Another giveaway, or how merit hunters smell the catch.

[lovesmayfamilis]

After creating a JollyGood thread about a weird merit giveaway, I happened upon a thread in which merit was generously distributed to several accounts, and the strangest thing was that the accounts were already seen as one single farm.
How it all started: An account brought up an old thread that has been dormant since June 1, 2022, at 05:33:23 AM. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=716530.msg62189264#msg62189264
The newbie account immediately received 10 merits from the author of the theme, which was already created in 2014.
The donator himself also made his first post since June 1, 2022, as he is also a newly awakened one. Previously, he distributed it to four users, after which the account itself was inactive.

So, what is next? Further merits flowed on the accounts:


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;u=102873

TraPole 10    Newbie
RewFrew 10      (Bengali) Merit Catcher in the Pizza Contest
Popkon6 10      (Bengali) Merit Catcher in the Pizza and Pumpkin Competition
Rigon 10      (Bengali) Merit Catcher in the Pizza and Pumpkin Competition
NicNacCoin 10      (Bengali) Merit Catcher in the Pizza and Pumpkin Competition
LDL 10      (Bengali) Merit Catcher in the Pizza and Pumpkin Competition
Dimitri94 10      (Bengali) Merit Catcher in the Pizza and Pumpkin Competition
GigaBit 10      (Bengali) Merit Catcher in the Pizza
gabbie2010 10
EarnOnVictor 10
Bitcoin_people 5       (Bengali) Merit Catcher in the Pizza competition
Patrol69 5       (Bengali) Merit Catcher in the Pizza competition


Interestingly, all but two of these accounts have been repeatedly accused of merit farming.
Does anyone see a pattern again?

[1714261420]

1714261420

[1714261420]

1714261420

[EarnOnVictor]

What is your point here, to collect multiple merits or want people to know you are doing better? This is just off a reasonable discussion as the guy who merited me has the right to distribute his merits the way he wants whether he's a consistent member or not, so far he has the merits and the merited posts are meritable. Also upon checking the guy's profile, which you just made me do, he did his best while he was active on the forum and ranked to Legendary level with no single trust issue, which is more reason why your post is so insensitive trying to drag him into the mud for your appraisal.

For your information, I replied to a post (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=716530.msg62256635#msg62256635) just like any other post that has a recent communication. The Forex broker discussion was what even attracted me to it on that day and I was surprised the guy handed me 10 merits despite not agreeing with his view, which is my luck .

I simply don't know when earning 10 merits on a single post suddenly becomes envious. Check the link that earned the merit and see that I wasn't the only one who was lucky to earn it on that day.

You should have been more thoughtful before accusing anyone, this is a community where anyone could reply to posts without victimization or fear and I doubt if @capoeira has anything in common with those he merited. Perhaps you want to crucify him because a sensible person that might have other priorities engaged than being active here decided to distribute his merits instead of wasting them hanging there, something theymos even preaches against.

Lastly, you can check my profile, I don't think I've ever merited any of these guys listed above before, or any of them have ever merited my post. I've even seen other boards which further prove we have nothing in common. This simply makes your suspicion baseless, you should have thought better and been sensitive before quoting me with them.

[nutildah]

Interestingly, all but two of these accounts have been repeatedly accused of merit farming.
Does anyone see a pattern again?

Yes. These are the same Merit Simps that continually copy/paste stuff from Twitter in the WO thread and I'd say there's a strong chance that they all belong to 1 or maybe 2 people. They will appear in every single thread where merits are being given away freely, one after the other.

As far as the merit giver is concerned, it seems like they woke up and felt like spending all their merits on accounts that "contribute" to their thread... nothing wrong with that, but when these farmers smell loose merits in the water, they circle around like sharks.

[lovesmayfamilis]

pshshshshsh

Exhale and cool down. And read above. I wrote the farm, except for two users.

[FatFork]

pshshshshsh

Exhale and cool down. And read above. I wrote the farm, except for two users.

Are you out of your mind? Do you want to kill a guy? 

@EarnOnVictor, Inhale, exhale! Repeat.

[Liliana1304]

pshshshshsh

Exhale and cool down. And read above. I wrote the farm, except for two users.

Are you out of your mind? Do you want to kill a guy? 

@EarnOnVictor, Inhale, exhale! Repeat.

I won't blame him for getting defensive like that without really understanding what @lovesmayfamilis was trying to pass across. I mean, I don't think anyone would appreciate being accused with subtlety. Recently, with the Deadsea33 saga, most users are trying their best to be as transparent as possible and if I must say, I think @EarnOnVictor has a point concerning how the high ranking users rush to conclusions on some of these things, some with little to no evidence to prove their claim.

TBH, these approach by some of the legendary users who are trying to fish out account farmers and keeping the forum clean from individuals who may want to spam, scam and do crazy stuff is quite commendable but at some point, it's affecting those who are trying to go about their business on the forum. It might look like some of the newer users get attracted to these threads like sharks to the scent of blood, but some just want to participate in the forum and they get luck to receive merits for their efforts.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

pshshshshsh

Exhale and cool down. And read above. I wrote the farm, except for two users.

Lol.  EarnOnVictor, the finger isn't being pointed at you (that I know of).  This definitely looks like an idiotic attempt to distribute merits to....whoever.  Friends, fellow countrymen, alt accounts, who knows.  I'd say good eyes on this one, OP.  I hadn't noticed any of this, though I wouldn't have tagged any of the accounts anyway. 

That's not to say these merit abusers couldn't or shouldn't be tagged by DT members or anyone else, but long ago I started choosing my battles and vowed not to go after merit abuse.  Theymos wants the community to tread lightly as far as that's concerned anyway.

[Little Mouse]

Friends, fellow countrymen, alt accounts, who knows.  I'd say good eyes on this one, OP.

I just had a look as almost all the users who received merits are from my local. However, the guy who (account) sent merit is possibly from Portugal as I can see he has written a post there. It more seems like a merit buy sell or account purchased and merit distributed. It will be a real shame if they are abusing (which seems obvious) as I can see some familiar faces here. I used to trust a few of them and now it seems one of them successfully convinced me to believe a lie in another case.

[ScamViruS]

His merit distribution looks like he hastily unloaded a loaded truck from the bridge to the river. Now whether there could be any reason behind giving merit in this way is a matter to be considered. There are many members who are involved in merit buying/selling, but they are not caught due to insufficient evidence. @capoeira's activity seems suspicious, he is currently offline after giving merit to some members. Suddenly waking up, doing such crappy merit distribution and being offline again certainly raises questions.

[EarnOnVictor]

His merit distribution looks like he hastily unloaded a loaded truck from the bridge to the river. Now whether there could be any reason behind giving merit in this way is a matter to be considered. There are many members who are involved in merit buying/selling, but they are not caught due to insufficient evidence. @capoeira's activity seems suspicious, he is currently offline after giving merit to some members. Suddenly waking up, doing such crappy merit distribution and being offline again certainly raises questions.

Lol...I don't think you live in this century, the discussion has definitely passed that.

[ScamViruS]

~~

Lol...I don't think you live in this century, the discussion has definitely passed that.

This is your point of view, and what I wrote was my point of view. So there is nothing to think about so much here, wait for more discussion on this matter to read it here. Past experience reminds me of many things that apply to @capoeira as well. Your name is mentioned in the OP so it's natural that you don't like what I said, but I didn't write anything about you, so keep calm.

[Stalker22]

Hmm, you are right; there do seem to be some suspicious activities going on in the sharing of merits from capoeira in that thread.

I noticed that some of the mentioned members suddenly became active after a long period of inactivity just a few days before that incident, and these were their first merit on the forum. Hard to believe it is just a coincidence; it looks like someone might be farming accounts.

[_BlackStar]

Interestingly, all but two of these accounts have been repeatedly accused of merit farming.
Does anyone see a pattern again?

I see the pattern - but I'm not sure it would be strong evidence to say it's all owned by 1 or 2 people. Merit farming is possible - but the Bengali community may have grown to the point where they are supporting their community with merit from one user to another ^{[friend, brother, sister, uncle, grandfather or whoever].} I'm thinking on the positive side - but if it's account farming, of course I'll condemn it.

lovemayfamilis - I think the merit has turned to blood in the water right now. Hungry piranhas will smell it so quickly that they will swarm in and get it. Some other patterns of merit can also be found in some of the other local community board - it's not just about the Bengali.

[JollyGood]

Yes we all can see a pattern and this is a very strange situation. Thank you for posting about another weird distribution of merits. I suppose the account in question (capoeira) could shed light on the matter if he was asked to. I have tried to understand why the OP of that thread gave away merits for literally no reason but I have been unable to come to a conclusion.

One of the things I noticed about that merit distribution in that thread was fact that several accounts tagged with negative trust.

Even the Gigabit account received 10 merits, speaking of which I hope he makes another entrance on the loginsam45 and his alleged alt-accounts: ltcrstrbrt, GigaBit and bluedeep and state if he can/cannot sign a previously used wallet from before the allegation of hack was made against him.

So, what is next? Further merits flowed on the accounts:


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=merit;u=102873

TraPole 10    Newbie
RewFrew 10      (Bengali) Merit Catcher in the Pizza Contest
Popkon6 10      (Bengali) Merit Catcher in the Pizza and Pumpkin Competition
Rigon 10      (Bengali) Merit Catcher in the Pizza and Pumpkin Competition
NicNacCoin 10      (Bengali) Merit Catcher in the Pizza and Pumpkin Competition
LDL 10      (Bengali) Merit Catcher in the Pizza and Pumpkin Competition
Dimitri94 10      (Bengali) Merit Catcher in the Pizza and Pumpkin Competition
GigaBit 10      (Bengali) Merit Catcher in the Pizza
gabbie2010 10
EarnOnVictor 10
Bitcoin_people 5       (Bengali) Merit Catcher in the Pizza competition
Patrol69 5       (Bengali) Merit Catcher in the Pizza competition


Interestingly, all but two of these accounts have been repeatedly accused of merit farming.
Does anyone see a pattern again?

[EarnOnVictor]

I did my further digging and think you guys should rather focus on those Bengali guys as their actions are truly questionable, not only them, such is common on that board, but leave @capoeira out of it, he can handle his account the way he wants and I see nothing in common with the account and those  Bengalis. The guy writes in Portuguese, not Bengali and his last activity was last week (July 17, 2023, 04:10:22 PM) contrary to what some people said. He also has some regular activities in recent months.

It's wisdom, he should have joined a campaign by now if he's like them, and he didn't even apply to any campaign for long, so I don't possibly see a reason to suspect this user for sharing big merits instead of keeping them wasting.

However, what you guys are not noticing is that the guy used that thread to stylishly advertise his Forex broker's affiliate links. This might be what he intended to rekindle by sharing high merits to attract people back to that thread.

And on detecting this, the farming Bengalis guys took advantage of it by telling themselves or using their alts.

[Poker Player]

I did my further digging and think you guys should rather focus on those Bengali guys as their actions are truly questionable, not only them, such is common on that board, but leave @capoeira out of it, he can handle his account the way he wants and I see nothing in common with the account and those  Bengalis. The guy writes in Portuguese, not Bengali and his last activity was last week (July 17, 2023, 04:10:22 PM) contrary to what some people said. He also has some regular activities in recent months.

I agree with this. For me he is someone who was not used to handing out merit and decided one day to start handing out the one he had. In fact, he says in one of his posts:

essa turma é foda.
se não tivesse gastado daria 10 mérito para todos aqui rs
 (translation: his class is fucked.
if i hadn't spent i would give 10 merit to everyone here lol)

It's wisdom, he should have joined a campaign by now if he's like them, and he didn't even apply to any campaign for long, so I don't possibly see a reason to suspect this user for sharing big merits instead of keeping them wasting.

Most likely.

[hugeblack]

This topic reminds me of this story, roughly this account will follow the same account farming pattern

The account that gave him a merit (2Pizza410000BTC) is active in this local board (বাংলাদেশ (Bengali)), and all merits earned are from Wall Observer BTC/USD plus copy/paste method.

This account tried to post in different local baord Nigeria (Naija) but his post was in English.
It reminded me of an account that was recently banned (Unfortunately, was active in the pizza challenge)
I'm going to put him on my watch list, and maybe he'll start using an AI tool as the banned account did Grin.

These accounts try to remove doubts about them by posting in different local boards, either by using Google translator or in some local boards that support the English language (Nigerian and Hindi)
Therefore, whenever I find an account posted in the Bengali local board, WO, copy/paste from internet, challenges are like the pizza challenge and in one of the following Nigerian and Hindi LBs, there is a strong link that it belongs to that farm.

[holydarkness]

At this point, I am more inclined to think that capoeira is just dumping merit, but... I can't help but notice two names from that list aside from GigaBit --with his own case above mentioned by JollyGood-- LDL and Rigon was previously connected through Topman21's case.

[JollyGood]

This topic reminds me of this story, roughly this account will follow the same account farming pattern

The account that gave him a merit (2Pizza410000BTC) is active in this local board (বাংলাদেশ (Bengali)), and all merits earned are from Wall Observer BTC/USD plus copy/paste method.

This account tried to post in different local baord Nigeria (Naija) but his post was in English.
It reminded me of an account that was recently banned (Unfortunately, was active in the pizza challenge)
I'm going to put him on my watch list, and maybe he'll start using an AI tool as the banned account did Grin.

These accounts try to remove doubts about them by posting in different local boards, either by using Google translator or in some local boards that support the English language (Nigerian and Hindi)
Therefore, whenever I find an account posted in the Bengali local board, WO, copy/paste from internet, challenges are like the pizza challenge and in one of the following Nigerian and Hindi LBs, there is a strong link that it belongs to that farm.

Evidence suggests there are far too many farms in the forum but linking accounts beyond doubt is a problem. Leaving neutral tags over negative ones (because of heavy suspicion rather than concrete evidence) only masks the problem as the puppeteers and farmers manage to find the deterrent extremely weak therefore they continue their merit abuse and in the process they enrol multiple accounts in signature campaigns that do not permit it.

At this point, I am more inclined to think that capoeira is just dumping merit, but... I can't help but notice two names from that list aside from GigaBit --with his own case above mentioned by JollyGood-- LDL and Rigon was previously connected through Topman21's case.

That would seem to be the case with capoeira, for some reason he seemed to have dumped merits but even then I would not put that down as the only possible explanation and would keep an open mind.

On a lightly different note, as a general rule we all should be careful by not tarnishing all members from one particular country or one particular language board with the same brush but when similarities are presented it is normal to evaluate the situation and ask questions including "why" it is happening.