Scam Projects should be moderated

[SatoPrincess]

I just saw a sports bet company promoted here recently that is widely considered as a scam. I'm referring to 1xbit signature campaign. Kingsden says Red tag is rampant on the forum. I was wondering what is the position of the forum staff here? Will you sit and watch this scam continue? Plagiarism and bounty cheating is taken more seriously than scam campaigns. I've had  three of my posts deleted as off-topic since I joined this forum. I only received a dm about it. That's how scam should be treated. Accounts are red tagged because they participate in a campaign that is allowed to run on the forum. Moderating scam can be difficult especially with the countless bounties, tokens that are promoted here every day. Regardless I think scam signature campaigns should be moderated since they are advertised on the forum directly. Lock, delete their campaign thread. Do something. I get the forum is liberal and care about freedom of speech/thought but this is different.
Here are some articles accusing the company as scam
https://www.trustpilot.com/review/1xbit.com

https://cryptomaniaks.com/1xbit-review

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[Little Mouse]

Because the forum doesn’t moderate scam. There's feedback system, the account is tagged. If you still are not aware of where you are depositing your money, why would be the forum lol. It's simple google search of a few words to find out the reputation of any site, but no one does that.

Anyway, forum doesn’t moderate scam because it will create more issue at the end.

[Lucius]

I understand your thinking, and it is in some ways quite justified, but this topic has been discussed so many times that all members who have been on the forum for a long time know that it is completely pointless to ask for the scam to be moderated. I don't think it's just a matter of freedom of expression, but also that forum staff doesn't want to get involved in such things - not only because they have to say something is a scam or not, but also because such actions would be time-consuming.

Therefore, this responsibility has been transferred to users who have at their disposal a trust and flag system to warn others of the danger of certain individuals or groups on the forum who have bad intentions. The situation is not ideal, but you have to accept it as a reality and adapt to it.

[ShowOff]

There is a fair amount of evidence alleging the 1xbit site and so far it is quite valid to say it is a scam site. We hear this advice often but there's not much that can be done as forums don't moderate scams. I probably wouldn't think this step of yours would be in vain if you would also mark it as an untrustworthy site, as well as for all the posters promoting the site on this forum.

You are another user who currently cares about the reputation of the site, so do something that you think is useful for other users on this forum and one of them is never trust them and all participant who promote the site. You definitely know how trust system work, so do it now.

[Mpamaegbu]

Because the forum doesn’t moderate scam. There's feedback system, the account is tagged. If you still are not aware of where you are depositing your money, why would be the forum lol. It's simple google search of a few words to find out the reputation of any site, but no one does that.

Anyway, forum doesn’t moderate scam because it will create more issue at the end.

I still don't know what type of issue we are envisaging it would cause taking down a scam campaign. Honestly, I have tried to think of a worse case scenario to that action taken but haven't come up with any. If a site is adjudged to be a scam from facts and evidence shown, what type of problem would it cause putting an end to its scammy ways? I don't know why the forum is still silent on this and expose gullible investors to such pitfalls all in the guise that "it doesn't moderate scam." Theymos and co will have to revisit that aspect of official rules of the forum.

OP, I share in your concern and sentiments. If people get tagged for scam activities and posts are deleted for seemingly being off topic or substandard responses, I don't see why the major issue of companies accused of scam activities shouldn't be controlled too. It's like catching the small thief and letting the bigger thief go scotfree.

[Little Mouse]

Theymos and co will have to revisit that aspect of official rules of the forum.

There's no official rules. All the rules we are following are unofficial 
Anyway, to ban/restrict a 100% scam project, theymos and co needs to check the scam thread case by case, verify them, verify the authenticity of the source of accusation etc. Can you imagine how much energy, effort and time it require?
Now, you may say 1xbit is 100% confirmed scam. There are hundreds of confirmed scam but will theymos have the resources need to check them one by one? No. So, it doesn’t make sense to stand against one project only, does it?
One can argue still that it's possible to ban all the confirmed scam project based on DT feedback but it is also possible that it will be biased and any DT member can manipulate it. At the end, it will create more chaos instead.
On the other hand, why would anyone put there money without any investigation? Isn't it your responsibility to check out how much reputed a gambling site is before handing out your money to them? If someone is conscious about their money, they must do it and they do I believe. If someone isn't conscious, they should have their lesson learned. You could have lose money in gambling too, anyway.

[NeuroticFish]

I'm referring to 1xbit signature campaign.

One has to open his eyes, really. The accounts advertising/endorsing 1xbit are tagged. The manager is tagged and flagged. If one doesn't do a minimal check before giving his money away then... what could I say?
As already said, the more the actions of the forum/mods against them, the more the chance nothing is solved on expense of much bigger problems getting created. Also if that would happen even the current signs could get hidden/lost.

[Mpamaegbu]

Theymos and co will have to revisit that aspect of official rules of the forum.

There's no official rules. All the rules we are following are unofficial 

Yeah, sorry, "unofficial" I meant to write. Thanks for pointing out that oversight.

One has to open his eyes, really. The accounts advertising/endorsing 1xbit are tagged. The manager is tagged and flagged.

But what stops the handlers of the forum from pulling the campaign down since it's the belief (proven facts) of majority here that 1xbit is a scam? It may not just be enough tagging it. A lot of users don't worry themselves reading or trying to find out why accounts are tagged and so may not know why they're. I've seen some users who applied to the campaign without knowing it's accused of scam. They just want to get in their applications as fast as they can because of the pay.

[Jawhead999]

Isn't not good if this forum will moderate scam, not all people has same experience and same thought do define a project/platform/services is scam. Have you ever use an exchanges or casino? does X exchanges or X casino is scam to you? probably isn't yet, so you will say they're legit. But if you search on google about the exchanges or casino you used, you will see there's some accusations against it.

Also this is Bitcoin forum, the forum remain decentralized like Bitcoin. Moderating scam will make it less decentralized.

Even they're promoting scam, it's our responsibility to use search engine about the project/services before using it. It's just stupid someone only click random signatures and made deposit.

[Maslate]

The forum cannot do anything about the scam but our DT members can, and that is by tagging them so their feedback is very visible to the people. What the mods only do is just to review the posts that are reported to them and determine if it's spam or not, and they'll do a corresponding action on spam.

Remember, the moderator's job is to minimize the spam, not scams.

[YOSHIE]

Inappropriate, the moderator of this Bitcointalk forum should change the rules that have been made by mutual agreement, the only reason is because the 1xbit site is committing fraud.

Q: Why haven't you banned <insert scammer username here> who is an obvious scammer?
A: Possible (or real, not for me to decide) scams are not moderated to prevent moderator abuse. If we start picking out which ones we call "scammers" and ban, we would make a lot of decisions based on biased opinions.

There are many fraud cases outside the Bitcointalk forum, they don't know where to complain, Alternative Bitcointalk Forum to be made a scapegoat for fraud complaints.
As if the forum doesn't care about it, in fact they access sites outside the forum without knowing their reputation, when they are deceived, they just cry here.


Should, for them before going any further to deposit their money and take action, it is fitting for them to have read the tips below.

Some Tips

• Search about the scammer first, use google to search for his/her details, other forum profiles, past scam reports and link to them in your scam report.
• Always try to provide chat/PM logs as a screenshot if it's possible.
• Use sites like https://imgur.com to upload images and https://pastebin.com or http://pastie.org for text based chat logs, although these may not be treated as good proof due to possible fakes.
• Make sure to provide as much as info you have, like the payment address, instant messenger ID's, etc.
• Make sure to leave negative feedback on the scammers profile and add your scam report as a reference link.
  

The tips above have explained all that about "scams" now only they themselves can prevent them from being deceived in any form of sites, gambling, wallets, crypto exchanges and so on.

[NeuroticFish]

One has to open his eyes, really. The accounts advertising/endorsing 1xbit are tagged. The manager is tagged and flagged.

But what stops the handlers of the forum from pulling the campaign down since it's the belief (proven facts) of majority here that 1xbit is a scam? It may not just be enough tagging it. A lot of users don't worry themselves reading or trying to find out why accounts are tagged and so may not know why they're. I've seen some users who applied to the campaign without knowing it's accused of scam. They just want to get in their applications as fast as they can because of the pay.

What stops them? Well, such a move could create a dangerous precedent. If we go on this road, at some point one business' campaign may get to be taken down just because the competition screamed "scam", for example.

If a lot of users don't care if they will even get paid or not, what can we do? Isn't it the same with way too many altcoin bounties? Of course, there in many cases they just get paid with worthless tokens, but I see it the same. At least in this case, if one gets tagged and removes the signature quick enough, he may get the tag removed.

I'm sorry, just because some people just hit into the walls head first, doesn't necessarily mean we have to tear down all the walls.
I don't say it's good or right. I hate to see that campaign as much as you do. And I'd also like to see it removed. But we have to look for the big picture. I mean, nothing stops them handle the campaign elsewhere and newcomers will not even know that the campaign manager has red tag. And then what will change? Nothing. Some users will still have the signature. Banning that too may start a cat and mouse game. And who wins? Nobody. It would be just an awfully lot of wasted time.

[DaveF]

Cynical thought. The more unregulated scams the more posts are on the board. The more people complain about the scams, he more posts are on the board. The more we discuss what we can do, the more posts are on the board. The more posts that are here the more bitcointalk is seen / indexed by search engines. The more it's seen / indexed more can be charged for advertising here.

Think of how much emptier this place would be if we got rid of the altcoin sections and all the scams.

-Dave

[Lucius]

Think of how much emptier this place would be if we got rid of the altcoin sections and all the scams.

Interesting thinking, and I believe you are somewhat right. When we just look at the Reputation&Scam board in direct connection with the scam that mentions the OP, a number of posts created just for that reason is considerable. This is just a part from Reputation, there is more in the Scam board.

12 discussion pages
4 discussion pages
6 discussion pages

I personally could do without both, but if scams were moderated and bounty campaigns banned, forum traffic would probably decrease.

[Findingnemo]

"Scams are not moderated here" which is already mentioned by the forum members above, if we want to keep the forum is completely scam free then it needs lots of works so more staffs so more expenses to the forum with no benefits at all that is why the feedbacks and flag system is in place which works as a warning to differentiate the scammer and who can you trust here so theymos want to keep this things simple with his smart ideas.

So anyone who registered here can see the warning and red trust under their profile then why still they choose the gamble there when lot of other legitimate service providers are here?

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Plagiarism and bounty cheating is taken more seriously than scam campaigns.

You have a valid point there, and while I don't disagree with your stance that the forum ought to take more of an active role in tackling scammers, I just don't think that's ever going to happen while Theymos is in charge.  This topic has been brought up in various forms in many threads over a number of years, and nothing has ever changed--not even the responses, which I've always called excuses.

There's a practical problem with moderating scams, of course, but I see other forums do it all the time with no chance of appeal or anything like that.  Apparently that's not how Theymos wants to run bitcointalk, so people on DT and other concerned members have to deal with it ourselves by tagging scammers, creating threads about them, and everything else.  Welcome to bitcointalk, different from other forums by a mile.

The forum cannot do anything about the scam but our DT members can, and that is by tagging them so their feedback is very visible to the people.

That's a bullshit statement, and I'm calling you out on it.  The forum absolutely could do a lot about scams; it chooses not to.  What you wrote I consider the "party line".

[PrimeNumber7]

At the end of the day, bitcointalk is a discussion forum, and the forum wants to allow as many people as possible to discuss things in various subs. Just because someone is an alledged scammer, it doesn't mean they are unable to contribute to various discussions about bitcoin.

I would also note that the OP says it is unquestionable that 1xbit is a scam. If there is no question about 1xbit being a scam, what does moderating them accomplish? Will it actually protect anyone? If you accept the premise that 1xbit is a scam, moderating their ability to advertise is not going stop anyone from getting scammed because the fact they are a scam is obvious to anyone considering to use their site.

I am not familiar with 1xbit, and am certainly not defending them. With that being said, if you want to make the argument that moderating 1xbit's ability to advertise will prevent some people from getting scammed, you could not make the assertion that it is unquestionable that 1xbit is a scam, and that there is some possibility they are not a scam. If that is the case, where is the due process for the accused, and what standards must be met prior to moderating their ability to advertise?

If you ask my opinion, I would say to let them advertise. Any money they spend on advertising is not going to be well spent.

[Upgrade00]

I get the forum is liberal and care about freedom of speech/thought but this is different.

Scams are not unmoderated because the forum cares about free speech, which it does of course, rather scams are unmoderated cause they cannot be effectively moderated. it's a case of choosing not to do something, cause you realize you cannot do it well and attempting to do it at all would create some problems.
1xbit is a pretty obvious scam and picking it out would be easy now, but there would be so many 'not so easy' scams to pick out and a lot more drama of how, Bitcointalk claims to moderate scams, but I lost my life savings on a website advertised there or how my legitimate project was banned cause a higher rank member accused me.

It's a complex issue the admin would rather avoid.
Also, if you're into Bitcoin where you effectively are your own bank, you should be able to use the red tag and banners as deterrent to void such obvious scams.

[OgNasty]

Good luck with that. Every project on this forum gets labeled as a scam by some lunatic regardless of if it is true or not. Not to mention that the most paid advertising on this forum is done by a company that’s main usage is for scammers to launder their stolen funds. It’s hard to blame them for taking the not moderating scams position though. At one point in time it would have been a massive amount of effort to look into all the projects being developed on this forum. Not so much anymore.

[JeromeTash]

There's no official rules. All the rules we are following are unofficial 

Yeah, sorry, "unofficial" I meant to write. Thanks for pointing out that oversight.

The rules are official, it's the list that is "unofficial" so @Mpamaegbu's statement was Okay

Read the title again Unofficial list of (official) Bitcointalk.org rules, guidelines, FAQ
I am not sure why it's called an unofficial list yet the thread is sticked