Again, you say criminal fraud, but fraud implies deception.
The majority of threads in IBG are about deception. Most claim to be offering legitimate routes of investment, implicitly and explicitly. I mentioned the ingress of the 'HYIP' industry in the OP primarily because it is a relatively recent phenomenon in IBG and they are extremely well organised as a scamming community. having been online and active long before cryptocurrency existed. So the problem is only going to get worse as it becomes more established here.
As I mentioned earlier, Bitcointalk could put in enough rules and changes to completely get rid of any possibility of fraud. But every time a rule is imposed, it cuts down a little bit of each member's ability to make their own choices/actions. There is always a negative repercussion when placing rules, its just a matter of whether or not what you are losing is worth what you gain. If people use common sense, we don't need to add any more rules, so we choose to assume people have common sense. If they don't thats on them.
I understand the point you are making and even if you don't care about helping those less astute than yourself perhaps you care about bitcointalk being seen as the equivalent of Mos Eisley (You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy) and, by association, bitcoin itself. The more that regular people are victims of deception and fraud which is perpetrated on sub-forums here then the greater the groundswell of opinion supporting the mainstream media spin that this technology is simply a way for criminals to facilitate their operations outside of the traditional banking system.
Even beyond personal opinions about looking out for each other, or otherwise, surely you can accept that for this forum to help prove there is more to bitcoin than the negativity regularly spouted by the media, it would do well to at least be seen to be willing to adopt changes which serve to help reduce the ease with which fraud and other criminal activity can establish itself here?
