Are the mods getting paid from this forum?

[Maged]

As far as i can tell they hardly even moderate anything, let alone do any upgrades.

We moderate far more than you might think. In the past day, we've received about 50 unique reports and we have to research every one of them. When only one mod is online, they can easily only have time to handle just the reports, and we're still expected to find stuff on our own that wasn't reported. Trust me, it's an actual job.

As far as upgrades go, theymos has done pretty well so far. Most recently, he added the trust system. He should seriously be paying himself just for that, but so far he really hasn't been* (as far as I know?).

*Not counting his mod payments to himself, which is for his moderating, not forum upgrades.

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[Matthew N. Wright]

As far as i can tell they hardly even moderate anything, let alone do any upgrades.

We moderate far more than you might think. In the past day, we've received about 50 unique reports and we have to research every one of them. When only one mod is online, they can easily only have time to handle just the reports, and we're still expected to find stuff on our own that wasn't reported. Trust me, it's an actual job.

As far as upgrades go, theymos has done pretty well so far. Most recently, he added the trust system. He should seriously be paying himself just for that, but so far he really hasn't been* (as far as I know?).

*Not counting his mod payments to himself, which is for his moderating, not forum upgrades.

I was trolled for taking 6 months to actually design, produce and ship the Bitcoin Magazine. BFL is trolled for not having shipped regularly for what, 9 months? The forum has been receiving donations for 12 months, and now have hundreds of thousands of dollars. I don't think anyone cares about a trust system (a flawed one at that as no one can post rebuttals to spammed feedback or submit it for removal).

I think it's time the guise of "forum software creation" is no longer used to ask for funds until some forum software generation has actually begun development (I'm not aware of any). Either that, or the donations should be sent back and advertising revenue should be used instead. That would show a lot more integrity given the lack of transparency.

[linuxer]

As far as i can tell they hardly even moderate anything, let alone do any upgrades.

We moderate far more than you might think. In the past day, we've received about 50 unique reports and we have to research every one of them. When only one mod is online, they can easily only have time to handle just the reports, and we're still expected to find stuff on our own that wasn't reported. Trust me, it's an actual job.

As far as upgrades go, theymos has done pretty well so far. Most recently, he added the trust system. He should seriously be paying himself just for that, but so far he really hasn't been* (as far as I know?).

*Not counting his mod payments to himself, which is for his moderating, not forum upgrades.

As far as i can tell they hardly even moderate anything, let alone do any upgrades.

We moderate far more than you might think. In the past day, we've received about 50 unique reports and we have to research every one of them. When only one mod is online, they can easily only have time to handle just the reports, and we're still expected to find stuff on our own that wasn't reported. Trust me, it's an actual job.

As far as upgrades go, theymos has done pretty well so far. Most recently, he added the trust system. He should seriously be paying himself just for that, but so far he really hasn't been* (as far as I know?).

*Not counting his mod payments to himself, which is for his moderating, not forum upgrades.

Oh very big job dude..
did you have seen namepros,hackforums or digitalpoint or some other big board?

They are 5x  bigger than this forum and mods are also less. They don't pay to mods, all are voluntary
and if you try to post spam or troll there, you will get banned within 1-2 minutes.

[ranlo]

Phone posting, so no quotes, but I'll try to answer the questions so far.

Yes, we get a percentage of ad revenue based on various factors now, which is fair since we spend a lot of time and energy keeping this forum usable and readable. Before only thing we got for our trouble was grief, which leads to burnout pretty quickly.

Donations are not used for this, transparency isn't necessary.

This is relatively new, when I said we do it for free, at the time we were, and had no idea this was coming.

Paraipan is a mod, local mod in Spanish board I think? All the local mods are included as well.

And no, there's no other threads about it, this is the first time I've seen it asked. Good job gage  .

Can you also make a statement on why many people can report someone for harassment and going from thread to thread calling anything/everything a "scam" and making up stories and yet still not do anything about it?

Not trying to be a jerk about it; I'm genuinely curious as to why things like this haven't been dealt with yet.

[Maged]

Oh very big job dude..
did you have seen namepros,hackforums or digitalpoint or some other big board?

They are 5x  bigger than this forum and mods are also less. They don't pay to mods, all are voluntary
and if you try to post spam or troll there, you will get banned within 1-2 minutes.

Like I said, it's only bad like that when you're the only mod who is online. We have plenty of time on our hands when someone else is online, though.

I've been curious how other forums that are this size or bigger handle things, so I'll check them out. Thanks!

[Matthew N. Wright]

I remember I had a thread with absolute posting rules posted in the OP, clearly stating that if anyone goes off-topic that their post will be deleted by a mod. Mods did this regularly, but then got bored apparently. When I asked Theymos directly, he said "Start your own self-moderated thread". This sent the message to me that moderators don't want to moderate. Once I found out they're being paid to moderate, that is no longer acceptable.

[Raoul Duke]

I remember I had a thread with absolute posting rules posted in the OP, clearly stating that if anyone goes off-topic that their post will be deleted by a mod. Mods did this regularly, but then got bored apparently. When I asked Theymos directly, he said "Start your own self-moderated thread". This sent the message to me that moderators don't want to moderate. Once I found out they're being paid to moderate, that is no longer acceptable.

U mad, bro?

[Maged]

Can you also make a statement on why many people can report someone for harassment and going from thread to thread calling anything/everything a "scam" and making up stories and yet still not do anything about it?

Not trying to be a jerk about it; I'm genuinely curious as to why things like this haven't been dealt with yet.

Many things happen behind-the-scenes that you don't see. Typically, in these cases, we first send them a warning. If they don't stop, we ask theymos to consider a ban. Sadly, with theymos being so busy and unwilling to delegate banning decisions, this part can take awhile. Because the issue is not spamming, we're also not allowed to delete the posts.

[Maged]

I remember I had a thread with absolute posting rules posted in the OP, clearly stating that if anyone goes off-topic that their post will be deleted by a mod. Mods did this regularly, but then got bored apparently. When I asked Theymos directly, he said "Start your own self-moderated thread". This sent the message to me that moderators don't want to moderate. Once I found out they're being paid to moderate, that is no longer acceptable.

Two things with this:
1) This was before the upgrade to the report system. It was hard to keep track of what had and hadn't been handled.
2) This was also before we started being paid.

Matthew, I always cleaned your threads when I was online and I was made aware of an issue. In fact, we make more money if we handle these issues, so if I saw that now I would scope that up in a heartbeat.

[N12]

Theymos sells ad services and earns money. What's your business what he does with his own money again?

I don't even understand why you guys feel the need to justify yourselves.

[ranlo]

Can you also make a statement on why many people can report someone for harassment and going from thread to thread calling anything/everything a "scam" and making up stories and yet still not do anything about it?

Not trying to be a jerk about it; I'm genuinely curious as to why things like this haven't been dealt with yet.

Many things happen behind-the-scenes that you don't see. Typically, in these cases, we first send them a warning. If they don't stop, we ask theymos to consider a ban. Sadly, with theymos being so busy and unwilling to delegate banning decisions, this part can take awhile. Because the issue is not spamming, we're also not allowed to delete the posts.

It's spam when someone goes into a thread and literally responds to every single post with "SCAM SCAM >>>> LOL SCAM" all day long. I haven't looked at his profile but his name was "owsleybeatsbigcartel"

When some of us closed our threads and started moderated threads so we could just delete his posts on our own, he started sending all sorts of threats via PM as well out of anger that he could no longer spam his BS. I know a LOT of people have reported him.

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

Dude, owsleybeatsbigcartel? He spammed my email for some reason, probably thinking I'm a mod:

how do i get out of bitalk jail?...ifeas?

owsletbeatsbigcartel aka Big Baller

edit:
owsleybeatsbigcartel aka Big Baller

who are you? pingggg

> How did you get my email?

on your website...who is this ...pinggggg

hello?

are you part of the Simple Machines Community Forum Team.

> No.

my bad brudda ...i think we are on the same team >>expose the scammers! =)weee

do u know how i get unbanned?lol


cue more email.

[ranlo]

Dude, owsleybeatsbigcartel? He spammed my email for some reason, probably thinking I'm a mod:

how do i get out of bitalk jail?...ifeas?

owsletbeatsbigcartel aka Big Baller

edit:
owsleybeatsbigcartel aka Big Baller

who are you? pingggg

> How did you get my email?

on your website...who is this ...pinggggg

hello?

are you part of the Simple Machines Community Forum Team.

> No.

my bad brudda ...i think we are on the same team >>expose the scammers! =)weee

do u know how i get unbanned?lol


cue more email.

That guy spammed a lot of people. And then started making threats over pm.

[Matthew N. Wright]

I remember I had a thread with absolute posting rules posted in the OP, clearly stating that if anyone goes off-topic that their post will be deleted by a mod. Mods did this regularly, but then got bored apparently. When I asked Theymos directly, he said "Start your own self-moderated thread". This sent the message to me that moderators don't want to moderate. Once I found out they're being paid to moderate, that is no longer acceptable.

Two things with this:
1) This was before the upgrade to the report system. It was hard to keep track of what had and hadn't been handled.
2) This was also before we started being paid.

Matthew, I always cleaned your threads when I was online and I was made aware of an issue. In fact, we make more money if we handle these issues, so if I saw that now I would scope that up in a heartbeat.

Just as with Bitcoin Magazine, BFL or any other project that has come under scrutiny, criticisms of the presentation and operations do not equate to criticisms of each and every involved participant. I have never doubted your interest or honesty, in fact, you were kind of protecting me from theymos and error's over-the-top abusive attitudes from day one. What bothers me is (and always has been) the hypocrisy.

Theymos wants to manage reputations by calling some members 'scammers', effectively ruining their business chances in the community, but doesn't want to provide them with the tools to defend themselves (rebuttals for spam feedback, petition for removal, etc).

Theymos wants to use the community for their good intentions in supporting what they believe to be a good cause, while claiming that cause is for development. We later learn, a year later in fact, that it has gone no where and now the funds are being spent to pay people he thinks deserve money (could be anyone by that rationale).

Theymos wants everyone to trust his judgement by making him the default trusted person in a trust network, but he doesn't want to admit his mistakes, wants to support ponzis, isn't transparent (2 years ago I called him out for switching hosting over to MtGox without announcing it to the forum community and he's still doing things like this on a regular basis).

Theymos wants to defend the forums basis of "free speech", but reserve the right to delete whatever he doesn't agree with, give scammer tags to whom he personally thinks are scammers, etc.

Theymos wants to call others scammers (Nefario of GLBSE: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=115669.0) while telling others that a bet that happened on betsofbitcoin is not related to the forum and thus not forum business (read: no scammer tag). Is GLBSE directly related to the forum?

Do I hate Theymos? No. I think he is lacking a personality, but that's typical of most nerds. Do I want Theymos to step down? No. Unlike the pitchfork wielding mobs on this forum, I understand the value of keeping someone around who is flawed in certain ways, because they make up for it in others.

So what do I want?

• Transparency - Announce what is going to happen, before it happens, especially when those actions bring the integrity of the leadership into question. Give people a chance to leave if they want, not buy advertising if they disagree with the way those funds are used, etc.
• Fairness - Do not pretend to manage reputations (scammer tags, etc) without providing a way for honest victims to place public rebuttals against spammed bad feedback. Force feedback to be attached to a transaction, and thus have evidence to support claims. Stop promoting a trust-based reputation system that is apparently only designed as a tool for libel
• No more hypocrisy - That one is obvious. Theymos currently has "TradeFortress" on his default trust list, someone who buys advertisements on the forum to spread anti-Ripple propaganda and pays other users for them to post his personal opinions. What exactly are we "trusting"? That he has integrity? Or that he just won't steal your coins? The reputation system is not defined, it's general when it comes to positive issues, and fierce and exact when dealing with negative issues. There is no benefit, only negative effects.

[r3wt]

As far as i can tell they hardly even moderate anything, let alone do any upgrades.

We moderate far more than you might think. In the past day, we've received about 50 unique reports and we have to research every one of them. When only one mod is online, they can easily only have time to handle just the reports, and we're still expected to find stuff on our own that wasn't reported. Trust me, it's an actual job.

Hire more mods!!! and if not hiring, atleast accept a few volunteers. something has to be done about all of these scams occuring, and they stay up for 20+ pages and nothing is done. thats hardly moderation

[r3wt]

I remember I had a thread with absolute posting rules posted in the OP, clearly stating that if anyone goes off-topic that their post will be deleted by a mod. Mods did this regularly, but then got bored apparently. When I asked Theymos directly, he said "Start your own self-moderated thread". This sent the message to me that moderators don't want to moderate. Once I found out they're being paid to moderate, that is no longer acceptable.

 there are two extremes working here on the board

people like me who demand a little moderation, more than whats being done.

and then others like you,

who expect the moderation staff to roll out the redcarpet and bring you the horizon so to speak. there isn't enough time for the current moderation staff to sit in your thread and delete spam comments.

The way i see it is the answer is adding a few more paid mods and accepting well known and trust worthy hero members to do volunteer mod work.

[Matthew N. Wright]

As far as i can tell they hardly even moderate anything, let alone do any upgrades.

We moderate far more than you might think. In the past day, we've received about 50 unique reports and we have to research every one of them. When only one mod is online, they can easily only have time to handle just the reports, and we're still expected to find stuff on our own that wasn't reported. Trust me, it's an actual job.

Hire more mods!!! and if not hiring, atleast accept a few volunteers. something has to be done about all of these scams occuring, and they stay up for 20+ pages and nothing is done. thats hardly moderation

Moderation and censorship are not the same thing. I wouldn't want TradeFortress to be a moderator for example, as he would delete any Ripple thread and call it "SCAM". That's disingenuous. What should be done is that discussions should arise and things should be allowed to be discussed openly before making these decisions, all the while posting proof of such. When a scammer scams as it is, there is absolutely no different between his negative feedback and someone's feedback against me whom just doesn't like what I have to say to them. They are weighted exactly the same, neither require transaction evidence, and both show in bright red as if it was something serious to pay attention to.

This forum does need more moderators, but not because it isn't good at moderating-- because when moderators need to be PAID in order to do what most people would be happy to do for free, you know there is an apparent shortage of them.

[r3wt]

As far as i can tell they hardly even moderate anything, let alone do any upgrades.

We moderate far more than you might think. In the past day, we've received about 50 unique reports and we have to research every one of them. When only one mod is online, they can easily only have time to handle just the reports, and we're still expected to find stuff on our own that wasn't reported. Trust me, it's an actual job.

Hire more mods!!! and if not hiring, atleast accept a few volunteers. something has to be done about all of these scams occuring, and they stay up for 20+ pages and nothing is done. thats hardly moderation

Moderation and censorship are not the same thing. I wouldn't want TradeFortress to be a moderator for example, as he would delete any Ripple thread and call it "SCAM". That's disingenuous. What should be done is that discussions should arise and things should be allowed to be discussed openly before making these decisions, all the while posting proof of such. When a scammer scams as it is, there is absolutely no different between his negative feedback and someone's feedback against me whom just doesn't like what I have to say to them. They are weighted exactly the same, neither require transaction evidence, and both show in bright red as if it was something serious to pay attention to.

This forum does need more moderators, but not because it isn't good at moderating-- because when moderators need to be PAID in order to do what most people would be happy to do for free, you know there is an apparent shortage of them.

See you lose all credibility with this post. While i don't particularly like TradeFortress for my own reasons, we find common ground in knowing that ripple is a dishonest scam operation. If you think ripple isn't a scam you're mentally unstable, have been paid off, or are part of the racket that runs ripple, or both.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

As far as i can tell they hardly even moderate anything, let alone do any upgrades.

We moderate far more than you might think. In the past day, we've received about 50 unique reports and we have to research every one of them. When only one mod is online, they can easily only have time to handle just the reports, and we're still expected to find stuff on our own that wasn't reported. Trust me, it's an actual job.

As far as upgrades go, theymos has done pretty well so far. Most recently, he added the trust system. He should seriously be paying himself just for that, but so far he really hasn't been* (as far as I know?).

*Not counting his mod payments to himself, which is for his moderating, not forum upgrades.

I was trolled for taking 6 months to actually design, produce and ship the Bitcoin Magazine. BFL is trolled for not having shipped regularly for what, 9 months? The forum has been receiving donations for 12 months, and now have hundreds of thousands of dollars. I don't think anyone cares about a trust system (a flawed one at that as no one can post rebuttals to spammed feedback or submit it for removal).

I think it's time the guise of "forum software creation" is no longer used to ask for funds until some forum software generation has actually begun development (I'm not aware of any). Either that, or the donations should be sent back and advertising revenue should be used instead. That would show a lot more integrity given the lack of transparency.

According to the blockchain via several confirmed wallets, it's over a million which is hundreds of thousands if X>10.

Theymos sells ad services and earns money. What's your business what he does with his own money again?

I don't even understand why you guys feel the need to justify yourselves.

Curious! Is it theymos' money or some other entity?

I remember I had a thread with absolute posting rules posted in the OP, clearly stating that if anyone goes off-topic that their post will be deleted by a mod. Mods did this regularly, but then got bored apparently. When I asked Theymos directly, he said "Start your own self-moderated thread". This sent the message to me that moderators don't want to moderate. Once I found out they're being paid to moderate, that is no longer acceptable.

Two things with this:
1) This was before the upgrade to the report system. It was hard to keep track of what had and hadn't been handled.
2) This was also before we started being paid.

Matthew, I always cleaned your threads when I was online and I was made aware of an issue. In fact, we make more money if we handle these issues, so if I saw that now I would scope that up in a heartbeat.

Assuming you're speaking of the current situation where mods get paid, how would you know that aspect is incorporated in theymos' secret algorithm?

Can you also make a statement on why many people can report someone for harassment and going from thread to thread calling anything/everything a "scam" and making up stories and yet still not do anything about it?

Not trying to be a jerk about it; I'm genuinely curious as to why things like this haven't been dealt with yet.

Many things happen behind-the-scenes that you don't see. Typically, in these cases, we first send them a warning. If they don't stop, we ask theymos to consider a ban. Sadly, with theymos being so busy and unwilling to delegate banning decisions, this part can take awhile. Because the issue is not spamming, we're also not allowed to delete the posts.

I've always wonder how he ever found time to take even one college course, let alone work on some major.

As far as upgrades go, theymos has done pretty well so far. Most recently, he added the trust system. He should seriously be paying himself just for that, but so far he really hasn't been* (as far as I know?).

The general consensus is that this was put in place to end the scammer tag thingy after pressure mounted to give BFL, a paying customer, said tag.

[Matthew N. Wright]

See you lose all credibility with this post.

I lose my credibility with a post? That doesn't seem possible.

While i don't particularly like TradeFortress for my own reasons, we find common ground in knowing that ripple is a dishonest scam operation.

Did I say I don't think Ripple has flaws, or that their current implementation is far from transparent and as-advertised?

If you think ripple isn't a scam you're mentally unstable, have been paid off, or are part of the racket that runs ripple, or both.

I know for a fact they're not transparent and not honest. That doesn't make "Ripple" a scam. It makes "OpenCoin" a shady business. Ripple is still an awesome technology, and OpenCoin still has a chance to live up to their claims. Don't try to explain points of view as being those of a "shill" when general interest in a technology is more than enough to keep someone looking into it. There is plenty of fraud and corruption in Bitcoin, even at the development level, but that doesn't stop me from watching, waiting and using the parts of it that I agree with.

Let's get back on topic-- we need moderators who aren't crushing everything they don't agree with, but who leave it up to the community to make up their own minds. "Scammer" tags in essence are actually a step backwards in that respect. Having a feedback is a step in the right direction, but it's still being presented as a propaganda and libel tool instead of a useful feedback system. An example of this would be you leaving me bad feedback that says "I can confirm he is a Ripple shill!" even though it's incorrect. Where would I respond to this false and abusive comment against me? Why would it have any kind of "score" to it traditionally reserved for actual transactions, and not just be a general comment on my profile for all to see?