Okay. A pot of coffee and a meal later, and I'm ready to address your concerns. tl;dr: You've done more damage to the campaign than every cheater in its history by publicly pointing out how easy it is to circumvent my system.
Coin control is much easier said then done. Especially considering that most people that are going to try to abuse your campaign probably do not know how to sign a message, I highly doubt they will be able to properly maintain coin control. There is an example
here where someone repeatedly gets negative trust on his alts (he is a serial scammer) for no reason other then that he is very bad with coin control. I have deleted my quote in this post, and removed posts that describe how this abuse is possible, although this "method" has been known to me for a long time. I don't think having it posted here is going to allow anyone to evade detection that otherwise would not be able to do so.
Point 1: Evasion via coin control
It should be obvious at this point that there are logical limitations to what I am capable of discovering. The rules are designed to make it clear that detectable abuse of the signature campaign system will not be tolerated by this campaign. The question about undetectable abuse is a clear-cut case of sealawyering your way around the intent of the campaign and is, on its face, abusive behavior. You're basically asking if it is OK for your customers to anonymously violate the spirit and intent of the campaign by careful coin control. While they might get away with it, it is still not OK and is considered abuse; once discovered, abusers are removed. In response to your direct question, "what if..." the answer is: "You will get away with it until proof of abuse is assembled, and then you will be barred from the campaign." Does this mean one could do it successfully? Yes. Does it mean that this is appropriate behavior, or business with integrity? No. It's abuse of this campaign.
The reason I asked, is because I am about to retire from the account selling business (I only have one account for sale left), and do not wish to sell this account as it has a bit of reputation associated with it and do not want it to be used to scam; I have one other account that I use for signature campaign purposes (it is often looked to for advice and has a general reputation of putting a lot of effort into posts), and am looking for a campaign to put this account in. I think the tl;dr answer is 'no' so unless you decide otherwise I probably wont be joining this one.
To my knowledge none of my customers have tried to join your campaign, although I honestly have not been following it very closely so I cannot say for sure. Like I said, I only have one account left for sale, so it wouldn't exactly make me huge amounts of money if I listed a selling point that it can join your campaign
Point 2: Quality of advertising
This campaign does have post quality requirements, mostly to deter spammers and abusers. However, there are also the marginal cases of individuals that enroll with intent to post with quality then find themselves in a "hurry-up" situation. I'm very forgiving of situations like this, having issued a few light warnings but only actively barring one single enrollee based on quality and frequency. While post quality is one important facet of enrollment, it is not the most important one. The argument that a "cheating" account could still provide quality posts carries no weight since those signatures are still associated with the behavior of the user. This is a self-perpetuating cycle: as Lucky Bit has been associated with removing signature farmers, less farmers have applied to the program, thus protecting its integrity and improving both the brand image and membership post quality. Similarly, as other campaigns are associated with signature farming, their brands have incurred a negative image which attracts more spammers to the campaign. It may be effective advertising, but it isn't good branding and Lucky Bit deserves better.
So it sounds like you have a zero tolerance policy on people having multiple accounts in signature campaigns. I do agree that this will probably deter a lot of people from spamming with your signature, and I do agree that companies with a lot of spammers do make the company look bad - just look at how bit-x looks, and compare that to how da dice looks (one campaign that spammers flock to, and one campaign that does a pretty decent job of fighting spam, although is probably not as aggressive as you are).
My ideology includes the fact that rules are made to be broken and that every rule should have exceptions. I would argue that making exceptions to your rule for cases of exceptionally good posters would allow you to attract people who have a reputation of knowing what they are talking about and as a result what they post would be closely looked at because it is reviewed multiple times when someone wants an answer to a previously asked question (for example). If you would not agree with this then we will probably need to agree to disagree on this point.
Point 3: Specific rule statements
This really gets under my skin because it is a blatant case of nit-picking. The OP is long enough - too long, in fact; about 15% of Lucky Bit players seeking to enroll in the campaign ask me to summarize the program in chat because they don't want to read it. Adding more specific, stringent rules to explicitly prohibit activity that is impossible to detect would be not only counterproductive, but also encourage more nit-picking against the rules of the campaign as well as enable abusers. If you want to pick nits - I have, under the rules, the right to refuse payment to anyone for no disclosed reason beyond "inappropriate activity discovered during a background check". Of course, I've never done this, nor do I intend to; unfortunately, I cannot expect the same integrity of applicants.
I argue that having specific rules would avoid disputes with participates and disputes can potentially cause controversy which can be damaging to the brand being advertised.
Point 4: Enabling the abusers
The final decision to issue or not issue payment is, and has always been, mine alone; I have always included undisclosed factors in my decision making process. Semantic arguments about the rules are a petty method of abuse, and abuse is explicitly prohibited; so I think it should be clear that what you describe is not, by any measure, operating with a standard that is acceptable to this program. Perhaps that is a high standard for your business; it is substandard for mine and your flagrant disregard for the intent of the system tears into the fabric of integrity that sustains this program.
When I enter into a trade with someone, specific terms of the trade that include what exactly I am delivering and what exactly I expect to receive, the purpose of this is to avoid potential disputes. If anything happens outside of the specific terms then that has nothing to do with the trade.
I warned you that this can couldn't be sealed again. The future can only be determined by actions taken in the present - the status of this campaign is now publicly in question, and I cannot state with any certainty what, if anything, can protect it. This issue has been an existential threat to the campaign since October and is now a tangible one as well. I don't want to end this program, but I may have to simply because there is no effective way to accurately combat abuse without imposing draconian restrictions or effectively limiting the program to participants of my personal preference. Until today, I've been able to hide behind plausible deniability; since you've now publicly shoved the issue directly in my face, I can no longer feign ignorance.
Like I said previously most people would probably not be able to successfully pull this off if you gave them instructions. There are even a few ways to catch people via the blockchain if they do maintain proper coin control if you try hard enough. Although a few miner changes might need to be made to make this detection easier.
I strongly suspect that my campaign is still being actively abused and there is nothing I can, with integrity, do to stop it, because I cannot produce proof. I believe in the principle of presumed innocence, and won't accuse without just cause, but I also cannot stand by and knowingly enable abusers. Today, I face a dilemma that could end the Lucky Bit Signature Campaign. It's impossible to prevent abuse and now everyone knows why and how.
You can accuse all you want, just don't pass judgment without proof. If you think someone is abusing the campaign then you can ask them and there is a chance they will admit to it, although there is also a chance they will try to cover up evidence, but if you already have copies of their entire post history, you could easily determine what evidence they covered up.
If you have specific suspicions I can look into it further for you if you like, although I may not be able to come up with sufficient concrete proof to eject someone from the campaign
My undisclosed factors are no longer secret: I look for proof of identity, on the blockchain and the forum. My tools are block explorers, Bitcoin Talk, and a network of like-minded individuals; it is not only possible to defeat this, it is trivial for anybody that knows what I was looking for. Your post has widened the "anybody that knows" to "everybody" which renders the entire background check process a waste of time for me and for abusers - but more for me.
Sometimes approving someone to join a campaign can be as simple as reviewing one's post history and saying that their post quality is not what you are looking for. Farmed account or not, if someone is making poor quality posts, that come off as spam, you probably don't want them in your campaign even if you know without any shred of doubt that they only have one account enrolled in a signature campaign.
I've been proud to faithfully manage this program for almost a year. My actions have created a visible, positive impact on the signature campaign space. I've watched signature ads transform from unmoderated in-your-face sellout branding to detailed, high-quality works of advertising art maintained by individuals that care about the forum. It would be a tragedy to see it all collapse under the threat of abuse despite all the steps I have taken to create a better signature campaign.
Your campaign is not big. Even if you do not deny payment to someone, it may sometimes be appropriate to tell someone that things are not working out and that they will not be allowed to continue.
I honestly don't know what to do next. As you've plainly pointed out, the campaign could be populated with cheaters and I would be unable to detect it. I've taken a best-faith effort to root out the problem, but it will never go away and a large portion of the work I've done is now much less useful. I am now forced to seriously weigh the time-cost effectiveness of this program against other promotions that carry less abuse potential.
It would be a lot easier to detect if small changes were to be made to the program; you probably wouldn't be able to prevent people from participating in the first place, however you would be able to weed people out.
Show Posts
