Proposal: Ban loan and donation requests

[odolvlobo]

I apologize if this has already been discussed.

I think that the frequency of scams will drop significantly if requests for loans and donations are banned everywhere. Tomatocage's list is getting ridiculous now. 90% are listed as "new user asking for loan". Let's just eliminate that by banning all loan and donation requests. That will stop most of the scammers by stopping their ability to ask for money.

I suggest that the "Lending" forum be changed to the "Lenders" forum and it be limited to only a place for lenders to advertise and discuss lending. If someone wants to borrow money, they simply pick a lender and send them an email or go to their site. Public requests are unnecessary. Lenders could still use the borrowers forum status as a factor in deciding to make a loan and the Lenders forum could still post lists of scammers.

My specific proposal is:

1. Ban all requests for loans and donations in all forums
2. Change the "Lending" forum to the "Lenders" forum.

What do people think about that, especially the lenders?

[MartinReynolds]

I apologize if this has already been discussed.

I think that the frequency of scams will drop significantly if requests for loans and donations are banned everywhere. Tomatocage's list is getting ridiculous now. 90% are listed as "new user asking for loan". Let's just eliminate that by banning all loan and donation requests. That will stop most of the scammers by stopping their ability to ask for money.

I suggest that the "Lending" forum be changed to the "Lenders" forum and it be limited to only a place for lenders to advertise and discuss lending. If someone wants to borrow money, they simply pick a lender and send them an email or go to their site. Public requests are unnecessary. Lenders could still use the borrowers forum status as a factor in deciding to make a loan and the Lenders forum could still post lists of scammers.

My specific proposal is:

1. Ban all requests for loans and donations in all forums
2. Change the "Lending" forum to the "Lenders" forum.

What do people think about that, especially the lenders?

That would work, just have people who are willing to lend have a thread and if someone wants a loan they can write on the thread and it's up to the OP of the thread to do their own risk assessment and decide to loan or not

Regards,

Martin.

[repentance]

I've been wanting to see something like this put in place for ages.  When the lending forum first started, BTCJam didn't exist.  Now that there's another place where people can request loans, I see no reason why such requests need to be allowed here. 

[odolvlobo]

This site has become a prime destination for scammers because it takes so little effort to create a new user and ask for some money. Banning loan and donation requests would remove a lot of the attraction.

Unfortunately, there are scams going on in other forums, and these steps would not help. I'm not sure what can be done about the MiningUnited and GBBG scams.

[tysat]

This site has become a prime destination for scammers because it takes so little effort to create a new user and ask for some money. Banning loan and donation requests would remove a lot of the attraction.

Unfortunately, there are scams going on in other forums, and these steps would not help. I'm not sure what can be done about the MiningUnited and GBBG scams.

All we can really do is warn people.  I try my best to do that, especially in the newbie section.

[MartinReynolds]

This site has become a prime destination for scammers because it takes so little effort to create a new user and ask for some money. Banning loan and donation requests would remove a lot of the attraction.

Unfortunately, there are scams going on in other forums, and these steps would not help. I'm not sure what can be done about the MiningUnited and GBBG scams.

All we can really do is warn people.  I try my best to do that, especially in the newbie section.

What about sending every new person who signs up a automatic PM to warn them.

[tysat]

What about sending every new person who signs up a automatic PM to warn them.

Most probably won't read, just like how when you sign up newbie rules are laid out but everyone has to ask still.

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

Perhaps new members should start off as "Untrustworthy", and they can be marked as "trustworthy" by a member that is already "trustworthy". If you give that badge to someone who scams, your reputation is on the line.

[repentance]

Perhaps new members should start off as "Untrustworthy", and they can be marked as "trustworthy" by a member that is already "trustworthy". If you give that badge to someone who scams, your reputation is on the line.

At what point do we let the "voucher" off the hook?  Plenty of people who eventually scammed people honoured their commitments at first.  I'm not sure we should hold those who vouch for somebody accountable if that person goes on to scam people after many months of successful transactions.

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

Perhaps new members should start off as "Untrustworthy", and they can be marked as "trustworthy" by a member that is already "trustworthy". If you give that badge to someone who scams, your reputation is on the line.

At what point do we let the "voucher" off the hook?  Plenty of people who eventually scammed people honoured their commitments at first.  I'm not sure we should hold those who vouch for somebody accountable if that person goes on to scam people after many months of successful transactions.

That would be on a case by case basis really. It's not going to solve scamming, but it should reduce the new user scams that are occurring multiple times per day here.

[Anonymailer]

On a purely selfish level, I wouldn't like to see requests for donations banned, as having worked on MacMiner for a month with over 100GB worth of bandwidth used I'm currently contemplating a 'why donate?' thread/part of a pre-existing thread/section of the website - as donations currently stand at an impressive 0 and my hosting package is at it's limits :/

It would be great however if there were some way to cut down on the number of scams doing the rounds.

[tysat]

Perhaps new members should start off as "Untrustworthy", and they can be marked as "trustworthy" by a member that is already "trustworthy". If you give that badge to someone who scams, your reputation is on the line.

Bad idea, would easily lead to a false sense of trust when someone is marked trustworthy.  It would also easily turn into a black market of selling trustworthyness.

[Matthew N. Wright]

OP has a point, and as Tysat is well aware, the forums in the past 2 years I've been here have been an absolute cesspool of "BUYING BITCOINS WITH PAYPAL" scams, "INVEST IN MY COMPANY THAT ISNT EVEN REGISTERED ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD AND BTW I REQUIRE TO REMAIN ANONYMOUS" garbage and of course, "LOOKING FOR 0.2 BTC LOAN FOR A WEEK" ridiculousness from 1 post newbies.

Theymos has always come up against this type of proposed censorship in the past though on the grounds of not wanting to act as "police" for the forum more than necessary. At the same time, they're happy to police things like non-escrowed prank bets. I think it's time for a policy change on the forums, but one that doesn't hand all the power of loans to a select few. OP's suggestion does that, but pushing them all to BTCJam might not be the best idea.