Well, I don't know what the community thinks, but I'm just putting this info out here:
If you click on 'Sites That Accept Bitcoin' on bitcoin.org, you are directed to
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/TradeThe first thing you see is then "1 Getting started".
Naturally a lot of people will click on this.
This gives a section reading:
Getting started
BitcoinMe.com 'Bitcoin for Dummies', an easy hand-holding guide to Bitcoin for beginners and non-technical users.
Now, if we click on BitcoinMe.com, we get to a site with bitcoin information. Now if we click on 'Buy' at the horisontal menu at the top we are led to a page residing at BitcoinMe.com (
http://bitcoinme.com/index.php/buy/), which advertises BuyBitcoin.com and only that site.
Obviously this is a clever(?) way of getting first in the line, and not listing BuyBitcoin.com at the fixed rate listing as most bitcoin sellers do (
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade#Fixed_rate).
The ethics aside, if buyers don't receive their bitcoins, is this what we want newcomers to experience when first entering bitcoin?
I haven't heard much complaints about buybitcoin.com before, but if there are people who don't get the bitcoins they ordered, perhaps the listing should be removed from the wiki, or at least put a warning alongside it?
Also, when claiming not to have received bitcoins ordered, there should be some kind of evidence presented (?), clearly I know about Bruce's history, but clearly there should be some process to ensure hastily decisions are not made.
What do you all think ? Do we as a community have a responsibility to ensure that newcomers are not scammed, or should all newcomers be on their own ?
And how would we separate false accusations from the correct ones ? There's been a lot of fuss about Bruce on the bitcointalk.org forum previously, so he probably have a lot of enemies.
Perhaps there should be some sort of rule that a site listed first in the wiki should not participating in actual trade of bitcoins, but merely be a informational site ?
As bitcoin.org is a popular site, the wiki brings a lot of traffic to the sites listed there, and it doesn't hurt to be at the very top of that list I reckon.
Opinions ?