Impose a restriction for the lending subforum

[John (John K.)]

I'm seriously tired of those scamming threads lately like (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=83113.0) and (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=82776.0) which are probably penned by the same person having just abolished their newbie status and making a beeline for the Lending subforum. We're starting to turn to another 'make a quick buck' website now unfortunately with people registering for the sole purpose of soliciting money, and making off to the next screen name.   

I propose that some sort of a restriction like post count or account age (>50 posts?) be imposed on the Lending Subforum to reduce the spam there and prevent the newcomers to be scammed easily.(https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=81777.0) Or the very least, a 'Lending Guidelines - read here before asking for a loan' sticky be posted on the top to make the scammers' life more difficult.

Please discuss too - my solutions might be faulty.  

Edit: added some examples.

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[John (John K.)]

I propose that some sort of a restriction like post count or account age (>50 posts?) be imposed on the Lending Subforum to reduce the spam there and prevent the newcomers to be scammed easily. Or the very least, a 'Lending Guidelines - read here before asking for a loan' sticky be posted on the top to make the scammers' life more difficult.

Agree with the post count > 50, although they would also have to be quality posts, none of the one word replies, "kwl thread" or other crap that people post to boost their post count..

Yeah, but it would be hard for the forum system itself to determine whether if the posts were quality posts - let's just leave that to the lenders themselves then.

[Clipse]

Screw >50 as its still way to easy to bypass for dedicated scammers, anyone established enough and unlikely to run away with BTC should atleast be a longtime member of either >500 or >1000 posts and registered for >1-3months, moderators can decide on this.

I really dont think anyone should be able to open a "bank" and receive BTC with promises of interest if they havnt been an active member on this forum, one way or another.

The point is, when you receive BTC and act in banklike manner, you should not be given an easy pass at the forum.

[John (John K.)]

Screw >50 as its still way to easy to bypass for dedicated scammers, anyone established enough and unlikely to run away with BTC should atleast be a longtime member of either >500 or >1000 posts and registered for >1-3months, moderators can decide on this.

I really dont think anyone should be able to open a "bank" and receive BTC with promises of interest if they havnt been an active member on this forum, one way or another.

Well, a >50/100/xxx would be a start to stop those spam posts in the lending subforum IMHO. A >500 and account age of >1-3 months would be much more restrictive on non-scammers as there would certainly be legit people between those scammers. However, a much stringent policy of giving loans should be the norm. We certainly don't want BTC to look like a get rich fast scheme for scammers.

[riX]

I'd love to see registration dates under peoples avatars, that alone might be enough to prevent some people from creating new accounts.
(And of course it would look nice if you registered early on..

[John (John K.)]

I'd love to see registration dates under peoples avatars, that alone might be enough to prevent some people from creating new accounts.
(And of course it would look nice if you registered early on..

member of either >500 or >1000 posts and registered for >1-3months, moderators can decide on this.

Registered for is obviously one of the most useful indicators for a scammer, so I think it might be more useful to have the higher restriction on registration time than post count. As you said it's far easier for a scammer to rack up a post count, but it's rather difficult to fake your registered for time.

Having a >1000 post restriction seems to high, there are people on the forums who have less than 1000 posts, and can be deemed trustworthy for a loan.

Agreed completely to both too. Registered time is much harder to rack up as compared to post counts.

[BadBear]

Age restriction seems like a good idea but it's still flawed. Just make a couple dozen accounts now, wait a bit, then use them sequentially, while continually making new accounts to add to the end of the list so they'll always have older accounts to work with.

Ultimately I don't think there's really anything we can do that would be effective.

[rjk]

How about one spokesperson that knows how to ask scammers the right questions? He could be the one that weeds out the idiots, and then the lenders could then do their due diligence on whatever is left. I think after a while, all the new users  scammers would come to know that this user is going to start asking them hard questions, and would either ignore him, which would set off red flags, or they would go away.

[John (John K.)]

Age restriction seems like a good idea but it's still flawed. Just make a couple dozen accounts now, wait a bit, then use them sequentially, while continually making new accounts to add to the end of the list so they'll always have older accounts to work with.

Ultimately I don't think there's really anything we can do that would be effective.

Yeah, ultimately the prospective loaner has to make his own personal judgement to avoid potential scams. However, we could at least weed out the obvious scammers and leave the lending subforum clean from a loan request from a newbie every next day. Most scammers in the lending subforum are only in for a quick buck, and having an age restriction plus post restriction would weed out them easily.

[John (John K.)]

How about one spokesperson that knows how to ask scammers the right questions? He could be the one that weeds out the idiots, and then the lenders could then do their due diligence on whatever is left. I think after a while, all the new users  scammers would come to know that this user is going to start asking them hard questions, and would either ignore him, which would set off red flags, or they would go away.

Aren't most of us are playing the spokesperson part nowadays in the lending subforum?   It's like a 'Please Troll Me' subforum now, that's why I proposed this. I hate to spoil the fun though.

[rjk]

How about one spokesperson that knows how to ask scammers the right questions? He could be the one that weeds out the idiots, and then the lenders could then do their due diligence on whatever is left. I think after a while, all the new users  scammers would come to know that this user is going to start asking them hard questions, and would either ignore him, which would set off red flags, or they would go away.

Aren't most of us are playing the spokesperson part nowadays in the lending subforum?   It's like a 'Please Troll Me' subforum now, that's why I proposed this. I hate to spoil the fun though.

Yeah I noticed that, and each noob gets a deluge of lenders picking him apart, which is kind of a waste of everyone's time. I figured one known trustable member could do preliminary vetting.

[SaltySpitoon]

I don't think the registration date thing means too much, a few friends of mine are just starting to use the forums, but they registered years ago, so now they have a 1-5 post count with accounts from early 2011. I'm sure that is the case in a lot of people, so I don't think when you registered really proves honesty. What really matters is experience. I believe you should have to have 100 posts before being able to post on the lending section, so by then the user will have a record that lenders can go back over, and hopefully by then you have some experience with trading, and the lenders can look back on that and make a decision.

[Maged]

I really dont think anyone should be able to open a "bank" and receive BTC with promises of interest if they havnt been an active member on this forum, one way or another.

There's a reason why only certain lenders have stickies. Some of these people who start lending operations just so they can start the banking side too really scare me.

[minimalB]

Minimum 100 posts and minimum total time logged in: 10 days.

It took me about half a year of normal use...