The main reason against accepting accounts as collateral is because we end up with situations like this one, where the lender needs to sell the collateral given to him when a loan is defaulted on.  I'm obviously against account sales, regardless of whether it's an account farmer selling a whole bunch or a lender who got stuck with one on a bad loan.  I'd absolutely love it if Theymos banned certain things on bitcointalk, and account sales is near the top of my list (scamming would take the #1 spot).  If account sales were banned, chances are that lenders might become reluctant to accept them as loan collateral.  Hell, I wouldn't mind having a rule against putting them up as collateral in the first place, but I highly doubt Theymos is going to make such a rule.

I'm not against freedom, but there have to be rules unless you want anarchy.  Also, I would point out that sometimes members put their account up as collateral for a loan that they never intend to pay back.  It's a sneaky way of selling their account, basically.  You'd assume that a borrower would want his account back and thus giving it to the lender would motivate the borrower to pay the loan back, but there are many reasons why that doesn't always happens.  I've seen numerous examples of lenders ending up with bitcointalk accounts that they have no real use for (DarkStar_ even mentioned he has one), and then what happens?  They have to sell them.  Technically they don't have to, but it's the only way to recoup their money.

I don't see a clear consensus forming here, nor do I see anyone tagging grtthegreat.  Some folks argue that account sellers shouldn't be tagged at all, some don't like exceptions being made, and some just hate DT.  I know I can't please everyone with anything I do, but if and when a situation like this comes up again, it would be nice to know what the community generally expects.  Even better would be some input by Theymos, but I won't hold my breath.

That link isn't to one of my posts there, it's just a link to the thread which I posted multiple times in.  This is what I mean by time-wasting.  Show me the exact quote you're referring to and we'll see how well it matches up to your situation.

Again, this is a link to someone I tagged for selling an account.  What escrow service are you talking about?

Who are you talking about?  Why do I have to guess who or what it is you're talking about when you write things?  Both you and laracrofth (the user you linked to above) had negative trust before I left any for either of you. 

You're trolling and intentionally trying to get me to waste time jumping through your hoops, and I'm not going to do it anymore.  There's a big difference between everything you've written in this thread and a reasonable concern like the one r1s2g3 raised.  I'm done with you.

No, and in fact the first and only time I've done that was with grtthegreat, because I was trying to learn from the mistake I made with iluvbitcoins, where I knew I shouldn't have tagged him but did anyway in spite of his otherwise very trusted reputation. 

As for the other stuff you wrote above, I don't know what escrow you're talking about and if you don't give a clear picture of what you're trying to argue with details and links, don't waste my time making me search for what you're referencing.  In fact, just stop wasting my time in general.  I'm not going to bite the hook anymore.  You earned your red tags--all of them.

You can call it a double standard, but I'd call it reviewing each case individually and not using a cookie-cutter approach to negging account sellers.  I've also written that it was a tough call on that one and I'm not even 100% certain I made the right decision in not tagging grtthegreat.  See this post for my views on it.  In addition, any other DT member (or non-DT for that matter) is free to tag grtthegreat if they want to.  The account buyers I have no problem tagging, since they're using someone else's reputation and rank to do whatever they want with.

Valid question, except I missed this right at the end of your post:
My bad.  So my answer to this would be that everything you mentioned has been brought up so many times and has been met with indifference not only by Theymos but a good part of the community as well.  Your feedback speaks for itself--you earned it.  One of two negs would have been sufficient, but sometimes multiple DT members chime in and reinforce others' feedbacks.

As to why the other members have positive trust, the answer to that is that the community decided they were worthy of it. 

And as far as this:
I don't know what the bolded part even means.  Are you implying (or outright stating) that I'm a merit abuser?  If that's your claim, it would appear that no one agrees with you since I haven't been tagged by anyone who provided credible evidence of this.  And feel free to take a look at my merit-sending history.  I freely give merits to a wide range of members.  Sure, I've sent merits to members like suchmoon, o_e_l_e_o, marlboroza, and others multiple times--but that's because they make genuinely good posts.  It's not some evil plot or even misusing the merit system.

My connection with the HBW account has been known for a long time now, and what has the community's response been to that?  Nothing.  It was off-color humor done in jest, and I don't even use that account anymore.  It's a non-issue which you trolls keep bringing up constantly, hoping someone will eventually care.  Or maybe you're just power hungry yourself and are resorting to the age-old political tactic of smearing your opponent in an attempt to gain support. 

You might want to take a minute to reflect on exactly how much good you've done for the forum, and compare that result to how much good the members you're attacking have done.  I don't expect you'll do that, so I'll just hope that you really do take a break from the forum (like you said you were going to).

First of all, who's "we"?

Second, what question are you talking about?  If you're referring to what you addressed in the OP, you were specifically requesting input from Theymos.  Please educate me as to what question I'm supposedly ducking.

I thought you were going to take a break from the forum:


Or have you decided to keep rehashing the same arguments all of the recent trolls have been repeating over and over, and which consistently fall upon deaf ears?  I'm hoping you stick with your original plan and just leave--even if it's only temporary. 

Sweet.

Funny how the OP likely created this thread in order to get merits and is finally getting some one year later.  The account hasn't even been active for months now.  Maybe this thread needs to be locked?  

Edit:
No criticism from me as far as giving him merits--I got fooled as well when I started reading the thread and didn't realize it was from last year until I got about halfway through the first page. 

Stop it.  I've done business with Triple, and he's been completely trustworthy based on my interactions with him--and it looks like he's trying to resolve the issue with OP, which is good to see.  This all seems to be an unfortunate incident but not a scam attempt on Triple's part.

Edit:  Just to clarify, I don't have any issue with OP creating this thread--if that had happened to me, I would have done the same thing.  My issue is with the garbage post above that adds nothing to anything.  I'm also not saying that a Hero member with green trust couldn't/wouldn't scam, because I've seen it happen.  Hopefully OP will update this so the community can see if the issue has been resolved.

I have no idea who bolinao is, but his feedback causes OP's trust to be red on my screen.

OP, there's nothing DT members are likely to do for you (though I don't even know who's on DT2 these days), and this isn't a moderator issue either.  The only option you really have is to work it out with bolinao or just live with the neg on your trust page.

That's the exact situation I didn't want to happen again when I was made aware of grtthegreat selling this account.  When I started tagging account sellers in 2016, I always checked their feedback first and if they were extremely trusted, I didn't neg them.  OmegaStarScream was one of those if I recall correctly.  In addition, I've removed negs from account sellers/buyers after some time has passed IF they've shown proof that they've done trustworthy things and haven't been just a scummy account dealer. 

In the case of iluvbitcoins and grtthegreat, all the evidence of trustworthiness was already there.  In the former case, I chose consistency in tagging sellers over weighing in other factors, like his trust page.  I regretted that and didn't want to repeat the same mistake with grtthegreat--plus he gave me his word via PM that he'd stop accepting BCT accounts as collateral and wouldn't sell any more accounts.  Take that for what it's worth.

If any other member thinks I made the wrong decision here, I completely understand--and you're obviously free to leave grtthegreat a neg if you see fit to do so.  I'm reading all the replies here and am trying to gauge how the community feels about how the tagging should be done.  My feeling is that each case ought to be looked at individually, because there are sometimes mitigating factors that would suggest that some account sellers shouldn't get negged, and perhaps a neutral would be more appropriate if any feedback had to be given at all. 

Not all account sellers are the same.  There are ones who should clearly get tagged, e.g., in threads where the OP says he has multiple Sr. Member accounts in stock and is obviously an account farmer.  I really don't like the fact that grtthegreat sold a green-trusted account, and I'm glad it was identified.  I figured it would be with the info he gave about it in the sales thread.  I almost changed my mind when I found that out, but I didn't.

If you think I screwed up, please tell me.  As I said, I was conflicted about this just as I was with the iluvbitcoins case, and I'm open to suggestions. 

Yeah, but you've got the evidence and some unknown individuals reporting the same thing to a domain registrar is going to look like sock puppeteering.  We've got enough problems to deal with right here on bitcointalk without having to get involved with your issue with this website.

Edit:
My suggestion to you is to sober up and stop trying to waste people's time.

What do "trustworthy" members have to do with this?  This isn't a forum scam, and I'm not sure who you want anyone to report your experience with these people to.  Everyone probably ignored this thread because it's not a bitcointalk issue and there's nothing they can help you with.

I'm listening with an open mind to everyone here, and this was another call that I was conflicted about.  However, I did tell grtthegreat that i wasn't going to tag him, so I won't.  I did mention that this wouldn't mean that other DT members might not feel the same, and I would encourage any of them who disagree with my decision to go ahead and follow their conscience.

We had this discussion about consistency vs. treating each case individually when the situation happened with iluvbitcoins.  I meant it when I said that the little voice in my head was telling me not to tag him because he wasn't the average scummy account seller.  That same voice was telling me not to tag grtthegreat in this case, based upon his reputation and his promise not to engage in this shit anymore.  I appreciate the community's input here, whether it's critical or supportive, because hopefully it'll lead to a consensus on how these cases should be dealt with.

This was reported to me by another member, and I PM'ed grtthegreat asking him to delete the selling posts, as this is a situation much like the one with iluvbitcoins where I don't think the member is deserving of a neg in the face of a lot of other positive trust.  I explained that I wasn't going to tag him but that other DT members might feel differently.  In his last PM to me, grtthegreat said he was done accepting accounts as collateral and done with account sales.

I'll probably get shit for this either way, but I tried to make a fair call on this one and not repeat the mistake I made with iluvbitcoins.  The account that got bought is another story, however.  I'm going to have to wake up and drink coffee and reread this thread.

If anyone without a reputation was dismissed as a scammer (your claim), it would be very hard for them to end up on DT1.  They would have been tagged and would have little chance of achieving that.  Out of those members I listed, do you think any of them are scammers?  I'd like you to answer that question if you wouldn't mind.

If you don't see all the scamming that's going on here on the forum, you need glasses.  And you've been here long enough to know that there's no contracts when someone pulls off a loan scam, PayPal chargebacks, offers 100% ROI within a week, or any of the other typical BCT scams, nor does anyone mention law.  Why would we?  Nobody is going to the police for any of the typical scammers that DT members tag. 

As far as evidence goes, what do you call the information that gets presented in the scam accusation forms that members fill out when they get scammed?  How about the alt accounts abusing bounties?  The evidence is all there.

The forum polices itself against scams, and DT goes out of its way to help with that.  The DT list is certainly not perfect, but it's nowhere near the cabal of power-hungry little Hitlers that you make it out to be.

And rather than be on the losing end of the argument, you resort to blaming me for presenting facts and start playing the victim.  Let's face it, when someone disagrees with you, you go on the attack.  This is why I had to block your PMs, because you wanted to keep arguing with me about something I don't even recall, and after that you left the feedback I quoted--which was clearly the kind of personal attack that you're criticizing DT members of engaging in. 

Your own words back up my claims, and if anyone reading this wants further proof they ought to check out the link in my previous post. 

Do you think the DT list would be better with you on it? 

Neither of these statements are true.  There are plenty of members who've earned positive reputations starting from having no rep in the time I've been here.  Jet Cash, Coolcryptovator, marlboroza, Hhampuz, ICOEthics, xtraelv, coinlocket$, and Lafu are among the new batch of DT1 members and they all registered after me.  None of these members were dismissed as scammers.  What I see is members like them tagging actual scammers.

As to the second part, what larger frauds have been hidden behind "the chaos of all the conflict"?  Seems to me that DT has done a pretty decent job tagging the scammers who need tagging.  On our own time, without pay, and with much criticism I might add.

That wave of demotion is exactly what Lafu mentioned above.  It was the 1-merit rule.  In addition, the trust system changes have been mentioned by TalkStar:


I think OP ought to exercise his self-moderation powers on your post, since you don't seem to have read or understood what other members have already written.

I did go back and find the reason you were booted from DT back in 2014, and it's interesting reading for anyone who might want to compare that whole drama to the argument you're making about DT members leaving arbitrary feedbacks (which are nothing of the kind, BTW). 

And speaking of personal attacks and hostility, this is the neutral feedback you left for me on 3/6/2016:


If this isn't being completely hypocritical, I don't know what is.

May I ask what you're referring to here?  What are newbies getting harassed for doing?  Hopefully you realize that a lot of the newcomers to this forum are only here to make money from bounties and sig campaigns, and judging by the amount of ban appeals in Meta they don't seem to be reading the rules before they break them. 

If we want to have a forum that isn't clogged by nonsense posts, members like the aforementioned ones shouldn't be welcomed with open arms, because they're the ones responsible for how bad bitcointalk has gotten in terms of readability.  And that small "group" on DT that people keep referring to tend to be members fighting against the useless spammers, account farmers, account sellers, and assorted scammers.  They've also left a lot of accurate feedback in that fight, which IMO is a good use of DT "power". 

It's embarrassing for you because you got knocked off DT.  I don't think the majority of bitcointalk members share your opinion that the current DT1 list is some sort of terrible injustice.  In any case, I never lobbied to be on DT2, much less DT1.  Lauda wasn't even on DT anymore when he/she was added to the DT1 list.  It was Theymos's algorithm which was responsible for all of these changes happening, not some conspiratorial power grab by a select group of members.