Is this supposed to be one of those garbage posts we are trying to stop?

I think it is a requirement that you be wearing a paid signature to write that kind of post, preferably advertising some kind of scam ICO whose bounty campaign is being run by an extortionist.

My concern with the merit system is that I don't think it necessarily identifies "good" posters, but rather identifies posters whose opinions align with those who are considering awarding merit to a particular post.

My concerns are not necessarily regarding needing one merit to achieve Junior member status, in fact I would think it would be net beneficial to require a $10 payment to participate in a signature campaign, although a smaller nominal fee may be beneficial to prevent things like spambots and those who are getting paid to bump ANN threads, although changes to the ordering of threads is probably a better way to address the later issue.

My concern is more surrounding the number of merit required to rank from Member up to Full Member, and higher. Very few people to date have received sufficient merit to rank up to Full Member or higher. I would argue that if someone pays for the benefits of a Full Member status, they have incentives to continue to make not-garbage posts.

I don't think we should do away with the activity system, and believe that activity should continue to play a role in users' ranks.

I currently have received more merit than everyone in the forum except for 218 people, and I have not received sufficient merit to achieve Senior Member status, but am a Legendary member only because I was grandfathered in. However I have pretty much always been able to obtain above market rates for signature deals (even after receiving negative trust) when I have been active and been trying to actively sell my signature. Surely there are more than 220 people who make sufficiently good posts to be a Senior Member.

An ideal system in my view would be for someone to pay maybe a dollar to become a junior member (that would not allow signatures of any kind), pay $10-$20 to become a Member/Copper Member, and from there, can pay some additional amount to rank up further provided they have sufficient activity, perhaps even sufficient activity after becoming a Copper Member to become a Full Member, and so on.

Edit:changed full membership to senior member. However I have barely received sufficient merit to become a full member.

Most of the last three pages of your posts are nothing more than 1-2 lines. It seems you also often say that you agree as part of these 2 lines of a post.

I have reviewed the last two pages of your posts, and have declined to send you one merit. If you have questions about why your rank decreased, please see this thread.

I think you should consider the ability to buy merit for yourself. You can already effectively do this by way of purchasing a copper membership. Based upon the fact that well under 1% of active users have received a single merit, there need to be additional ways for people who do not post garbage to rank up.

Further, if people are buying access to additional features such as signatures, they have an added incentive to not post crap, and the cost will serve as a deterrent to those who have ranked up from posting complete garbage. 

All public officials are ultimately occupying their position via election, either directly or indirectly.

Those public officials who are appointed, if they do not fulfill their duties as per the will of the people, you will be removed from your position by someone who is elected.

I would like to thank all of my supporters and everyone who voted for me. I would encourage my supporters to push for a more fair ordering of candidates in future elections so that votes are not concentrated for those who are at the top of the list. 

You don’t know what Manafort is going to tell Mueller. I have read that he may give dirt on Podesta or others in his circle.

He is also pleading guilty to specific crimes that would make it difficult to mount a defense if his convictions are overturned on appeal.

My understanding is that Manafort was previously investigated many years ago and authorities declined to pursue charges. I also understand that Mueller didn’t uncover substantial additional information about Manafort. These facts make me come to the conclusion that Manafort would not have been prosecuted except for his connection to Trump.

Rick Gates, who was Manafort right hand man, and who stayed on the campaign after Manafort resigned from the campaign has been cooperating for months, so presumably Mueller would have information regarding the Trump campaign that manafort could offer, if any exists.

Further, based upon the fact that the FBI was spying on the trump campaign, I would find it unlikely that Manafort would have information that the FBI, and the Mueller team doesn’t already know about.

I agree that Manafort should get pardoned, but not for trump to protect himself.

I suspect that this was a reverse proxy from when theymos was trying to mitigate the DDoS attacks himself.

I don't think theymos will disclose the hosing provider, especially if it is a smaller provider because that could subject the hosing provider to DDoS attacks in an attempt to bring the forum offline, as the forum is a fairly large target for DDoS attacks.

Daniels is making money from her being a stripper, likely a lot, and she is publishing a book detailing her 2006 encounter with Trump that is set to be released next month.

Two words: Identity Politics

Tonight on Tucker Carlson tonight, Tucker Carlson debated Michael Avenatti, who he commonly refers to as "Creepy Porn Lawyer" (some may say this is an accurate description), you can watch it here.

In the segment, Carlson accuses Avenatti as exploiting Stormy Daniels because she is performing in "seedy" strip clubs while Avenatti's relationship with Daniels is allowing him to get free air time on Cable news (some say is worth millions of dollars), and a shoe in a potentially new career, with the potential to run for president.

I believe that people should be able to earn a living however they want, as long as what they are doing is not hurting anyone, and Stormy Daniels is not hurting any third parties by performing in strip clubs. However the argument is that Daniels is performing naked in strip clubs while people throw things at her, and that people would probably not be performing in these clubs if they were not desperate. I don't believe the clubs she has been performing in are upscale.

Carlson also brought up the point that Daniels didn't appear to have been harmed by President Trump, as the relationship appeared to be consensual and was paid at its conclusion. He asked Avenatti how she was harmed, but he did not give what I consider to be any kind of direct answer.

Watch the clip above, it is entertaining.

Is Avenatti exploiting Stormy Daniels? Has Daniels been harmed in any real way by Trump?

edit: Here is a youtube link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoS2lDhD3RA

Multi-posting? Trolling? These are my best guesses.

I am fairly confident that theymos does not live in a dungeon. He at least used to live in Wisconsin, but given how cold it is there, I am not sure why anyone would want to live in Wisconsin, so I presume he has moved to someplace warmer, especially considering his probable wealth resulting from the massive rise in the value of his bitcoin.

This is unlikely. Iran makes up a fairly small portion of global oil production and other major oil exporters will likely increase their own production to make up for Iran's losses.

What could affect oil prices is Iran trying to stop trade through the Persian Golf, although if they try this, they are almost directly inviting a war against Europe and the US, which they are almost certain to lose.

IIRC, theymos said something about using AWS instances as a reverse proxy to help combat DDOS attacks, and possibly for scaling issues.

I am not sure if this is still the case, but you used to be able to spin up a free AWS instance with just a credit card, that was free for a year, and I am pretty sure they would let you pay for AWS via your gift card/account balance.

theymos' identity is public, and anyone should be able to find it via a simple google search.

It looks like he is posting a bunch of incoherent crap in the majority of his post and otherwise agreeing with the title.

If you only got 45%, it sounds like the refund was in fact not done properly...