The rule on account sales.

[rat03gopoh]

I know the forum motive is to be free as possible but it’s not entirely free because some things are not permitted here for example plagiarism, a ban is attached to those who do it.

Forums give members the freedom to speak your own style; plagiarism is stealing someone else's; and forums may be held responsible for copyright infringement by their members.
Account trading is a different matter than plagiarism, and the forum doesn't have any proactive way to detect someone's initiatives who has purchased it, although in most cases (and perhaps the only malicious ones), they use it for fraud. Still, fraud isn't moderated because forums don't want to give you a false sense of security.

[Upgrade00]

Honestly, I understand it this way:
Let the person sell, tell them it is "okay".
You know why? Because someone who sells or buys an account is certainly a person of bad character, someone who wants to obtain some undue benefit without merit, without effort, right?

Whatever rule the forum has in place for scams or account sales the type of users to engage in those will do what they do still. The current situation with account sales being conducted off the forum is not a result of the rules but a result of the actions of people who are always looking to take shortcuts.

The forum as a community will always look negatively towards people that engage in account sales even if the forum makes it legal with no caveat.

[KingsDen]

No 18 rule is a very controversial rule and I am surprised that it hasn't been amended till now. However, I understand the place of the forum; if account sales is totally prohibited, how will the forum police the process. It is obviously something the forum cannot handle and I think it is why the rule is allowed to be. Assuming the forum has reliable way to detect accounts that change hands, that rule would not exist.

A big question we all need to answer is; How do we discourage account sales?
I don't think anyone else has another answer apart from tagging the accounts that changed hands or accounts that intend to sell...

[GeorgeJohn]

So my question is why making selling account legal meanwhile you don’t like members doing it and they can be tagged a bad person in the forum if they are caught doing it.

The rule doesn't fully guarantee of selling of account, if you read the rules very well, you will notice theirs no full support of selling account in the forum..

The essence why the forum doesn't like of selling of account, it's due to reputation of the rightful owner of the account....if forum account is sold to to someone, with the reputation of the rightful owner of  the account, you might bring deal thinking that youre trading with the rightful owner of the account, not knowing that the account has changed to  someone have no good intentions to the forum or a scammer..

Forum want's to be clear and also be free from scam, that's why many people kicked against of selling of forum account...

If you are caught selling your account you may likely get a negative tag even though it’s not against the forum rules.
Where do we stand in this rule.

That's to tell you that selling of account is indirectly against the forum, it might be in the rules, but it caused harm to the forum...

For me, it seems that the rules of selling of account is contradictory the forum rules..i suggest that some of the rules of the forum should be revisit for proper understanding...

[Donneski]

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

So my question is why making selling account legal meanwhile you don’t like members doing it and they can be tagged a bad person in the forum if they are caught doing it.

This is one rule in the forum that I think deserves to be revisited and if possible make an amend to it to make it less complicating. The rule isn't as clear on the issue as it should be. I think the best thing is probably to make it illegal for people to buy accounts because at the end, it's more of a cheat on the forum rankings than just a change of hands. Imagine a jr member, member or full member who's not knowledgeable enough to make helpful contributions on important issues get the opportunity of buying a legendary member account. Since their knowledge about bitcoin, cryptocurrency in general and the forum is very limited, they'll not be able to maintain the exact reputation of the original user which will result to spamming or always making off-topic posts on vital threads.
Wether we like it or not, no legendary member who rightly earned his place in the forum will happily want to see another legendary member account being handled by an inexperienced user, so they'll most likely leave a tag on the account which o think is valid.

[hosemary]

The rule isn't as clear on the issue as it should be.

I think the rule is clear enough and has a good wording. The forum allows you to buy accounts and this means that you will never get banned for buying accounts.
The "Account sales are discouraged" has been added, so that people don't complain about getting tagged for account trades.

[nutildah]

In incidental cases for high-profile accounts, sure. But for millions of accounts, you can't expect the forum admin to start tracking all this.

This idea has probably been proposed already but I'm all for introducing (or bringing back) a SCAMMER tag issued by mods or admins, to be given to the most obvious of scammer accounts.

This would be reserved for instances where proof of the scam is overwhelming and without reasonable objection. Of course it would require more work for the staff, and prone to the err of human subjectivity, but so is a lot of the job.

[Mia Chloe]

According to the rule it simply means that someone is allowed to sell an account But the forum does not like account selling and advises people not to do it, from what I understand and from what is happening in the forum, selling account won’t get you banned immediately, but it can cause problems and it is seen as a bad practice.

This is the internet and you are free to do whatever you want but there could be consequences to your actions. Yeah the forum doesn't have a ban on account selling but it's wrong because they are eventually either gonna use the account to cheat or to scam people.

Check the highest numbers of sold accounts most of them are usually cheaters some try to pull off scam based off past reputation of the account most times it ends up unsuccessful.

[nutildah]

No 18 rule is a very controversial rule and I am surprised that it hasn't been amended till now. However, I understand the place of the forum; if account sales is totally prohibited, how will the forum police the process.

Its actually pretty easy: just delete threads and accounts opened for the purpose of selling Bitcointalk accounts. The forum has banned some forms of account sales, it would not be hard to put forum accounts in the same category.

I think the reason forum account sales is not banned has more to do with the admin's laissez-faire policy of less moderation is better, which has worked pretty well for the most part, IMO.

So its on the users if they feel the practice is worthy of a tag, not an administrative issue.

Really account sellers aren't the problem anyway - they will always be somewhere - its the account buyers who wear a bought account like a cyborg avatar and then demand to be respected as a full human.

[The Cryptovator]

So my question is why making selling account legal meanwhile you don’t like members doing it and they can be tagged a bad person in the forum if they are caught doing it. Is just like telling me I’m free to use your personal things and then when i use it, you tag me a thief.

Let's say the forum bans account selling. How do you prevent them dealing off-forum account sales? When the forum announced to ban account sales, that means sold accounts will be banned or locked. Off-forum account sales only would be detected by the posting behaviour, because the account would be sold with a staked address and original email.

I am also against selling accounts, but it can't be stopped by implementing ban-selling rules. Then you have to implement an account ban for changing posting behaviour. The forum trust system and moderation system work in different ways. Those can't be handled through moderation that has been handled through trust systems like tag scammers and account sellers. I don't think this ban for changing posting behaviour would ever be implemented. Also, changing emails or passwords isn't mandatory when the account is sold along with staked addresses and original emails.

[Btcdeybodi]

I know the forum motive is to be free as possible but it’s not entirely free because some things are not permitted here for example plagiarism, a ban is attached to those who do it.

Of course, that's the forum's mission and i think you do not understand the part of freedom that the forum gives. You should have given a better example of what you think that still restrict users instead of using plagiarism as an example. Copying and publishing contents that is not yours is against forum rules and it is a reasonable rule. For the fact that the forum's mission is to be as free as possible doesn't mean that there should be no rule.

Maybe you haven't heard about newbie jail. Disabling newbie jail was part of the freedom. Though there is still restrictions to newbies such as not being able to post images except for those that bought copper membership and a newbie cannot send a PM to a higher rank unless for a profile that allowed newbies to send PM.

I have read some cases about this forum in the past and if we are to consider the strictness of the forum then and now, there's freedom now even though it may not be as free as possible.

[JollyGood]

Though it is officially allowed, it is frowned upon by the overwhelming vast number of members of the community. The sheer number of sold accounts that have caused problems ranging from loan defaults to merit abuse as well as cheating campaigns, trust abuse and DT infiltration are immense.

One counter-question that comes to mind is: why would anybody want to buy an account?

[joker_josue]

If I could think of one time that account sales will be necessary, the rule can be interpreted to mean, except when completely necessary do not engage in account sales, but I can't think of any at all.

Imagine a service user's account. The service is sold, and the account is then sold as well.

Having a rule stating that an account cannot change hands would create problems in these cases.

But even in these cases, the information and communication should be clear on the subject.

[Ronsbit]

Maybe one of the reasons why the forum frowns on account sales is the abuse of reputation by buyers of such an account. For instance, if an account that has taken time to grow through ranks and files to achieve a good height in the forum, and it gets sold or hacked, based on the fact that the account is known to be a reputable one, the buyer would likely abuse the priviledge the account enjoys and using it to perpetrate evil on the platform which I believe has in many instances occured on the platform which is not good. Hence, the reason why it seems the community does not encourage sales of accounts is that it is not against forum laws to sell, but it is not a conducive one for members, as they frown at it.

[BitBakerr1]

The rule of this account selling is not clear to me, if the forum discourage account selling then they shouldn’t permit it in the forum. From the rule is allowed but it’s discouraged by the forum.
What I see now concerning account selling in the forum is that selling your account is not allowed and if you sell your account you will be given a negative feedback, if the rule can be made clear by not permitting account selling then it will be better.

[hosemary]

The rule of this account selling is not clear to me, if the forum discourage account selling then they shouldn’t permit it in the forum. From the rule is allowed but it’s discouraged by the forum.

I feel like you didn't read the previous replies. Otherwise, it would be clear to you.
It's allowed to buy accounts means that you won't get banned for selling or buying accounts.

Account sales are discouraged because the community doesn't like it and you will get tagged if caught.

[Daniel91]

I think this is a very good question.
Every account created on this forum has a certain importance and reputation on this forum, especially accounts from long-time legendary members.
Reputation on this forum is especially important when selling, buying, trading, borrowing btc, etc.
Considering this, it is not a good idea for other members not to know that one of the accounts on this forum has been sold because the other account owner still needs to build their reputation on this forum and not just take over the merits and work of the previous account owner.
I was inactive on this forum for a while and I received a private message with an offer to sell my account.
I didn't want that because I invested a lot of time, more than 10 years, in building my personal reputation on this forum and I didn't want someone to just take it over and get everything on a platter, without any effort.

[BitBakerr1]

The rule of this account selling is not clear to me, if the forum discourage account selling then they shouldn’t permit it in the forum. From the rule is allowed but it’s discouraged by the forum.

Account sales are discouraged because the community doesn't like it and you will get tagged if caught.

Since the rule is saying it is allowed and at the same time discouraging people from doing it and from what you said the community don’t like it too and it’s very obvious that the community doesn’t like account buying and selling, so why not the forum change the rule by saying account selling is not allowed and then giving a direct punishment for it so new members will be aware when they come into the forum.
I new member may not be aware that the community don’t like it since the rule says it is allowed, I suggest the rule be changed if possible.

[Zoomic]

The rule of this account selling is not clear to me, if the forum discourage account selling then they shouldn’t permit it in the forum. From the rule is allowed but it’s discouraged by the forum.

Account sales are discouraged because the community doesn't like it and you will get tagged if caught.

Since the rule is saying it is allowed and at the same time discouraging people from doing it and from what you said the community don’t like it too and it’s very obvious that the community doesn’t like account buying and selling, so why not the forum change the rule by saying account selling is not allowed and then giving a direct punishment for it so new members will be aware when they come into the forum.
I new member may not be aware that the community don’t like it since the rule says it is allowed, I suggest the rule be changed if possible.

The forum is a bitcoin forum. Bitcoin is a liberty coin and as such the forum doesn't want to be excessively strict.
Theymos believe in freedom and he has shown that for a very long time.

There is nothing so bad that I eventually want to leave the forum and I open a thread in the reputation, stating that I want to leave the forum and wish to sell my account for x amount of BTC. A buyer comes, pay for it and I leave a neutral tag that the account has changed hands. But the problem is that, almost all the account sales are done in secret which later is revealed. I haven't seen a public or transparent change of account ownership.

[Joy- maker]

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

According to the rule it simply means that someone is allowed to sell an account But the forum does not like account selling and advises people not to do it, from what I understand and from what is happening in the forum, selling account won’t get you banned immediately, but it can cause problems and it is seen as a bad practice.
So my question is why making selling account legal meanwhile you don’t like members doing it and they can be tagged a bad person in the forum if they are caught doing it. Is just like telling me I’m free to use your personal things and then when i use it, you tag me a thief.

I have been having same thought too why forum allow account sell but discourage users from doing it, but i have come to understand that account sell is allowed here on bitcointalk, because the forum generally avoid strict control over what users can trade, meaning freedom first, even if risky.

The forum discouraged it because of trust issue. and as we all know this forum run heavily on reputation, but when an account is sold to another person, the new owner inherits fake credibility. old posts and reputation no longer reflect the real person, and it also become easier for the new owner to scam other users.