PytagoraZ & komisariatku are alts

[Hispo]

let's give credit to The Pharmacist for the lovely picture =)))

Real credit goes to djuragan I had to search hard to find back the link.

I just went back to the past through those links you provided, because I had grown curious about that image since the first time I saw it. It seems it kinda has become some kind of recurring meme here in the forum, specially in the reputation section. Anyways...
Picture me surprised, because I always assumed the picture itself was a fabrication, some edition made by some forum member as an allegory to the typical group of people who join in here in groups to take some advantage off bounty campaigns, never expected the material to have been uploaded by one of the participants themselves as part of a plea for their accounts not to get tagged. 🫨

It is like whoever shared the picture in the first place lacked any bit of awareness on the rules and etiquette of the forum (or any online community of this type) on what it is frown upon and what it is not. One does not stop seeing baffling stuff around here as years pass by. Though, even though compared to the scams and massive financial losses this should be nothing in my eyes, for some reason it still impresses me.

[GazetaBitcoin]

In the light of recent discoveries, should we accept that PytagoraZ continue to get votes and therefore potentially win a prize?

He has cheated in the past with alts in some contests.

I thought about this since first moment I saw this thread. Unfortunately, the contest has no specific rules for dealing with current case. I believe there is nothing to be done about it -- at least by RickDeckard. The only thing which would be common sense, in this case, would be for users to not vote him anymore.

But since this is a forum where free speech is encouraged as much as it is possible, this involves also that people can vote for him and his pie. Receiving votes may look abnormal or immoral but, since no contest rules are broken, I don't think there is anything which can be done.

Maybe we can have Rick's input too, in case he sees this post...

[shasan]

I admit my many mistakes in the past. So there is no benefit for me to lie about the account, if the account is mine then I will admit it.

You can ask me if you find any other mistakes of mine, or if you prefer to believe in your own assumptions, that's fine.

I have no interest in anything of you whether positive or negative. I was curious to know the reality of both of your accounts and it is revealed by Nutildah I am thankful for that. Also, for the kindness of Nutildah, I think my fund has been recovered though it is not sure if you would repay or not. Thank you as well for the repayment and wish you all the best.

[komisariatku]

I admit my many mistakes in the past. So there is no benefit for me to lie about the account, if the account is mine then I will admit it.

You can ask me if you find any other mistakes of mine, or if you prefer to believe in your own assumptions, that's fine.

I have no interest in anything of you whether positive or negative. I was curious to know the reality of both of your accounts and it is revealed by Nutildah I am thankful for that. Also, for the kindness of Nutildah, I think my fund has been recovered though it is not sure if you would repay or not. Thank you as well for the repayment and wish you all the best.

Yes, as described. We are different people, if I have many accounts it is easier for me to use an account that already has a rank than to create a new account. But for past mistakes, I have admitted them and if anyone finds out my other mistakes I will admit it if it is true and say no if it is not true.

Thank you Shasan for all the help you have provided and I apologize if I have made many mistakes to you

[holydarkness]

Yes, as described. We are different people, if I have many accounts it is easier for me to use an account that already has a rank than to create a new account. But for past mistakes, I have admitted them and if anyone finds out my other mistakes I will admit it if it is true and say no if it is not true.

Thank you Shasan for all the help you have provided and I apologize if I have made many mistakes to you

Talking about using an existing account rather than creating new one, past mistake, and things around it, do you mind to perhaps explain to me the situation with using maftukh's account to submit a content bounty? It's a content, I can't see the necessity of borrowing an account, be it currently actively used or dormant, just to submit an entry, that can be done through your own account. Unless you mistakenly made the post with different account, i.e. you didn't mean to submit with maftukh's account, but you didn't realize that you did?

[...]
Aside from buying someone a new laptop, is it also normal to borrow an unused account? Ok, that one probably quite common if they're from the same circle of multi-acc bounty hunter. But umm... why? Why even bother using her... his [?] account just to submit a content bounty entry? Even when the account is dormant and leave unused, you can just use yours. [...]

[komisariatku]

Yes, as described. We are different people, if I have many accounts it is easier for me to use an account that already has a rank than to create a new account. But for past mistakes, I have admitted them and if anyone finds out my other mistakes I will admit it if it is true and say no if it is not true.

Thank you Shasan for all the help you have provided and I apologize if I have made many mistakes to you

Talking about using an existing account rather than creating new one, past mistake, and things around it, do you mind to perhaps explain to me the situation with using maftukh's account to submit a content bounty? It's a content, I can't see the necessity of borrowing an account, be it currently actively used or dormant, just to submit an entry, that can be done through your own account. Unless you mistakenly made the post with different account, i.e. you didn't mean to submit with maftukh's account, but you didn't realize that you did?

[...]
Aside from buying someone a new laptop, is it also normal to borrow an unused account? Ok, that one probably quite common if they're from the same circle of multi-acc bounty hunter. But umm... why? Why even bother using her... his [?] account just to submit a content bounty entry? Even when the account is dormant and leave unused, you can just use yours. [...]

I forgot the reason I used that account because maybe I did that in 2017 or 2018. Maybe I joined the same campaign or another reason, I really forgot. I admit that I have done that and I do it more often with the tu_kang account.

Regarding me buying a laptop, he is a close friend of mine and asked me to teach him how to earn money for his college education and he doesn't have a laptop. I bought him a laptop but he failed to take part in the campaign because he couldn't write blog articles, in the past I preferred to take part in blog campaigns than anything else.

For those accusations, I admit everything

[RickDeckard]

Considering the ongoing discussing I went ahead and made another reading of mprep's unofficial lsit of (official) Bitcointalk rules[1]. Considering the case at hand, the relevant rules that I found were the following (someone correct me if I am wrong):

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

Note: None of the accounts presented by jokers10[2] are banned from the forum so I didn't post the rule number 25. Perhaps one may find more accounts that may be related but as of now it doesn't seem applicable.

From my perspective, there are a couple of scenarios (that come to my mind as of now) where the need of having multiple accounts is justified and understandable (but always with transparency regarding it):

• Separating a business concept from the user account - Assuming that a user wants to launch a new business/service in the forum of his conception, and as long as there is transparency on the process, I see as understandable the desire to separate the user account from the business account.
• OPSEC reasons - LoyceMobile[3] is a good example of it. If a user wants to keep up to date with the forum discussion but isn't near their device of trust 24/7, then it makes sense to create a "secondary" account mainly used in a not so secure environment;
• Scrapping tools (by means of a bot) - Self explanatory.

The not so honorable need to have multiple accounts, from my perspective, only boils down to the following:

• Account farming for the purpose of enrolling in signature campaigns;
• Ban evading;

The previous two actions are motivated by ill intentions in either scenario - as both actions break signature campaign rules(1) and the forum rules (#25)[1] - and the people that do end up creating the accounts for these purpose definitely know that what they are doing is wrong (but decide to ignore it with the mantra of "I am too smart to be caught"). As consequences besides banning I know that, depending on the forum, there are different ways to deal with this issue : Either ban entire IP's from countries where this kind of behaviour has a pattern and abuse ( or even banning the usage of TOR and VPN to access the account so that these cases could be detected more easily. As it stands removing VPN and/or TOR usage would be a hit to the freedom of the forum (and the privacy that I, as many, advocate for) so I do not think these are feasible choices.

On this particular case, and after (re)reading the whole thread, the action of both users (or the user) isn't a correct one towards the community. Assuming that all the accounts are from Indonesia, we are talking about a country with a population of 279,204,661[4] (and increasing every second!) - that is the fourth most populous country[5] - and that, somehow, the cosmic event that justifies the connection of these users[2] is that they happen to be just friends[6]? . What would be the odds of it happening right here in the forum in this specific condition?

As for PytagoraZ participation on the contest, the edition that I am running doesn't state rules to deal with this kind of behaviour and I don't know if it would be fair to insert them right now considering the stage of it. I will consider this a lesson learned and, if the next edition happens by me, will surely take this into consideration in order to create a more fair contest amongst everyone.

Overall I tend to agree with GazetaBitcoin perspective (considering that the contest doesn't have a rule for this scenario but I am open to discussion):

But since this is a forum where free speech is encouraged as much as it is possible, this involves also that people can vote for him and his pie. Receiving votes may look abnormal or immoral but, since no contest rules are broken, I don't think there is anything which can be done.

There is still a lot of time to vote and I highly encourage anyone to vote (it's free!) since I believe we have some great entries on this year edition and that this event shouldn't let other contestants feel that they are being damaged in any way... I will update my second post on the voting thread alerting users for this situation as I believe that is the only thing that I can do as of now. The decision will rest upon each user interpretation of the whole situation.

PS: Thank you for bringing this issue to my attention @GazetaBitcoin.
[1]https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=703657.0
[2]https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5489102.msg63813270#msg63813270
[3]https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1903546
[4]https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/indonesia-population/
[5]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesia
[6]https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5489102.msg63813430#msg63813430

[LoyceV]

From my perspective, there are a couple of scenarios (that come to my mind as of now) where the need of having multiple accounts is justified and understandable

You missed a scenario that comes down to Bitcointalk being as free as possible, and offering free speech:

If you're hesitant to say something controversial because you don't want it to be associated with your name, please create an alt account and say it.

(but always with transparency regarding it)

As shown above, theymos disagrees.

[GazetaBitcoin]

Thank you for bringing this issue to my attention @GazetaBitcoin.

No worry, Rick! In fact, to be sincere, paid2 made the initial remark about this issue... It crossed my mind too, but he mentioned it faster than me (he is younger and faster, heh... -- also having bought his second palace with BTC too, but that's irrelevant now lol)

Overall I tend to agree with GazetaBitcoin perspective (considering that the contest doesn't have a rule for this scenario but I am open to discussion):

But since this is a forum where free speech is encouraged as much as it is possible, this involves also that people can vote for him and his pie. Receiving votes may look abnormal or immoral but, since no contest rules are broken, I don't think there is anything which can be done.

While I agree with LV general idea, it's also true that, strictly regarding this contest, there really is no rule preventing PytagoraZ from being eligible. This, of course, is not pointing the finger at you, but an observation... We can only learn from such incidents and better the set of rules in time. Same happened with BCA during years and also with other similar events. It's really impossible to anticipate everything what can happen the future, what a particular user may do or try... so we can only adapt to the situation.

[RickDeckard]

From my perspective, there are a couple of scenarios (that come to my mind as of now) where the need of having multiple accounts is justified and understandable

You missed a scenario that comes down to Bitcointalk being as free as possible, and offering free speech:

If you're hesitant to say something controversial because you don't want it to be associated with your name, please create an alt account and say it.

(but always with transparency regarding it)

As shown above, theymos disagrees.

I support the forum mission of being as free as possible as I have stated previously on my posts. I was just providing some rationale (from my perspective) of what could motivate the use of multiple accounts, I am sure that there can be others (and more depending of one's perspective).

While I agree with LV general idea, it's also true that, strictly regarding this contest, there really is no rule preventing PytagoraZ from being eligible. This, of course, is not pointing the finger at you, but an observation... We can only learn from such incidents and better the set of rules in time. Same happened with BCA during years and also with other similar events. It's really impossible to anticipate everything what can happen the future, what a particular user may do or try... so we can only adapt to the situation.

I wasn't aware that similar events happened with BCA. If I do run next year edition more feedback will have to be gathered in order to reach a set of balanced rules I guess...

[JollyGood]

Just for a quick recap, if all the names of the associated accounts are compiled then this is what the complete list should appear as:

akbarharyadi8
asrinur
coklat gurih
cyberdg
Hagz
havi agasa
komisariatku
Maftukh
nyupangcoin
pentol86
PytagoraZ
razor92
tu_kang

Personally, I would not limit the total to the names mentioned above because once the can of worms is opened, it usually leads to surprises.

[nutildah]

As for PytagoraZ participation on the contest, the edition that I am running doesn't state rules to deal with this kind of behaviour and I don't know if it would be fair to insert them right now considering the stage of it. I will consider this a lesson learned and, if the next edition happens by me, will surely take this into consideration in order to create a more fair contest amongst everyone.

Overall I tend to agree with GazetaBitcoin perspective (considering that the contest doesn't have a rule for this scenario but I am open to discussion):

But since this is a forum where free speech is encouraged as much as it is possible, this involves also that people can vote for him and his pie. Receiving votes may look abnormal or immoral but, since no contest rules are broken, I don't think there is anything which can be done.

Personally I would bar alt accounts from entering the contest -- I mean a lot of the ones that don't even look like pies are probably all made by the same person or people. But of course its not always easy to prove who is or isn't an alt, etc.

For the price prediction contests though, that's just pure scumbaggery to use multiple accounts in the same contest. I frankly don't care if its in the contest runner's rules or not, for me it implies an inherent non-trustworthiness.

There is one sizable farm that actually all enters these contests together. I busted about half of them, was just getting annoying seeing them all take advantage of other peoples' generosity and nobody noticing or doing anything about it... Will get around to them next.