To truly discourage unlawful bitcointalk sales of account

[hilariousetc]

As we all know that the world is not perfect, if one thing do not occur the other may be occur, also possible to be vice versa. The issue of accounts sales can be dangerous which some can lead to scam, that is why some people that propose account sales can be giving negative trust because scammers can buy account which others will not know. But to make this forum more transparent and to discourage account sales, it will be good if this forum admin are the one selling the account, the money generated can be used for helps on this forum.

Legendary: $500
Hero: $400
Sr member: $300

Won't this be good, we will be able to know that such accounts are new and should be considered new with not pregenerated smerits but only merits. If the member is serious, he will be able to build the account to be able to fit into the ones that makes quality posts and be good.

Is this a good idea? It will really discourage unknown bitcointalk account sales, we will be able to know new accounts with such rank.

I don't think the forum should sell accounts or even the Member rank titles, but as I've suggested before I think it would be a good idea to offer more donator privileges that come with some of the benefits of higher ranked accounts along with some other additional perks. We already have Copper Member so Silver and Gold ones which could come with the signature sizes of Senior and Hero respectively would essentially kill account farming and sales because it would be largely pointless if you can purchase the benefits directly. You would still be a Newbie or whatever but you would just have the title like you do with the current copper titling system. Theymos has said in the past that the forum doesn't need the money but it could always be used to hire more mods or so something good with it like give it to charity and I think it would actually earn a decent chunk of change and maybe even more than the ad slots.

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Rank has some meaning to many, be it due to a sense of achievement or else.
If you can buy ranks of the shelf, you’re basically creating a comparative grievance to all existing accounts with those same ranks, stating that one can simply buy a fast track ticket to skip the queue from the forum itself.

It still would not diminish the possibility of those accounts turning into scammers (which can happen at any level by the way), and I can’t see any overall global benefit coming clean from the proposal. It also would not deter account sales – just establish a max. market price.

IF we were to offer the ranks it should be done like the current Copper one is. You could be a Copper/Silver/Gold Member but still a Newbie with zero merit and that would still speak volumes. I'm sure many campaigns still wouldn't accept people without merit.

[Lucius]

We already have Copper Member so Silver and Gold ones which could come with the signature sizes of Senior and Hero respectively would essentially kill account farming and sales because it would be largely pointless if you can purchase the benefits directly.

The real problem is that people do not buy BTT account solely to achieve the benefits of certain ranks, they are already doing it for completely different reasons, and we all know what these accounts are used for. But this is something that unfortunately cannot be prevented, even if the forum bans the sale of accounts and permanently bans those who do that - they would do it through other forums and social networks, as has always been the case. Some even have sites like this.

Given how difficult it is for the average user to reach even the Full Member rank, Hero and Legendary accounts have become even more sought after goods after the introduction of the merit system.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

No one selling accounts here wants to donate $ to the forum, most of them are greedy for themselves.

Indeed.  And I don't think there are any ideas one could come up with that would make account sales legitimate, whether they benefited the forum financially or not, because in the end it's always the forum that loses when accounts are sold.  Buyers are either scammers looking to buy an account with a trusted reputation or shitposters looking for the easiest way to gain access to a high-ranked account for sig campaigns. 

And I'm sure there are lots of other arguments against it that we've been through over and over throughout the years.  Account selling has been a problem since at least 2015 or so.  I don't follow the Accounts & Invites section anymore, so I don't know what the market is doing anymore.  Are accounts even being sold that much?

[icopress]

And I don't think there are any ideas one could come up with that would make account sales legitimate, whether they benefited the forum financially or not, because in the end it's always the forum that loses when accounts are sold.  Buyers are either scammers looking to buy an account with a trusted reputation or shitposters looking for the easiest way to gain access to a high-ranked account for sig campaigns. 

Yes, money can't buy a reputation ... It seems to me that people who want to present their project to the public on the forum first of all think about buying an account.. This happens only because they are simply not aware of the unofficial community policy regarding the sale of accounts, not to mention the fact that the percentage of such people is negligible, (and I guess Theymos added Copper Member just to meet the needs of this group of people). Otherwise, you are right, although the prices discussed here seem to me too high.

[GeorgeJohn]

Selling of account i think it's nice to sell account without making it so obvious to the forum than to announced it like what will yield positively to the community, I have seen your perspective, but is totally not ideals by forum admin to partake in selling of account because forum wants to generate capital's  fund's, no it's not really encouraging because forum has been existing since without selling management individuals account, that does not mean that community lacks finance to run the community and besides such finance is too little to community, and it's very obvious that if forum implement such many people will not sell their account and selling of accounts will take place in other social platforms, such Telegram, Twitter, Instagram and finally Facebook without awareness of the community.

[OgNasty]

I don't understand why we would want to add any legitimacy to account sales.  The general view within the community is that we don't want to encourage that kind of behaviour.

I would say it’s the best way to fight account sellers. It’s the approach that the US is now using to fight drug dealers. Sure, the majority is against people using drugs, but legalization is ultimately the best way to put drug dealers out of business and make sure the profits from operations are used for schools and not funding terrorism.

Just like drug dealers oppose legalization, I can promise you account sellers are against the forum selling accounts. There would be no better way to stop the profiting from account sales and that is why the most vehemently opposed to the idea are those who would be most hurt by it (account sellers followed by insecure power hungry individuals who think a useless forum title carries importance).

[Lucius]

I don't follow the Accounts & Invites section anymore, so I don't know what the market is doing anymore.  Are accounts even being sold that much?

Of course the accounts are still being sold, although I can’t say if it’s on a larger or smaller scale than a few years ago. The question is how many of these members actually sell accounts, and how many are just trying to scam some naive beginner who wants to become instant Senior or Hero member.

I checked the first 3 pages and found 5 members selling accounts :

- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5296436.0
- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5310530.0
- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5284255.0
- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5284137.0
- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5126522.0

Some, as you can see, have started a real business from this - $1000 for the Legendary account is a nice amount, but there are still those who are willing to pay it.

[Jet Cash]

Just ban all account sales, and freeze any accounts that are known to have  been purchased.

[Lucius]

Just ban all account sales, and freeze any accounts that are known to have  been purchased.

Ban all such accounts? But as I showed in one of the previous posts the sale of BTT accounts goes much further than this forum, and I guess most of such sales are made outside the forum. And as for freezing all purchased accounts, what about those that were purchased before the whole thing was put in the gray zone? Because if I'm not mistaken, it was completely legal and without any sanctions before 2015.

One day you buy a BTT account without any problems, the next day someone red tags you for the same thing because the rules changed overnight...

[DooMAD]

I don't understand why we would want to add any legitimacy to account sales.  The general view within the community is that we don't want to encourage that kind of behaviour.

I would say it’s the best way to fight account sellers. It’s the approach that the US is now using to fight drug dealers. Sure, the majority is against people using drugs, but legalization is ultimately the best way to put drug dealers out of business and make sure the profits from operations are used for schools and not funding terrorism.

Just like drug dealers oppose legalization, I can promise you account sellers are against the forum selling accounts. There would be no better way to stop the profiting from account sales and that is why the most vehemently opposed to the idea are those who would be most hurt by it (account sellers followed by insecure power hungry individuals who think a useless forum title carries importance).

If the issue was solely that people are profiting from selling accounts, then perhaps you'd have a point.  What about the other half of the problem, where we don't want people buying accounts either?  All you're doing is shifting the balance and making it easier for people to buy accounts.  That doesn't solve anything.

[actmyname]

Just like drug dealers oppose legalization, I can promise you account sellers are against the forum selling accounts. There would be no better way to stop the profiting from account sales and that is why the most vehemently opposed to the idea are those who would be most hurt by it (account sellers followed by insecure power hungry individuals who think a useless forum title carries importance).

It would be great if before anything like that happened, people were made aware that any forum reputation or rank is not symbolic of trustworthiness - Newbies still get scammed from mid to high-ranking members. Now where's that welcome message?

I still think that with account sales, they are equivalent to buying reputation and/or trust - in buying an account, one aims to take on the history of the previous account owner. Now, if theymos wanted to create an alternative for signature requirements (i.e. this idea) then you might see a slight decrease in the usefulness of account sales, but with the new DT system there are much more opportunities to capture "trusted" accounts.

Presumably, this +4 green trust member changed hands according to some users.Few other things that might be relevant to the intolerance of account sales but these are the first ones that come to mind.

[hilariousetc]

We already have Copper Member so Silver and Gold ones which could come with the signature sizes of Senior and Hero respectively would essentially kill account farming and sales because it would be largely pointless if you can purchase the benefits directly.

The real problem is that people do not buy BTT account solely to achieve the benefits of certain ranks, they are already doing it for completely different reasons, and we all know what these accounts are used for. But this is something that unfortunately cannot be prevented, even if the forum bans the sale of accounts and permanently bans those who do that - they would do it through other forums and social networks, as has always been the case. Some even have sites like this.

What reasons do people buy accounts other for their signature benefits? That's probably 99% of their use/value.

Just ban all account sales, and freeze any accounts that are known to have  been purchased.

This would be incredibly difficult to enforce and since the forum doesn't police scams they almost certainly won't do this. I think it would be a futile endeavour to even try and people would just sell them off site as they already do. I would prefer a solution where it effectively kills the market like the op has suggested. Adding more donator ranks is nothing but a win-win in my opinion and has multiple benefits.

[MusaMohamed]

Sr member: $300

It can take me 2 years to move to Sr. member as I am bad to earn merit. If I can spend $300 to get the Sr. member rank. I will take it but it is very easy and a good offer.

With Sr. member rank, I can join a good campaign and receive from $40 to $50 each week. After one or two months, I will get the $300 back. I can get it back faster if I use the bought Sr. member account to scam bigger than $300.

 

[Oshosondy]

Sr member: $300

It can take me 2 years to move to Sr. member as I am bad to earn merit. If I can spend $300 to get the Sr. member rank. I will take it but it is very easy and a good offer.

With Sr. member rank, I can join a good campaign and receive from $40 to $50 each week. After one or two months, I will get the $300 back. I can get it back faster if I use the bought Sr. member account to scam bigger than $300.

 

This is the mistake most people are making, unlike me I can not buy a ranked membership account because it will still take some little extra work to build the account to fit into joining campaigns. If you see bought ranked account, you will likely know them, they are accounts that most likely havong no merit history in 120 days, and will not be able to join a campaign, they will need to still build the account to have merits very well before the account can join a campaign. This is the mistake people that bought bitcointalk account are making, they will buy it, not able to have merit, and will not be able to join campaign. But, they will think after buying account, they will just join a campaign which is not like that.

[Lucius]

What reasons do people buy accounts other for their signature benefits? That's probably 99% of their use/value.

For the purpose of scam someone. If I'm not mistaken, that was perhaps the main reason that the forum's policy towards such sales has changed. Of course, most of them just want the opportunity to start earning money through campaign signatures as soon as possible, but if they are given the opportunity to scam someone for a larger amount, they will certainly not hesitate to do so.

I would prefer a solution where it effectively kills the market like the op has suggested.

The only way to keep account sales to a minimum is to completely ban signature/bounty campaigns - although even that move does not guarantee that some people would still not be interested in buying a high ranked account - it's still a lot easier than building your own.

[isaac_clarke22]

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Won't this be good, we will be able to know that such accounts are new and should be considered new with not pregenerated smerits but only merits. If the member is serious, he will be able to build the account to be able to fit into the ones that makes quality posts and be good.

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Aside from that I agree with others' comments above, this part kinda eliminates the purpose of merit system as well. Your merit along with the post/activity count tells your experience here in the forum.

You don't buy experience. You make it.

When I see a higher ranking member here, I pretty much think sometimes that they have plenty of knowledge since they've been here for a long time already along with how much merit they earned already.

[hilariousetc]

What reasons do people buy accounts other for their signature benefits? That's probably 99% of their use/value.

For the purpose of scam someone. If I'm not mistaken, that was perhaps the main reason that the forum's policy towards such sales has changed. Of course, most of them just want the opportunity to start earning money through campaign signatures as soon as possible, but if they are given the opportunity to scam someone for a larger amount, they will certainly not hesitate to do so.

I think the amount of people buying accounts to scam will be very very low, next to zero in fact. It's probably not even worth it. Most scams get called out and get negative feedback for even doing anything remotely sketchy so you're more likely to just waste a load of money buying an account just to try scam.

I would prefer a solution where it effectively kills the market like the op has suggested.

The only way to keep account sales to a minimum is to completely ban signature/bounty campaigns - although even that move does not guarantee that some people would still not be interested in buying a high ranked account - it's still a lot easier than building your own.

Actually, I think that would probably boost both account sales and people buying them to scam. If accounts become worthless to earn from everyone who is here to only earn via signature campaigns would then likely offload their account(s) as they have no need for them anymore, so people likely would try buy them cheaply to scam.

~


Won't this be good, we will be able to know that such accounts are new and should be considered new with not pregenerated smerits but only merits. If the member is serious, he will be able to build the account to be able to fit into the ones that makes quality posts and be good.

~

Aside from that I agree with others' comments above, this part kinda eliminates the purpose of merit system as well. Your merit along with the post/activity count tells your experience here in the forum.

You don't buy experience. You make it.

When I see a higher ranking member here, I pretty much think sometimes that they have plenty of knowledge since they've been here for a long time already along with how much merit they earned already.

Well that's why we shouldn't sell the current Member titles but new donator ones that don't effect your rank but just come with some of the benefits of them. So you could still be a Newbie or Junior or whatever but also a Copper/Silver/Gold Member etc and without merit that will still say a lot about the account. I dare say some campaigns still won't accept a Copper/Silver/Gold Member without some merit.

[icopress]

I would say it’s the best way to fight account sellers. It’s the approach that the US is now using to fight drug dealers. Sure, the majority is against people using drugs, but legalization is ultimately the best way to put drug dealers out of business and make sure the profits from operations are used for schools and not funding terrorism.

Just like drug dealers oppose legalization, I can promise you account sellers are against the forum selling accounts. There would be no better way to stop the profiting from account sales and that is why the most vehemently opposed to the idea are those who would be most hurt by it (account sellers followed by insecure power hungry individuals who think a useless forum title carries importance).

You make it sound like account sales make up a significant share of the forum economy ... I am not even talking about the absurdity of the comparison with the drug business. And your words make me think that this theoretical "legalization" can somehow hinder your business or the fact that within the walls of the forum there are related groups that are engaged in this business on an ongoing basis, (Except for cases dated 2015).

[Smartvirus]

Sales of account won't promote hard work especially when ranked up accounts come with some benefits. It would be a direct antagonist to the merit system and sooner than later merit says might come to play, all of which would not be helpful to the forum. I think it's best this way, there are other titles and positions that are acquired by the forum and the price or bitcoin to be donated us relatively high to ensure only the matured minds and not money hungry or scam minded persons get them together with some scrutiny that I ain't aware of but hope that to be the case. That alone is by far generating enough money for the forum along with using of some certain boards for certain activities and probably from traffic, I'm not sure of that too.

But then, the forum is relatively fair and should transactions like sales of account be discovered, DT have there ways to solving the matter.

[Harlot]

How can that discourage people when BCT itself will be selling the accounts? Now you made the account sellers have the ability to undercut the prices that BCT admins will be selling in this scenario. This won't stop anything and actually give more negative effect to Bitcointalk. How? If they sell accounts there will be no point in the merit system at all which will also lead to affecting the post quality being subpar because they know there is another easier alternative to obtain such accounts. Just reporting them and catching them as well as tagging the accounts they are selling would be enough and I think if people will participate in this kind of activity we will see less and less people selling accounts.