To see an ever changing number of merits on my account (whenever I visited a different thread with my posts) was difficult to understand. I was certain there was a bug of some sort therefore took screenshots that were going to be used in a thread asking others if they knew what was going on.

I did not see this thread before I took screenshots of my merits therefore I was definitely fooled by this one 

I was about to create a thread in Meta to ask about what was going on with my merits, then noticed a couple of other members that seemed to have had their merits reduced therefore I took screenshots last night with the intention of creating a thread later to raise the issue. Then I read a post in this thread stating April Fools Day.

I suppose that is the end of the matter  

We are still waiting. Where is the conversation? If you do not make an active effort to counter the allegation with some sort of proof, you will find yourself with an appropriate tag and the flag will be supported too.

Can you either upload the conversation or explain what is stopping you uploading it?

I would recommend you change your approach with regards to payments.

Plans could change (as they have done for many people) but as long as mutually agreed roadmaps are altered then it should not matter. At the end of the day you are giving your time to accommodate whatever the arrangement is between yourself and your client therefore you should be paid as long the work is delivered according to the agreement.

If having an escrow for that is the best way to ensure payment, you should think about it after this incident.

RESULTS:

Liverpool 2-1 Brighton and Hove Albion
Manchester City 0-0 Arsenal

Liverpool had to come from a goal down to win 2-1 in a difficult game because Brighton posed a threat until the very last whistle. At one stage it looked as though it was not going to be a clear win for either side because both missed several goal opportunities. Salah played a strange game, eventually scored the winner but he did seem off the pace. Maybe he will leave Liverpool at the end of the season just as Klopp will.

In the other game, Arsenal played much better than I thought they would and also, Manchester City seemed to drop a level or two therefore it made the game look fairly even.

Liverpool are at the top of the table two points ahead of Arsenal and three points clear of Manchester City, all three have played 29 games.

These are the games taking place today Sunday 31st March:

Liverpool vs Brighton and Hove Albion
Manchester City vs Arsenal

Manchester City vs Arsenal will be a key game for three teams at the top of the table. I expect Manchester City to win the game. Liverpool will try to get all three points as they will have home advantage and against a weaker Brighton team.

Here are the results from the games played yesterday:

Newcastle United 4-3 West Ham United
Bournemouth 2-1 Everton
Chelsea 2-2 Burnley
Nottingham Forest 1-1 Crystal Palace
Sheffield United 3-3 Fulham
Tottenham Hotspur 2-1 Luton Town
Aston Villa 2-0 Wolverhampton Wanderers  
Brentford 1-1 Manchester United

The game of the day had to be between Newcastle United and West Ham United. It ended 4-3 but Newcastle were losing 1-3 before mounting a stunning comeback.

I had to check the Stake signature campaign to confirm this because I had doubts about their payment structure. It will not be possible to check direct payments from Stake to their campaign participants as they are sent to the participants Stake account.

As for all his know addresses since the account was purchased by the current owner, I will take a look at them and try to find if a connection can be made.

When it comes to giving merits to someone you like rather than giving merits because of the contents of a post, it is clearly not the correct use of the merit system.


If I have understood his point of view correctly, it seems he is not using the merit system in the correct manner. Furthermore, because he believes he is using it in an appropriate way it will be difficult to try to convince him otherwise.

By the way, I have seen merit sources asking theymos for more merits in order to give them out to (what they deem to be) deserving posts and receiving merits from members including mostly other merit sources as a way to help out. If this is what philipma1957 is doing, I think there is no need for him to do that in this case.

I think you are being extremely generous if you are using the word lacklustre, I can think of several more apt words to describe it. This is the first heavyweight unification fight since 1999, it clearly deserved bigger names on the undercard.

To be more direct, you would have imagined they would have at the very least added a blockbuster undercard. How many people in the arena will fall asleep while waiting for the main event? 

I thought this thread deserved a bump as a result of recent events that are related to the borovichok account because his compulsive lying is almost laughable.

His chain of lies included his constant claims of not using AI or not allowing others to post in his behalf and the gutter level lying he did that resulted in him getting 95 merits in that one thread when he claimed to fundraise for a now deceased genius shows these people will stoop to any level in order to rank up their accounts by trying to get merits. At least he will be unable to repeat that lie again no matter the other accounts in his farm.

I probably ruffled a few feathers of borovichok by tagging some of his other accounts (without making a direct connection between them or even knowing he was the puppeteer controlling those accounts in the farm), therefore he was very happy after I received three trust exclusions when he started complaining but he has received two negative tags after I revised my negative tag to neutral.

While he still proclaims to be innocent, he said he has stopped using the borovichok account after the recent two negative tags he received for using AI to spam. The borovichok account has become virtually useless to him as he will be unable to enrol it on any signature campaign, competition or bounty. He probably will not waste his time using that particular account any longer.

I removed the original negative trust I placed in January 2024 on the borovichok account before the recent two negative tags were added because the understanding was that neutral tags are sufficient for AI and/or spamming. Until there is an update from theymos regarding members using AI to spam, I will only use neutral tags but others will approach the subject how they feel is appropriate.

Today is the day when the Premier League games return:

Newcastle United vs West Ham United
Bournemouth vs Everton
Chelsea vs Burnley
Nottingham Forest vs Crystal Palace
Sheffield United vs Fulham
Tottenham Hotspur vs Luton Town
Aston Villa vs Wolverhampton Wanderers  
Brentford vs Manchester United

The 4th, 5th and 6th places in the Premier League table are interesting.

Tottenham have what is on paper an easy home game against Luton Town but they need to win because if the lose and Manchester United win their away game at Brentford, it would mean a three point gap between them in 4th an 5th place in the table. Both teams have 10 games to play until the end of the season and right now Tottenham are ahead.

Aston Villa are three points ahead of Tottenham but have played a game more therefore this is why any of the teams are capable of leapfrogging each other.

When he has that many accounts (and has been adding from a several of them to via signature campaigns, competitions and bounties to his income) he can behave with as much audacity as he wants because he believes he has the right.

In the end, he got away with using this borovichok account for a long time since he purchased it and on that basis, if he uses any and all of his traded accounts for that length of time to enrol on the Stake (and other) campaigns it would mean he is still ahead in financial terms but what about the damage to the forum when/if the merit system is abused or the trust system manipulated?

I see a lot of the figmentofmyass behaviour in the puppeteer currently controlling the borovichok account with one exception. One did not use AI the other does. Could he have evolved to using AI since his previous farmed accounts were exposed?

I am fairly certain he purchased the account and staked the address here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=996318.msg57852636#msg57852636

If he were to repeat the same process over and over then it would mean he would have enough accounts in his farm to easily accept it if some of his accounts were rendered useless after receiving tags. I agree with you, it is probably just one of many accounts operated by this spammer and liar.

I do not know first hand about the situation about the normalised (open and accepted) account selling/trading but over the years I have read posts from a number of members that have confirmed it to be the case. At some stage probably because of signature spamming or using purchased accounts for nefarious activities such as asking for loans or spamming, account trading was no longer accepted as a normal conduct.

I think AI could be heading in the same direction. Reading AI posts regardless of the reason it was used could in future be completely rejected by forum members if spamming continues without any real deterrent to reign offenders.

You are mistaken, there is no hot blood nor high temperature from my side therefore there is no need to calm down 

It has taken a long time for him to give up on the borovichok account and in that process he enrolled on to the Stake campaign and with that had a regular income stream. Fortunately that too is now part of the referenced materials.

How far away are we from that point, I think it is borderline happening already but with the help of human intervention proof reading. If a super-spammer wants to do it, eventually they will be noticed but if it is done more carefully and not automatically posted but a human proof reads the work to add a human touch to it, then becomes a little less detectable.

There are already huge accounts farmers operating in the forum, they have been for many years. They are beginning to change behaviours to adapt to the modern system (bots, AI, etc) and when one changes their style, others will follow. What will happen to the account farmers when one account gets caught? Nothing. They will continue to post with the other accounts until they get caught and in the interim will continue to create new accounts.

I wonder what percentage of active accounts in the previous 3 months are using AI and if it were possible to know, to use that as a comparator to the same period one year ago. That would be an interesting statistic.

And they will start spreading the word about how great the service is too 

I would agree. The OP does not need to spend money on advertising when there are millions of people around the world that are using various social networks to connect with the potential audience they would like to turn in to their customers.

If businesses have a good hashtag and slogan, it is likely going to generate interest as well as curiosity therefore at least at the launch there should be no need to spend money to promote the business. If the social network free promotion does not work then he should consider paying to get the brand promoted.

I am no expert on this topic but in my opinion it seems clear the EU will be trying to put obstacles in the way of their citizens crypto adoption but I cannot state the same for BRICS. From what I understand, the BRICS nations are interested in developing their own crypto to remove settlement of trade in $USD.

The AI threat is growing bigger every day. If we return to this question a year from now, I think we will see a massive difference in the number of posts being made by one puppeteer controlling a number of farmed accounts that use AI. It is easier than ever to operate a farmed account because it has become an automated process for account farmers.

It would be a hard task for campaign managers to proof read each post to check whether AI was used or not therefore that should probably not be an option. If theymos was to intervene to make clear exactly how to deal with AI posts, the problem would be solved.

That fundraiser thread by borovichok was one of the lowest of the low barrel scraping things anybody could do just to get merits. He is a compulsive liar. I stopped following him after I reluctantly conceded the consensus seemed to sided to not negatively tag members for spamming or using suspected AI.

Thankfully you created this thread and it brought a new attention to the tactics employed by borovichok.

The most important thing now is that the borovichok account now has been rendered useless. If if he was to return here using that account, it would not bring him any benefit in joining campaigns therefore he will focus his attention on his other accounts.

If I had to guess, I would state with a strong belief that he is enrolled on other campaigns and he has several accounts here. Over time, hopefully those accounts will be connected to him.

You are far more generous towards these super-spammers than I could ever be 

He had many chances over that period of time to stop using extremely questionable ways to post whether it was deemed to be AI or allowing other people to login to his account to post on his behalf. Instead, all he wanted to do was to meet his campaign quota and he did not care how he did it including lying every step of the way even stooping so low as to use the name of a deceased cryptographic genius just to get merits in order to rank up and join the Stake campaign.

Now he will not be able to use the borovichok account for campaigns which means he has more time on his hands focusing on his other accounts.

Sadly there is no hard evidence as such to prove his participation in the fundraiser was fabricated. It is somewhat unfortunate that Bitcoin Discussion does not show trust otherwise maybe the outcome could have been different.

It means I was probably right when I thought it was probable that the account was sold along with a message from the previous used address before being staked with the new address. That is usually part of account sale process now.

Still, he managed to survive on that particular account for a couple of years after buying it, now he can concentrate on the other accounts in his farm.