User banned - Possibly misunderstanding the idea of a regular social bounty

[AB de Royse777]

The topic creator is banned.

Sorry onemd, you are banned from posting or sending personal messages on this forum.
Reason: Incentivising posting within specific threads via low effort tasks for altcoins (see https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3953664.0).

Topic in question: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5338426.0

The final contents of the topic (read quoted part since that was the final agreement) :  https://paste.ee/p/dEwKE

Obviously it does not fit in games and rounds, but it fits in either in service section or in bounty (altcoin) section. How does it differ from a Twitter bounty, the regular ones we see in both sections?

I was suggesting mods to move the topic to service section after agreeing a response from LoyceV here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5331196.msg57042158#msg57042158

There must be a misunderstanding. There are no low effort tasks for altcoins or this kind. The campaign has been designed to pay in BTC but anything equal and under 0.0002 BTC seemed dust payment to me and I was suggesting OP to pay them in LTC to avoid dust issue. The payments of 0.0007 to 0.005 BTC should have no problems at all with BTC, so agreement was to pay anything between 0.0007 to 0.005 BTC will be in BTC. Quote this: 0.005 BTC to pay for a tweet was around $200 at the time the topic was created.

Now my problem here is that I am providing escrow services (0.025 BTC initially to secure the participants get paid) and managing the campaign. Here is the spreadsheet which is incomplete and a lot of them has done using https://ninjastic.space/topic/5338426 earlier.

For sure, I know there are users who updated their post after reserving their spot but since ninjastic.space does not record any update after more than 5 minutes (I assume) I have marked a lot of entries with yellow colour. There are so far total 0.00280000 BTC will be paid in BTC and 0.00305000 BTC will be paid in equivalent LTC (please check BTC and LTC tab).

It was supposed to be in service or altcoin (bounty) and those who Tweeted then update their post later should get paid.

I would like mod to review the action they have taken and consider restoring the topic and possibly move it to service or altcoin (bounty) section. The OP should also deserve to unban if this is a misunderstanding.

Or please help me to understand how the campaign was different from the regular social bounties we see in service and altcoin (bounty) section.

Cheers.

[SFR10]

and under 0.0002 BTC seemed dust payment to me and I was suggesting OP to pay them in LTC to avoid dust issue.
~Snipped~
Or please help me to understand how the campaign was different from the regular social bounties we see in service and altcoin (bounty) section.

It's a bit complicated but if I have to guess, I think it might be due to the following things combined ^{[I could be wrong]}:

• LTC dust payment for that section
• Tweet in question
• Not being a weekly/monthly campaign

Now my problem here is that I am providing escrow services (0.025 BTC initially to secure the participants get paid) and managing the campaign. Here is the spreadsheet which is incomplete and a lot of them has done using https://ninjastic.space/topic/5338426 earlier.

For sure, I know there are users who updated their post after reserving their spot but since ninjastic.space does not record any update after more than 5 minutes (I assume) I have marked a lot of entries with yellow colour. There are so far total 0.00280000 BTC will be paid in BTC and 0.00305000 BTC will be paid in equivalent LTC (please check BTC and LTC tab).

I believe the one that LoyceV created, might be a temporary solution to that problem: highlight deleted and edited posts (forum wide)
^{- Test [view it after a few seconds/minutes]: https://loyce.club/archive/details/topic_5338426.html}

[LoyceV]

If this ban is according to the rules, I disagree with the rules! This is someone willing to spend $1000 or more of his own money to troll a billionaire troll on Twitter. If that kind of community initiative isn't allowed, I believe the rules should be changed.

How does it differ from a Twitter bounty, the regular ones we see in both sections?

I never really understood why the bounty-spam-board is allowed to exist.

I believe the one that LoyceV created, might be a temporary solution to that problem: highlight deleted and edited posts (forum wide)

That doesn't really work if the topic is deleted: I can only show unedited backups.

[AB de Royse777]

If this ban is according to the rules, I disagree with the rules! This is someone willing to spend $1000 or more of his own money to troll a billionaire troll on Twitter. If that kind of community initiative isn't allowed, I believe the rules should be changed.

I would say poor enforcement of rules. I don't know if it was like this before or lately the mods are not spending much time in details before deleting a topic/post or even banning a user. In several occasions I have seen most of the time newbies and low rank members are victim of the poor moderation. The last one I remember happened with a newbie who was genuinely asking question on mining board, but his post/s was/were deleted. Ultimately, by giving the excuse of keeping the forum clean, we are demoralizing genuine crypto lovers, or what message you think are being sent to them?

It's very strange that our understanding of rules and mods understanding of rules has conflict despite some of us are even way older and active in the community than them. The moderation standard should be improved in my opinion. With the current setup/quality we are not helping the community much. I hope by saying this I am not making anyone angry against me. I always say that this community is my priority and I ensure it all the time.

Anyway, I have not talked to onemd yet. I am thinking to give him a proposal if he still wants to run this camping.

I will have two bounty threads. One in Service section and another one in altcoin (bounty) section for his campaign. The service section is for only BTC payment which is 0.0007 to 0.005 BTC and the altcoin (bounty) section will have the lower payment spreads, 0.000005 to 0.0002 BTC which will be paid in LTC. Rest of the things will be same, same terms and stuffs, and even I will be using same spreadsheet for two separate topics.

This does look annoying, but it seems the mods want this approach. At lest it was clear from the issue I had last time with a campaign paying 20% in BTC and 80% in native token.

PS: I really hope that they unban onemd. He does not deserve it.

[shahzadafzal]

Since original post is deleted I can only the content of the from paste.ee link. So the tweet in question was ..

Dear @ElonMusk, Bitcoin is a new option for Money and Gold. Bitcoin is what started Crypto. Mining gold and printing money uses fossil fuels and is environmentally unfriendly. Reconsider #Bitcoin #Crypto

If the user is banned because of this tweet related bounty I strongly believe there must be some misunderstanding... even the tweet itself is very polite and to the point. It's not bullying or targeted defaming. It's a simple fact and related to bitcoin marketing. Not much different from any other bounty requesting to promote a service or a twitter account of exchange etc.

I guess the user in question deserves proper explantion for his ban... after all this will help the other too, if there is any hidden rule which we are missing.
Regarding the other rule for BTC/LTC payment in Game & Rounds clearly make sense and this should not be in altcoin section. Dust payment is not an issue of bitcoin, bounty owner should know this by default and setting the appropriate payment amount considering the dust is part of bitcoin giveaways.

[LoyceV]

Ultimately, by giving the excuse of keeping the forum clean, we are demoralizing genuine crypto lovers, or what message you think are being sent to them?

This is my concern too.

PS: I really hope that they unban onemd. He does not deserve it.

I think only theymos can help you here. Did you send him a PM after your previous topic?

[JeromeTash]

I think the decision to ban onemd and delete the topic was totally unfair. If "Incentivising posting within specific threads via low effort tasks for altcoins" was the reason they used, then why are other altcoin bounties where people post bounty reports not deleted, and topic starters banned too?

The topic in question is similar to any other bounty.

[hilariousandco]

What sub was it in? Maybe it was a mistake as it doesn't seem to be against the rules, unless someone counted it as a paid spam attack or something.

[AB de Royse777]

I think only theymos can help you here. Did you send him a PM after your previous topic?

No I did not, I was not intending too as I moved on from that one. Besides, do you think theymos actually give response to the PMs. Once in a 100 times maybe he does which is not very good gesture (sorry no disrespect buddy, maybe you have priorities).

What sub was it in? Maybe it was a mistake as it doesn't seem to be against the rules, unless someone counted it as a paid spam attack or something.

If  you check the unedited archives (https://ninjastic.space/topic/5338426) it does not seem to have any spam attack or such things. It was in the Games and rounds sub, but it should be better in either Service or Altcoin (Bounty) board.

PS: If you have the authority then please review the ban against the user too. And let us know.

Cheers buddy.

[hilariousandco]

What sub was it in? Maybe it was a mistake as it doesn't seem to be against the rules, unless someone counted it as a paid spam attack or something.

If  you check the unedited archives (https://ninjastic.space/topic/5338426) it does not seem to have any spam attack or such things. It was in the Games and rounds sub, but it should be better in either Service or Altcoin (Bounty) board.

PS: If you have the authority then please review the ban against the user too. And let us know.

Cheers buddy.

Well it could be seen as paying people to spam Elon. I can remove the ban but it's best to find out who banned him first.

[FatFork]

This gets real interesting. Perhaps Elon deployed some countermeasures? 

[mprep]

I issued the ban. Quote from the thread:

- If you have less than 10,000 followers, then post an LTC address so that we can pay you in LTC. This is to avoid dust payment.

Quote from the stickied thread I've linked in the ban message (additional emphasis added by me):

Incentivizing posting within one or several threads via low effort tasks (e.g. signups or proof of participation for liking, following, subscribing, retweeting, tweeting a single tweet, joining a channel or group, etc.) is not allowed as it falls under the "no altcoin giveaways" rule (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2103687.0):

You can't offer to pay people who post their addresses, usernames, etc.

Accepting signups or requiring proof of participation for tasks requiring substantial effort (e.g. signature campaign signups, weekly social media campaign reports, media (videos, images, articles, etc.) bounty signups, etc.) via a thread posted in Bounties (Altcoins) is allowed though.

The user in question posting the thread in the wrong board is on them and the only thing this changes is that the participants didn't get bannned (as per how theymos handled a similar case in the past). The effect of this giveaway is the same as many others that had their threads trashed and their accounts temp banned: a low barrier of entry and an incentive to post for altcoins. The ban issued was of the same duration as similar offenses in the past. While I personally wouldn't be against lowering the duration to 14 days, I didn't feel like it was my call to decide on exceptions based on favoritism or subjective assessments of what's "cool". That's something you're going to have to petition theymos for.

The thread was brought to my attention via a report. So if you notice any similar giveaways (in Bounties (Altcoins) or other boards), feel free to report them.

The last one I remember happened with a newbie who was genuinely asking question on mining board, but his post/s was/were deleted. Ultimately, by giving the excuse of keeping the forum clean, we are demoralizing genuine crypto lovers, or what message you think are being sent to them?

From what I've heard, the mining boards have much stricter moderation compared to most other sections. If you think they're going overboard, I'd suggest either starting a Meta thread about it or PMing theymos and / or Cyrus.

[LoyceV]

I think only theymos can help you here. Did you send him a PM after your previous topic?

No I did not, I was not intending too as I moved on from that one. Besides, do you think theymos actually give response to the PMs. Once in a 100 times maybe he does which is not very good gesture (sorry no disrespect buddy, maybe you have priorities).

I don't often PM theymos, and when I do I don't always get a response. But I'm pretty sure he'll at least read your PM, especially if he recognizes your username. If you get ignored, you kinda have an answer too.
However, I've seen theymos put in a lot of effort in some cases where a user was banned or a posted deleted by mistake.

Well it could be seen as paying people to spam Elon.

The guy loves attention
Even if it would be a problem, wouldn't it be Twitter's problem to deal with? Just like the 5,080,501 other posts dedicated to spamming Twitter?

[AB de Royse777]

The user in question posting the thread in the wrong board is on them

I wonder why wasn't it moved to the right board? Either Service or Bounty (altcoin). Wouldn't that be a better solution than banning and removing a topic from a new member who is genuinely interested to do something for Bitcoin? The payment had two forms: LTC and BTC. Why only considered LTC (negative) side but not BTC (positive) side?

Let me mark bold from the same quote which makes it right if you would move that to Bounty (altcoin) considering you have missed that he is paying $200 worth of BTC in BTC for a tweet.

Incentivizing posting within one or several threads via low effort tasks (e.g. signups or proof of participation for liking, following, subscribing, retweeting, tweeting a single tweet, joining a channel or group, etc.) is not allowed as it falls under the "no altcoin giveaways" rule (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2103687.0):

You can't offer to pay people who post their addresses, usernames, etc.

Accepting signups or requiring proof of participation for tasks requiring substantial effort (e.g. signature campaign signups, weekly social media campaign reports, media (videos, images, articles, etc.) bounty signups, etc.) via a thread posted in Bounties (Altcoins) is allowed though.

The effect of this giveaway is the same as many others that had their threads trashed and their accounts temp banned: a low barrier of entry and an incentive to post for altcoins.

While I can not recall if there were same case but in his case he is not paying only with altcoin. In fact, the main goal was to pay bitcoin but since the lower amounts will consider dust bitcoin, the plan was changed (Read here the post I made just after the main thread with concerns about dust payment and suggesting escrow). For 0.000005 to 0.0002 BTC changed plan was to pay using LTC and 0.0007 to 0.005 BTC will be paid using BTC, obviously. Besides, he even escrowed 0.025BTC to ensure that community knows they will get paid. I would love to see an example where user is paying in BTC and escrowed the BTC but got banned and their topics were removed from G&R boards since you are claiming this is same case as many others' giveaway.

What if change the word "giveaway" and create the same but use the word "twitter bounty"? Would that consider fine? I guess yes coz that become just another twitter bounty we regularly see in service board and altcoin (bounty) board. Just one word that makes all the difference.

The thread was brought to my attention via a report.

If there were no more report against it then it was me who was suggesting to move it to service section as my take was since it's paying in BTC, it should be in service section. The report was not to remove the topic at all.

From what I've heard, the mining boards have much stricter moderation compared to most other sections. If you think they're going overboard, I'd suggest either starting a Meta thread about it or PMing theymos and / or Cyrus.

Honesty speaking I did not look in details. It was just a random read, and it looked like the user had genuine interest and was asking genuine question in the mining board.

I don't often PM theymos, and when I do I don't always get a response. But I'm pretty sure he'll at least read your PM, especially if he recognizes your username. If you get ignored, you kinda have an answer too.
However, I've seen theymos put in a lot of effort in some cases where a user was banned or a posted deleted by mistake.

I understand he is a busy bee and perhaps has his priorities so don't mind him much. It's obvious that he handles gigantic number of PMs and other form of inquiries every day.

[PrimeNumber7]

The thread in question appears to have been originally posted in games and rounds. IMO, it would be best to post a sticky in this sub clarifying that altcoin giveaways are not allowed anywhere in the forum. Over the years, various altcoin giveaways have been posted in the games and rounds sub, and it probably would not be unreasonable for forum members to be unaware of this rule.

For those that disagree with the altcoin giveaway rule, one compromise may be that the forum could charge for the ability to host an on-forum altcoin giveaway. Giveaway threads are resource-intensive because they cause many page-views and many posts that do not substantially contribute to the bitcoin ecosystem. I am not necessarily in favor of altcoin giveaways being allowed, however if someone was covering the forum's cost of hosting said giveaways, I would have no issue with them.

[mprep]

I wonder why wasn't it moved to the right board? Either Service or Bounty (altcoin). Wouldn't that be a better solution than banning and removing a topic from a new member who is genuinely interested to do something for Bitcoin? The payment had two forms: LTC and BTC. Why only considered LTC (negative) side but not BTC (positive) side?

It was moved to the appropriate board - the Trashcan. Had this giveaway been started in Bounties (Altcoins), the participants who applied for the LTC part of the giveaway would've been suspended as well (albeit for a much shorter period of time). What I was trying to highlight with the "wrong board" comment was that the onus of seeking out the (seemingly) appropriate board is on him and not doing so doesn't exempt him from the rules of a board where similar content (bounty campaigns that pay out altcoins) is located in. By not doing so, he violated 3 rules:

2. No off-topic posts.

<...>

14. All altcoin related discussion belong in the Alternate cryptocurrencies and its child boards.

15. No on-forum altcoin giveaways.

Had he selected the (seemingly) correct board to start his thread in, he probably would've read through the stickies and refrained from giving away altcoins.

Let me mark bold from the same quote which makes it right if you would move that to Bounty (altcoin) considering you have missed that he is paying $200 worth of BTC in BTC for a tweet.

<...>

While I can not recall if there were same case but in his case he is not paying only with altcoin. In fact, the main goal was to pay bitcoin but since the lower amounts will consider dust bitcoin, the plan was changed (Read here the post I made just after the main thread with concerns about dust payment and suggesting escrow). For 0.000005 to 0.0002 BTC changed plan was to pay using LTC and 0.0007 to 0.005 BTC will be paid using BTC, obviously. Besides, he even escrowed 0.025BTC to ensure that community knows they will get paid. I would love to see an example where user is paying in BTC and escrowed the BTC but got banned and their topics were removed from G&R boards since you are claiming this is same case as many others' giveaway.

The amount he's paying is irrelevant - it's what he's paying for (one-off low effort tasks that involve posting in the thread in exchange for altcoins). That's already prohibited and would've had your Bounties (Altcoins) thread trashed with you and your bounty's participants being temp banned.

Were we to make an exception for giveaways that payout "large" (which, again, is really subjective) amounts of BTC in addition to altcoins, you could pretend to give away huge quantities of BTC while also slotting in a promotion for whatever altcoin you see fit. You pay out the altcoins immediately and promise to pay out the BTC at the end of the campaign. You run the campaign for as long as you want and then disappear once you no longer need promotion for your selected altcoin. At which point you've not only dodged the spirit of the rule (technically, only breaking the rule once you disappear because you didn't actually give away BTC) but also scammed a bunch of people. Do note that I'm not implying this is the case, I'm merely highlighting a hypothetical situation.

Now, you could argue that there should be an exception for established altcoins as there's very little incentive to run such giveaways (as opposed to a new token running an ICO / IEO / I-whatever-O), but in the eyes of the forum (or I guess theymos specifically) there isn't. When it comes to giveaways - there's BTC and then there's altcoins (no matter how big or small). A different issue pops up with making exceptions if the BTC is escrowed - who do you consider as trustworthy escrows in the eyes of the rules / moderation. At that point, albeit not directly, we have to start moderating escrow scams (which doesn't seem like something theymos would want, considering that scammer tags have been deprecated for a rather long time) with the potential side effect of carving out a forum-approved escrow cartel that can make your bitcoin-part-altcoin be able to exist on the forum (as opposed to it just being trashed and you temp-banned).

What if change the word "giveaway" and create the same but use the word "twitter bounty"? Would that consider fine? I guess yes coz that become just another twitter bounty we regularly see in service board and altcoin (bounty) board. Just one word that makes all the difference.

Same rules would apply. As I've mentioned, I trashed numerous bounties paying altcoins in exchange for doing low effort tasks + posting in the thread (be it as a direct requirement or as proof of authentication). This restriction doesn't apply to all social media bounty tasks though and that's mentioned in the thread linked in the ban message:

Accepting signups or requiring proof of participation for tasks requiring substantial effort (e.g. signature campaign signups, weekly social media campaign reports, media (videos, images, articles, etc.) bounty signups, etc.) via a thread posted in Bounties (Altcoins) is allowed though.

The thread in question appears to have been originally posted in games and rounds. IMO, it would be best to post a sticky in this sub clarifying that altcoin giveaways are not allowed anywhere in the forum. Over the years, various altcoin giveaways have been posted in the games and rounds sub, and it probably would not be unreasonable for forum members to be unaware of this rule.

Games and Rounds is under the direct jurisdiction of Cyrus and hilariousandco, which is why I'd rather avoid stickying anything there myself (IIRC I've only ever stickied threads in the altcoin sections; even the unnoficial rules thread was stickied by a different mod). So while I (as a global mod) technically could, I feel like that'd be pretty rude. It is a pretty good idea though - I'll have to get in contact with Cyrus and hilariousandco to see what they think.

[savetheFORUM]

Very interesting topic and I wonder what saved this thread from being deleted? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5337562.0

(it's kind of a giveaway to me, users were asked to find a song/tune posted and whoever finds it, gets 20 dogecoins and a merit)

I love the openness from the moderators to explain why they delete a post and thread, doesn't happen everywhere, really appreciate it.

I issued the ban. Quote from the thread:

- If you have less than 10,000 followers, then post an LTC address so that we can pay you in LTC. This is to avoid dust payment.

Quote from the stickied thread I've linked in the ban message (additional emphasis added by me):

Incentivizing posting within one or several threads via low effort tasks (e.g. signups or proof of participation for liking, following, subscribing, retweeting, tweeting a single tweet, joining a channel or group, etc.) is not allowed as it falls under the "no altcoin giveaways" rule (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2103687.0):

[LoyceV]

Very interesting topic and I wonder what saved this thread from being deleted? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5337562.0

I guess nobody reported it. I saw the thread, but since it's an established altcoin, I decided not to report it anymore. Banning OP and participants for this seems excessive to me.

I love the openness from the moderators to explain why they delete a post and thread, doesn't happen everywhere, really appreciate it.

Even though I disagree, I commend mprep for being very consequent in applying the rules. I bet he'd ban theymos too if he would have opened the thread.

[savetheFORUM]

Very interesting topic and I wonder what saved this thread from being deleted? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5337562.0

I guess nobody reported it. I saw the thread, but since it's an established altcoin, I decided not to report it anymore. Banning OP and participants for this seems excessive to me.

I love the openness from the moderators to explain why they delete a post and thread, doesn't happen everywhere, really appreciate it.

Even though I disagree, I commend mprep for being very consequent in applying the rules. I bet he'd ban theymos too if he would have opened the thread.

You have every right to disagree but actually they just DON'T want any kind of altcoins giveaway in that section even if the intention is to pay BTC but because of the transaction fees, they have to pay altcoins.

My opinion doesn't matter but I think it would have been better handled had the OP been given a warning and asked to either remove the altcoins from the giveaway or just separate it into 2 different sections. One for BTC and the other in altcoin bounties for ALTS.

I didn't report it either because I thought it was a sweet attempt and was paid too. But when I see this happened, I had to bring it

[AB de Royse777]

~ let's snip all~

Honestly speaking, your understanding and interpretation of rules are going over my head (maybe my level of intellectuality is way lower than you). Maybe we can draw a line in disagreement because clearly we are looking this case from completely two different angles. Your focus in on the ALT coin part and my focus (and perhaps others too) is on the Bitcoin part. You are more into finding a little fault (not sure indeed it was there) and ban hammer a user by not caring about anything and without even looking at details and I (perhaps other too) are more into being open and give enough thought before taking any negative action.

But eventually your one will stand because you are playing an official rule. Just make sure that you don't make this space hard for genuine crypto lovers, bitcoin enthusiasts. Bitcoin still has a long way to go, and we need to ensure that we are helping to make this community bigger.


The piece of rule we have (let's not highlight any part of it, just be it the way it is)

Incentivizing posting within one or several threads via low effort tasks (e.g. signups or proof of participation for liking, following, subscribing, retweeting, tweeting a single tweet, joining a channel or group, etc.) is not allowed as it falls under the "no altcoin giveaways" rule (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2103687.0):

You can't offer to pay people who post their addresses, usernames, etc.

Accepting signups or requiring proof of participation for tasks requiring substantial effort (e.g. signature campaign signups, weekly social media campaign reports, media (videos, images, articles, etc.) bounty signups, etc.) via a thread posted in Bounties (Altcoins) is allowed though.

The topic in question: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5338426.0
Since deleted, the final contents of the topic (read quoted part since that was the final agreement) :  https://paste.ee/p/dEwKE

The reaction/opinion from the members who have given in this thread -

It's a bit complicated but if I have to guess, I think it might be due to the following things combined ^{[I could be wrong]}: ~snippied~

If this ban is according to the rules, I disagree with the rules! This is someone willing to spend $1000 or more of his own money to troll a billionaire troll on Twitter. If that kind of community initiative isn't allowed, I believe the rules should be changed.

If the user is banned because of this tweet related bounty I strongly believe there must be some misunderstanding... ~snippied~ I guess the user in question deserves proper explantion for his ban... after all this will help the other too, if there is any hidden rule which we are missing.

I think the decision to ban onemd and delete the topic was totally unfair.  ~snippied~

What sub was it in? Maybe it was a mistake as it doesn't seem to be against the rules, unless someone counted it as a paid spam attack or something.

My opinion doesn't matter but I think it would have been better handled had the OP been given a warning and asked to either remove the altcoins from the giveaway or just separate it into 2 different sections. One for BTC and the other in altcoin bounties for ALTS.

Let's forget what others are thinking or interpreting the rule/situation let's just point what mprep and hilariousandco (both global moderator after all) considering unofficial rule number 23.

23. When deciding if a user has broken the rules, the staff have the right to follow their interpretation of the rules.[e]

Eventually this is where we stand