Done with the topic: [New format] Merit Abuser Gang [Now 18-1 cases]

[mdayonliner]

Disclaimer
This is a private investigation and 100% biased free in my knowledge.
I would request DT members to red trust (if possible) the users listed in the cases.
If anyone in the list feels the justification is wrong then feel free to apply for red trust removal with your evidence.
This is a voluntary ongoing campaign to fight against the merit abusers, I would appreciate your positive feedback.

Case#18 Click to open
dance2009, winterrose, Big Game and valtin

Case#17 Click to open
xtraelv and Lafu

Case#16 Click to open
musdafakfl, macit800, BitcoinTurk, rasputincoin, onurgozupek, mhanbostanci, saulzaents, ozma03 , mstfprcn, Kalemder, krhnrhn, HakanYAZICI and srmecdes

Case#15 Click to open
Zoom2k, opium, Kuala Lumpur

Case#14 Click to open
Yet to be completed. Too big network of merit abuser.

Case#13 Click to open
laogeyi123, NeverArgueWithWF, urz42409966, huweiooo, shixd8899 | Added on 16thApril: bluesky338

Case#12 Click to open
mankeen, CryptoNine, Mr.Coinzer, SaaM78

Case#11 Click to open
xbiv2, JNiks_ZLisa

Case#10 Click to open
trumpman, Flodner

Case#9 Click to open
big.pharaoh, mohamed reda, LBX, hamade

Case#8 Click to open
NetFreak199, visionary, chixka000, identifyuser, alexberezov, Rexxxem, jk9694, dumbtool45, number37, blo8i

Case#7 Click to open
StallionMosquito - Sr. Member, zohaibh - Full Member, imrobo2 - Full Member
network with => gmughals - Member, ateebshaikh290 - Member, cheechu - Member

Case#6 Click to open
Naitik and jerry29@

Case#5 Click to open
Rumhurius and striker7334 2.0

Case#4 Click to open
Morphling and yillusion

Case#3 Click to open
A. mrhelpful is confused?
B. Kousei23's possible connection with plucking23, Bruce1614, loading..., alexsandria, Ashong Salonga
And relation between Bruce1614 and kirito1614

Case#2 Click to open
allowance1219, pigheadbig, gomei and choubao0514
with colacat1111, helloge, juicejoyce and doudou1110

Case#1 Click to open
Joe-Niner, BarkingHawk and SparkyU

[1714899061]

1714899061

[1714899061]

1714899061

[somewhan]

Well, not surprising imo. All those systems are gonna be gamed.

Have to say I like the underlying idea, to increase quality content/reduce spam. But this behaviour you documented is exactly what I would expect as a result, and that is probably just the tip of the iceberg.

In reality it will just reinforce older privileges, lead to farming like that, and make bitcointalk less atractive for new users.

[KwizatzHaderach]

Every system has a loophole. Really hard to get this merits as people sparsely send them to deserving posts. Most will just send it to someone they know as it is very limited.

[mdayonliner]

Case#2

allowance1219, pigheadbig, gomei and choubao0514
with colacat1111, helloge, juicejoyce and doudou1110


allowance1219's merit summary

Received	User	Sent
10	gomei	Null
10	gomei	Null
1	colacat1111	Null
Null	choubao0514	1
5	wenzuo	Null
30	pigheadbig	Null

Clearly allowance1219 has some connection with gomei and pigheadbig Let's take wenzuo and colacat1111 out of the equation.

gomei's merit summary

Received	User	Sent
Null	allowance1219	10
Null	allowance1219	10

Shall I assume gomei sold (or something fishy) merits to allowance1219?

pigheadbig's merit summary

Received	User	Sent
Null	allowance1219	30
Null	choubao0514	30

Is pigheadbig a fool or I assume he sold (or something fishy again) merits to allowance1219 and choubao0514?

choubao0514's merit summary

Received	User	Sent
1	allowance1219	Null
30	pigheadbig	Null

I guess choubao0514 paid (must be something again) pigheadbig.


In summary allowance1219 is trading (buying I guess) merits from gomei and pigheadbig. pigheadbig again is also trading merits with choubao0514.

These users need to be checked by the moderators/admin.

Note: All these merit exchanges happened on this ANN thread ([ANN][XAS] Asch | Decentralized Application Platform Based on Side-chain) by the way

Update/Edit:
---------------------------------------------------
helloge, colacat1111 joins allowance1219 is that a co-incident?

allowance1219 receives  40 merits from from helloge (Today 21st March at 09:45:00 AM) then sends 48 to colacat1111 (Today 21st March at 03:58:32 PM)
helloge sends 15 to colacat1111 (Today 21st March at 04:07:24 PM)
The timing and given merits somehow proves the connection

Check merit received summary for colacat1111 today I am finding it hard to take juicejoyce out of the equation too.

In this case with allowance1219, gomei and pigheadbig; I think adding colacat1111, helloge worth considering as abuser. juicejoyce also needs to be investigated.

Oh by the way doudou1110 became a member from the 10 merits received from juicejoyce.
Fishy thing is doudou1110 received the exact amount of merit that needed to be member from juicejoyce.

Why not we add doudou1110 on our investigation too?

[botany]

Exchange of merit doesn't really prove anything, especially if the amount of merits is small. Theymos has stated in the past that this would constitute rounding error in the overall scheme of things. It would anyway cease once the smerit handed out to accounts during the roll out of the merit system dries up.

[Bardman]

I appreciate your efforts but there is a thread for this stuff: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2896910.160 You can post it there with the same format or just link this thread there. However not much will happen, they are usually not tagged or anything but I will give you some merit for your effort.

[tbct_mt2]

Exchange of merit doesn't really prove anything, especially if the amount of merits is small. Theymos has stated in the past that this would constitute rounding error in the overall scheme of things. It would anyway cease once the smerit handed out to accounts during the roll out of the merit system dries up.

Over time, the cycle of merit exchanges from senders to receivers and back will come to the end because they will finally lose all of their sMerits. And after that point, if they can not contribute to the forum, they will hardly earn more merits. Therefore, they won't have more sMerits to exchange each other.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Case#1
Joe-Niner, BarkingHawk and SparkyU should really have an explanation!!!  

I tagged the first two of those idiots, who are quite obviously engaged in merit abuse.  Both of them have only written one-line shitposts exclusively, which indicates to me that they're on bitcointalk for the money, and not for the community, knowledge dissemination, discussion, or any other good reason.

The third one, SparkyU, I'm not so sure about--and my feedback doesn't carry weight anyway.

OP, I do appreciate you taking the time to point out merit abusers, and yeah I think everyone is aware at this point that there's gaming of the system going on.  That was to be expected on a forum where scamming isn't banned, trust abuse is rampant, people think it's just peachy that one individual can take 2 sides of a 3-sided escrow deal, and account sellers thrive.  But let's knock 'em down one by one.  Thanks for identifying these guys.

[mdayonliner]

In reality it will just reinforce older privileges, lead to farming like that, and make bitcointalk less atractive for new users.

I added some edited section...

Edit: I am in support of merit system to improve the content quality of the forum. Bringing merit on the table is a really very good step by the theymos. The way the spammers were using the forum, for theymos - he had no choice but to do something to make it a better place.

The issues we are seeing with merit are not actually the idea is wrong, it's actually the same spammers/scammers are trying to abuse it finding its holes. It's completely normal for a idea which is new and every idea needs improvisation after implementation. Merit needs improvisation on how the users will use it (application level). People are misusing it because it is directly related to rank. And since it's directly related to rank so I believe some of the twist (if possible) taking in consideration will stop (make a big difference) abusing it.

The farming will stop once we the users will start finding (adds little help to the moderators) who they are. I'm not if these accounts will be banned or what will be their consequences but whatever (may be putting them into your ignore list or giving them red trust with the evidence of their abusive connection, the best is only admin or moderators can confirm or warn their activities with 100% confidence since they will have all logs to prove them guilty) it is, at-least people will know that these account holders are abusive and dangerous for the community.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Exchange of merit doesn't really prove anything, especially if the amount of merits is small.

- Small means 1? 2? or? Accounts on original post are larger in numbers.

It would anyway cease once the smerit handed out to accounts during the roll out of the merit system dries up.

Over time, the cycle of merit exchanges from senders to receivers and back will come to the end because they will finally lose all of their sMerits. And after that point, if they can not contribute to the forum, they will hardly earn more merits. Therefore, they won't have more sMerits to exchange each other.

- It really is a poor hope where we can do something about it to fix the issue. Appreciate your feedback.

---------------------------------------------------------------

I appreciate your efforts but there is a thread for this stuff: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2896910.160 You can post it there with the same format or just link this thread there. However not much will happen, they are usually not tagged or anything but I will give you some merit for your effort.

When I was writing the original post I really looked for some topics which is already talking about the same. Then again I though I may not find the same format that I feel comfortable. So I decided to create a new post for it. Thanks for the credit for my effort.
----------------------------------------------------------------

I tagged the first two of those idiots, who are quite obviously engaged in merit abuse.

- How do you do it? Can someone else like me can tag them as well?

But let's knock 'em down one by one.  Thanks for identifying these guys.

Thank you and yes this is exactly what I am trying to achieve from this post.

[TheQuin]

There another thread about this already but the OP killyou* seems to have abandoned it and nobody from DT is tagging anyone. I've had more success creating an individual thread on Reputation board when I find a really bad one like https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3052556.0

If you're looking for clues Kousei23 is worth a look at.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2896910.msg32346378#msg32346378

[iqlimasyadiqa]

Exchange of merit doesn't really prove anything, especially if the amount of merits is small. Theymos has stated in the past that this would constitute rounding error in the overall scheme of things. It would anyway cease once the smerit handed out to accounts during the roll out of the merit system dries up.

Over time, the cycle of merit exchanges from senders to receivers and back will come to the end because they will finally lose all of their sMerits. And after that point, if they can not contribute to the forum, they will hardly earn more merits. Therefore, they won't have more sMerits to exchange each other.

But still they have earned a merit point, even though it has lost all smerit but they have made something bad thing and made spam on many threads. Perhaps taking direct action by reporting the person can be an option, especially if we have evidence and it is strong enough to be able to say that the person is on the path of spammers and scammers. As time goes by, there must be improvements in various systems in this forum, Merit has made things a lot better. Now we must be able to maintain it and continue to try to update the system in order to improve things that already existed before.

People who do farming are those who are not confident in ability and they think that it is the best way, but in reality not at all !!

[mdayonliner]

I would like to seek attention of Bardman, The Pharmacist and iqlimasyadiqa on how to tag someone? -since you guys are on the same page like me and have very high rank on the forum.

Quote from: The Pharmacist on Today at 11:53:20 AM
I tagged the first two of those idiots, who are quite obviously engaged in merit abuse.

- How do you do it? Can someone else like me can tag them as well?

If I can do it by myself having the current rank I have then I can save a lot of works except waiting for someone else come to see the post and do the tagging job.

People who do farming are those who are not confident in ability and they think that it is the best way, but in reality not at all !!

This makes a lot of sense
and thank you TheQuin for the clue, I will try to find fishy facts if there is any.

PS: I found more users with suspicious merit exchanges on Case#2 and added them on the Update/Edit section

Update: Ok I see what The Pharmacist meant when he said

I tagged the first two of those idiots, who are quite obviously engaged in merit abuse.

Sending neg trust with the ref seems a great way to tag abusers.

[TheQuin]

If I can do it by myself having the current rank I have then I can save a lot of works except waiting for someone else come to see the post and do the tagging job.

Everyone can leave trust feedback, just click on the trust link on their profile page. The difference is that it will not be visible by default. Someone has to go to Untrusted feedback and click 'show ratings' to see it if you are not on their trust network. The people on Default Trust's rating are seen by everyone unless they have been excluded from someone's trust network.

This thread explains it further: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=211858.0

[mdayonliner]

Case#3

A. mrhelpful is confused?


mrhelpful's merit summary

Received	User	Sent
2	Sandal_Hat	Null
Null	jenia1	10
Null	allinvain	50

What would you say if someone send you 50 merits for this...

Hi guys. Alan here from CryptoBoreas.

Regrettably we don't have that kind of power and when we get a power upgrade in the near future I have to go through our customer waiting list first. I am prioritizing smaller customers first!

I am really not sure what motive does mrhelpful thinks of when he sent 50 to allinvain and 10 jenia1?

The action of sending 50 merits to allinvain  from mrhelpful really raise question to me.

Perhaps mrhelpful will have a valid answer. Is he/she now on the top of  allinvain's prioritizing customers list?



B. Kousei23's possible connection with plucking23, Bruce1614, loading..., alexsandria, Ashong Salonga
And relation between Bruce1614 and kirito1614
Keep the timing of the received merits before we start. and because of that 5 merits sent from Sanugarid also counts.


Kousei23's merit summary

Received - Time	User	Sent
27 - March 13, 2018, 09:56:59 PM	Ashong Salonga	Null
28 - March 13, 2018, 10:00:27 PM	alexsandria	Null
5 - March 14, 2018, 07:59:40 PM	Sanugarid	Null
1 - March 14, 2018, 08:01:08 PM	plucking23	50
24 - March 14, 2018, 08:02:07 PM	loading...	Null
Null	Bruce1614	10

Can you see in-between Ashong Salonga and alexsandria the receiving time difference is around only 4 minutes?! If this was from same post then we would have less doubt then we have since the merits received from two entirely different posts!!!

Again on 14th March the total timestamp for the first merit (5) and the last merit (24) is around 3 minutes from Sanugarid, plucking23 and loading...!!! This one might be from a same post since it has been marked as "Deleted/Off-limits/Ignored" however I wonder on 14the the 3 users with Kousei23 and on 13th the two users with Kousei23 had a round table meeting? And since then nothing at all!!!

Ok, I guess Sanugarid, plucking23, loading..., Ashong Salonga and alexsandria wanted to trap Kousei23 but hey why Kousei23 sent 50 (!!!) to plucking23?

Oh snap!!! Looks like Kousei23 and plucking23 are alt to each others!!! 23?

plucking23's merit summary

Received	User	Sent
50	Kousei23	1

Obviously Kousei23 and plucking23 are alts to each others and exchanging merits with each others violates the forum rules which leads to receiving negative feedback

Sending merits on the same time from Ashong Salonga, alexsandria, Sanugarid and loading... to Kousei23 seems to be a part of a plan.



Let's talk about Bruce1614 received 10 from Kousei23

Bruce1614's merit summary

Received - Time	User	Sent
10 - March 19, 2018, 03:14:34 PM	Kousei23	Null
5 - March 19, 2018, 03:17:36 PM	kirito1614	7

Ops!!! Again Looks like Bruce1614 and kirito1614 are alt to each others!!! 1614?

10 and 5 merits brings 7.5 sMertis.
Send 7 sMerits to kirito1614 LOL. Thanks Kousei23 for helping with 10 merits  

Ok, Obviously Bruce1614 and kirito1614 are alts to each others and exchanging merits with each others violates the forum rules which leads to receiving negative feedback

[KeithBeeCham]

I also created a topic about Merit farmer and alt account in Reputation but seem like DT member don't even want to spend few minutes to take a look at .

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3162720.0

Need someone to tag all these alt accounts

[greeklogos]

I also created a topic about Merit farmer and alt account in Reputation but seem like DT member don't even want to spend few minutes to take a look at .

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3162720.0

Need someone to tag all these alt accounts

Not only DT members will read this post. This is the second thread about merit abusing cases which I found out, but I still did not understand one thing here: what is going to be with all of those users who's crime became proved?

[mdayonliner]

Case#4

Morphling and yillusion


Morphling's merit summary

Received - Time	User	Sent
5 - Today at 05:14:49 PM	ethbringer	Null
9+2 - Today at 05:22:36 PM	yillusion	16
6 - Today at 05:26:49 PM	Antivoid	Null

Just notice the time of the received merits. The timing is strange! In 12 Minutes the user received altogether 20 merits  
All these days he had nothing!!! Exchanging 16 merits with yillusion raise reall question that they may be alts to each other.

Notice the post quality of all these merited post and surprisingly all these merit exchanging is happening on [ANN][XAS] Asch | Decentralized Application Platform Based on Side-chain thread!! It's the same thread that we had in case#3

Anyway I am going to red Trust Morphling and yillusion believing they intentionally exchanged merits to each others perhaps they are alts.

Sending merits to Morphling nearly at the same time I believe ethbringer and Antivoid also has something to prove that they are not involved with abusing.

[SparkyU]

Case#1
Joe-Niner, BarkingHawk and SparkyU should really have an explanation!!!  

I tagged the first two of those idiots, who are quite obviously engaged in merit abuse.  Both of them have only written one-line shitposts exclusively, which indicates to me that they're on bitcointalk for the money, and not for the community, knowledge dissemination, discussion, or any other good reason.

The third one, SparkyU, I'm not so sure about--and my feedback doesn't carry weight anyway.

OP, I do appreciate you taking the time to point out merit abusers, and yeah I think everyone is aware at this point that there's gaming of the system going on.  That was to be expected on a forum where scamming isn't banned, trust abuse is rampant, people think it's just peachy that one individual can take 2 sides of a 3-sided escrow deal, and account sellers thrive.  But let's knock 'em down one by one.  Thanks for identifying these guys.

My response is...
1. I didn't know anything I was doing was against any rules, I thought your merits were your own and you could do whatever you wanted with them.  If that isn't the case then I have to plead ignorance and I sincerely wasn't aware of it.  I guess I have to look over the merit rules more in depth since everyone seems to be throwing a hissy fit.  I had other concerns at the time when merits were introduced and didn't really read much up on it.

2. I was contacted asking if someone could trade for my merits.  I said sure, why not.  Again I didn't have much interest in them so I got rid of them as my understanding was you're going to lose them at some point anyways.  Use them or lose them.  I've been on other forums with similar point systems where you could trade them without issue.

People are acting like it's some malicious plot, lol.  It's not that serious to me, I didn't honestly give it another thought until one of those guys sent me a message there was a thread about it.  Also OP should've messaged me too if it was such an issue, instead he decided to neg me without any communication.  What a real nice guy...

Like you mentioned The Pharmacist, there are a lot more serious things going on in the forum that people should be fighting against first.

[jerry29@]

Yes it seems to be unfair right now we are trying so hard to get merit points. If everyone is thinking about themselves then it will probably be wrekage to the forum rules. I think that forum should have to give equal chances to everyone. Why higher ranked members got the right of merit points to be distributed. Everyoneone may not be corrupted but some of them making the water of pool dirty. And new members are suffering of this.

[mdayonliner]

My response is...
1. I didn't know anything I was doing was against any rules, I thought your merits were your own and you could do whatever you wanted with them.  If that isn't the case then I have to plead ignorance and I sincerely wasn't aware of it.  I guess I have to look over the merit rules more in depth since everyone seems to be throwing a hissy fit.  I had other concerns at the time when merits were introduced and didn't really read much up on it.

2. I was contacted asking if someone could trade for my merits.  I said sure, why not.  Again I didn't have much interest in them so I got rid of them as my understanding was you're going to lose them at some point anyways.  Use them or lose them.  I've been on other forums with similar point systems where you could trade them without issue.

People are acting like it's some malicious plot, lol.  It's not that serious to me, I didn't honestly give it another thought until one of those guys sent me a message there was a thread about it.  Also OP should've messaged me too if it was such an issue.

Like you mentioned The Pharmacist, there are a lot more serious things going on in the forum that people should be fighting against first.

Thank you for your response...

Ok I believed your story of ignorance and unawareness on the first one. Let me highlight something that you said...

2. I was contacted asking if someone could trade for my merits.  I said sure, why not.

And this person clearly is BarkingHawk. The BarkingHawk has proven guilty PERIOD


Merit bought on the table on January 25, 2018 and the first time one was really from your ignorance since your sent it on January 26, 2018, 05:51:53 AM.

It clearly proves that it was from ignorance and unawareness. I'm ok with this because this is an innocent mistake.


Question is now...
 Since then to before sending the 2nd time (50 merits) on March 04, 2018, 01:31:31 AM, do you really want me to believe your story?

From January 26, 2018, 11:57:18 AM to before sending the 50 merits ( March 04, 2018, 01:31:31 AM ),
you made 102 - 32 = 70 (!) posts and exactly 36 days, 19 hours, 39 minutes and 38 seconds gone and you are saying you did not have much interest in them and your understanding was you're going to lose them at some point so you decided to trade them?

Being actively posting on the forum almost everyday you never came across with all these merit/smerit debates, conversations? Your ground is too weak to believe.

Truth is you saw money on the merits so you held them and may be still holding them hoping to trade these with some money. I think I still have my ground to keep the red trust.  

You are welcome to bring your facts to get rid of the red trust.

OP should've messaged me too if it was such an issue

- Just imaging if I have to message all these users personally asking the causes then I would not be able to do others stuffs. Take it easy.

Like you mentioned The Pharmacist, there are a lot more serious things going on in the forum that people should be fighting against first.

- I'm sure The Pharmacist did not mean to ignore merit abusing.