1.) Negatives for all sellers/buyers of accounts is potentially not effective for targetting account farmers:
That would mean everyone gets hit.... big sellers, small sellers, escrows
That's the point... Account farming is dishonest and destructive to the forum.
As someone who feels he probably has a better handle on the escrows of this forum, let me say that any escrow effected by the banning of account sales deserves to be effected... I do not touch account escrows because I think it is dishonest at best, and perpetuating scamming at worst. The entire business of - 1) register fake account, 2)spam crap all over people's threads making them respond to stupid questions, 3) sign up for signature campaign promoting ponzi scheme or gambling operation, 4) sell account to someone who will continue posting garbage on the forum, or use the account to scam honest traders - is one that should be stopped. Not only for the good of Bitcoin, bitcointalk, and the honest members here who have their time wasted, but for the kids spending weeks chasing a few dollars when they could be out mowing lawns, or learning, or starting businesses to earn real money and contribute.
If "everyone" in that little micro-economy "gets hit" it would be the best thing for everyone (except those running ponzi's and questionable gambling sites). I'm convinced of this.
Nothing will change as this conversation has been done 100 times already. The only solution is ban paid campaigns...period. The forum wants the activity so this will not happen.
I don't think banning paid campaigns is the answer. There is obviously a demand there. Revenue just needs to be directed into the appropriate recipients. They aren't the major bother anyway (although I would like to see their numbers reduced). It's the accounts spamming to wear the signatures themselves, as they are basically paid spammers. Seems like if they want to do that, it would be even more lucrative for them if they had to pay 2 BTC for the right to wear a signature. That would drastically reduce the amount of signatures out there and make it much more profitable (I would assume) for those that do pay the 2 BTC in order to be able to have a signature as advertisers would have much more competition for those few signatures. I imagine those that do pay the 2 BTC would also have a 2 BTC incentive not to spam and lose their account.
The only losers here are people who want to get something for nothing. Take away their regular income for spamming and selling different accounts, and as a side effect you might see some of them "move to greener pastures" which I imagine will reduce scam attempts as well.