While I do like having a "clean" lenders forum, I fear that there might be discontent among users on which lenders are "clean" and which ones are not. Treating new users as second class users and grouping them with potential scammers is not a nice way to treat users new to bitcoin.
While this is certainly true, I've always found that if it looks like a scammer and quacks like a scammer, chances are it's a scammer.
Maybe we can have a system as follows:
Lending
* Providers
* Discussion
* Requests
* High-risk Loans
* Low-risk Loans
* Emergency Loans (Junk loans)
In order, the boards represent:
Lending: General discussion about lending. Open to everyone.
Providers: Providers of lending and their rules
- Mods can create topics or move topics here
- All users can post, but OP can lock the thread.
- Before moving a topic, mods discuss the provider in the Discussion board. If x% of mods in the first y days of discussion agree, the topic is moved to Providers and renamed accordingly.
Discussion: Only mods can post topics and posts. Used for mod voting on entry of loans to the appropriate category or providers to the Providers section.
Requests:
- All users can post topics, with [PROVIDER] or [LOAN] in the title.
- No users can post replies in this section; they need to be moved first.
- Mods decide whether to accept the provider or loan in the Discussion board.
High-risk loans,
Low-risk loans- Only mods can create or move topics here.
- All members can post (similar to the current lending section for etiquette.)
- Before moving a topic, mods discuss the loan in the Discussion board. If z% of mods in the first w days agree that it is low-risk, it is moved to Low-risk loans. After w days, if less than z% of mods agree, it is moved to High-risk loans.
Emergency loans, governed like current Lending section.
Obviously, many more mods need to be appointed for the Lending section. I suggest trusted people without an interest (so as to be neutral) to be considered.