Bitcointalk Rules..Bend/Break

[SatoPrincess]

18. Having multiple accounts and account sales are allowed, but account sales are discouraged.

Forum rules are vague. Admin leaves the floor open for interpretation. This rule in particular was not well detailed because of this I think the rules are bent by users to suit their wants. When we say accounts sales are discouraged, are we talking ban, negative tags or just frowned upon. Buying an account other than copper membership sounds like cheating because I have discovered in Bitcointalk each user has a reputation. Therefore transferring ownership of an account to another is transfer of reputation. Then there is the risk of plagiarised content on the account. One can buy an account that has cases of unreported plagiarism without knowing. In the future, when the plagiarism comes to light the person loses his/her account. Is there a plea for such case? I read a case where someone was caught having multiple accounts on a bounty. He didn't seem sad about it he only said "it took long before they finally burst his account farm" or something like that. My point is he admitted to owning a farm and wasn't angry he would lose his account. In my opinion he saw account farming as a lucrative business.

I saw a guy selling Bitcointalk accounts. Why is that allowed?
A: Since we can't effectively prevent these sales (proxies, TOR, sales on other forums), we don't because otherwise we would be giving the users a false sense of security

If someone is caught selling accounts. Should the user be tagged? And the sold accounts tagged also? Should a user decides to create alt account for himself and gets a negative trust on one account. Shouldn't the negative trust be applied to both accounts since they are managed by the same person?

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[noorman0]

You should not view this as an impact only on yourself (eg as the account owner), but also on others (who have or want to trade). "Not recommended" because of the level of risk.
If you are an account seller, you will not know the exact background of the buyer. Maybe the buyer is just taking advantage of the trust level of the account you are selling to deceive others. If you're the buyer, the seller may have an unresolved agreement with the account that you didn't know about or the owner kept secret so that it becomes a problem for you someday.

-snip-
If someone is caught selling accounts. Should the user be tagged? And the sold accounts tagged also? Should a user decides to create alt account for himself and gets a negative trust on one account. Shouldn't the negative trust be applied to both accounts since they are managed by the same person?

Yes, imo the tag is required according to the conditions and level of risk (not always negative).

[DdmrDdmr]

A fair share of questions, and not something that has/has a lack of debate on the matter.

Let’s start by saying what’s already been reiterated many times: One can have multiple accounts if he likes (I’ve got another for scraping the forum for example), and there are many legitimate reasons for having one such as separating business from opinion, distinguishing between when you’ve got your full attention and when you’re on the road, and so forth .. or even for bounty hunting through various accounts, or expressing an opinion from an account for fear of retaliation or loss of reputation from his main account.

What one can´t do is, what’s been said many times: talk to himself in order to bump a thread, merit himself, participate in the same campaign with multiple accounts (lest the rules let him do it). In general terms, one should be ethical with his accounts so as to say. One could even have a farm if he wishes, but under this principle if be, and respecting the concerning rules.

In terms of account selling, these are not encouraged, and generally frowned upon. What does that really mean? Well, likely that there is no way of controlling account sales if people have more than one working non-alcoholised neuron, so prohibiting them whilst vouching for freedom, when the end result is near to null, is possibly the reason for not doing so. I’d prefer them to be prohibited, leaving a solid reference rule if caught, but they are not. KYC is obviously out of the matter.

Account sales, nevertheless, do kind of go against the principle of effort that one is accustomed nowadays to rank-up an account, and if does seem like skipping the line with a fast-track pass, which fells like a kick in the genital area. Again, not prohibited, but not really liked.

They also could potentially, but not necessarily, lead to piggybacking of other’s credibility, and just the mere rank is often viewed in awe by newcomers to the forum, often believing more that said from higher ranks. That is a potential scenario that allows some to try to scam based on this trust on rank, but you never really know.

Others may purchase accounts to fast-track their participation in bounties with a better pay, although often campaigns require earned merits in the last x days, which is not often part of the bundle.

Eventually, some may get tagged (both buyer and seller), but it’s a delicate matter, and the opinion is divided between those that believe that a sold account is a potential scammer and should be tagged as a threat, and those that do not believe it should, lest there be clear evidence that the account is very likely (not just potentially) to be a scammer. I’m with the latter.

Concerning the baggage that a bought account may have, that is the buyer’s risk. It may indeed be tainted with plagiarism, and could well be spotted later on and banned. I recall one such case of a well-known forum member, who got banned for plagiarism committed by the prior owner, and was eventually let off the hook. That is practically a one-off I’d sat though, and if one chooses to buy an account, he should be prepared to potentially be banned (if his posting history contains plagiarism for example), or tagged as things stand.

[acroman08]

not sure about you but for me, it is pretty straightforward. it means what it says. giving a negative tag to the user selling an account or to the one buying the account is pretty much up to the members of the forum.

Then there is the risk of plagiarised content on the account. One can buy an account that has cases of unreported plagiarism without knowing. In the future, when the plagiarism comes to light the person loses his/her account. Is there a plea for such case?

as far as I know, there isn't. (I guess, there is a special case based on what DdmrDdmr wrote)

If someone is caught selling accounts. Should the user be tagged? And the sold accounts tagged also?

yes, and yes.

Should a user decides to create alt account for himself and gets a negative trust on one account. Shouldn't the negative trust be applied to both accounts since they are managed by the same person?

if an account is found out to be connected to a tagged account, as far as I know, members tend to put either neutral or negative feedback saying that the account is connected to a negatively tagged account.

[Coyster]

One can buy an account that has cases of unreported plagiarism without knowing. In the future, when the plagiarism comes to light the person loses his/her account. Is there a plea for such case?

In my opinion, there should not be any sort of plea for such case, the user already went against the ethics guiding forum users from purchasing accounts, and once the account has been bought and ownership transferred, whatever offense or wrongdoing on the account is automatically transferred to the new user (the one who bought the account), that is exactly the same way good reputation is transferred when accounts are bought, and most times the new user uses it to scam people, that's why account sales are 'discouraged', cause you can't tell what the new owner would do with the account.

Having said that, if you buy an account, and it's discovered that the erstwhile user committed the offense of plagiarism, the account is definitely going to be banned, notwithstanding 'who' actually plagiarized, and if the user makes a case that the account was actually bought and he/she didn't commit the offense themselves, that still isn't a good reason to unban the account cause a user who buys an account is more often than not, not an asset to the forum, and the mods will see no reason to unban the account.

[lovesmayfamilis]

I also once wondered what to do with alternative accounts that previously received negative tags, and subsequently opened new accounts. But practice shows that if someone receives a negative review, he can freely open a new account, without further consequences for himself.
This is done regularly by bounty hunters. I have met very few people who would be marked negatively for opening a new clean account.
Here, of course, in my understanding, double logic works. The person remains the same, we know his past mistakes, but it is worth changing the name, and he turns into an innocent character.
This can be called common self-deception. And this is one of the reasons for the existence of various scammers on the forum, as they understand that getting banned is more difficult than getting rid of a negative tag.

[Oshosondy]

One can buy an account that has cases of unreported plagiarism without knowing. In the future, when the plagiarism comes to light the person loses his/her account. Is there a plea for such case?

I have a topic regarding sales of Bitcointalk account and why it should be discouraged, you can read it, it indirectly talks about what you are asking about.

Sales of bitcointalk account must be discouraged

Regardless of an account bought or not, the user will be banned if there is any cases of plagiarism, that is why it is good to start from the scratch just like you did.

[Pmalek]

When we say accounts sales are discouraged, are we talking ban, negative tags or just frowned upon.

No bans, just negative trust ratings.

Therefore transferring ownership of an account to another is transfer of reputation.

That's right. The worst thing about that is that the buyer might use that reputation to scam other members who don't know that the account has changed hands. Imagine the consequences of buying or hacking an account of a trusted escrow who uses that reputation to begin an escrow deal worth several Bitcoins?

What one can´t do is,
merit himself

There is actually no rule against it, but that doesn't mean it should be done because it shouldn't. When talking about merit rules, theymos only mentions that merit sources are not allowed to sell their merits. But if you merit yourself, you can expect to be tagged by forum members for abuse and rightly so.

participate in the same campaign with multiple accounts (lest the rules let him do it).

This is also not something that the Bitcointalk forum rules prohibit. It's a rule that signature and bounty campaigns have if they want to. But the forum admins don't don't oversee any of it.

Having said that, if you buy an account, and it's discovered that the erstwhile user committed the offense of plagiarism, the account is definitely going to be banned, notwithstanding 'who' actually plagiarized, and if the user makes a case that the account was actually bought and he/she didn't commit the offense themselves, that still isn't a good reason to unban the account cause a user who buys an account is more often than not, not an asset to the forum, and the mods will see no reason to unban the account.

That's exactly what happened to bill gator if I remember correctly. He got a temp and sig ban for a plagiarized post that he admitted he never wrote because he bought the account long after it was made.

[Alisha-k]

Permit me but I feel like this particular rule needs modifications, if not how would account sales be allowed and yet disencouraged?

No doubt, most persons have genuine reasons why the operate dual accounts, but if this is a rule, then the should be penalty for defaulters.

[UserU]

Permit me but I feel like this particular rule needs modifications, if not how would account sales be allowed and yet disencouraged?

No doubt, most persons have genuine reasons why the operate dual accounts, but if this is a rule, then the should be penalty for defaulters.

Because most of the time, purchased accounts are used to circumvent signature campaign/ bounty campaign rules or to be used to scam.

However as mentioned above, that's when the tags come in so people will use their judgements before dealing with the account(s) in question.

[RapTarX]

Permit me but I feel like this particular rule needs modifications, if not how would account sales be allowed and yet disencouraged?

No doubt, most persons have genuine reasons why the operate dual accounts, but if this is a rule, then the should be penalty for defaulters.

How would you define which account has been sold and/or transferred ownership? How would you know someone is using bunches of account? I guess you have no way to verify that unless you are going to implement KYC which makes zero sense of course. Therefore, how would you evaluate that? Admin must go through a lot of questionable decision which doesn’t make any sense. I believe the rule set by the admin is more or less flexible for everyone if they use the forum for discussion.

[Magicalking]

Permit me but I feel like this particular rule needs modifications, if not how would account sales be allowed and yet disencouraged?

No doubt, most persons have genuine reasons why the operate dual accounts, but if this is a rule, then the should be penalty for defaulters.

How would you define which account has been sold and/or transferred ownership? How would you know someone is using bunches of account? I guess you have no way to verify that unless you are going to implement KYC which makes zero sense of course. Therefore, how would you evaluate that? Admin must go through a lot of questionable decision which doesn’t make any sense. I believe the rule set by the admin is more or less flexible for everyone if they use the forum for discussion.

KYC will ruin the forum. People here love their privacy and freedom this makes Bitcointalk unique from other platforms. The only people who do not seem to mind are bounty hunters who use their Facebook, Twitter accounts for participating in bounties. Bounty hunters do not care about hiding thier identiry. Good thing forum does not have profile pictures. More scammers would come with their pretty pictures and investment ideas

[Lucius]

18. Having multiple accounts and account sales are allowed, but account sales are discouraged.

Forum rules are vague. Admin leaves the floor open for interpretation.

I don't know exactly when, but sometime during 2015 the current guidelines for selling/buying BTT accounts came into force, and until then the accounts were normally sold and bought without any sanctions, or rather without negative trust feedback as is the case now. It would be better if account trading was completely banned, but that’s another thing the forum administration doesn’t want to deal with, and it’s all left to DT members who mostly paint all those involved in red. Unfortunately, many such accounts still participate in signature/bounty campaigns, which was not the case before.

One can buy an account that has cases of unreported plagiarism without knowing. In the future, when the plagiarism comes to light the person loses his/her account. Is there a plea for such case?

As other members have already mentioned, there is one case that has been positively resolved in favor of a member on the intervention of the admin, but after all his reputation has been pretty damaged and I think it's hard or almost impossible to fix things like that. The lesson of the story is that if you do something bad, sooner or later you have to pay the price for it. Don’t buy/sell accounts and don’t do plagiarism, two rules that everyone should follow.

[GeorgeJohn]

Buying account used by someone is at higher risk Level from my own Perspective, it the seller who knows he or he obligation for selling the account. So in the aspect of commitment, if a purchased account have existing issues that has not been resolved before it could be sold out, it's obvious that the problem belong to who purchased the account and no amount the problem will get involve to whom sold the account. I aware that buying account is not against the forum law but the problem is that do you know what the account will result out tomorrow.

[SatoPrincess]

One can buy an account that has cases of unreported plagiarism without knowing. In the future, when the plagiarism comes to light the person loses his/her account. Is there a plea for such case?

I have a topic regarding sales of Bitcointalk account and why it should be discouraged, you can read it, it indirectly talks about what you are asking about.

Sales of bitcointalk account must be discouraged

Regardless of an account bought or not, the user will be banned if there is any cases of plagiarism, that is why it is good to start from the scratch just like you did.

I also found your other thread. You think selling accounts for $500 will discourage "unlawful account sales?". Is there such a thing as a lawful sale? It's been a long since you posted this thread, are your beliefs on the subject still the same?

[Oshosondy]

I also found your other thread. You think selling accounts for $500 will discourage "unlawful account sales?". Is there such a thing as a lawful sale? It's been a long since you posted this thread, are your beliefs on the subject still the same?

It was just a suggestion, but the forum members turned it down, I later had to think about it and noticed I was wrong, it has been discussed in the past and theymos is not having thinking in that direction. If we think of it, someone involving himself here in discussion will rank up if having good posts, that is all that matters. For those that bought account, it is not hard to know them here that they are new. If it is still hard to know them, they are not resistant to ban if the account bought is found guity of not obeying the forum rules that can lead to ban.

[SatoPrincess]

I also found your other thread. You think selling accounts for $500 will discourage "unlawful account sales?". Is there such a thing as a lawful sale? It's been a long since you posted this thread, are your beliefs on the subject still the same?

It was just a suggestion, but the forum members turned it down, I later had to think about it and noticed I was wrong, it has been discussed in the past and theymos is not having thinking in that direction. If we think of it, someone involving himself here in discussion will rank up if having good posts, that is all that matters. For those that bought account, it is not hard to know them here that they are new. If it is still hard to know them, they are not resistant to ban if the account bought is found guity of not obeying the forum rules that can lead to ban.

Change in password, posting pattern, change in local boards or language are good indicators that an account has changed hands. Ranking up isn't easy for newcomers. That was what I believed when I first came to the forum. You're right Oshosondy buying account is taking shortcuts

[Findingnemo]

I also found your other thread. You think selling accounts for $500 will discourage "unlawful account sales?". Is there such a thing as a lawful sale? It's been a long since you posted this thread, are your beliefs on the subject still the same?

It was just a suggestion, but the forum members turned it down, I later had to think about it and noticed I was wrong, it has been discussed in the past and theymos is not having thinking in that direction. If we think of it, someone involving himself here in discussion will rank up if having good posts, that is all that matters. For those that bought account, it is not hard to know them here that they are new. If it is still hard to know them, they are not resistant to ban if the account bought is found guity of not obeying the forum rules that can lead to ban.

Change in password, posting pattern, change in local boards or language are good indicators that an account has changed hands. Ranking up isn't easy for newcomers. That was what I believed when I first came to the forum. You're right Oshosondy buying account is taking shortcuts

Account sales died completely since the introduction of merit system because account farming is no more possible and even if someone is selling their account now then the price will be too high and still there are chances to notice the account changed hands in somehow. But forum is not going to ban the accounts for buying and selling but the only occasion they will be banned when they found to be an alt of already banned user.

[TheNineClub]

I'd like a more strict rule on this forum. There are some things that are left to the interpretation of moderators and with how big the forum is, some things tend to get lost in translation. But the acc selling rule is a hard one. Sure, it should be a stricter punishment than just waving your finger at the person, but anything stricter (ban or suspension) should come with strong evidence of wrongdoing, and a lot of time, that's impossible.

[SquirrelJulietGarden]

18. Having multiple accounts and account sales are allowed, but account sales are discouraged.

Forum rules are vague. Admin leaves the floor open for interpretation. This rule in particular was not well detailed because of this I think the rules are bent by users to suit their wants. When we say accounts sales are discouraged, are we talking ban, negative tags or just frowned upon. Buying an account other than copper membership sounds like cheating because I have discovered in Bitcointalk each user has a reputation.

Discouraged means it is allowed but the community does not positively think about bought accounts.

Because there are many scammers bought accounts to make their scam activities more legit. They can make a view better if they are Legendary members.

If you don't do anything wrong, a negative feedback can not kill you. It is not good feeling but it won't kill you. Anyway, it is unfair for newbies who don't buy account and have to grow up with merit system, while you just spend $100, $200 to buy a Legendary account and join campaigns or bounties.

Additionally, bought accounts in bounties are spammers. They don't understand forum rules and only spam to get money from bounties. It's harmful for the forum and community.

[Oshosondy]

That was what I believed when I first came to the forum. You're right Oshosondy buying account is taking shortcuts

What I was also thinking when I joined, but later I saw it to be wrong too, what matters is to be visiting the forum often and post quality posts on quality threads.

Additionally, bought accounts in bounties are spammers. They don't understand forum rules and only spam to get money from bounties. It's harmful for the forum and community.

I am not insinuating this to you that you are wrong, you are right, but nothing yet changed about the bounty hunters with very high spam posts but paid by bounty managers.

[GeorgeJohn]

I also found your other thread. You think selling accounts for $500 will discourage "unlawful account sales?". Is there such a thing as a lawful sale? It's been a long since you posted this thread, are your beliefs on the subject still the same?

It was just a suggestion, but the forum members turned it down, I later had to think about it and noticed I was wrong, it has been discussed in the past and theymos is not having thinking in that direction. If we think of it, someone involving himself here in discussion will rank up if having good posts, that is all that matters. For those that bought account, it is not hard to know them here that they are new. If it is still hard to know them, they are not resistant to ban if the account bought is found guity of not obeying the forum rules that can lead to ban.

Change in password, posting pattern, change in local boards or language are good indicators that an account has changed hands. Ranking up isn't easy for newcomers. That was what I believed when I first came to the forum. You're right Oshosondy buying account is taking shortcuts

Yes of course, if an account change method of posting you will easily detect it, but some people can as well buy account and follow the method of the previous person that was handling the account initially, so to detect a bought account is not difficult for someone who doesn't know the rudiments or procedures of the community that purchased account, that is the reason while when you see some higher account user's asking a question you expected a newbie to ask thenyou will be shocked because maybe the point of the user doesn't sounds like someone who has been into the system for a period of time, And in addition, they will definitely fine it very difficult to earn merit like before.

[Issa56]

Every member of the forum knows that trading of accounts is highly discouraged so any member that want to sell or buy Bitcointalk account knows that he is going against the forum rules and there is punishment for that so if they are caught I believe both the buyer and the seller should be given a negative trust for going against the forum rules.

[DdmrDdmr]

<…> any member that want to sell or buy Bitcointalk account knows that he is going against the forum rules <…>

Well, the point of this thread is to discuss the rule highlighted and quoted in the OP. It clearly states that accounts sales are actually allowed. It does not, however, dwell on the lateral side effects of doing so, which are depicted on subsequent posts within this thread. The virtual corollary is a sort of "but don’t", despite it being allowed.

[Issa56]

<…> any member that want to sell or buy Bitcointalk account knows that he is going against the forum rules <…>

Well, the point of this thread is to discuss the rule highlighted and quoted in the OP. It clearly states that accounts sales are actually allowed. It does not, however, dwell on the lateral side effects of doing so, which are depicted on subsequent posts within this thread. The virtual corollary is a sort of "but don’t", despite it being allowed.

Waw seriously I think trading of account is really illegal in the forum thanks for the awareness maybe I will have to go true the forum rules again but I think trading of accounts shouldn't be a good idea. Why will you buy account you should be able to build your account yourself and am sure some people will buy account just to do illegal things.

[Oceat]

I'd like a more strict rule on this forum. There are some things that are left to the interpretation of moderators and with how big the forum is, some things tend to get lost in translation. But the acc selling rule is a hard one. Sure, it should be a stricter punishment than just waving your finger at the person, but anything stricter (ban or suspension) should come with strong evidence of wrongdoing, and a lot of time, that's impossible.

The topic account selling is allowed yet they don't which is kind of confusing to some forum users but one thing that I know is that moderators/DTs doesn't like account selling they always tag someone who has a solid evidence of selling an account. I don't know how they want to allow it to some users, like friend or something if some reputable user sold his or give his/her account to their friend(s).

That rule somehow must be changed to discouraging account selling and not just allowed account selling since the bottom line is always "don't you'll get red tag". I don't know how many times they have been discussing this topic but theymos probably knew about this yet just leave it to the users.

[Mpamaegbu]

Permit me but I feel like this particular rule needs modifications, if not how would account sales be allowed and yet disencouraged?

I shared the same perspective on this in another thread a few days ago here 👇 Find below my view from the post as seen in the snippet from the quoted comment.

My dear, it's really the height of a hidden paradox. Frankly, I have tried to wrap my head around that part too of something being allowed but then discouraged and it keeps beating me hallow. To put it mildly, it doesn't make sense to me.

.
Different shades of opinion emanated from that discourse which still didn't assuage my confusion. It's like scheming something to intentionally ensnare someone. I sincerely hope theymos will throw light on that or simply abolish it.

[DdmrDdmr]

I’d rather them being prohibited, so as to have a solid reference on how to act, that it be left an arbitrary thing depending on the criteria of different discrepant individuals. I was actually looking for a quote of the matter from the higher spheres of the forum, and came across this: https://bitcointalk.org/?topic=5197446.0

The quote in the first post seems like a non-real-quote (as shown by the note at the end of the post, the wrong pointing quote link, and the fact that there is no such post made by @theymos, neither on Bitcointalk nor any of the archive sites I’ve looked at), but it gives an idea on how arbitrary the criteria can be on such a matter.
 
Whilst people are bound to differ in opinion on the topic at hand, or to the shades of grey implied as exemplified by the above referenced post, it does seem an overall conceptual conflict to allow account sales, but to discourage them, and even lead them to be tagged for it. A more logical approach would be to prohibit them (try and control that though), and report proven cases for appropriate action to be taken to either party.