Can we talk about the rampant account trading in the local forums?

[actmyname]

Russian board: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=236.0
It is absolutely flooded with account traders. This has become normalized.

Turkish board: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=155.0
This is slightly less account-oriented than the Russian board but is still widespread.

I'm not sure how it is in the other Local boards (briefly checked Chinese and French, and there weren't a lot) but this kind of open trading just shows how ingrained the account trading business is in the boards. Not trying to target the countries at all but this seems like a case of isolated ignorance due to the board having a consensus that "account trading is not against the rules" and the fact that few DT members will ever enter the boards. Something something confirmation bias, I assume.Thoughts?

[Steamtyme]

With it not being against the rules; not much can be done unfortunately.

I might be mistaken but dont we have a few active Russians here in meta? I seem to recall a few things from the Russian board being brought here. Edit: only mention this board ad it seems to be the worst, but active locals from any board could do the same.

Maybe we can ask them to flag these account traders on this thread and DT can do what they do best... paint an untrustworthy account red.

That or get theymos to update the rule. I don't see this happening as it would be a rule that infringes on what someone can do with their "property".

[LeGaulois]

DT members can't do a lot other than to tag the seller account, who doesn't care himself since the account won't be used for something else than selling. And I see from time to time members red tagged but yet participating in a signature campaign. (Making me think that the campaign in the altcoins section accepts such account to participate?) so the buyer would care less..)

What could be cool for one week is, block all duplicate IPs to log in the forum 

[Barcode_]

If you are willing to spend some of your time to leave a negative trust rating on those account buyers and account sellers who are dealing on threads started on the Chinese local board, I would be glad to provide you on the translation of their conversations, if you are unsure about their conversations on account dealing threads written in Chinese, just write me a pm, and I will provide you with the proper translation.

[vit05]

In the Portuguese section, there are no such offers right now. I could translate if I find any. But I think it would be interesting to have a topic in the reputations section where several people could put the link of such deals that are taking place. And some DT1 or DT2 member would commit to tag the users involved.

Thus other users could post the translation of these negotiations when they occurred in the local foruns.

[The Cryptovator]

Prevent account sale will very difficult if rules are not reconsider. Especially on local board, because most of DT are not able to read and identify it. Also account seller and buyer never care about red tag, mostly they has been using newbie account for account sale. Due to not against rules also moderators are not able to take action.


Best solution is account sale should be restrict officially. So that moderators will able to trash thread and OP will ban. It's not possible control by trust system since we don't know every local board language.

[Barcode_]

In the Portuguese section, there are no such offers right now. I could translate if I find any. But I think it would be interesting to have a topic in the reputations section where several people could put the link of such deals that are taking place. And some DT1 or DT2 member would commit to tag the users involved.

Thus other users could post the translation of these negotiations when they occurred in the local foruns.

Your suggestion is very good, it would be good to start a thread on the reputation section that deals on the issues with account traders making deals of accounts trading on all local boards across this forum, the users who understand the native language of each local boards could easily translate the conversations between the account buyers and account sellers, this would surely makes it more easier for DT members to leave negative trusts on account dealers who are trying to avoid getting themselves negatively rated by conversing in different languages other than english.

[actmyname]

If you are willing to spend some of your time to leave a negative trust rating on those account buyers and account sellers who are dealing on threads started on the Chinese local board, I would be glad to provide you on the translation of their conversations, if you are unsure about their conversations on account dealing threads written in Chinese, just write me a pm, and I will provide you with the proper translation.

Yeah, there are a couple in which I really can't figure out without actual translation. I'll send the threads over in a bit.

Thus other users could post the translation of these negotiations when they occurred in the local foruns.

Definitely do this. Although online translation tools can usually identify obvious instances, sometimes it's a bit unclear what they're saying.

[Jet Cash]

What could be cool for one week is, block all duplicate IPs to log in the forum 

Please don't do that - don't forget the Gemini members here who use alts to suit their mood of ther moment.

The easy answer is to ban account sales. At best, a bought account will be used for sig spamming. at worst it will be used for cheating and fraud.

[hugeblack]

Maybe it would be valuable if the trust was shown on local boards[1]. Therefore, tagging these accounts would not make a difference.
The same thing happens that some campaigns accept negative trust "after the devaluation of payments" and ask them to post in sections that hide trust.

The quick fix for this problem is to add more DT2 members "local [mods or any trusted member.]"

[1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5028592.msg45666854#msg45666854

[actmyname]

Maybe it would be valuable if the trust was shown on local boards[1].

It's shown on the Russian board, at least. Maybe trust is just not shown on some local boards?

Trust is shown in the marketplace sections of local boards. This makes sense.

Example: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2441439.msg46743823#msg46743823

[Jet Cash]

There isn't much point in showing trust in the marketplace if accounts can be sold. "Caveat emptor" is still the watchword if members can buy reputation.

[actmyname]

There isn't much point in showing trust in the marketplace if accounts can be sold. "Caveat emptor" is still the watchword if members can buy reputation.

I suppose the main problem is that there still exist ICOs that simply don't give a shit about negative trust and will allow those users to take their free shit-tokens (that are generated out of air at no cost) just so they can spew their site over the forum.

If managers start caring, then the ICO founders will just find managers that don't. At the end of the day, all that really matters to them is widespread publicity as opposed to making the forum spam-free.There is point in showing trust in the Marketplace, though. If you know that you're trading with an account that's been purchased (e.g. if your account was sold) then you know to absolve the user of all their previous reputation. Along with that, it also discourages people from buying a load of accounts and consequently spamming the forum (though my previous point addresses bounties).

[DdmrDdmr]

I’ve search through a whole year’s post son the Spanish Local board, going over the obvious sections. I've only encountered 3 cases of people trying to buy an account, two of which were red-tagged by DT2, and the other didn’t insists after getting a few answers as to why he shouldn’t.
If there is any account trading on my local board, I don’t believe it is being done through posts in plain sight, except for a few stray cases per year.

[Karisma Black]

Are people really stupid enough to do this in the open?Are they really creating threads like this on local boards?
Isn't this done in pm or on telegram, discord etc...?

[Harlot]

Even though that most of the sellers are tagged there is no stopping them in doing business in the local boards. Maybe this accounts that is posting this threads are really meant to be tagged as most of the sellers are lower ranking members, which a lot of accounts sellers are doing in order for them not to damage their own goods. Its effective as their business still continues and the transactions are almost always happening outside the forum which make it hard to tag the accounts being sold. There is something that must be done for this post not to show in the first place.

[hilariousetc]

Russian board: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=236.0
It is absolutely flooded with account traders. This has become normalized.

It has always been normalised here. If we allow it then why wouldn't people do it? There's some serious money to be made from account farming and high-ranked accounts are worth more than ever right now especially when Hero and Legendaries are going to become very, very rare to achieve with the merit requirements. Heck, a Member account probably commands quite a bit of money now as ten merit is very difficult to get for a shitposter. The only way we can really stop or at least severely dent this activity and business is if we allow people to buy the benefits of the ranks via more donator titles (like Silver and Gold etc). I think this is something we should seriosuly look at doing because it will severely curb the account selling/farming/hacking market and stop a lot of people from getting scammed (there's probably more people scamming trying to sell non-existent accounts they don't even have as opposed to genuine sales right now), so let people buy the benefits of the ranks safely from the forum instead of that money going to some scumbag account farmer/hacker/scammer and it's then win-win for everyone (apart from the farmer/hacker/scammers).

[coinlocket$]

Are people really stupid enough to do this in the open?Are they really creating threads like this on local boards?
Isn't this done in pm or on telegram, discord etc...?

There is not a real problem for them, they use a low-rank account to sell (or scam with) the main account, the post on the forum get more visibility.

[darklus123]

I would like to join busting this account trading. Will look for that in philippine section. Let's see what would be the result for my scanning.

Russians are pretty much aware that this activities are highly discouraged yet still they are doing so for money(its all about the money anyways). I just wonder if those sold accounts was an hacked accounts.

I have seen quite number of hack accounts that where then speaking some sort of russian language(wasn't sure tho ill also have to look for that).

[dothebeats]

I suppose the main problem is that there still exist ICOs that simply don't give a shit about negative trust and will allow those users to take their free shit-tokens (that are generated out of air at no cost) just so they can spew their site over the forum.

This.

The incentives of most people buying an account is to get on-board a signature campaign--especially about ICOs that are probably alive for only a few weeks. There are no restrictions on how should a service do their business here in bitcointalk, so irregardless of negative trusts and poor post quality, services would still accept accounts for the publicity and only that.

Perhaps prohibiting account sales should be imposed on the rules?