ever just the one post:




Interestingly enough that rohitsoni9893 account is also doing the same:



He is copying post from the same day like you and also registered the same month as you but a few days apart:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1801790 rohitsoni9893 February 05, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1820152     mistersehmuz     February 10, 2018

I'm guessing there's many more you have that are doing this.

Whether he struggles with English or not is debatable, but what isn't debatable is he struggles with typing  accurately or proofreading as he is almost certainly just bashing out nonsense as quickly as he can hence all the mistakes, and most people would make mistakes if they were trying to barf out one-liners over multiple accounts as fast as possible. He only used the 9 instead of the O because the 9 is right above the O and he's obviously smashing away at his keyboard so fast that accuracy is the least of his worries. I mean, why should he even bother proofreading or writing more than a sentence when he's going to get paid for them regardless of content.

Well that's the beauty of the internet isn't it? It's truly worldwide hence the name the world wide web. I think a more current issue and pressing stat we need right now is how many genders are represented here? theymos should implement more gender options in our profile fields so we can see how many of the 24 genders* there are here so we truly can be diverse and also less triggering.

*Figure correct at the time of writing but new genders are being discovered every couple of months.

Well that would certainly be a new excuse for our bingo card. I wasn't spamming; I was creating art. You just don't understand my vision.


Is bashing your head against the keyboard art? Is watching a monkey fling his shit at a wall art? No. A shitpost is just a low quality post. You get them on any forums, but on this one the behaviour is magnified because there's financial incentive to do so and to maximise profits people squeeze out posts over multiple accounts as quickly as possible and thus degrades the quality of content even more. Just look at the huge plagarism problem you get here. On how many other forums would people sign up just to copy and paste someone else's post from earlier in a thread. It's probably barely heard of outside of this forum because there would be little point to it anywhere else.

Contact theymos and see if he can implement a specific signature ban for you instead and reinstate your account. This is something he said he might implement a while ago (and I'm sure he could do individual ones now in certain cases). A signature ban would probably be more appropriate in certain situations and especially to those who are going to contribute in other ways whilst removing the possibility of earning here (which is probably a significant punishment in itself).

Maybe signatures of spammers/plagiarisers should be removed indefinitely or removed until they've achieved x amount of merit then they're reinstated. Most users probably won't bother and just abandon the account but for those who aren't here just to earn and are willing to contribute maybe that would be a sufficient penance for their 'crime'. 

I have no idea whether it's one post or numerous but it's not something I'm going to waste time on verifying or not. Usually there's more than just the one and all that usually happens is I waste time painstakingly checking for more because the person lied hoping that the one is all we'd find. Regardless, one post is all you need to be banned. I'm not going to unban anyone for this unless it was a mistake on the mod's part or the rules around banning change as it's not fair to everyone else and just causes more problems as everyone else will then want the same leniency. You can try petition the admin's to either change the rules or unban you if you wish but it'll likely be futile.

It was an achievement. It's just a shame that exact post was also plagiarised: https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/9qdexu/you_think_were_deviating_from_bitcoins_philosophy/

The gall that this guy has to ask about the ban and boast about the merits he received when he copied that exact post. What a fucking joke this forum is. The irony of the post he plagiarised also must be noted. This guy doesn't give a fuck about bitcoin or this forum. It's just a cash cow to him.

I didn't create it, but I did suggest it and o_e_l_e_o quickly created it. Glad to see you've added the I was drunk excuse. That's been used a few times. I think on the original paedo bingo one it includes the drink/drugs excuse.


"I outsourced posts" could be one. I think a couple of people have also used some variation of the my family member was ill. I wonder if any of these excuses would ever fly from a moderator. Imagine me incorrectly banning someone and claiming I was drunk or I outsourced moderation or got my brother/cousin/non-existent wife to do the work instead.

People won't pay anything if they know what they've done wrong. They're just going to be throwing their money away. As I said before, they only complain and play dumb about what they've done because it's their only hope of getting their account back and the is a last ditch attempt to try do so. If we started asking for payment for review then 99% just won't bother or would shut up as soon as you gave them that option.

As for number two, I'd be for signature bans instead of outright bans for spammers/plagiarism, but only theymos can implement them so it's him you'll have to convince. With that being said, a signature ban is as good as a ban to 99% of people who get caught plagiarising so in most instances they'll still complain about that and probably won't have any interest in contributing here if they can't get paid for it.

Would you be sticking up for someone else if they got caught copy and pasting? The forum has fallen due to copy and pasters and spammers and hence why they're punished appropriately when caught because we have a zero tolerance policy for plagiarisers. This really isn't about being vindictive but enforcing the rules across the board that everyone knows about, especially older members. Being here x amount of years isn't a licence to copy and paste. If you've been here so long you should know better but I don't think some users should be given a free pass just because they did something stupid or came up with an inventive excuse. I really just wish people would stop copy and pasting so nobody would have anything to complain about and nobody had to do any banning. The punishments are there and strict so people know not to do this behaviour. The only change to the punishments for plagiarists I'd be ok with is that they lose their signature instead and can still post here, but for 99% of people who are banned for copy and pasting this is as good as a ban anyway, but at least they can still contribute here.

I would be against this and I doubt it's something theymos would do anyway. People who have negative feedback can still provide worthwhile content and also send appropriate merit. Of course there will be certain individuals that abuse the position but I think they should be taken on a case by case basis and handled by the community. Foserfox is already permabanned anyhow, and I don't think you can send merit once you're banned (I could be wrong, but I certainly don't think they should be allowed to once banned). People only have a limited amount of merit and they will run out of it very fast, especially when banned. If a banned or negative trusted user did send merit then more often than not it's easier to spot abuse/alt accounts they're sending merit to.