Is there anything unusual in these screenshot?

[Tuturtinular]

Can you see anything unusual in these two screenshot? From the past few month i am seeing some unusual activity in some of the local board. I do not want to mention their name but some members are ranking up with unusual pace and they are getting merits in their every post in local board when they can not get few merits from the global board. How they are doing exceptionally well only in local board? What do you think what is wrong with them?

I don't know whose account it is, but if I look at my local board, there are members who really have good contributions and thoughts on the local board, they have good discussions. Some members may also be hampered by language, like me who is not proficient in English. Even though there is a possibility that this is an act of merit abuse, I am not sure there are still members who dare to commit merit abuse because it is easy to find out.

[nutildah]

I'm of the opinion that there are at least a couple of account farmers from both of the local boards that do send merit to themselves, but without substantiating proof there's really not much else to say.

If I spoke either of those languages I would look for similarities in posting styles. One day they will slip up and I will catch them.

However, without more sufficient evidence, its not nice to simply assume they are alts (in public anyway).

[stompix]

I think the OP seems to be questioning possible abuse of the merit system at one of the local board - but I don't think the OP has much guts to reveal who he suspects other than trying to throw mud at the reputation board.

Why, is the suspect Chuck Norris? 
If the OP didn't have guts he would have used a throwaway account to do so, what he did is pretty normal he censored the name to show only the important thing, everyone could if they wanted find out as it has who the guys are, what was meant here was to simply analyze the merit distribution.
So, why are you so angry at OP?

Its nothing that we haven't seen before, that members of local boards sometimes tend to have a lower standards or are more generous when it comes to merit. Another thing is that its easier to express yourself in your own native language, so members of some boards that are not so fluent in English struggle to earn merit in general part of the forum, compared to their own local board. Then again, I also woulnd't exclude the possibility of good old merit abuse but that's something that is much harder to prove.

From the start I'm not accusing the two as I didn't even bother to check what they post as I'm getting really bored about this, it' 's so obvious local boards are full of account farmers, they farm the merit step-by-step there then start polluting the BD and BH with merit fishing posts, make the 100 merit threshold and then instantly signature applications only for some of them to inevitably ending up in the wall of shame thread also.

And even if we prove it, merit abuse is not tag-worthy anymore, having 1000 accounts is neither as long as they don't enter the same campaign it's just a useless investigation uncovering a dozen accounts while a hundred more are in the making. We just have to come back to tagging shitposter and spammers and that would eliminate the need for all the detective work.

[mindrust]

Looks like merit abusing to me. You can put these guys and anybody trusts them in your distrust list and I don’t think there is anything else you can do about it. Merit system was a good idea which got old very quickly. Maybe the mods will do something about it but I doubt it too. Similar stuff happened in the past and I don’t remember anybody getting a ban for it. On the other hand it is possible that a person only uses the local forums because he doesn’t know English. Then you can’t do anything about it again. If this bothers the admin, he may ban giving/receiving merits in the local boards…

There are some people who use only the local boards indeed. Do you think these people shouldn’t be getting any merits?

[lovesmayfamilis]

I'm inclined to think that in these two local sections, there may be users who are a common team of friends and regularly use their earned merits, like Twitter likes. Guesses about several farms from these locales have already been repeatedly voiced, and most likely it is so that some group owns several profiles, but they are quite cunning and temporarily elusive. On the other hand, the rules do not prohibit the exchange of merit in local sections, but you need to understand that even if someone manages to raise their accounts to the required heights, further steps will be an assessment of the quality of posts. Managers will be the judges of the acceptance of such writers who regularly publish their posts only in their native language.

[hugeblack]

For a long time, I have strongly believed that there are many alt accounts in local boards, especially in the Pakistani or Bangladeshi LBs, but since every accused is innocent until proven guilty, we cannot take suspicions and build facts on them.
If any of you find any evidence or connection between any member in my Merit thread, PM me so I can put them on the ignore list.

LBs deserves the best, but it is better for them to know that developing an account until it reaches 5k is much better than creating an army of alternative accounts and will give them best payment rate with lowest effort (you need about 4 full member accounts aka 160 posts/week to make the same amount of high merit account 40 posts/week.)

The other person is 2Pizza410000BTC. It took a few pages of browsing and matching the merit history from the screenshot shared by OP.

The name of this account has become frequently mentioned, and I have talked about it before. Whatever you doing, please stop it.

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.

[DVlog]

For a long time, I have strongly believed that there are many alt accounts in local boards, especially in the Pakistani or Bangladeshi LBs, but since every accused is innocent until proven guilty, we cannot take suspicions and build facts on them.
If any of you find any evidence or connection between any member in my Merit thread, PM me so I can put them on the ignore list.

LBs deserves the best, but it is better for them to know that developing an account until it reaches 5k is much better than creating an army of alternative accounts and will give them best payment rate with lowest effort (you need about 4 full member accounts aka 160 posts/week to make the same amount of high merit account 40 posts/week.)

Both of those boards have well-recognized members on the global board. Irfan_pak10 from Pakistan LB and Little Mouse from Bangladesh LB are well known for their contributions. These two boards don't have their own local boards yet, so is it possible to put them in charge of the moderation of those two specific boards to moderate this type of unusual behavior? Is that even possible? I am not sure!

[Rikafip]

From the start I'm not accusing the two as I didn't even bother to check what they post as I'm getting really bored about this, it' 's so obvious local boards are full of account farmers, they farm the merit step-by-step there then start polluting the BD and BH with merit fishing posts, make the 100 merit threshold and then instantly signature applications only for some of them to inevitably ending up in the wall of shame thread also.

Considering the fact that in some countries average salary is equal to the most basic Full Member rate, I am only surprised that we don't have more of that.

We just have to come back to tagging shitposter and spammers and that would eliminate the need for all the detective work

Would signature campaign managers take into account neutral tags saying that xyz is a shitposter (and we know that there are more spots in campaigns that there are solid posters meaning managers have to lower the bar in order to fill it) since negative for that is imho an overkill.

Both of those boards have well-recognized members on the global board. Irfan_pak10 from Pakistan LB and Little Mouse from Bangladesh LB are well known for their contributions. These two boards don't have their own local boards yet, so is it possible to put them in charge of the moderation of those two specific boards to moderate this type of unusual behavior? Is that even possible? I am not sure!

How exactly would they moderate how members spend their merit?

[hugeblack]

These two boards don't have their own local boards yet, so is it possible to put them in charge of the moderation of those two specific boards to moderate this type of unusual behavior? Is that even possible? I am not sure!

The only possible and effective solution is for signature campaign managers to add an ignore list. Anyone on that list will be banned from participating in signature campaigns. It is updated weekly and members are reviewed once a year (if their behavior changes).

This is one of the oldest ignore lists^[1], and I think @Lauda @Lutpin @yahoo all had similar lists and it was one of the conditions for joining signature campaigns.

You can ask current campaign managers or create a discussion thread about it.

[1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=973843.0

[Dr.Bitcoin_Strange]

Well, since you did not mention their name, it would be difficult to dig into those profiles, and without going through the profiles, it would be difficult to come up with any conclusion to know if those merited posts were really worth it. Like LM has said, "ranking up is not a crime." As I looked through the picture, I also saw that some of those merits were sent on different dates, so it's not really much of a problem. Read what Timelord2067 said: "It has been happening at the top." I didn't even know that anything had been happening at the top, and if it was so, it's not also a surprise that it will happen at the bottom, like he said.

[Findingnemo]

These two boards don't have their own local boards yet, so is it possible to put them in charge of the moderation of those two specific boards to moderate this type of unusual behavior? Is that even possible? I am not sure!

The only possible and effective solution is for signature campaign managers to add an ignore list. Anyone on that list will be banned from participating in signature campaigns. It is updated weekly and members are reviewed once a year (if their behavior changes).

Also, campaign managers should review the overall post quality of the member if they are accepting in their campaign, not simply based on how much merits they earned in the last 120 days or so which will bring an end to this account farming via local boards where merits are generously shared.

The SMAS list you shared is old compared to this : [SMAS] My list of users banned from sig. campaigns

But you can find the compiled individual SMAS list from every campaign manager from Overview of Bitcointalk Signature Anti-Spam Campaign Managers

[Fivestar4everMVP]

Like we all know, there are no particular rules guiding the merit system so users are always at the liberty of meriting who ever they want, and users are also at the liberty of only channeling their posts energy to channels or boards where they feel they earn the most Merits from.

So for those who find it hard to earn Merits from the global boards but easily earn merit from the local board, they have liberty to make most of their posts in the local board where they feel they are appreciated the more..

Take for example, if I must be honest, I would say that the I don't earn as much merits from my local board same way I do from the global boards, and because of this, I most of the times feel compelled to focus more on posting in the global boards than my local board.

The truth is that, any and every forum user who is interested in ranking up will try an find what and where works best for them in terms of earning merits, which is a crucial part and parcel of ranking up.

[SmartGold01]

For this action to be questioned the post need to read to know what is all about but however I think people that knows more than me has already given their thoughts on the post. But sincerely speaking we don't need to look into local boards because you can't fluently speak their languages, even though you tried using translators you may not get the exact topic on point all less a local speaker can get them translated for you and I to know what they are all about, so from my point of view you don't need to question such activities. Between why did you blur the sender and how can people give full meaning to this system.

Usually local board is a board to groom someone to knows about the forum especially they can go into deeper communication without your knowledge all less you can fluently read and write that language before passing any judgement, hence to me I will say stay away from others local board and focused on your own locale board I don't mean any hate words but politely speaking.

[_BlackStar]

-snip-

So, why are you so angry at OP?

No - I'm not as angry as what you read, but that's my first expression when someone tries to throw mud about someone else's reputation. The OP is clearly hesitant to reveal the name of the user he suspects because he doesn't want to ruin it. But the important part here is that he has to reveal something instead of just asking someone else to dig deeper about possibility of abused the merit system.

I'm sure there is abuse of the merit system in some local board - but without truly reliable evidence, we can't draw firm conclusions. The main obstacle is language - but if the accounts make mistakes such as using the same bitcoin address or something similar, then accusations can be justified.

[Plaguedeath]

But the important part here is that he has to reveal something instead of just asking someone else to dig deeper about possibility of abused the merit system.

but if the accounts make mistakes such as using the same bitcoin address or something similar, then accusations can be justified.

Actually you should blame the users who mentioned the username, @OP was only show the merit flow.

That's not enough, posting a same Bitcoin address or anything that can be used to account connections can only proofing they're alt accounts and deserve to get neutral feedback. Neutral feedback is fine because the signature campaign only forbid negative feedback.

[Shishir99]

I don't know what I should say about this. There are some alt accounts in our local thread, and it's clearly visible. I do not have any problem if someone has more than one account because it's allowed. The problem is that people are sending merits to their alt accounts. Quote their own post and make a reply. One account is in trouble, and another account arrives to help it. Maybe someone will merit the post, seeing he solved some problem.

When someone is close to their next rank, they may get special attention from the local community, which I also support. Several things were discussed in our thread in recent times. I have seen users send PMs to members asking for merits when they are close to their next rank, and I don't know what to say about it.

The problem is we, the local people, always want to give our locals a 2nd chance or the benefit of the doubt. Even if they are doing something shady, we tend to ignore it and don't investigate it. There is a reason behind it. The Bangladeshi community has a dream: to get a local board. So, we all want to help others and grow their accounts, so we can say we have a handful of active users. If someone has two accounts, I don't have a problem with it. But the problem is when they abuse it.

Bangladesh community members should be the first to catch any abuse in our local thread. Some global members investigate the accounts and expose them. It's better to beat your son at home and teach him rather than police arrest him. The problem is we cannot speak without solid evidence; It will create chaos in the local thread. The community will be divided, and we don't want that.

So, whoever Bangladeshi is reading my post, I request you to watch your mate to see if he is doing any abuse, then warn him to stop. If they don't stop, expose them. The global community already had a bad picture of the Bangladesh community. Don't make it worse than this. It's better to have an empty cowshed rather than have bad cows.

[lovesmayfamilis]

The problem is we, the local people, always want to give our locals a 2nd chance or the benefit of the doubt. Even if they are doing something shady, we tend to ignore it and don't investigate it. There is a reason behind it. The Bangladeshi community has a dream: to get a local board. So, we all want to help others and grow their accounts, so we can say we have a handful of active users. If someone has two accounts, I don't have a problem with it. But the problem is when they abuse it.

Based on your words, I highly doubt that by following this behavior, your community will have any hope of getting a separate board at all. Do you think expanding the local community by multiplying alternative accounts is the right thing to do? Do you want to show how fast the Bengali section is growing by giving merit to your alts, believing that no one sees it? Many are already closely watching this board. I see a lot of "newbies" who, from the first posts, run to the WO thread or very competently explain to everyone what and how to do on the forum. Do these accounts look like newbies, do you think? Anyone who came to the forum may ask himself, "How did I behave, and what was not clear to me here?" But unfortunately, we see a different picture. You will explain to your colleagues that you need to play fairly, and what you do in your local section, cultivating dozens of accounts, is very noticeable. But yes, everyone’s concepts of morality and decency are different.

[nutildah]

Bangladesh community members should be the first to catch any abuse in our local thread. Some global members investigate the accounts and expose them. It's better to beat your son at home and teach him rather than police arrest him. The problem is we cannot speak without solid evidence; It will create chaos in the local thread. The community will be divided, and we don't want that.

Thanks for your words on this subject and confirming some of the things I already suspected. The point you bring up here does make sense, but there has to be a way to discourage people from attempting to rank up alt accounts so they can enroll them all in the same campaigns. Short of shaming them, I don't see what the solution would be.

What's most annoying to me are the following:

 - merit farmers/beggars
 - alt accounts of established members that spend too much time talking about how they're a newbie
 - the resulting flood of low-quality posts.

For instance, I strongly believe that a previously red-trusted member who was caught with multiple accounts not too long ago still has at least 2 (as-of-yet unconnected) accounts active on the forum, and yes it looks like he was talking to himself recently in your local board  

Still, its not fair to lump all people from one region of the world together and we have to wait for more sufficient evidence to be revealed before outing cheaters and liars, for the sake of not condemning an honest forum member unfairly.

[stompix]

Considering the fact that in some countries average salary is equal to the most basic Full Member rate, I am only surprised that we don't have more of that.

Probably what's limiting it is the number of available campaigns, even if you would be able to farm 10 000 accounts, you can't have them all enlisted, so that's what's putting the breaks on it as far as I can think.

Would signature campaign managers take into account neutral tags saying that xyz is a shitposter (and we know that there are more spots in campaigns that there are solid posters meaning managers have to lower the bar in order to fill it) since negative for that is imho an overkill. 

Overkill? Hardly! It's a guy that abuses the forum and secretly builds accounts claiming it's his childhood friend or disabled wife, would you trust this guy enough after such lies and way of acting? No, so it's definitely tag-worthy! I think we've become way to lenient on this, just like the discussion if WW deserves a flag 3 or flag 2 or a Spiderman shirt because of technically that and this. From my point of view a guy that talks to himself or merits his own posts it's either a tag or a psychiatric case!
But, I don't care that much anymore!

Bangladesh community members should be the first to catch any abuse in our local thread. Some global members investigate the accounts and expose them. It's better to beat your son at home and teach him rather than police arrest him. The problem is we cannot speak without solid evidence; It will create chaos in the local thread. The community will be divided, and we don't want that.

Just like in Nasreddin's stories, it would be far better to give him a beating before he does something bad, no matter how many times you slap them afterward the thing will not get undone. But out of curiosity, since you mentioned members exposing cheaters, has this stopped them from posting or participating in campaigns or giving away merits? I just don't think it stops them, not in your board, not in any other local boards not on the entire forum, so kind of useless.

[Rikafip]

Overkill? Hardly! It's a guy that abuses the forum and secretly builds accounts claiming it's his childhood friend or disabled wife, would you trust this guy enough after such lies and way of acting? No, so it's definitely tag-worthy!

I was talking about classic shitposters, not account farmers that abuse merit system and share it between their alts (by the way, I tagged my share of those).