Be careful of not getting red-tags by advertising a known scam in your signature

[Cashi]

There are many shady behaviors which are punished by a red tag given to your account. Visible trust ratings can only be given from DefaultTrust-members. Accounts which are not on DT can also give a red tag, but it will be hidden in untrusted feedback and not calculated towards your trust score of your account.

That’s why you should be very carefully to avoid getting a red-tag. Negative tags will not affect the functions of your account itself, but there are other disadvantages if your account has a negative trust-score:
- You won’t be trusted by the community which is very bad when you are planning to do a business. Your account will get the personal text: Warning: Trade with extreme caution!
- You’ll receive almost no Merit anymore. The number of people meriting your posts will decrease a lot.
- You can’t participate in any signature campaign because the good managers don’t accept scammers in their campaign.
- Your arguments in discussions will be also traded with caution.

And there are still more reasons I might have forgotten.

You should really avoid getting a red tag and a very unnecessary way is to get your negative trust when you advertise a known scam in your signature. Recently, some accounts received a negative trust because they were advertising a known scam, DuckDice, in their signature:


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5102953.msg49470281#msg49470281


Of course, you will only get a red tag if the business in your signature is a confirmed scam, DT has to make sure, that they have a proof of the scam. Otherwise, DT-members doing this will be removed by the community if they tag you without proof of confirmed scam.
You’ll also have the possibility to remove your signature and your red tag will also be removed (Depends on the severity of the scam).
But don’t apply to wear the signature after DT has announced in the same topic that it’s a confirmed scam. Then, it’s possible that your red tag will stay longer.


My recommendation: As a participant you should always check which products you are advertising, and make sure that it’s a legit business and not a scam.

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A very good place to always start from is the Scam Accusations Board to see if the there is any scam accusation against what you are about to advertise for

Also being self-aware in the forum is very important. One should always try to follow threads and keep updated about what he is advertising. You can easily stumble upon complaints from scammed people so easily and help you avoid worst-case scenarios of carrying a scammer's signature.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

There's a solution for almost every problem on the forum. Before you dedicate your time to promote a project by wearing their signature a little search will prevent you from promoting scam projects.

For investors and bounty hunters, I will suggest to visit Scam Accusation board before join any bounty or before invest on ICO.

You could also find scam ICO from Guidelines, how to spot a scam ICO & report effectively by yourself to help community.

Eventually is you are much busy than simply you can use Google search. Since Bitcointalk is good ranking on Google, you will find easily if there is any scam accusation. And lot of scam exposer active on bitcointalk lately. I will give example how to search.

For example you want to join bounty or invest on Metiercoin ICO. Just you have to type on google search "Metiercoin Bitcointalk" than you will see below page.

You can also search in this manner

site:bitcointalk.org metiercoin (for this example). Google will then search bitcointalk.org for threads about metiercoin. This is also an easy way to find the ANN or Bounty page of a project you might be interested in.

Here is the result:

[o_e_l_e_o]

Everything that has been said so far in this thread is correct, and people should absolutely keep an eye out for warnings and scam accusations posted about projects they are interested in or are helping to promote. But having said that, you shouldn't be relying on others to point out if the project you are involved in is a scam.

Do your due diligence. A lot of these ICOs and bounties can be discovered to be a scam with minimal effort. Go to their website, look at their team members, visit their LinkedIn profiles, read their whitepaper. Be on the look out for fake team members, stock images, fake profiles, stolen ideas or images, plagiarized whitepapers or roadmaps, etc, etc. Spend some time getting to know a project before you either throw your money at it or agree to advertise on their behalf. Don't rely on others being your safety net.

[leowonderful]

I typically find stock images or images from places other than the ICO page are pretty good indicators that the bounty or ICO you're representing is a scam; back when BTC was near its ATH, many, many ICOs I found on this forum had fake team members with stolen images, and it really doesn't take a long time to investigate this particular facet of an ico: simply hover your cursor over the image you're trying to research, right click, and at least in Chrome you should see an option called "search Google for this image" in the white box that should come up.

[Kakmakr]

I am afraid that most people who participated in Cloud mining signature campaigns back in the day, would get a red flag status now that it is clear that most of those Cloud mining projects were a Ponzi scheme.  

I cannot see how someone could be held responsible, if they did not know that the project that they supported in their signature, were a scam.

It is something different, if it was confirmed that the project was a scam and that the member continued to participate in that signature/bounty campaign. <You should also have proof that the Sig participant were notified that it was a scam, before you red flag him or her>  

The large majority of ICOs are scams, so this has huge consequences. 

[UserU]

Thanks to this thread, I only noticed how serious DD's scam was. But I feel it's unfair for those unaware to be suddenly red-tagged.

[o_e_l_e_o]

I cannot see how someone could be held responsible, if they did not know that the project that they supported in their signature, were a scam.

They can't, and the best scams are the ones which aren't obvious. If someone genuinely believed the project they were promoting was legit, and there was no evidence to suggest otherwise, then I don't think it would be fair to red tag that person (situation dependent).

However, as OP has shown in his screenshot, when a project is discovered to be a scam, usually someone posts in their ANN/bounty/campaign/whatever thread in big red letters stating it is a scam, and giving everyone time to remove their signature or stop posting their bounties. If you heed this warning, you aren't red tagged. If you ignore this warning, you are. I think that's fair.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

Thanks to this thread, I only noticed how serious DD's scam was. But I feel it's unfair for those unaware to be suddenly red-tagged.

Don't think participates will be tagged immediately a project is proven to be scam. Just as this user suggested 

Participants should be given a window of time to remove their signatures before we tag anyone there. Warnings have been sent from a couple of you, So I think 48-72 hours is a fair amount of time for users to log in and read what's going on in the campaigns thread and here.

An active campaign participant needs to be active at least once in every 24hours and should always visit the campaigns OP at least once in every 48-72 hours to check for possible updates. Although I suggest one week interval before anyone wearing the signature gets tagged since most campaign managers update their thread for payment and open slots weekly and that's when participate check for updates.

[r1s2g3]

I think you need to incorporate few more ideas in your thoughts, it is not about red tag only. Have you ever guessed your signature can cause permanent ban if it has phising link?

Anyway quoting my one of old post here for adding more points that are not discussed here.

Altough we already have a existing topic that explain the Signature Campaign Guidelines but I think it is time for us to add some more guidelines/suggestion  in it.

The earlier guidelines were more concerned about the spamming in this forum but I think we are now facing one more problem on top of spam , i.e is adverisement of scams or (Scam ICOs)

Actually, I got this idea for creating the topic while reading the post of the Theymos in this topic .

Phishing is bannable. Probably everyone who wore it would be banned.

A simple extension may extend to promoting scam can cause -ve trust, even it is included in your signature only and you are not directly promoting it.

Let me put some suggestion for user advertising  in their signature space.

1. Check the links in your signature that you are advertising, make sure it is not some kind of phising link.
2. Do your own research before joining the signature campaign and do not join the project if it look shady.
3. Do not trust the bounty manager blindly even bounty manager can be greedy and promoting the project for its own gain.
4. Do not join the signature campaign that do not meet your posting habits. If your posting habit is of around 10 post per week than do not enroll in
   signature campaign that ask for  25 post in a week.
5. If you already got some hint that the project is scam then do not keep mum , even you enrolled in its signature or not. You can create a topic in  
   Scam Accusation board
6. Incorporated  Joel_Jantsen  post

Don't participate in the campaigns which are not started by
 - A reputed campaign manager
 - Avoids escrow
 - Hires shit-posters

It is our responsibility that we should not promote scam and help in preventing it.

PS: If you have some more suggestion that are not covered till now, Then feel free to suggest in this thread. I will in corporate them in this post.
     Edit: Signature is paid or not paid ,should comply the forum rules.

 

[tranthidung]

I think you need to incorporate few more ideas in your thoughts, it is not about red tag only. Have you ever guessed your signature can cause permanent ban if it has phising link?

More than that, supporting shitty projects, that asked for pumping their ANN topics are one of riskiest way to put accounts under red tags.
In a nutshell, I think there are several reasons that might lead to red tags, besides account/ merit/ trust sellings:
1) Join and support scam projects.
2) Posts with ref links or phishing link in signature (violates the #4 and #6 rules there: Unofficial list of (official) Bitcointalk.org rules, guidelines, FAQ)
3) Joining pumping services and get rewards from scam teams.

[Heisenberg_Hunter]

- You’ll receive almost no Merit anymore. The number of people meriting your posts will decrease a lot.

This probably doesn't make much sense actually. Merits aren't based on the trust of a particular user. They are purely based on how good, witty, constrictive and helpful the posts are. Meriting a person by judging his account is not right. Merits aren't meant for that. They are introduced to highlight good posts from the ordinary redundant shit prevailing all over the forum. Though, I am not completely contradicting your statement but Merits and Trust and independent. There are many instances where a highly negative trusted user has got decent merits.

 

- Your arguments in discussions will be also traded with caution.

No, not all the boards displays Trust of a user. Only Bitcoin and Altcoin Marketplace boards displays trust. Others board doesn't actually need to display trust as there isn't any trade going on!
I don't get your point. What do you mean by traded with caution

[Crypto-DesignService]

I have one question in mind.

Is it considerable if someone's been away for a week not touching his account and within that timeframe the signature campaign he's been wearing is being accused as scammer. After getting back from his account he received a negative trust from a DT member, can he prove it that he's been away around that time and too late to know that the campaign he joined is scam?

[tranthidung]

I have one question in mind.

Is it considerable if someone's been away for a week not touching his account and within that timeframe the signature campaign he's been wearing is being accused as scammer. After getting back from his account he received a negative trust from a DT member, can he prove it that he's been away around that time and too late to know that the campaign he joined is scam?

Yeap, I think that DT members will check last active days of applicants before dropping red tags on them.
Applicants who still been actively in the forum, but simply ignore warning should be tagged, whislts in-active ones should not be tagged.

[Crypto-DesignService]

I have one question in mind.

Is it considerable if someone's been away for a week not touching his account and within that timeframe the signature campaign he's been wearing is being accused as scammer. After getting back from his account he received a negative trust from a DT member, can he prove it that he's been away around that time and too late to know that the campaign he joined is scam?

Yeap, I think that DT members will check last active days of applicants before dropping red tags on them.
Applicants who still been actively in the forum, but simply ignore warning should be tagged, whislts in-active ones should not be tagged.

How do they do it? Is there a log for all accounts that we can actually check publicly or only moderator/staffs can access it?

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

I have one question in mind.

Is it considerable if someone's been away for a week not touching his account and within that timeframe the signature campaign he's been wearing is being accused as scammer. After getting back from his account he received a negative trust from a DT member, can he prove it that he's been away around that time and too late to know that the campaign he joined is scam?

You can always appeal a red tag because only the user that gave the red tag can removed them except on rare occasions administrators interval and remove false tags. You just have to send the DT member a DM politely explaining yourself and if he doesn't give you a positive respond then you can start a thread on the Reputation board to defend yourself with valid evidence.

How do they do it? Is there a log for all accounts that we can actually check publicly or only moderator/staffs can access it?

Your activities are made public on your profile. The last day you were active (login) or made a post can be seen from your profile. That's were the information are gotten from.

[Crypto-DesignService]

Your activities are made public on your profile. The last day you were active (login) or made a post can be seen from your profile. That's were the information are gotten from.

But once you are online the last active that will show is 'Today at...' so how do they know the last time you are up?

[Coyster]

In the aspect of not receiving merits due to a red tag,i do not think it's quite correct as a red tag cannot affect the quality of one's post that'll deprive such member from earning merits.
There are a whole lot of forum members with red tags that receive quite a large amount of merits,and are still quite active in making high quality posts that earns them merits.

Also having a red tag doesn't mean such members discussions won't be taken seriously or correctly if  they are.
A red tag can only prevent members from trading or engaging in transactions with you.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

But once you are online the last active that will show is 'Today at...' so how do they know the last time you are up?

Simple, the last time you posted before you came back online and became active again will be used as the last time you were active on forum. You can find that by visiting profile, scroll down and you'll see "Show the last posts of this person" check the date and time posts was made before that day (day viewing the profile)

[Cashi]

I am afraid that most people who participated in Cloud mining signature campaigns back in the day, would get a red flag status now that it is clear that most of those Cloud mining projects were a Ponzi scheme.  

I cannot see how someone could be held responsible, if they did not know that the project that they supported in their signature, were a scam.

It is something different, if it was confirmed that the project was a scam and that the member continued to participate in that signature/bounty campaign. <You should also have proof that the Sig participant were notified that it was a scam, before you red flag him or her>  

I think DT won't tag them when a project turns out to be a scam but it wasn't clear to see, even not for investigation experts. Red tags are mainly given for confirmed scams like when someone would adverstise for Bitconnect for example or other scams.
I can imagine that DT will also only tag accounts joining the campaign after they posted a warning in the thread.

We can not held responsible if a project turns out to be a scam afterwards, almost the entire forum would be red.

I have one question in mind.

Is it considerable if someone's been away for a week not touching his account and within that timeframe the signature campaign he's been wearing is being accused as scammer. After getting back from his account he received a negative trust from a DT member, can he prove it that he's been away around that time and too late to know that the campaign he joined is scam?

For this problem I can imagine that DT will only tag people applying for the signature after they announced the scam. No post of the account in the signature after scam was announced = no red tag. Or like CryptopreneurBrainboss said to refer to last posts of the account.

- You’ll receive almost no Merit anymore. The number of people meriting your posts will decrease a lot.

This probably doesn't make much sense actually. Merits aren't based on the trust of a particular user. They are purely based on how good, witty, constrictive and helpful the posts are. Meriting a person by judging his account is not right. Merits aren't meant for that. They are introduced to highlight good posts from the ordinary redundant shit prevailing all over the forum. Though, I am not completely contradicting your statement but Merits and Trust and independent. There are many instances where a highly negative trusted user has got decent merits.

A Merit Source or someone who is spending his limited sMerit can be well aware which account will receive his Merit and most of them will decide to give the Merit to an account who was not involved in shady activities. Or at least I would do it and send my Merit accordingly. The Merit Sources know most of the accounts who have a red tag.
Just ask yourself - where you would rather send your limited sMerit.
Trust is another thing additional to your post history. If your post history is filled with bounty reports it's harder to get a Merit.

Maybe my words were a bit too strong and "almost no merit" is a bit exaggerated. At least a significant lower number of Merit will be received compared if your account isn't red. I don't know an example, where the received Merit didn't decrease after a red tag.

- Your arguments in discussions will be also traded with caution.

No, not all the boards displays Trust of a user. Only Bitcoin and Altcoin Marketplace boards displays trust. Others board doesn't actually need to display trust as there isn't any trade going on!
I don't get your point. What do you mean by traded with caution

DT knows all the scammers here, no need to hide trust ratings on some sections.
Trading words with caution means to be sceptical of the arguments of the person. There are also some accounts tagged for things to be discussed and they are honest people but a red tag is very often tied to shady activities like accounts-sales, scams, Merit-trading etc etc. And in my opinion 95% of all tagged accounts should be also traded with caution in discussions.