Discussion on buying/selling accounts/users actively seeking possible bought acc

[Husna QA]

A few other DT members from Indonesia have discussed what deserves feedback and what doesn't, among which the main focus of feedback is for buying, selling, and lending issues ([INFO] DT1 dan DT2 yang berasal dari user Indonesia).

In essence, my fellow Indonesian DT members and I agree on the following admin statement:

I do not view it as appropriate for trust ratings to relate primarily to non-trust matters. By giving someone negative trust, you're basically attaching a note to all of their posts telling people "warning: do not trade with this person!". If we can get DT working well enough, in the future I'd like to prevent guests from even viewing topics by negative-trust users in trust-enabled sections, so you have to ask yourself whether your negative trust would warrant this sort of significant effect.

In particular, in my view:
 - Giving negative trust for being an annoying poster is inappropriate, since this has nothing to do with their trustworthiness. If they're disrupting discussion or never adding anything, then that's something for moderators to deal with, and you should report their posts and/or complain in Meta about it.
 - Giving negative trust for merit trading and deceptive alt-account use may be appropriate, but you should use a light touch so that people don't feel paranoid.
 - You should be willing to forgive past mistakes if the person seems unlikely to do it again.
 - It is absolutely not appropriate to give someone negative trust because you disagree with them. -snip-

In this forum, having multiple accounts and buying and selling Bitcointalk accounts is not prohibited as long as it is not used to violate forum rules. But I don't like the practice of buying and selling accounts, especially if the one who buys a high-rank account is a beginner (my thread regarding this: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3070438.0).

Suppose the account bought and sold turns out to be an offense, such as cheating the campaign by using several alt accounts at once or committing fraud against other users by abusing the trust of the account he bought. In that case, I think it deserves a red tag, but if the purchased accounts may not have been proven guilty, I do not want to abuse my authority as DT1 to give them a red tag.

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[rby]

Account selling undermines our Merit system as well because Account selling is similar to buying Merit. Buying Merit is not allowed, too.

Merit sources aren't allowed to sell Merit. Other than that, it's allowed to buy Merit, and that's probably because of the same reason why account sales are allowed: it can't be stopped anyway.

Gosh! LoyceV you scared me by this post. That except the merit sources, any other person can buy or sale merits. I haven't read something of this nature in this forum. Merit trading had always been known as a serious offence even more than account selling.

Allow me to quote theymos on Merit sales:

Merit sales, transfers to aliases, back-and-forth trading, etc. are not much of an issue. All illegitimate merit will decay, and will account for a tiny and very expensive fraction of the total merit economy. It's basically a rounding error; fight it where convenient, but waste no sleep over it.

Oh! No No... this is true. This simply means there are no firm rules in BTT.

[jokers10]

Account selling undermines our Merit system as well because Account selling is similar to buying Merit. Buying Merit is not allowed, too.

Merit sources aren't allowed to sell Merit. Other than that, it's allowed to buy Merit, and that's probably because of the same reason why account sales are allowed: it can't be stopped anyway.

Gosh! LoyceV you scared me by this post. That except the merit sources, any other person can buy or sale merits. I haven't read something of this nature in this forum. Merit trading had always been known as a serious offence even more than account selling.

Allow me to quote theymos on Merit sales:

Merit sales, transfers to aliases, back-and-forth trading, etc. are not much of an issue. All illegitimate merit will decay, and will account for a tiny and very expensive fraction of the total merit economy. It's basically a rounding error; fight it where convenient, but waste no sleep over it.

Oh! No No... this is true. This simply means there are no firm rules in BTT.

That's why there is more or less consensus over it: if some buy or sell merits, it means they trade a measure of recognition on the forum and it makes them dubious counterparties. So trading with them has higher risks, so they deserve red marks in a trust system.

So right, it is not a matter of rules, but it is a matter of reputation system of the forum.

[LoyceV]

This simply means there are no firm rules in BTT.

There's this:

I don't believe in having a set of hard rules which is to be applied to all cases. Whenever an argument starts looking like it was written by a lawyer, or relying overmuch on precedent, you've stopped thinking about the real case and have started using rules to retreat into moral and intellectual laziness, divorcing yourself from the decision you're about to make. If you're making a decision about a case, then you're responsible for that case, and you can't say, "I don't agree with it, but I was just enforcing the rules." Every case needs to be handled individually.

That's why there is more or less consensus over it: if some buy or sell merits, it means they trade a measure of recognition on the forum and it makes them dubious counterparties. So trading with them has higher risks, so they deserve red marks in a trust system.

And there's this:

If a DT member tags you for something stupid involving merit (ie. probably anything less than selling merit), then they're not going to be a DT member for much longer.

[rby]

That's why there is more or less consensus over it: if some buy or sell merits, it means they trade a measure of recognition on the forum and it makes them dubious counterparties. So trading with them has higher risks, so they deserve red marks in a trust system.

So right, it is not a matter of rules, but it is a matter of reputation system of the forum.

In order words, if the word 'trade' is not involved. I mean there is no monetary attachment, it is right to swing into the dm of a merit source and give them reasons to be dropping me merits more than I deserve. If this isn't seen as a merit begging by the merit source, it is all fine that way.

This simply means there are no firm rules in BTT.

There's this:

I don't believe in having a set of hard rules which is to be applied to all cases. Whenever an argument starts looking like it was written by a lawyer, or relying overmuch on precedent, you've stopped thinking about the real case and have started using rules to retreat into moral and intellectual laziness, divorcing yourself from the decision you're about to make. If you're making a decision about a case, then you're responsible for that case, and you can't say, "I don't agree with it, but I was just enforcing the rules." Every case needs to be handled individually.

I can confirm today that theymos is a wise man. If there be rigid rules for everything, the moderators would likely be acting against their wish in most cases. Because they wouldn't use their reasoning or conscience, rather they will simply trace your offence to a laid down punishment and that settles it.

[jokers10]

In order words, if the word 'trade' is not involved. I mean there is no monetary attachment, it is right to swing into the dm of a merit source and give them reasons to be dropping me merits more than I deserve. If this isn't seen as a merit begging by the merit source, it is all fine that way.
...

It can be considered as begging.

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Forum rules

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7. No begging. [5]
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But if a merit source considers the other way I guess it is between him and theymos what is allowed for a merit source. As for other users, everyone have an own point of view which post is okay for giving a merit for it: some do it for very informative posts, some for the posts with a similar position, some for fun posts, some for emotional posts, — it's a free choice.

[JollyGood]

The martyns web of connections seem to increase the more his account is looked in to. I wonder if it will be a more prolific farming ring than what figmentofmyass was operating.

You are right, as far as I can recall by far the majority of the sold/hacked accounts do get some sort of tag. I feel probably both negative and neutral tags in this case will not be heavily contested even by most of those that have previously felt some form of pity for martyns.

I wonder what comments others will make about your strategy because it effectively means a blanket ban for buying/selling accounts and dismisses by default any notion of mitigation (and any sympathy along with it). Will account sales ever be accepted, I doubt it but there could be exceptional circumstances we have not contemplated yet.

It's basically what DT has done with sold or hacked accounts in the past. Not a ban but a negative trust. So yes, people can buy / sell accounts but it will get tagged.
I believe once a sold or hacked account has been detected, there's a 99% chance, that the account will get tagged, if there is sufficient proof.
However, I'm always giving everyone the benefit of doubt.
For the case here of martyns, I've only submitted a neutral trust so far but I might change it into negative, considering his lies and involvement in other abuses. The negative trusts on his accounts are very valid.
And it's quite funny that sold or hacked accounts are often involved in various abuses, isn't it?
Maybe account buyers aren't so innocent as suggested here by a few members...

[BitcoinGirl.Club]

The most dangerous part is, who are these people to constantly policing over everyone? Ban the signature feature, 95 or even more out of 100 of them will make one or two posts in a month or week. No offense for any specific signature campaign member from Chipmixer, those who used to make over 50 posts per week when Chipmixer was paying for up to 50 posts, how many of them now makes 50 posts?

Take a look at Active users and top posters on Bitcointalk.org in the past 7 days.

The page only gives history of latest 7 days. I am interested to see post per week before a date x and after the same date. Not much important though.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2738899;sa=showPosts;start=3100
[The last page of your post history

Be careful drawing conclusions from this: it looks like you have many local boards on ignore, which means you don't see all of his (first) posts.

This is another time of many where I fall into my own trap LOL
You are correct.

I see he started from his local board but it took him only two days to make his first post on scam accusation board and started giving positive input with good arguments. The same day after few hours he also posted on the project development board. In less than 5 days he started contributing on plagiarism finding arts like how to use archive and things.

It's been years for me in the community and still I don't think I was able to find an account which is plagiarizing unless it was discovered by another one and I was in the discussion. Finding plagiarism, arguing in scam accusation topic really needs some level of forum experience which was enough for him two gain in less than five/two days. I see he is a quick learner and we need more members like him to make this place better 😉.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

People mind are already made up but since we're just sharing opinions on this thread, this is mine, previously, it was assumed that when accounts change hands through buying, it was to scam people on the forum with the reputation the account had with the previous owner but from the looks of things now, scamming isn't much of the threat on the forum anymore as people are getting more educated and informed. In recent days accounts now change hands through account buying for the purpose of earning through signature campaign or bounties. So how about we focus on removing those privilege from the accounts caught for this offense and this way we won't be destroying the accounts.

The moderates could disactivate the accounts when reported just as they did with plagiarism offenders that were found to be quality contributors of the forum. They can make the account not qualified to participate in signature or avatar campaign since the tagging doesn't stop them from joining campaigns as we have managers that doesn't care about our community guidelines and this current punishment just turns those accounts into spammers as I have noticed with lots of tagged bought accounts. Also to clear the air, I'm not supporting accounts buying but suggesting we try something else or isn't it the reason behind this thread creation @yahoo62278?

[Phu Juck]

Accounts buy is really a big, big shame. People buying an account should not get a reward by putting it into a signature campaign, such accounts should be trashed right away by negative feedback.
It is very hard for new members to earn a substantial amount of Merit for receiving a high rank. All Newbies have to earn a Merit for unique post.
People buying an account should get socially isolated and a negative feedback is overdue.
Shame on bought accounts.
Bought accounts are illegitimate.
We do not support it.

[Fivestar4everMVP]

I would like to see an open discussion regarding account sales. Obviously I know they aren't illegal but the forum users frown upon the activity. I would also like opinions regarding what is worthy of seeking as far as accounts that may be bought goes? Should users go out of their way looking for a connection on accounts that have 0 reputation? Should all accounts be tagged that are guilty of or presumed bought? Is a neutral tag appropriate for accounts that are bought that have no reputation, or should accounts be ruined period?

Like you said in the part of this post which I snipped out(by mistake though), I think I am in agreement with your opinion on this issue of bought, sold, or hacked accounts.

In my own personal opinion, I would say that an account that has already gained a trust should never exchange hands in what ever form, be it sold or hacked, if at any time it is discovered that the account exchanged hands, it is appropriate to negatively Tag such account, whether it was sold or hacked, simply because (like you said,) there is a high chance that the account wil be used to scam other users..

But if it is discovered that an account with zero trust exchanges hands,  the circumstances that brought about the account exchanging hands should be looked into, if the account was sold by the owner, then a neutral trust is more appropriate, and if somehow, we find out that the owner of the sold account has another account(s), then those account(s) should be negatively tagged, since he or she is guilty of account farming.
But in a situation where the account in question was hacked, straight negative trust should be awarded to the account, until the real owner is able to reclaim ownership of his or her account back, then the negative trusts can be either deleted or turned to neutral..

This is my opinion on this matter.

[JollyGood]

I pretty much agree with your sentiments but the question that needs to be asked is: What is the solution?

If members sign up, build up their rank through contributing in the forum and receive merits along the way they are surely going about things in the correct manner whereas those buying accounts either purely for signature campaign income or for nefarious purposes are not.

If the deterrent of tagging sold/traded accounts is taken away or is deemed to be unreasonable by the majority (or stops being the norm), what can replace it in order to minimise the numbers?

Accounts buy is really a big, big shame. People buying an account should not get a reward by putting it into a signature campaign, such accounts should be trashed right away by negative feedback.
It is very hard for new members to earn a substantial amount of Merit for receiving a high rank. All Newbies have to earn a Merit for unique post.
People buying an account should get socially isolated and a negative feedback is overdue.
Shame on bought accounts.
Bought accounts are illegitimate.
We do not support it.

[yahoo62278]

Accounts buy is really a big, big shame. People buying an account should not get a reward by putting it into a signature campaign, such accounts should be trashed right away by negative feedback.
It is very hard for new members to earn a substantial amount of Merit for receiving a high rank. All Newbies have to earn a Merit for unique post.
People buying an account should get socially isolated and a negative feedback is overdue.
Shame on bought accounts.
Bought accounts are illegitimate.
We do not support it.

I don't necessarily agree with account sales, but I see why some users might want to buy an account. Stake pays high ranking accounts around $160 per week, which in some countries is considered as being pretty good money. Building an account from the ground up would take a user nearly 2 years to be able to earn that kind of money. If that was the only reason the account was bought, and there was no positive trust attached to the account then i'm ok with it. I'm not against anyone making money. The issue there is many account buyers are not going to stop at just 1 account, they would purchase or farm tens or hundreds of accounts and essentially cheat campaigns.

Then you toss in those that would look to purchase an account with lots of trust to try and pull off a big scam. That could be anything from an ICO scam, borrowing/lending scam, or opening a scam gambling website. It might be better to not allow sales IDK.

[ololajulo]

I am skeptical about the purpose of purchasing an account, as I fail to see any reasonable justification for it. It seems that some individuals may acquire such accounts solely to attain a higher rank for signature campaigns and subsequently ask questions on forums as if they were inexperienced newbies, while possessing an abundance of merits that are difficult to refute. However, I have never participated in such discussions nor made any posts related to them. I would appreciate it if the forum moderators continue to discourage this behavior. Furthermore, I believe that most account trades are susceptible to hacking, as the original owner's email address is still linked to the account.

[lovesmayfamilis]

So how about we focus on removing those privilege from the accounts caught for this offers and this way we won't be destroying the accounts.

The moderates could disactivate the accounts when reported just as they did with plagiarism offenders that were found to be quality contributors of the forum. They can make the account not qualified to participate in signature or avatar campaign since the tagging doesn't stop them from joining campaigns as we have managers that doesn't care about our community guidelines and this current punishment just turns those accounts into spammers as I have noticed with lots of tagged bought accounts. Also to clear the air, I'm not supporting accounts buying but suggesting we try something else or isn't it the reason behind this thread creation @yahoo62278?

Golden words and your opinion just reflect the opinion of a person from the local section of those people, because of which this topic was created.
It's great to see you support your fellow citizens, and of course, it's great to see those who are trying to learn and start their journey here on the forum on their own. Your opinion shows agreement that people should grow themselves.
But again, we disagree with Yahoo62278, saying that it is normal to have the desire to earn some money here on the forum to support the family, but everyone needs money. Why should someone jump over their heads and be proven to have multiple accounts when others diligently pursue their dreams on their own?
When it comes to fairness, Brainboss's offer is the perfect solution. Caught accounts, with proof that the account is not real with the owner, must be banned from wearing a signature, if not forever, then for any sufficient period so that the person can prove his interest in the forum.

[jokers10]

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then for any sufficient period so that the person can prove his interest in the forum.

For the time of a natural activity growth for that rank and getting the same number of merits? Then we just can let the one to start with a new account without any marks in trust so he can get his rank a natural way, because it will be easier then to give moderators another job of monitoring the activities of violators.

I'm not really against account buyers by themselves. Main problem is that it motivates hackers to steal someone else's accounts to sell them. And tolerance to that can lead to adverse effects. So account buying should be discouraged to reduce demand on hacked accs to buy. If the one will decide to start again and account buying was the only dark spot in his history then he can start from scratch I think, with clean trust.

[rby]

When it comes to fairness, Brainboss's offer is the perfect solution. Caught accounts, with proof that the account is not real with the owner, must be banned from wearing a signature, if not forever, then for any sufficient period so that the person can prove his interest in the forum.

Indeed CryptopreneurBrainboss's offer is the most lenient solution to this problem. When implemented would surely discourage account sales because it will no longer be profitable.
But then, there are these things about the moderators;

• They are not willing to take up controversial duties such as discovering whether or not an account was bought. This is like the same situation as moderating scam. It's gonna be tedious and it should better remain in the hand of the DT members.
• Again, most times moderators don't base their decisions and judgement with evidences not found in this forum. A clear evidence of account buying and selling should either come from telegram chats or other platforms and not from this forum. This will pose another difficulty for moderators

[BitcoinGirl.Club]

since the tagging doesn't stop them from joining campaigns as we have managers that doesn't care about our community guidelines

I don't blame the managers. Truth is, there are no community guidelines and some of the DT members made negative tag so cheap that these days having one or two negative tag is in fact prestigious. An account without negative tag looks like an average account LOL

When it comes to fairness, Brainboss's offer is the perfect solution. Caught accounts, with proof that the account is not real with the owner, must be banned from wearing a signature, if not forever, then for any sufficient period so that the person can prove his interest in the forum.

Solution seems nice but implementing it means forum staffs need their involvement. It's not unknown to all of us that the forum authority do not moderate such things.

[JollyGood]

I don't necessarily agree with account sales, but I see why some users might want to buy an account. Stake pays high ranking accounts around $160 per week, which in some countries is considered as being pretty good money. Building an account from the ground up would take a user nearly 2 years to be able to earn that kind of money. If that was the only reason the account was bought, and there was no positive trust attached to the account then i'm ok with it. I'm not against anyone making money. The issue there is many account buyers are not going to stop at just 1 account, they would purchase or farm tens or hundreds of accounts and essentially cheat campaigns.

Then you toss in those that would look to purchase an account with lots of trust to try and pull off a big scam. That could be anything from an ICO scam, borrowing/lending scam, or opening a scam gambling website. It might be better to not allow sales IDK.

I understand your perspective but what you said was about having one account would be acceptable to you because the user/purchaser could really need that signature campaign income. If they do not stop at one (as you mentioned) then what would you say or think about the account buyers/sellers in that scenario?

Caught accounts, with proof that the account is not real with the owner, must be banned from wearing a signature, if not forever, then for any sufficient period so that the person can prove his interest in the forum.

I will not be arguing against that scenario at all and it will also act as a perfect deterrent.

If someone manages to get away without getting caught, then they will continue to use that account and post away to earn signature and bounty campaign income. They will probably avoid wanting to be detected/associated with other accounts therefore will conduct themselves in a non-nefarious manner and will probably not be a nuisance around here.

I'm not really against account buyers by themselves. Main problem is that it motivates hackers to steal someone else's accounts to sell them. And tolerance to that can lead to adverse effects. So account buying should be discouraged to reduce demand on hacked accs to buy. If the one will decide to start again and account buying was the only dark spot in his history then he can start from scratch I think, with clean trust.

It is not only about the alleged hacking. We just do not know what numbers are involved who end up not receiving payment for their old accounts that they stopped using. I presume buyers make deals to buy the associated email address and email password as well as account password and also a signed message from a known address stating change of new address in order to try to brush off any accusation of account trading.

There are no known or accurate statistics related to account trading or account farming therefore we do not know the actual scale of the impact it is having on the forum we all have a vested interest in protecting.

[yahoo62278]

I don't necessarily agree with account sales, but I see why some users might want to buy an account. Stake pays high ranking accounts around $160 per week, which in some countries is considered as being pretty good money. Building an account from the ground up would take a user nearly 2 years to be able to earn that kind of money. If that was the only reason the account was bought, and there was no positive trust attached to the account then i'm ok with it. I'm not against anyone making money. The issue there is many account buyers are not going to stop at just 1 account, they would purchase or farm tens or hundreds of accounts and essentially cheat campaigns.

Then you toss in those that would look to purchase an account with lots of trust to try and pull off a big scam. That could be anything from an ICO scam, borrowing/lending scam, or opening a scam gambling website. It might be better to not allow sales IDK.

I understand your perspective but what you said was about having one account would be acceptable to you because the user/purchaser could really need that signature campaign income. If they do not stop at one (as you mentioned) then what would you say or think about the account buyers/sellers in that scenario?

Having multiple accounts is allowed, so I cannot really be upset about a person owning and using multiple accounts. The place I start to have an issue is when cheating comes into the scenario. If they have 1 in stake, 1 in duelbits, 1 in a mixer campaign etc, then it's fine. We all know that's not the case because it has been proven over the years that too many try to cheat.

Let's say they own 25 accounts and somehow manage to get them all in stakes sig campaign. That's 4k a week they could earn. 16k a month. We really have no way of detecting them unless people start searching. So it's a small fortune they can earn and live like kings in their countries.

So, while i'm neutral in some cases I can see why others are way against it. How do we make it better? That's the big question and when you break it down the answer is probably just don't allow sales.