Topic: ㅤ (Read 864 times)

I don't think he cares about negative tags in his trust. However, as they did not care about him in the previous Mitch122 account. He does not risk anything by refusing to pay, creating new accounts has long been a habit for him. I won’t be surprised if he has already created a new account and offers some regular goods and services.

Hehe, considering what Bitcointalk has become and what it represents in the crypto space today, I am not surprised at what extent some persons will go just to gain reputation here for whatever reason, be it selfish and genuine..
The user mentioned in the op is clearly after something, he was indeed trying to gain good number of merits through that giveaway, which in turn will not only build his reputation, but will also enable him rank up.
Building his reputation means that he will easily gain trust from the forum members, which would enable him carry out his scam activities easily..
earning merit means he could rank up faster to enable him join signature campaigns to earn some buck.

what ever his ambitions were, be it good or bad, he came in through the back door, as far as I know, there is no shortcuts to good things in life, and as far as this forum is concerned, only scammers and those with evil intentions come in through the back door, and they are easily spotted and kicked, this is why Bitcointalk is not just another bitcoin forum, Bitcointalk is spectacular.

Well, who isn't up for free stuff?

If people could even be naive enough to download malware from impostors including newbie accounts rather than from the OP, not really surprising since all it takes is just to reveal a wallet address.

Somebody had to do it first and after a significant amount of waiting I decided to leave appropriate feedback. When I read the OP of that thread, it was simply ridiculously worded and I have no idea why that many forum members decided to try to win the imaginary $50.

I hope the incident surrounding the fake giveaway will serve as a reminder to all members especially those that have been around the forum for several years that they should apply due-diligence and ask serious questions to any newbie OP. Maybe Rbah will return one day with an interesting story about why the winner was not sent their prize but until then at the very least the negative tag will remain.

So far he only gets one merit for that contest, you made the right decision not giving him merit yet, but in case he didn't fulfill his promise instead of giving him merits, those who participate should tag him for questionable giveaways, giveaways should be above suspicion, what I like about that discussion is I get to discover this tool for fair giveaways created by bitmover https://bitcoindata.science/giveaway-manager/

You did it before I did it 

I was waiting for seven days to pass before tagging the user, thinking that 7 days are a decent time to wait. However, since you made first step I decided to make the second one, thus now Rbah has two negative feedbacks. Anyway, there are only a few hours until 7 days are met therefore it's okay to give him the feedback since now.

It's very possible for Rbah to be same with Mitch212. There are too many similarities between them. Anyway, this is less important. What matters is that users did not let themselves tricked anymore into jumping with merits on shady giveaway organizers. It seems that the lesson was learned.

(Of course, in case the organizer finally appears and offers a good reason for being online that much; in case he will also make an official rolling; in case he will also pay the prize -- then I will remove my feedback. But there are very small chances for this to happen.)

If the winner of that giveaway did not receive the funds and if the OP of that thread has not logged in since 24th January 2023 and has not honoured the promises that he made himself without anybody influencing him (namely he created a thread of his own accord with a $50 giveaway and selected a winner under dubious circumstances and promises to pay the prize in 24 hours), that should now constitute his account being tagged.

I have left appropriate feedback for Rbah for failing to pay the prize to the winner he selected in this thread $50 in BTC Giveaway

I am fairly sure Rbah was waiting for his account to be tagged before he logs back in to say that he was going to pay the prize but since his account has now been unfairly tagged he will not be paying the prize. We have waited a week and he has not shown up but if the account gets tagged he probably will unless the puppeteer controlling the account gave up because he received just 1 merit in exchange for a $50 trade and decided to keep the $50 thus losing the farmed Rbah account.

Having said the obvious, a week after he promised to pay the prize within 24 hours, it did not detract me from appropriately tagging the account.

It does seem highly unlikely that address will be sent anything from the OP of the giveaway thread since he was never really active in the forum and has no need to pay or re-run the the giveaway for the sake of transparency.

I do have very strong suspicions that he was part of a farmed account and that account was used to test to see if merits could be given for the sake of the giveaway. In the end I believe he received just one merit and now will most probably receive negative tags as his 24 hour deadline to pay the $50 has passed and he provided no explanation for the non-payment.

-----------------

For those looking for a real giveaway, there are still slots available and winner will receive 0.0025 BTC which is currently around $57.63. It is free to enter, only one entry per member is allowed: Win c.$50 on Free Lottery#1 JollyGood-Ratimov-Utopia: Fury vs Usyk

SLOTS ALLOCATED: 37
SLOTS AVAILABLE: 21

Thank you Ratimov and Utopia

The problem is that, so far, since the winner was announced, OP was not online anymore. I don't even know if he read what was written at the end of his topic (meaning the posts signaling that was he did is totally inappropriate). Besides, no matter the incompetent way he managed the giveaway, he also did not pay the prize to the (fake) winner. This is winner's address: 1MxqUhnCwuUwbc7Z1NhNTTGiVHJXBpurCi; I am constantly monitoring it since this user was declared as winner.

So there are higher chances for OP of being given negative feedback for not paying the prize than for poor management of the giveaway.


Who knows... Maybe he expected the merits when he announced the winner and, seeing that he still does not receive any merit he decided to go offline, knowing that it's possible to have the account tagged? Anyway, let's wait for a few more days and see what happens meanwhile.

It certainly seems he did break his own rules however there is still a chance that all this will be cleared up and the OP of that thread will make the payment to the winner or better still he can clarify why he did what he did and then re-run the giveaway but announce beforehand how he intends to select a winner. As long as those things happen he can have credibility but the way it turned out it seems very inappropriate.

Someone suggested earlier this could have been an attempt to get merits and try to build up the account which for $50 would probably be worth it if he could get merits. Having said that, there is a chance this could all be a misunderstanding and could be resolved (but I have reservations).

Sorry, but I'm not sure about that. In xLays example post, only the number 92 was given as the winning number and not 5tift. I think you read that wrong and 5tift only spoke up next because he received a PM from Rbah. He published this PM from Rbah in another thread:
However, I no longer believe that Rbah will pay the prize. 24 hours have passed and nothing has arrived at the address from 5tift.  
https://blockchair.com/de/bitcoin/address/1MxqUhnCwuUwbc7Z1NhNTTGiVHJXBpurCi
But you're right about the other things.  

You are close

Indeed, OP did not initially announce giveaway rules; he did it later, in the seventh post. Rolling was supposed to take place on Jan 24th. Yesterday (Jan 24th), OP asked how to proceed. A Ponzi promoter (so, obviously, not a trustworthy member) gave him an example of how to choose the winner by using a block's hash. In the given example, the winner was user 5tift. However, that was just an example!

OP did not understand that it was only an example (or simply ignored that) and announced 5tift as winner, although he (OP) broke his giveaway rules. And his giveaway rules were those stated in post #7, respective to have him or a trustworthy user make the rolling.

But, in our case: (1) he did not make any rolling; (2) no trustworthy user made any rolling; (3) there was actually no rolling at all, as what that Ponzi promoter said was just an example of how a rolling works.

Since then I don't know what happened, nor if OP actually paid the money to the fake winner. In any case, he broke his own rules.

If I have understood this situation correctly, the OP of the $50 giveaway thread (who is a newbie and has almost zero posts in the forum) basically conducted a giveaway even though he did not announce in the OP of the thread how a winner was going to be selected.

Furthermore, a few posts down the line he is asked how a winner will be decided. The OP of that thread decides to roll a wheel and suggests even someone trustworthy could do it but then does not offer the option again and instead simply announces he found the winner by editing the OP of that giveaway thread.

Now it seems many (if not most participants of the giveaway thread) are not happy and want a more transparent way to find a winner. Is that basically the issue?

Now only Admins can see the edited posts, and I don't think they'll care enough to check.

Here you go

https://bitcoindata.science/giveaway-manager/

I found a nice and simple solution.

As the block hash is just a number, its last 3 digits is converted to decimal using this function:


Now we have a *nearly* 3 digit integer from the block hash.

Dividing this number by the number of participants. Using the modulo operator, the division remainder becomes the index number.

This index number is applied in the participants list, to get the position of the winner.


Maybe we can use this tool in future giveaways
I changed the address in the first post, I just edited it.

Use the new one please.

I was talking more about how the winner was chosen and the way it was chosen (by not making any posts, therefore no timestamps to prove that the winning block was chosen before the winner was announced. In reference to what I said about the chosen winner, it wasn't the primary reason for my post but I think that if a newbie with a very little amount of posts in comparison to an established member would make a difference as well. Especially considering that currently there is no way for a normal member to know that the block was chosen after the block occurred (Maybe a mod can know if they have access to edit history?)

Like GazetaBitcoin said while I was posting as well, payment is more of a concern after the winner is elected fairly. If the winner is not elected fairly, that is the first point of concern before who gets paid. If the winner was not elected fairly then it is probably likely that the winner will be paid if the giveaway was rigged.


It does look like a poor decision to quickly finish off the giveaway. Unfortunately due to the way it all occurred there is no certain way to know for now.


If you aren't already aware, the winner of this giveaway was supposedly chosen via a chosen block and its hash. The concern is that the OP edited his thread without making posts so there is on way to know the timestamp of the block was chosen before the block occurred (fair) or after (presumably not fair). If the giveaway is fake, I think it is clear it is to establish some sort of reputation or give out the idea they have money. I found it odd that the user went on to try and use the marketplace not long after the giveaway was ongoing, but again there is no way to validate anything enough to make a claim.

Until getting to payment, it has to be stated the fact that the election of the winner broke the giveaway rules and, as a consequence, that winner is not eligible.

OP said he will do the rolling or he'll allow a trustworthy member to do it. OP did not do any rolling nor a trustworthy user did it. A user tagged as Ponzi promoter gave OP a suggestion of how to roll and, inside that suggestion the winner was a member named 5tift. However, 5tift was only the name which came as winner within an example of how to roll. That was not an official rolling. And even if it would be considered so (although it can't be, since it was an example), it is not an eligible rolling, based on OP's own rules: do it by himself or by a trustworthy member.

I am not sure if OP got confused or he broke his own rules at will. But, so far, what's happening is outside the giveaway rules.

It looks like the giveaway in question announced a winner. In my opinion though there is still doubt about how the winner was calculated. No posts were made announcing which block would be chosen and the OP just suddenly edited the thread with the details. There is no "last edit" time either to see when the post was edited. I am sure the doubt is uncalled for considering who won, I just think that it could have been done in a way where not even a little bit of doubt was left open.

Oops, my bad. So it only works on blocks that have already been mined, right? I thought the tool was supposed to do something else.

Those are easy: anyone can verify the result without needing a website for it

That's the part that's missing for many giveaways

Can you expand this a little more?

Right now you can add block 773400, it will say not mined yet. What would you expect?
Something like "expected to be mined in 10 days"?


I have seen giveaways where you can select a number from 1 - f , this is why I let people put their guess.

I will make an algorithm to add a number to each participant and chose one based on the block hash

I agree with LoyceV, developing a scraper for the entire thread would be a waste of time. There are many potential issues to consider such as someone posting in a wrong format or someone editing the post while the scraper is running... There are simply too many things that can go wrong. It would be more efficient for the contest organizer to manually prepare the list of participants.

I think you need to come up with a better way for selecting the "Target Block". For instance, if someone wants to organize a contest and announce that the winner will be chosen from Block 773400, your tool does not currently have the option to select a specific target block and can only choose a block offset from the most recent one.

I would leave out the "guess" for each user. Just a list of usernames, then base the winner on some algorithm that uses the selected block hash as input. That also means you don't have to ask how many digits to consider.
As long as anyone can reproduce what you're doing, it's (more or less) provably fair.
See my example, and the following post for the results. You don't even have to select just one winner, you can create a list of all participants in an order determined by the selected block hash. That way, the giveaway is flexible for multiple winners.

Most giveaway organizers will want to select who qualifies by themselves. You could ask for a link to one post that has all names, that way an unedited post can help ensure nobody edited anything afterwards.
So: the creator of the giveaway posts this, and copies the link to that post into your BGM:

I have created a first version, but I would like some suggestions from you and @LoyceV, who suggested the creation of this tools, before releasing and announcing it.

You can see it here:

https://bitcoindata.science/giveaway-manager/




It is already working if you add competitors manually.

I will create the scrapper today at night or tomorrow, but I would love to hear some suggestions.

Do you think I should scrap all users who added a bitcoin address in a thread, like this one? Then the user would just paste the URL of the thread in the tool.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/50-in-btc-giveaway-5435424

Then I would add number 1,2,3... for each user.

IF there is a code tag with all competitors, anyone can just copy/paste in the tool.

I (still) don't know databases, so i can't do it. The reputation of the creator shouldn't matter, as long as it can be verified. The website is meant for convenience.

Knowing that you have expertise, inside my mind I was thinking about you for doing this, but I did not write it in my previous post I as did not know if you are interested or not. However, any other member with good reputation is good as any other one of this kind

---

Speaking of which --


Thank you bitmover for giving a hand here! But do you think you will be able to do it until Jan 24th? This is the date when OP said he would like to roll. In case you can do it, will you let Rbah know, inside his giveaway topic that you are willing to organize the rolling? I'm saying this to have everything transparent there as well. (Being a Newbie, it's possible that he does not even know about the existence of this thread from Reputation board Oo)

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Thank you also for showing your good intentions, TryNinja No worry about this, I believe that, once your bots will be fully prepared they will can be used in future similar occasions. After all, inside Collectibles board (at least) there are many such raffles and a bot would help a lot.

I can make a page for this in my domain.

Something like bitcoindata.science/giveaways

I will make it on the next week, as I am now traveling and I will be back on sunday. No laptop here 

Fun fact, I made a bot that does this to run giveaways on the forum (currently only on the Portuguese local board). Create threads, get tickets, and the bot uses a future block hash to draw a winner:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.60711596
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.61051620

I would love to make a website version of this, but I didn’t bring my laptop on my cold trip (I got the internet though, for $75 ).

Funny. I just posted in that thread in the hopes I would win but also with the thought of wonder as to why the user was giving away so much BTC (the first thought of course that came to mind, was merit). After reading all of the theories here, a lot more makes sense. The only way to validate which of the theories are correct is to see which winner is chosen. I have doubts that a winner will even be chosen if the user sees this thread. Time will tell!

Someone (@TryNinja? @bitmover?) should create a website for this: enter a list of participants, choose a future Bitcoin block, and after the block gets mined, use the block hash as random seed to pick a winner. Like I did manually here.

I also noticed (and joined) Rbah's giveaway. I did mostly because I was curious about how things will develop, being aware of Mitch212's scam, which had a similar giveaway, in September 2022. Both were made by users with low ranks, both had no rules stated from beginning.

However, unlike Mitch212, Rbah did not get (so far) benefit of too many merits. So far, he received just 1 and, I believe, until he'll pay this is also the only merit he'll receive for this giveaway.

I agree, this giveaway seems fishy, yet I would advise to not jump to conclusion. Until this very moment no scam was done. Most likely, we will find out the truth in less than 4 days from now on. He may be too new here or not too thorough to properly organize his mind and this may also be a reason for which he did not post any rules yet. So far, all I saw in his favor is his statement from post #7:


I believe that, if the rolling will be done by someone with a good reputation on the forum, nobody will complain about fairness in choosing the winner. Of course, the most important aspect, even in this case, is that we need to see the winner receiving the prize. Let's just have patience for a few more days then, certainly, things will clear up.

After all, we've all seen a Newbie paying back 1000$ in BTC; it can also happen to see one paying a prize of 50$.

Chances are, he could always give it to a sockpuppet account.

Yes, that's right. Let's see how the whole thing turns out. Which is also true, without Ratimov I would not have noticed all these connections. He deserves merit for that. 

I really don't see the relevance. If someone doesn't like something on the internet, that doesn't mean someone else has to change what they're doing.

I'm more and more starting to get theymos' stance (and eddie13's frustration) with this. The freedoms Bitcointalk offers are really rare on the internet. Cherish it!

Giving away in a non-transparent way is fine by you but not fine by all. Some members want transparency. As may have been noticed by others, I did not join for those precise reasons.

In that thread we get to post #6 before a suggestion is made on how to select the winner and the OP replies in post #7 that he will spin a wheel or maybe ask a trustworthy member to do it. There is no clarity on exactly what is happening but the benefit of the doubt is given because they are a newbie. To a point I can understand that but it is down to members participating in the giveaway to ask the most basic of questions.

Yes you did join, that is a decision for you and mentioned in your joining post that you had some communication with them therefore you might be more inclined to believe them (though there is no evidence to disbelieve them either).

I have seen newbies get tagged red for simply asking for a loan in the Lending board yet there seems to be a different mindset when it comes to giveaways.

If a newbie comes along and says he is giving away 10 BTC, will you avoid asking questions (and expect others to not ask questions) purely on the basis you do not want them to jump through hoops just in the event he is genuinely going to give away 10 BTC? If that is your stance then that is for you but not everybody feels that way.

No, he doesn't need that. I think this is what eddie13 called "regulatory bullying". Bitcointalk is all about freedom, and if someone wants to give away $25 in a non-transparent way, that's fine. If you don't like it, don't join.

I joined. I don't want to annoy a new user with questions and hoops to jump through. If he doesn't select a winner, we'll know it was fake. But I don't want to discourage genuine users from running giveaways.

As with most things, time will tell. Unless there is compelling evidence there is not much that can be said but the OP has made a case that presents suspicions and I thank him for his efforts.

I never mentioned merits, the first to mention merits was the OP followed by DaveF.

Though not mandatory, if the OP of the giveaway thread had mentioned using escrow as an option himself without being prompted then maybe that would have given more credibility. If he already used a respected escrow then started the giveaway thread then this thread would not have been created.

As for questions, something such as these should have been asked:

"what do you do on the other forums you mentioned"
"how much have you given away on other forums"
"Why are you giving away money on other forums and now here"
as well as the all-important question "how do you in intend to pick a winner and why did you not announce the method of selecting the winner in the OP"

Yes you are right it is not conclusive but 24th January is not far away. Even if $25 is given away in that thread there needs a tamper proof and transparent method of selecting the winner.

You did nothing wrong by creating this thread. To a degree we can negate the problems created by lack of information in that giveaway thread because the creator is a newbie but to not make it clear in the OP how a winner will be selected is not good. What is worse is that most members lined up to participate without even asking for clarity and many of them were here a long time.

For those that do not know, I am running a free lottery and you can enter there if you are interested: JollyGood Free Lottery #1: FURY vs USYK

I have added $25 to the prize and Ratimov has kindly donated $25 to the prize therefore $50 will be given to the winner. There is 1 in 58 chance to win. You can select a free slot/number or ask for one to be given at random.

FREE SLOTS ALLOCATED: 20
FREE SLOTS AVAILABLE: 38

Welcome to 2023  

Aside that the said amount is being small for the task ahead for the prize I don't give listening ears to such kind of giveaway personally, i want to believe they are upto something that seems hidden to us about creating a giveaway thread that won't actually award the rewards to the beneficiaries, they may wanted to use it as reference to what they have been participating and consistently doing as a point to convince their kind of victims that they would want to receive financial support from, I've recently seen another member opening a merit giveaway thread but not having smerits himself to give out, what has that implies, there's hidden agenda somewhere.

After reading whole accusation and @Mitch212 trust feedback, i thought something interesting. Rather than buying merit (AFAIK starts from $5/merit), merit fishing on Wall Observer or doing certain task (such as sign with PGP/bicoin address), merit/account farmer could choose host small giveaway instead. For example, if @Mitch212 were to deliverer his promise, he could got a good deal ($25/20 merit or $1.25/merit). And the cost could be reduced to almost $0 if he decide to make his altcoin as winner.

And i also agree there's no sufficient proof about connection between @Rbah and @Mitch212. I decide to join his giveaway and see whether he'll deliver his promise or not.

There is no doubt that @Mitch212 and @ArabianFella are alt accounts, as evidenced by the use of the same social media accounts. This conclusion can be drawn, even in the absence of an admission of such by the individuals in question.




https://ninjastic.space/post/56849367


In regards to the @Rbah account, while the writing style and giveaway topic discussed are similar to the previous account, I believe that the evidence is still not conclusive enough. However, the coincidence of matching registration and last activity dates with ArabianFella should not be ignored.

As Dave said, if he has bad intentions, he may merit (sooner or later) another of his alts and, if done after months, such a move would go under the radar. That could potentially be bad. But not many have the patience to go that slow that far, so I don't know...

And even if they Merit him, he'll end up tagged like Mitch212, and still nothing is lost.
The reason I only left Mitch212 neutral feedback, and only after 2 months, is because I didn't consider it serious enough compared to scammers who actually stole money.

And I always remember eddie13's post, on how destructive it is to enforce regulation on Newbies because of something they might do:

I didn't do research on account's background and possible links, but I had the impression the owner knows the drill and he's fishing for merits.
That's why I've decided that unlike most of the free raffles I see or participate, where I give merits to the OP because of his gesture, here I didn't; I'll wait and see how everything develops and then decide if merit is in order or not.

As Loyce said, we've seen all kinds of newbies and all kinds of raffles. It's too early to make too big of a deal of all this; we'll see in less than a week.
As long as people are careful and don't just throw merits, nothing is lost.

Well even if Rbah doesn't pay the winning participant in the raffle/giveaway, then nobody technically lost anything because nobody was asked to do anything except to post their Bitcoin address in the thread. One could be worried if it were to be the normal giveaway scam that entails giving and taking, but since it isn't, we just basically have to wait until 24th and see what happens. whatever Rbah's motive is (in terms of either merit or trust), as long as they aren't breaking any rules, there isn't any problem then.

Asking questions (such as "escrow?") only discourages Newbies. I've seen genuine giveaways, and I've seen fakes. If it's real, it deserves Merit because it's worth reading. The fact that it only earned 1 Merit already shows people have their doubts. If it's fake, we'll see soon enough and nothing is lost.

No, it is not a cynical view at all. We all are entitled to our opinions and they are based on what we see and/or gut feelings.

Apparently he claims to be active on other forums and is known for giving money away. His suggested method to select a winner was using a roll of the wheel though he said he could ask a trusted member to do it. I think both options would not be transparent. Maybe this will turn out all fine or maybe it will not, time will tell.

Really hard to tell if the giveaway is legit or not. I'm not sure either. That's why I haven't given merit yet. In november last year there was a $25 giveaway from a new user and the win was paid out, see here. So all we can really do is wait and see what will happen.  

One of his alts that we don't know about will win. What else did you think was going to happen. Trying to build trust and / or merit.

That do it a few times and people see him paying out gets some trust and / or merit then the scamming begins.

Or is that to cynical?

-Dave

I remember seeing the post from that user and I did have some reservations about it at the time as it was from a newbie.

I found it odd especially as the number of forum members jumped on to participate without asking any questions. In the end we have to wait to see what happens on or around 24th January when he claims he will pay the money.

ㅤ