This shitpost was merited by naughty1 (3), foxbat (1)


Who have both been tagged as alts amongst others here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1702409.msg21757612#msg21757612

Therefore trungquoc4622342 is probably another of theirs.

They've also both sent merits to jokowi and buithidiepth1:

Merit summary for naughty1

Merit: 250
Sent in the last 120 days

    October 11, 2018, 05:01:51 AM: 3 to trungquoc4622342 for What do you think about Bitcoin?
    October 11, 2018, 04:58:32 AM: 1 to buithidiepth1 for Re: Why people are holding Bitcoin?
    October 11, 2018, 04:52:47 AM: 1 to jokowi for Re: Is it safe to invest all my savings in cryptocurrencies
    October 11, 2018, 04:52:33 AM: 2 to jokowi for Re: What is happening now with the market?
    October 11, 2018, 04:52:15 AM: 2 to jokowi for Re: What are the good Altcoins to HOLD Long term?

Merit summary for foxbat

Merit: 250
Sent in the last 120 days

    October 11, 2018, 05:05:54 AM: 1 to bonammeo for Re: Are fiat currencies necessary in the world?
    October 11, 2018, 05:05:48 AM: 2 to bonammeo for Re: Are fiat currencies necessary in the world?
    October 11, 2018, 05:04:14 AM: 1 to trungquoc4622342 for What do you think about Bitcoin?
    October 11, 2018, 05:04:00 AM: 1 to buithidiepth1 for Re: Why people are holding Bitcoin?
    October 11, 2018, 05:03:46 AM: 2 to jokowi for Re: Which do you prefer, bank or crypto?
    October 11, 2018, 05:03:39 AM: 1 to jokowi for Re: Is it safe to invest all my savings in cryptocurrencies

bonammeo has also received merit from northstarh who is tagged for being an alt of naughty1 & foxbat.

northstarh has sent merit to:

Sent in the last 120 days

    October 11, 2018, 05:11:41 AM: 1 to bonammeo for Re: Which Asian countries have the greatest influence on bitcoin?
    October 11, 2018, 05:11:26 AM: 1 to jokowi for Re: Cryptocurrencies are going down
    October 11, 2018, 05:11:17 AM: 1 to Jambo tape for Re: what happened to ethereum?

Jambo tape has sent merit to:

Sent in the last 120 days

    September 25, 2018, 11:32:11 AM: 2 to Ucihashin for Re: If Bitcoin die, no more cryptos can alive.
    September 22, 2018, 02:11:20 PM: 2 to Satuki for Re: Do you smoke weed?

Both registered in October.  Ucihashin sent merit to Iwabe, another account registered in October. Who sent merits to more accounts all registered in October:

Merit summary for Iwabe

Merit: 3
Sent in the last 120 days

Received in the last 120 days

    October 04, 2018, 08:55:56 AM: 1 from Jukoknos for Re: Why we must study Economics at University?
    October 04, 2018, 05:01:51 AM: 1 from Ucihashin for Re: Are you holding EOS?
    September 19, 2018, 02:44:02 PM: 1 from Cojiro for Re: Is it safe to participate in ICO's?

Who also sent merits to accounts registered in October:

Merit summary for Cojiro

Merit: 10
Sent in the last 120 days

    September 26, 2018, 11:22:43 AM: 3 to Nmizu for Re: Ethereum TO $400 AGAIN
    September 19, 2018, 02:44:02 PM: 1 to Iwabe for Re: Is it safe to participate in ICO's?
    September 17, 2018, 09:32:06 AM: 1 to Combi for Re: Do you like airdrops?

And it goes on.

I'm not sure what your definition of 'cool' is  but none of those games look that great apart from the Chelsea/Man United game and that's the only one I'll be watching from this weekend.  I'm more interested in the La Liga right now as Barcelona are playing Sevilla on Saturday and it's second vs first place. Actually rooting for Sevilla as it's boring Barca and Real winning everything all the time, though I'm sure Sevilla won't stay at the top for long. There's also El Clasico the following week which is always a great fixture.

What trades are these? I don't see any trades going on in Bitcoin Discussion or Economics but a whole lot of noise being chatted about things people don't really understand but are doing so just for payment. Go into any thread and read some of the replies in those two subs. It's embarrassing, just like it would be embarrassing if I tried to talk about Lamborghinis in mandarin. Regardless of how much trading is going on it is obviously dwarfed by signature spam and this is the issue because it ruins discussion for everybody.


What's as clear as day? I don't understand what point you're trying to make here.


I don't get what relevancy my signature has to do with anything here, and certainly isn't relevant to my argument about people making dreadful posts, but let's not be hypocrite here. You might not be on a campaign yet but you've literally just reappeared after quite an absence to apply for the very same campaign:


To even have a chance of getting onto that campaign you're going to have to make some decent posts in the meantime so let's not pretend that isn't in the back of your mind here and is probably your only motivation for even engaging with me right now. 


Really? Not sure I understand you right here but isn't the exactly what you're doing now? I think people do have time. Too much time. On 99% of forums people post or troll for free, but there is financial incentive here so it makes things unique and exponentially worse because greed and laziness become motivation. I have no issue with people getting paid to post if people are actually contributing something of substance, but people shouldn't be able to get paid for regurgitating the same sentence over 200 alt accounts just to get paid and that's what we're trying to solve.



None of what I've suggested is draconian and claiming so seems to be a gross exaggeration or being overly dramatic just for the sake. Requiring a few merit is nothing. Do you think requiring a drivers license to drive is draconian? I'd say it's logical. Not everyone is qualified to drive, just like not everyone is qualified to earn via posting.



I do see both sides. I'm actually trying to make things better for everyone. People shouldn't be able to get paid to destroy the forum so I'm saying earn that right. People are literally getting paid for writing junk and I don't think that's acceptable, just like I don't think it would be acceptable for someone to do a job that they're not qualified for.



Please kindly stop making stuff up. Where did I refer to anyone who is not a high rank as leeches? I don't think people should be able to get paid for merely banging their head against a keyboard or writing something like "bitcoin is good because it's profit and profit is good because it's bitcoin and I can buy my daily needs with profit". All I'm asking is for some minimum standards because clearly things can't go on as they are, and without doing something about it now then the next step would be to remove signatures completely. What would you and all the shitposters do then? The spammers would leave as fast as they came and to never return and thus having ruined it for everyone else in the process. I don't think they should be able to ruin it for everyone else and that's why we need some standards before the ultimate solution is to get rid of signatures.


You mean you want to easily be able to get paid for doing nothing? If you can make good posts then you shouldn't have an issue, but you're basically just complaining that you can't earn money easily and straight away.


What exactly is your point here? I write long posts and barely got any merit?


What is and isn't a great post is subjective, but my point is that if you're a decent contributor who puts thought and effort into their posts then you will almost certainly have no issue in getting the required merit to move up ranks over time. Spammers wont though and that's why the merit system is here.

Next to zero unless theymos or cyrus miraculously start to restore them or more staff are given access to do so. If that doesn't happen then they best you can hope for is the automatic recovery tool that theymos is (or was) working on that he said should hopefully be available by the end of the year. I still think more staff should be given access to restore them in the meantime though. Users unable to provide a signed message are still going to be left in the dark even when they can provide other proof that the account is rightfully theirs.

There wouldn't be an issue if your "friend" only did bounties, but that's not all he was doing. He was also copy and pasting:



Your account won't be unbanned.

Well the excuse or reasoning that they've come out with is that the league is meant to replace international friendlies, because countries often don't take them seriously and there's nothing to really play for. Now there is with this league, but obviously it's also just another way for UEFA to milk some money out of the 'tournament'. England internationals whether it be friendlies or tournaments like the Euros or World Cups have always been on free-to-air 'terrestrial' TV for as long as I can remember so anyone with a TV could watch them, but now Sky Sports have bought the rights to the Nation's League and you have to be a Sky subscriber to watch them, which I think is pretty shit. As I've always said, money ruins everything, especially sports.

It's not really new. People used to do this in the Press section all the time, but if all their posts are just them posting articles then I used to give them a warning because it's clear they're not really here to contribute anything and had just found a loophole to get paid for copy and pasting. Some of them were even using bots to post the stuff automatically and even in the correct format for the Press section. If their posts are all just article posting then just report them and I'll give them a warning.

It's irrelevant who's money they're losing or making when it's at the detriment to the forum. ICOs are pretty much wholly responsible for the forum being a wall-to-wall shitshow consisting of barely coherent crap made only for payment. Most ICOs don't actually lose anything either because they pay people in a pre-mined token or coin that they've made for free, so that's why they accept anyone and everyone regardless of quality because the more people advertising for them then the better, but this shouldn't be acceptable.


Depends what you mean by genuine users? Little cousin Timmy signing up to this forum because he's just been told he can get paid for posting? Is he a genuine user? Not when little Timmy can't speak English very well if at all and has only just found out about bitcoin and doesn't even give a shit about it other than the fact that he can earn money here. That's when we have a problem and that's why the forum is filled with mindless drivel, because little Timmy wants to earn some money and this forum is his best option for doing so. The fact that it's a forum about bitcoin is inconsequential and irrelevant to him, and that's a huge problem.


Merit doesn't solve the problem, but it helps curb abuse and is one more hoop they need to jump through. It obviously doesn't go far enough though, but at least it stops bots and the worst of the worse of posters from being able to get paid for copy and pasting or posting rubbish straight from the get-go.


What do you mean exactly by "interested in". The forum has decayed to the point of unusability because the board has slowly morphed into a place for people to earn money rather than being about a place to talk about bitcoin. Probably 99% of people only sign up here to earn from posting these days. It's like signing up to a Chinese Lamborghini forum. Only you can't speak Chinese, you don't care about cars and can't even drive. If a Chinese Lamborghini forum did start paying people to post then you'd have the same problem you have here: "I like Lamborghinis because they go fast and are nice colours and can get me from A to B and they help me with my daily needs". Ka-ching. Money in the pocket. Rinse and repeat over however many accounts you have and soon you might actually be able to afford that Lambo.  


I wholly disagree. If this was the case then nobody would be giving them out other than to their friends or "fanbase" and this just isn't the case. Most of us want people to make great posts regardless of who or what rank you are, because we're tired of the forum being overran with idiots posting drivel just to get paid. What possible benefit does somebody have by giving me merit? Show me what benefits the people who have merited me have received, otherwise this is just baseless and biased speculation. I don't even need it for anything, and I certainly don't look through my merit history making notes of the names so I can maybe do them a favour or send them some business their way.


Not really alts, but low quality posting. How do you ban alts exactly? One of the reasons they're allowed is because you can't really enforce the rule efficiently. There are also genuine reasons for having alts.


We're not punishing people who don't post enough. We're punishing people who don't really make any posts of substance. It should tell you all you need to know that people are crying like hysterical babies that they now need to get one merit for a signature. A solitary merit. How outrageous! Most people just aren't capable of writing anything constructive and hence why they're so irate because merit isn't easy for them to get, especially when you've got dozens of alts accounts. They got used to earning good money by posting shit and now some effort is actually required these entitled babies are furious because you've essentially snatched money out of their greedy/lazy hands. A word count rule doesn't do anything either and it can make things worse when people just carry on rambling to hit their quota. Some campaigns have had minimum word counts in the past but people just found ways to abuse it by hiding invisible junk onto the end of their posts.


Really? How is this any different? This is actually a far worse system and I don't think you've actually thought it through. If we would  have implemented this system you'd be here complaining about that right now as would thousands of other angry shitposters who had been neg-bombed into oblivion and have negative chance of being able to earn. How would they even get that back to positive or neutral without some sort of +1?


You can't on word count or rank, but why not merit? It somebody writes a really great post it's almost certainly going to get a merit, and probably quite a bit of it, and merit is a pretty good indication of a quality post or not as users making generic nonsense will go unmerited. Again, it's not a perfect system but it's better than nothing and anyone who comes here to contribute something worthwhile should have nothing to worry about as they will get the required merit over time, but those that come here and can't speak English very well and can offer nothing more than basic generic opinions are going to struggle and so they should. Merit isn't the be all and end all of spam control and it needs to go further, and there's a lot more that we need to be doing like punishing badly run signature campaigns, but this is a start and is certainly better than nothing.

You should probably just wait and hope that theymos implements the automatic recovery tool which he said should be ready by the end of the year, because your account just realistically isn't going to be recovered otherwise unless cyrus mysteriously starts to restore them or more staff are given access to do so.

This is why I think we should make the merit requirement ten. Nobody has time to go through a users post history to check it and this is something we shouldn't even have to do. I'm fine with one merit for becoming a Junior, but not to get a signature. Lets remove Juniors sigs completely and make the merit requirement ten to get one. That way we can be way more liberal with merits and at least a shitposter will have to redeem themselves by making multiple quality posts so their previous history shouldn't be something we have to worry about as they've probably redeemed themselves if they've managed to get the ten merit. Ten merit is also obviously ten times harder/more costly to abuse and one is far too easy to get or abuse right now. I think this benefits everyone and will probably make it easy for users to get the merit, or at least make them put more effort in over several posts rather than just hoping they get the merit for one decent post (which users are obviously reluctant to merit if it's an anomaly).

Yeah, that was it. What makes it worse is it probably wasn't true and people just use whatever desperate excuse they can think of which will get them the most sympathy as a last ditch attempt at saving their account. As I said in the thread, I would have had more respect if he had just apologised without the sob story (which I really don't believe). I wonder if theymos will ever implement signature bans? The only time I would ever let these users off is if they had their signature removed for x amount of time and they only got it back if they showed they contributed to the community in the meantime. Most are only here for payment so most probably wouldn't bother, but if you're active and contributing then I suppose you could redeem yourself, especially if you only copied a post or two. I would much prefer it if people just read the rules though and didn't actually copy and paste, because there really is no excuses for it.

There's a thread in Meta from a fairly high rank who was busted for copy and pasting and started coming out with excuses about his family been ill and stuff. Can't find it but I think it was made this year.


Being drunk might be an excuse for making a shitpost or being an arse out of character, but I'm not sure I'd accept it as an excuse for copy and pasting, and I'm sure this was just a fabricated excuse he chose to use. It's not going to get you unbanned either way.

It seems the "it was my wife" is becoming the popular new excuse these days and is fastly replacing the classic "friend" one:


Still doesn't excuse the merit abuse either. Perhaps merit should be renamed to 'partner points'.


They're not just shitting on the floor. They're painting the walls from floor to ceiling with it and doing a shitty job in the process  .

How exactly will this prove anything other than that you're married to someone? It seems "it was my wife" is becoming the popular new excuse these days and is fastly replacing the classic "friend" one. Either way, if what you're saying is actually true it still doesn't change the fact that you committed merit abuse and even gave them for bounty shitposts.

But ranks are meaningless when all you need is time and they were being colossally abused because of that because all you had to do was log in and make one post every fortnight regardless of quality. Do we let eighteen year-olds drive or fly a plane as soon as they turn 18 or do we require some sort of qualification from them before they're allowed to do so? Now that you need merit ranks will actually start to mean something and are at least some sort of achievement if you earn them, but they previously didn't mean anything other than you've made a certain amount of posts over a certain amount of time.


But this just wasn't the case. Many ICOs accepted anyone, even Newbies, and people were literally farming Junior accounts by their dozens and in some cases hundreds (and probably even thousands) just to abuse campaigns because that's all they needed to do to maximise earnings. That really needed to change and one merit is only a small spanner in the works for the biggest abusers and doesn't go far enough in my opinion.


I wouldn't call them elitist. I only wish more campaigns only accepted certain higher ranks, or just people who actually made great posts. If campaigns did their due diligence and had some quality control then we wouldn't have even needed ranks or merit in the first place, but the problem is many campaigns accepted anyone regardless of quality and that was the whole crux of the problem.


The only people who wouldn't agree to it are those who now actually have to start writing half-decent posts, and that isn't a bad thing. Any 'renowned' member wouldn't have an issue getting merit because they already make great contributions so it's largely irrelevant to them, but something needed to be done about the droves of people coming here just to post utter drivel over their 200 alt accounts each, especially when they can't speak English very well or know little to nothing about bitcoin and are only here because someone told them they can get paid for spamming or copy and pasting. Merit isn't a perfect system and it does work, but if you have a better solution I'm sure everyone would love to hear it.

Why are you asking this and why does it even matter? People get banned for breaking the rules and you were banned for plagiarism. Why is whether staff ban people 'simultaneously' or not a burning question?


"Friend". Do we really have to go over this whole rigmarole again? Why the hell would you create an account with the same name as your "friend". You even said it was your account in your first post here:

The user was probably removed and replaced with the two new people.


Can you sign a message from that address? There's huge gaps in your post history from August 24, 2016 to May 08, 2017 and then June 06, 2017 to September 06, 2018.

If you want a shot at this campaign you should probably follow what actmyname said, but also be more active here.

Please let me know where I can purchase a Lambo for the price of a solitary merit or a Copper Membership, or stop with the dramatic exaggeration. These idiots need to get one merit, and if they can't achieve that or afford the ten dollars for a Copper Membership then they should find another 'job'. There is no entry barrier to posting here and that's the crux of the whole issue in the first place as anyone is free to post away without limitation (other than the spam-control wait times) and when they can get paid for that it just becomes a recipe for disaster. I actually don't think there's enough barriers to be able to start earning from posting here and you should have to have actually achieved something before you're allowed to earn from posting and begging or buying a merit certainly doesn't qualify someone to do so.

It doesn't have to set an absolute precedent whatever the outcome, but merit abuse should probably be taken on a case by case basis. The fact that he received merits for two separate posts within a minute by the same user who is also a scammer and was trying to sell merit it is pretty obvious some shenanigans went on here. If we were going to give people the benefit of the doubt then in probably 99% of cases there's never going to be be enough evidence to be wholly conclusive.

But it really isn't hard. People shouldn't have to just make one good post and then they're good to go. Any idiot can do that, and once they have it they then don't have to bother making any more good posts because Christmas has come early for them. They can just go back to shitposting again, so that's why they should have to demonstrate they're not a one-hit wonder and can make a handful of decent posts. This is why I would argue we should make the requirement ten merit, and I actually think it will make things easier for everyone. People will be more liberal with their merits and so users are more likely to get merited, and shitposters won't be able to abuse the system as easy. When one merit is all you need to earn here people become weary about giving that user a license to get paid, and making one solitary good post really isn't enough to measure their capability especially when you can just beg, buy or trade the merit quite easily.