The rule on account sales.

[The Cryptovator]

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.

It's allowed, but discouraged. Community, even I think you don't like account trading.

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

Haven't you answered your own question above? Basically, people inspired to purchase an account either abuse the forum or earn money. You know, building an account by making posts is no easier like before due to the merit system. So people look for easy solutions, and it's purchasing an account. Previously there were a lot of account farmers; they have multiple high-ranked accounts. Probably they have been selling their accounts. But it seems most of the bought accounts are exposed some day and get tagged.

[Majestic-milf]

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.

Buying a high-ranking account while you are a newbie is deception. It's like brandishing a PhD certificate while you are a college undergraduate. Such accounts need to be tagged because they are not who they claim they are. Buying an account in its totality should be discouraged because it could lead to scam and other criminality. 

That's true. Most times, the person that purchased the account may not possess the knowledge the high ranking user had which would easily make people know the account was bought. I also support the idea of going against account buying cause it's really pointless since it will be frowned upon when discovered..
There are some rules that should be revisited imo so it doesn't cause some users getting into trouble just because they didn't pay too much attention.

[nutildah]

The forum rule is that account sales are allowed. When it comes to tags, that's up to everybody's personal preference.

Yeah but the tags will still be inline with the rules and regulations of the forum, if any tag is against the forum rules it’s abuse of DT power.

This is incorrect. The rules of the forum and DT are not related. Its not up to DT to enforce the rules of the forum -- that is done by the reporters, mods and admins. DT is not even supposed to tag accounts for failing to follow forum rules unless they feel its related to the account's trustworthiness.

Can you give a negative tag to someone who talks about US being the world? The answer is no even if you don’t agree with him or her, so giving tags is still done based on the forum rules and regulations.

You can give a negative tag to anybody for any reason and nobody can stop you. So your analogy doesn't make sense.

I think it’s better the forum amend that rule of account selling and make it illegal since it’s already illegal to almost everyone in the forum, so it will be known to everyone, if a newbie buys an account and then claims he was not aware it will lead to negative feedback on the account he bought based on the forum rule, can we actually blame him or her?

Yes, you can completely blame them. Blame them for trying to cheat by taking a shortcut, assuming credit for the previous owner's accomplishments (while also absolving themselves of any previous wrongdoing). I agree with you in that I would not mind if the forum made account sales illegal.

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What it comes down to is

STOP BUYING ACCOUNTS

You will be tagged, your original account will be tagged, and your other alt accounts will be tagged. It might not all happen the same day but it will eventually happen.

However smart you think you are, you are not as smart as this guy, and he got caught.

[DireWolfM14]

I recall one time theymos said something to the effect of we would be surprised to know the number of accounts that have been sold.  I surmise that some are very likely to go undetected. 

It's easy to say that nothing good comes from account sales, but the truth of the matter is that if an account's human backend turns out to be an improvement in terms of post quality and content, we may never notice that it changed hands.  I'm convinced this scenario would be an exception, but I'm only going by the accounts that I've detected or witnessed others detect.  It's impossible to imagine a world where things only go one way, however.  I.e. the account gets sold and the quality deteriorates.  Simple statistics and chaos theory would rule out that possibility.

It's also easy to say that any decent person wouldn't buy an account because he could rank up a newbie account on his own.  But, even talented and creative people can lack patience.

I'm not trying to excuse account sales, not by a long shot.  I'm just making an observation about what's perceived vs. reality.

[nutildah]

I recall one time theymos said something to the effect of we would be surprised to know the number of accounts that have been sold.  I surmise that some are very likely to go undetected.  

It's easy to say that nothing good comes from account sales, but the truth of the matter is that if an account's human backend turns out to be an improvement in terms of post quality and content, we may never notice that it changed hands.  I'm convinced this scenario would be an exception, but I'm only going by the accounts that I've detected or witnessed others detect.

An old account (from 2015 or before) with less than 100 merits is automatically suspicious, but the accounts hardest to prove as bought are the ones that were, for example, always a shitposter and always a poster on the same local board... I look at their old posts... my my, they were a shitposter 10 years ago and they're a shitposter now... this is going to be hard to prove.

Smart accounts that turn into morons are a dead giveaway; I've never seen the opposite, although I won't rule it out as a possibility.

Account buyers can't write good posts. They will own the same 2014 account for years and get like 10 merits across hundreds of posts.

Frankly its crazy how loose the standards are to join a campaign these days.

[DireWolfM14]

Smart accounts that turn into morons are a dead giveaway; I've never seen the opposite, although I won't rule it out as a possibility.

Didn't suchmoon once buy an old/highly regarded account to keep it from getting into the wrong hands?  That's got to count as an improvement, lol.

The seller was kind of popular, but I can't remember his name now.  One of the OGs who died a few years back, then his account came back to life, lol.

Edit:
I found it: Gleb Gamow

Bruno, the original owner was funny as hell, but his ethics may have come into question a couple of times.

Known alts:
Phinnaeus Gage
YuTü.Co.in
presduterte

[nutildah]

Smart accounts that turn into morons are a dead giveaway; I've never seen the opposite, although I won't rule it out as a possibility.

Didn't suchmoon once buy an old/highly regarded account to keep it from getting into the wrong hands?  That's got to count as an improvement, lol.

The seller was kind of popular, but I can't remember his name now.  One of the OGs who died a few years back, then his account came back to life, lol.

Right you're talking about Gleb Gamow who is now an In Memoriam. (pretty sure that means its locked & can't be accessed). Unfortunately for suchmoon that account can no longer be monetized for a sig campaign as that window has closed.

RIP Bruno

[Daniel91]

I recall one time theymos said something to the effect of we would be surprised to know the number of accounts that have been sold.  I surmise that some are very likely to go undetected.  

It's easy to say that nothing good comes from account sales, but the truth of the matter is that if an account's human backend turns out to be an improvement in terms of post quality and content, we may never notice that it changed hands.  I'm convinced this scenario would be an exception, but I'm only going by the accounts that I've detected or witnessed others detect.

An old account (from 2015 or before) with less than 100 merits is automatically suspicious, but the accounts hardest to prove as bought are the ones that were, for example, always a shitposter and always a poster on the same local board... I look at their old posts... my my, they were a shitposter 10 years ago and they're a shitposter now... this is going to be hard to prove.

Smart accounts that turn into morons are a dead giveaway; I've never seen the opposite, although I won't rule it out as a possibility.

Account buyers can't write good posts. They will own the same 2014 account for years and get like 10 merits across hundreds of posts.

Frankly its crazy how loose the standards are to join a campaign these days.

Each of us has our own unique writing style, way of thinking, favorite topics, level of English comprehension, grammatical errors more or less often, etc.
I think that based on these criteria, one could suspect that an account on this forum has probably been sold, although it would still be impossible to prove it.
Of course, for someone it would be a shortcut of several years to instantly take over someone's reputation and more easily achieve some of their goals, but I still believe that such account sales should be publicly announced and communicated, not hidden.
Reputation should not be for sale.

[BitcoinGirl.Club]

it can cause problems and it is seen as a bad practice.

Say less—let’s slap in KYC with a quick video call, yeah? No more of this multi-account nonsense, everyone’s getting exposed 😂

Known alts:
Phinnaeus Gage
YuTü.Co.in
presduterte

Bruv, my man [RIP brada] weren’t just good, he was different different 😤 proper top tier, no debate. Everyone else just playing catch up, swear down.

[Betwrong]

I think if account selling is allowed, the first post by the new owner should say something like: "I just bought this account, so everything written before wasn’t by me." Also, for the first year, or maybe the first six months, the user’s Personal Text should say: "This account was purchased on [DATE]."

[hd49728]

Another famous account was bought and built up reputation is in ChipMix**.

bill gator. This account was only known after the account was banned, the link is theymos reply on that case in bill gator's ban appeal.

theymos or a global moderator used to say one moderator was appointed that role even with a bought account but I can not remember that username.

[philipma1957]

I recall one time theymos said something to the effect of we would be surprised to know the number of accounts that have been sold.  I surmise that some are very likely to go undetected. 

It's easy to say that nothing good comes from account sales, but the truth of the matter is that if an account's human backend turns out to be an improvement in terms of post quality and content, we may never notice that it changed hands.  I'm convinced this scenario would be an exception, but I'm only going by the accounts that I've detected or witnessed others detect.  It's impossible to imagine a world where things only go one way, however.  I.e. the account gets sold and the quality deteriorates.  Simple statistics and chaos theory would rule out that possibility.

It's also easy to say that any decent person wouldn't buy an account because he could rank up a newbie account on his own.  But, even talented and creative people can lack patience.

I'm not trying to excuse account sales, not by a long shot.  I'm just making an observation about what's perceived vs. reality.

In the early years 2012 and 2013 it was more common and not  much of an issue.

Btc was under 100 a coin . I do not think we had copper membership option so people purchased accounts.

I think this was why copper membership was started.

And it would be obvious once copper began the need to sell and buy an account dropped if you are legit.

[Btcdeybodi]

I think if account selling is allowed, the first post by the new owner should say something like: "I just bought this account, so everything written before wasn’t by me." Also, for the first year, or maybe the first six months, the user’s Personal Text should say: "This account was purchased on [DATE]."

I doubt if anyone will buy an account and declare that the account was bought by him
Some of the accounts that are being bought in recent years were mostly bought to enroll in signature campaigns simply because the buyers are too lazy to build an account from newbie. However, it is easy to detect a bought account because either the account will change hands or their email address and passwords are changed as soon as they purchase the account. Or probably, the account might wake up after many years of inactivity so there are many ways to identify a bought account.

[nutildah]

Some of the accounts that are being bought in recent years were mostly bought to enroll in signature campaigns simply because the buyers are too lazy to build an account from newbie.

Another reason is because they are too mentally challenged to write posts that earn merits. Many account farmers have dozens of accounts that never advanced past Jr Member no matter how many posts they write for them, because their posts aren't saying anything, because they don't actually have anything to say. And even if they did, they're too bad at writing to do it effectively. Just a vicious cycle of buying accounts, getting caught, and starting over, without ever learning anything other than how to work the system.

[SuperBitMan]

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

I think one of the reasons why people are spending money in buying accounts over and over again is because of signature campaign, they just want to buy a high ranked account and then use it to join a signature campaign, if only campaign managers will start going through accounts very well and accept based on how creative you are in writing I believe buying of account will reduce and people will focus on being creative in writing and growing their personal accounts by themselves.
Believe me if there’s no signature campaign in this forum there won’t be account buying and giving out loan will reduce dramatically, so their will actually be no need for account buying.