It is not spam to reply to every thread in a subforum as long as the replies are constructive. Although considering that the picture is of the off topic section, I somewhat doubt the replies could potentially be constructive.

The OP is putting a lot of work into keeping the campaign updated. If you found a campaign because of this thread then it is more then appropriate to send something (maybe just .01) once you get paid, especially if you are making a lot of money from a campaign like PD or dicebitco.in

This is more or less a scam. The OP is asking for usernames prior to making an offer. The OP either is more then likely going to negative trust any account you try to sell him.

Deal with extreme caution.

EDIT: If you give the OP the exact amount of posts and activity then he can figure out which account you are selling.

The poll is regarding this thread.

The issue regarding bribes is that it is very difficult to determine which mods took which actions, or that an action was even taken. For example the modlog has 1,380 posts/replies deleted, 91 users "nuked", 110 threads removed, and 7 users "autobaned". I believe the modlog goes back 14 days. Some of these actions may be overlapping each-other (I am not sure if nuking a user would also make all their posts show up on the modlog as deleted). This is roughly 1,600 actions over 14 days (lets call it 100 actions per day). I only saw one new thread about someone having their posts deleted yesterday, so 99 actions were taken without anyone complaining. This makes it difficult to know if an action a mod has taken would be worth discipline.

Google searching "define bribe" results in the following If someone is being bribed for something that the person receiving the bribe should/could be doing anyway then it would really not be a bribe, but rather giving money in exchange for nothing.

there is a valid business reason to allow for account sales. If you are so strongly against account selling (despite your account being purchased) you should do something about it. Signature campaigns are what essentially creates a market for accounts. You are participating in a signature campaign so you clearly don't feel that strongly about the issue.

There is no valid business reason to allow what essentially amounts to a bribe of mods.

The OP is not willing to keep track when only certain ranking are open for enrollment because it would be too much work to keep track of. Do you have any idea how much more work it would be to keep track of how many free spots there are?

I don't understand why you insist on trolling like this. It is very annoying.

Oh and P.S. I googled your handle and it looks like you have done a lot of damage to a lot of people in the past. Even forged a tweet to try to do damage to your competition.

A staff account is not a level account. It is something that is given to people in order to moderate the forum.

He is trolling.

you aren't going to get .3 for a full member account, even if it has 238 activity. This is especially true now that there are no open signature campaigns.

I have said what I want. I want the forum to have a policy that would prohibit mods/staff from accepting any business deal that is not available to the general public under the same terms and conditions that is available to the general public (this would include accepting a higher signature rate just because they are a mod).

You do not know that my accounts were banned, and you do not have proof. And no I will not prove it to you by disclosing the names of my accounts.

I am not scamming anyone by selling accounts. This is within the forum rules. I would think that most accounts that are purchased do not end up scamming because they would get negative trust once it is found out they are trying to scam. This is not the point however.

I am a huge believer in everyone having to play by the same rules. If you are paying off mods in exchange for favors then you are not playing by the same rules as everyone else.

Stunna did not ban anyone. He did not pay 9 people because the admins had banned them.

If you wanted to ask if any of my accounts were banned, then the answer would be no. If you wanted to ask if he has not paid me, then the answer would be no (although there are several members of the campaign who were not banned but have not been paid as of yet - I would not be surprised if they ended up getting banned soon).

My arguments however are still valid regardless of if any of my accounts were banned or not. That fact does not have any bearing to the conversation.

I don't think you are understanding what I am saying. Let me say it a different way. If someone makes a valid point then it should be listened to regardless of who makes the point. It will be more difficult to notice a signature for someone who has a lower rank because of restrictions on their signature.

I am arguing that if a staff member accepts a higher payment then what is otherwise available to them then the staff member will be able to be influenced to the person providing payment. This is akin to the campaign manager buying power.

As noted above the only users that are allowed to join the PD campaign are staff. Do you have any evidence to support this argument? Do moderators posts get quoted more often? Do they get replied to more often? In my experience they do not. As I said before there are a lot of staff that post something that is addressed to a smaller subset of users, for example explaining a ban or a rule that apples to few people.

Legendary members used to be able to join, however this is no longer the case.

Campaign has changed as of August term, ranks below senior are no longer allowed to participate. Also all senior/hero slots are full
The affiliate program is really nothing more then a scam. I would not expect to get any referrals or referral earnings from having my referral link on my signature. PD already has a very large user base, and I would argue that the effect of the PD signatures is to get people who already have accounts to deposit money and gamble. Few few people have not heard of PD and very people do not already have an account at PD. This however is a very different conversation for a different place.

It is not a matter of fairness as to who gets paid what. Any campaign manager has the right to pay whoever whatever they want. The issue at hand here is if someone who has power over the forum can accept a business opportunity that involves them receiving a higher then market rate. The higher payments do not only affect the members in the campaign, they affect the entire forum. The only way to avoid this would be to not participate in the forum, to not exercise your right to free speech. When someone with power receives an above market payment, they will owe the person who gave them the payment something in return. This will affect the way the forum is moderated; when someone wants a mod on their payroll to turn a blind eye they will be more likely to do so, or (more likely) when someone wants a mod to be more strict against a certain member or group of members they will be more likely to do so.
Since you were offered a higher rate then what other people with your same rank receive, you decided to keep your signature? This is exactly my point. Although there is nothing against the rules with you having a signature, you admit to keeping it because of the higher rate. Now since you are receiving a higher rate, if you were to receive a request to look at a particular account/thread and take action against the account/thread by the operator of PD would you possibly do so? Do you think the action you would take would be at least a little bit influenced by the fact that you are now earning more money then what other members earn?

You don't have to be a mod to have your post sticked, you only need to have written a post that is very important and informative to the sub-forum in question. There are many stickies that are not written by a mod. Also your well deserved earning is what you get from the forum in exchange for being a mod/staff member.

Why do I need to be personally affected by this in order to want the market to be as fair as possible?

Would you admit that this setup is not fair? If so would you think this is something that is okay?

Like I said before the length of time an account has been around (as well as the number of posts an account has made) does not affect the message being said.

I have no issue with users earning different amounts based on their ranking. A full member account is able to display a bigger signature then a member. A senior account has the same feature then a full member account. A hero account is able to display background colors while a senior account cannot. A legendary member's post is generally looked at more closely then a hero member's posts.

A staff member on the other hand generally will have their posts directed towards a smaller subset of people, more often then not addressing a specific concern of a user. Sometimes a staff member may post something unrelated to their duties as a moderator (and adding something to the conversation of the topic) but the rules for signatures are not changed because someone is a moderator, and a post is generally not looked at more closely because someone is a moderator/staff member (I don't have specific stats on how much staff members contribute to a conversation verses are directed towards a specific concern, but the best case scenario is that a moderator contributes 100% to the conversation and carries the same signature as others in his ranking). As a result there is no valid business reason to want to pay a staff member at a higher rate then other senior members earn (assuming the subject staff member is a senior member) other then to use that additional payment to get something out of them later.

In my private career, I have been forbidden from accepting gifts exceeding $25 per year from any one person in order to prevent any perceived conflict of interest. In the case in question, a senior member who also is a staff member would receive an extra $60 per month (based on $500/BTC) in compensation which comes out to $720 per year, or would be able to take advantage of an offer that is not available to anyone except for a staff member if they are not yet enrolled. The purpose of this limit is to prevent judgment from being clouded in the event of a request being received that should not be granted or a request that is borderline appropriate/inappropriate.

There is only one signature campaign that is doing this to my knowledge. The reason why I did not name the specific campaign is because I think the rules should be evenly be applied to everyone.

Someone's username and/or ranking should not have an effect on how you receive a message as long as the message contains a valid point. I would hope that you would not give money to a legendary member when they are clearly scamming when you would not give money to a newbie when the newbie is trying to pull the same scam. Why should my message be any different?

I don't like signature spammers either (or any other type of spammers for that matter). What I am saying is that it is not right to be able to use your position of power to be able receive a higher payment for no reason other then the fact that you hold this power. This is especially true when the person paying you is monitoring the same people that you (a person of power) has been entrusted to monitor and regulate, and you have additional tools to monitor these people.

Again thank you for your response.

I personally do not and would not expect privacy for any emails sent/received (equivalent to a PM) with my work email. I would not send any email that I would not want my boss (or her boss, or his boss, or his boss, or her boss, or his boss) to see as I would like to be able to maintain a positive relationship with all of them. I would also personally consider that a PM to a particular mod/staff member to be potentially be seen by any other mod/staff member. Then again I believe it has been said that the mods should be considered and looked at as volunteers.

I believe the moderator in question (I do not know with 100% certainty who it was, but I believe I know who it was) did have very good intentions. If he is who I think he is, then he is a very respected member of the community (and by me), and I think having him as a moderator will have an overall positive effect on the community. I also think that the forums definition of spam are very different then a campaign operator's definition of spam. (this may not matter as it is apparent that various back end processes are somewhat different then what I had imagined).

My concern is not so much as a business offering the higher rate as it is that moderators are accepting the higher rate (or being allowed to do so).

Again I thank you for addressing my concerns. Although the policy what not changed to what I was hoping for, you have at the very least looked into my concerns, and reacted in a way that you feel is appropriate in your best judgment (I would personally trust your judgment).

I hope at the very least my concerns have inspired some level of conversation about this topic (or at the very least inspired some level of thought about this topic).

I want to keep things as professional as possible. By directing accusations at certain people it makes it look like I am targeting them specifically which I am not (I have nothing against either of the people you mentioned personally). I hope to get the forum to adopt a policy against moderators accepting business opportunities that are not available to the general public if a member of the public was in the same circumstances.

You are correct to say that any campaign operator is free to pay whatever they want to whoever they want, but it should not necessarily be within forum guidelines/rules to accept these kinds of offers.

I think it is a very good intent but if a mod is using forum resources to do something that is not official forum business then that is wrong. AFAIK the forum does not have a policy against spammers from getting paid on a signature campaign. Since there is no policy against this there is no reason for a representative of the forum to try to prevent this from happening.

The definition of spam by the forum and the definition of spam by any campaign operators are likely very different. I recently saw a post of a campaign operator that said any posts in the off topic section is not considered to be "constructive" (aka is spam) while the forum obviously allows posts in the off topic section.

A campaign operator that is getting non public information is essentially receiving information would essentially receive an unfair advantage over other campaign operators.