[PERMABAN APPEAL] ChiBitCTy

[yogg]

If you think that a ban should be ended, make your case in a new topic from a "good for the forum as a whole" perspective.

As theymos suggested, here is my case about a member of the forum who got his account permanently banned for plagiarism.
It is ChiBitCTy. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=904524)

Yes, he broke some forum rules, and has been banned for ~10 months now.
However, I believe that this user is very different from most of the profiles that are permanently banned for plagiarism.

Here is why I think that, and also why I think that having him back would be a good action for the forum, in a few point.


1) ChiBitCTy is a trusted trader

His trust feedbacks speak for themselves.
No matter what, you cannot deny that once he pockets some coins for items he sells, the buyers will get the said items.
It goes the same when he bids or purchases an item : he will always fulfill his commitments.

Personally, I don't need escrow when engaging in a trade with him and going first. I am rather confident that we will never see a scam accusation against ChiBitCTy.
I doubt that we can say the same about the majority of banned members.


2) ChiBitCTy is still active

This wasn't just a quick hobby that ended once he was denied access to the forum.
There are a few chat rooms, composed exclusively of forum members, that we use among collectors.
ChiBitCTy has stayed there and keeps on collecting and trading bitcoin related items.

A few very selected quotes :



His business would a nice and beneficial addition to the Collectibles sub-section.


3) ChiBitCTy organized charity events

Not one, but two.

[Charity Auctions] Random Lots/ Charity Auctions -Haven Project-Save The Bees!
[Charity Auctions] Random Lots/ Charity Auctions -HAVEN -Save The Bees2!

I do nothing for the bees, nor would I have time or know what to do. I think it's cool that somebody tries to.
It's a nice way to do good while promoting bitcoin, and ChiBitCTy was conducting those events on the forum.

There is not many people doing this, giving time, to help such causes.
Maybe he would have done more since then ?


4) ChiBitCTy helped bust scams and warn users

Being an amateur of various physical crypto-related items, he started threads where he shared his concerns about some items and shops :

Infinitum Coins - is this "company" a scam?
allthingsdecentral.com warning / heads up

This helped to make users aware of scams, and so people from the forum are less likely to fall into those traps.


5) ChiBitCTy didn't break any more forum rule

Basically, he accepted the forum staff ban decision. He did not make another account, except for the legitimate one he used in Meta to appeal his ban.
He remained whole, and managed to keep in touch with the forum community without even using the forum.
To me, this show how passionate he is about what he does, that this represents a lot for him, and that he wants to play square.


For all the reasons above, I believe that pros outweight cons in that case, and allowing ChiBitCTy back would be beneficial to the forum.
His trades and events will certainly help strengthen the Collectibles sub-forum economy.
We could also use one more vigilant eye regarding scams.

We all do mistakes at some point, in various context, in different times of our lives, which triggers consequences not thought of.
Well, this was clearly one for ChiBitCTy.
I am certain that this 10 months of exile have already taught him a good life lesson.
From now on he should assess what he can or cannot do, in what context, with much more care.

Thank you for reading that thread and for considering to lift his ban, please.

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[Quickseller]

[...]
I would have had more respect for you if you just apologised without the sob story. This is the same old crap everyone else uses when they get banned. You're literally trying to say that you only copy and pasted because your mother was ill. I'm not sure why copy and pasting would take your mind off things as opposed to actually using your mind to come up with a post yourself. You got caught cheating on a signature campaign and likely only did this to hit your quote, and if it was any other shitposter trying these excuses they would be laughed off the forum.

[...]

It seems they can when their "friend" gets caught doing something but they've never made these arguments before for the hundreds of other posters who get caught doing the same. This is a bigger issue than just ChiBitCTy. Do we forgive the thousands of others who have been caught doing the same? Or maybe only when they have a few friends here, haven't read the rules or have an unbelievably pitiful sob story? If we're going to unban people under certain circumstances we may as well stop banning people for copy and pastes and just let the community leave them appropriate feedback instead.

I mostly agree with hilarious's posts. The plagiarism was exactly the same offense as any member of the typical spammer flood, with exactly the same mindset: "I want money -> I need to make x posts with y words to make money -> the easiest way to do that is to copy/paste something from elsewhere", with complete disregard for your own integrity, the health of the forum, the ongoing discussion, or fairness in crediting the actual author. If someone copy/pasted something that was amazingly high-quality and on-topic, I'd understand more (though you'd still get banned), but almost always people copy the first thing that they find on Google. To be so lazy that you won't even make up your own low-quality post, but instead save a few minutes by importing some garbage from the wider Internet, is a massive insult to this forum's community, and is proof that at least in that moment the only thing you cared about was money-making.

You must be out of your mind to even think about doing such an illogical thing. Invest in Bitcoin only that much amount which you can afford to lose. Bitcoin is unregulated, speculative and an unpredictable currency. It looks lucrative only as long as you play things right and that's impossible to predict.

https://www.quora.com/Should-I-sell-my-house-and-invest-in-bitcoin-as-I-can-only-buy-4-bitcoins-as-of-now-after-selling-my-home/answer/Apurva-Patel-28

accidental source omission.

 

[yogg]

-snip-

I hear your concerns, and history has shown that this was a slippery slope.
If we don't want him to wear a sig because he could advertise; let's do something to mark the hit while not necessarily preventing ChiBitCTy to interact on the forum.

Why not a permanent signature ban instead of a full permanent ban, if technically doable ?

[Kavelj22]

Why not a permanent signature ban instead of a full permanent ban, if technically doable ?

I think it has been newely implemented:

[TryNinja]

I think it has been newely implemented:

Not much changed. Most users banned for plagiarism will remain banned and new ones will still get a permaban.

There's been no policy change. redsn0w wasn't permanently banned due to several factors which made me think that permabanning him would be a net negative for the forum. Nobody is banned strictly because of "the rules"; it's always handled case-by-case, but almost always, plagiarists deserve to be permabanned.

If you think that a ban should be ended, make your case in a new topic from a "good for the forum as a whole" perspective.

[OgNasty]

I’ve found ChiBitCty to be a positive contributor to my Slack group and he is genuinely disappointed that he cannnot actively participate here. I think he would be a good candidate for reinstating without the use of a signature.

[LoyceMobile]

I'll copy myself here:

First: I'm not active in Collectibles, and I've only sparcely seen ChiBitCTy on the forum. I've got many accounts banned for plagiarism, and none of them will be missed.

I did not purposely plagiarize.  Those sig campaigns require you to have a certain amount of words in your posts.  If I quote that person, I get more words..why would I want to purposely leave that out and have less words for the post?  I wouldn't as they ask for A LOT of words.  

I don't get it: if you quote someone, the quoted part won't (or shouldn't!) be counted for the 200 character requirement for your signature campaign. And in that case you did purposely plagiarize by omitting the source.

That being said:

But someone who at any point copy/pastes garbage like this has proven that they have an utterly broken mindset when it comes to the forum, and I have a really hard time believing that such a person will be a net positive going forward.

Lack of sleep, worries and stress can temporarily cloud someone's judgement. I don't generally care for sob stories, but I do know it takes its toll on you in real life.

I'm always thinking: what if it happens to me someday? I must have embedded some images I found on Google in some of my old posts. The reference is in the URL, but not in the post.
Recently, I was typing jibberish and totally messing up quotes when I had a fever, and as a family with young kids and busy days I suffer from a continuous lack of sleep. I'd hate to lose access to my favourite forum if I ever mess up one way or another.

Lone shark shouldn't have been unbanned without adding exceptions to the rules for everyone not just one case.

But the rules do allow exceptions:

NOTE: This is meant to serve as a reference/educational/informational thread, NOT a rock solid list of rules.

I knew that I would receive crap for my last post but it was honest.  I f*#$d up during a difficult time, period. I cheated, I was wrong, it's 100% stupid and I understand what those consequences are now.  It was over a very short period of time where I wasn't by a computer and I made a major lapse in judgment and took the lazy way out.  It was mindless, a mistake..but I was wrong.  I'm guilty and I've never denied this.

This would be a good statement to put in your signature for a month, if you get unbanned.

People who get caught copy and pasting should have their signature removed for a year or something. See if they stick around and contribute something worthwhile and if they do then they get it back. That way you can still contribute but you can't earn and having the signature removed for a year is better than indefinitely with a ban.

This will be a waste of time for a generic shitposter who commits plagiarism. But I'd be in favour of this as an exception for good posters who slipped once.

If I may add my 2 satoshis, also considering Lone Shark's unban and ChiBitCTy's contributions (which I saw listed for the first time when I read this thread): I believe a (long) temporary ban would do the community more good than a permanent ban.

[Lafu]

Maybe for some special Users that deserve it realy or get the chance to be get unbanned , conditions should be imposed !

- 6 Months or 1 year  a kind of probation , or something like this !
- If they doing something against the Rules in this Time they get perma banned forever !

Just an Idea !

Also i would say ,someone who realy deserve an unban should be unbanned to make an example of !

[krogothmanhattan]

Why not a permanent signature ban instead of a full permanent ban, if technically doable ?

 ChiBitCTy was a great member of this forum and still is active with many forum members on other social platforms.

 He was a great member of the  collectable community and always honest and reliable.

 I agree with Yogg, please allow to come back BUT issue a permanent signature ban.

 

[TMAN]

Unban the man - no sig, and a custom title....  Copy Pasta Punk

[JanEmil]

Like his fight for the Bees and Charity

[r1s2g3]

Permanent ban is somewhat harsh and permanent sig ban is good choice.
Though I am not in support of unban of the users because it will open the case for hoards of shit poster but someone like ChiBitCty who is not doing any ban evasion and following forum decision might deserve a  chance.

[ezeminer]

I'd say unban the guy. He actually made a good addition to the collectibles board.

[DireWolfM14]

I don't know if I get a vote or not, and I'm not partial to allowing plagiarists any slack.  However, I've posted I don't know how many gifs and memes here without citing the source.  Hell, most of the time the source is as elusive as the memes are plentiful.  I guess if one is going to assume the moral high horse when it comes to plagiarism then he's got to go all the way.

I don't see much risk in repealing the ban for ChiBitCTy.  By accepting his ban it appears he's acknowledged the seriousness of his crime.  The bee charity thing is also a huge factor in my favoring clemency.

If the ban is repealed I'd like to suggest his signature is fixed with this link for a minimum of 3 years.

[buckrogers]

I've only had positive results when dealing with ChiBitCTy. I believe him to be a very genuine contributor to the forum and would love to see him back in action.

thanks!

[dozerz]

also endorsing this member as a valued and trusted trader, would like to see this permaban revoked.

[chronicsky]

he is a great member and i think most of us trust him..
would love to see him back on the forum, am sure he won't repeat the same thing ever again

[cryptohunter]

Just sig ban him for a couple of years.

If he is a good member and just made some sloppy mistakes and got lazy on referencing then not really worth losing a good member (if he is one i don't know him myself). We need all the REAL enthusiasts we can get for this movement.

Only financially motivated shit posters should be banned perm. Even then if you just take away their sigs for a few years it will likely have the same outcome.

I would rather see Yogg banned (from DT and merit source) for trust abuse and collusion with other known bad eggs on DT.

I'm not in favour of perm banning any person that really is true fan of building an end to end trustless decentralised arena unless they really do not care at all about damaging this board for their own personal and selfish financial gain.

[minifrij]

Bump.

[Theb]

At first thought I will straightaway say no to this kind of permaban changes as I will always look at how it will open up avenues for the abusive plagiarizers to get back in the forum. But then theymos speak up and said that "everything is case-by-case" so definitely no one who do not deserve to be back in the forum won't make the exceptions theymos will make. Permaban should definitely stay but should be awarded to people who really abuses the forum and has no contributions to the forum but the shitty posts they make if not plagiarized. ChiBitCTy is still active in the forum he can only read threads but cannot post anything, if he was one of those plagiarizers who got permabanned he won't be using his account anymore to use the forum.