Oh? What's this then?

Bitcoin protects against spam attacks through the use of a transaction fee.

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Notice that the boards are just the discussion boards: the actual announcement section has nearly three times the amount of posts. That's some hefty posting. And then there's the bounty section, with 7.9 million posts alone spanning 13.8K threads: that's 500+ posts per thread - I wonder how many of them are useful?

As it currently stands, topic creation is free. I can create a token for free. I can use a Newbie account for free and I can hire free bounty marketing spammers for free. Thus, we get the NANO treatment.

Whether you repaid your loan or not is irrelevant to the fact that the feedback pertains to an inquiry.

I do not tag people for being wrong. Is there something that separates the original user's investigation with the curiosity of the other users which replied to the thread? Is it the fact that it was more detailed or that there was a relevant hypothetical?

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On the subject of the loan, though, one would expect a rational lender to strike a public complaint when something does go wrong. However, making an assumption like this as a starting base would not be the most practical avenue to proceed through.

Can we stop contemptuously tagging new accounts and acting with impunity toward the typical use of the trust system?

Don't write your own self-fulfilling prophecies, waiting until users are brimming with indignant rage and replies to complete the circle. This is just a skewed version of accepting a conclusion and developing confirmation bias.

Visibility, first-mover bias, etc.

First feedback is read faster and sooner than the second, and so on. Granted, this is not entirely equivalent to the similar act of repeatedly bumping one's thread for visibility: if trust feedback is inaccurate in any way, then users (presumably, hopefully, maybe) will take that into consideration and salt the comments liberally.

Cheers. How impressive that just ten users of the thread contribute 43% of the posts. Must be some great discussion that's going on there.

Even just from a simple comparison:

Bitcoin Discussion (which is bad enough): 2326K Posts, 93.7K Topics
Altcoin Discussion (which is far worse): 3209K Posts, 100.1K Topics

I could exclusively report 90% of posts in the Altcoin Discussion section and they would probably all be considered spam.

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Low risk from bounty side + low payment + lack of oversight = low effort shitty posts + swathes of accounts posting the same bullshit.

This has been done in the past in a selective case, before the changes were implemented. Most likely, the staff are going to maintain the attitude in the unofficial rules FAQ: "We don't have enough time to check every single piece of information and verify the validity of the sources. Also, just like scams - too much room for bias and abuse."

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Why change anything significantly when you can post a pastebin (or equivalent) link?

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One thing I was thinking of was that this still doesn't prevent spam attacks that much by way of alt accounts: simply post 5 per account per user, as the activity requirements are not too difficult.

I would rather give every user a negative tag rather than a positive tag.

Even after the DT changes, I still consider any positive feedback to be much more impactful than negative feedback. It's already bad enough that new users will have a false sense of security unless they know the inner workings of how to trust others here (i.e. not at all, at least initially).

It would be interesting to check the statistics pertaining to the distribution of posts: surely, it would be useful to have some chart that displays the most active members on the thread and the number of replies they post.

After all, an active site with many players must have a whole range of people in a discussion thread instead of a dozen members with a thread participation rate, right?

March.

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Total reports: 5966
Total users: 93
Average reports/user: 64.15
Worst offender: StartupAnalyst

I would probably like a warning about the disconnect/non-relation between ranks and the trustworthiness of a user. Probably another caveat would be to never trust anyone blindly, and a few nudges towards the sticky threads.

As it currently stands, a Newbie would have to wander into the Meta board and notice the "Unofficial rules" thread to get started on learning about the forum.

I would still suggest using signed messages to verify identities - in all cases, you know you're dealing with the same individual with the same keys. Whereas Telegram may lead to impostors, you still aren't necessarily protected from any forum hack: if someone managed to get the details for an account or managed to send out a PM in some manner without having verified their identity, then this shouldn't be a problem as long as you always seek out a signed message before any money is moved.

0.05BTC

Please provide all of your crypto transaction IDs so that we can make sure you're not a criminal.

If this seems hyperbolic, then I would like to know where the line is drawn. Repeatedly spending a large input for small transactions opens you up to theft, doesn't it? If all you carry are hundred-dollar bills in places where meals cost a few, then what would you do before flashing your entire wallet every time you want to spend money?

If you're going to obfuscate your coin inputs in some manner and not simply use the original inputs for the transaction, then what lies in the middle ground between such a procedure and mixing services?

Moreover, your browser fingerprint can still be matched to your previously-tracked information... and, boom! Nice VPN, Steve Macdonald!

Staying private online requires multiple steps - it's not just a single point of failure, it's a damned minefield.

Some people may not know that certain users on the forum do not use Telegram, or they may not know of their actual Telegram IDs. When transacting with another member, Newbies are much more likely to make a reply and possibly get Telegram-impostor'd (among other services) if they attached their contact information. Moreover, due to the PM restrictions, you're more likely to see those very same new users trade/communicate off-forum. It's a death spiral waiting to happen.

Something else that may happen is that someone will use an impostor escrow and you'll find that they've matched the Telegram information of the original escrow account - someone did this using my credentials in the past.

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If your username is similar across platforms, you can easily be attacked. Unfortunately, not everyone has golden OPSEC and most likely have two or more accounts that share the same username across websites.

Principle of induction:

Why would anyone send US$1 x N of Bitcoin to some mixer on internet? Increment N: where's your threshold?

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If I have half a million, for example, and I want to spend it... I sure wouldn't want my recipient knowing I have half a million dollars unless the transaction required a majority of the funds.

How many threads do we need? Does a PM not suffice anymore?

We'll go with ZPHR. Wouldn't have entered the space without them.