Topic: BITCOINTALK STAFF QUIETLY BANS PEOPLE FOR SPEAKING OUT AGAINST THEM - page 5. (Read 7848 times)

See, the people who actually think the staff are legit just have to suspect that your account is just a dummy account made to post here. 3 posts.


Why would you even "speak up"? You could PM the heads of staff if there's an abusive forum staff member.

Liability would be based on the specific facts and what a reasonable person would do.  The site has mechanisms in place to moderate and threads are deleted on a regular basis.  Under those conditions it may very well that the site would be expected to control those types of posts as much as reasonably possible.  By allowing the posts it could be seen as an implicit endorsement of those activities.  The fact that staff comes on here to ridicule those that complain about would certainly weigh heavily on the side of liability.  This is why normal businesses put in reasonable controls.  It is clear that hilariousandco has no concept of these issues or how they work in the real world.

An unrelated matter entirely. it is very difficult to discuss a personal matter such as the one regarding my purported "attempt at buying trust" without becoming emotional. The issue we are discussing here is forum corruption and inconsistency of policies. I made two statements in this thread. perhaps you should read these statements and analyze them for facts/opinions before resorting to a personal attack, which is a sure sign of a lack of an intelligent argument.

I haven't been warped by anything, I'm just able to look at this from outside the box whilst you are blinded by your own bias and somehow think banning it would make it decrease any less. You're so preoccupied with account selling being 'evil' (lol) that you think it should just be banished completely but cannot even look rationally at why banning will do nothing at all. Don't you know that prohibition or banning things never works? It just pushes the activity further underground and out of sight, that's it.


You've spent the past two days whinging and whining. What facts have you stated exactly? I hope you're not confusing your opinion with one.


And we've told you already that banning it will do nothing. Making it slightly harder to buy/sell accounts is irrelevant. You're also forgetting not everyone thinks like you that accounts should be illegal/disallowed/discouraged/banned etc because thank satan your opinion doesn't make the rules here. And Kiddie porn is illegal, trading a bitcoin forum account isn't as much as you'd like it to be.

Look. If you can buy accounts, that means the trust system is meaningless, because it means you can buy trust. Within the bounds of the rules. Which is against the rules. Which makes the forum's current policies in contradiction with each other.

And you guys are just running in circles around me trying to say there is no problem here.

There is no whinging and whining going on. A simple statement of the facts, which you and others like you refuse to hear or give fair consideration.

Incoming new account in 2 minutes. Actually they probably make or have made dozens as has already been stated.
Banning does nothing. It can't be enforced effectively. I can't believe this isn't obvious to you.
People will still go to Skype, PM and other places to buy and sell without missing a step.
Give us some viable solutions instead of quoting the same thing over and over.



EDIT: Personal attacks do nothing for your credibility.

You could simply ban account selling from the forum. That's what you do.

Then you still remind people that its possible that others are buying and selling accounts offsite, but its still illegal to do this onsite. So that's what you do.

It would do good because there wouldn't be as much buying and selling of accounts. I can't believe this isn't obvious to you. I don't think you can see things as clearly as you think that you do. Your position of power has warped your judgment to the viewpoint that you can do no wrong.

As an outsider, potential solutions to the problem are obvious. But you are fighting any sort of change tooth-and-nail, and I have better things to do with my time then help your forum maintain its existence. So much for credibility. To pretend this forum has any credibility is a disastrous lie.

TL;DR - You are openly endorsing crooked behavior by allowing account selling to continue unabated.

And I would be happy to read your list and compare notes. I do believe those that are bought/sold and discovered deserve some type of warning.

We're not encouraging it. We can't do anything about it and 'evil dicklessness' will happen regardless, but you don't seem to be able to comprehend this. And why would we ban you? Idiots are allowed a voice too regardless of how wrong or annoying they may be.


Says the guy who was desperately trying to buy trust to appear trustworthy. Bitcoin may be decentralised but this forum isn't. All you whingers and whiners should get together and create your own decentralised utopian bitcoin forum because I'd love to see how it wouldn't work.


You haven't been able to add anything to this discussion from the start. We don't have the power to change anything either because banning the sale of accounts will change absolutely nothing, but for some reason you are unable or unwilling to grasp this. How can you not comprehend this? Please tell me what good it would actually do? It wouldn't change a single thing except make it easier for people to fall victim to a bought account and that's why it is allowed.

Well said. I really don't think I can add anything more to this discussion.

If Hilarious and Co want to keep justifying account selling, there's obviously nothing I can do to stop them since they have the power to change things and I don't.

I will continue to keep track of sold accounts to the best of my ability and warn other users if I see them attempting to run scams.

I do agree with everything you just said here. Perhaps the next step would be building a decentralized escrow system into the forum. (one can dream, and it will probably never happen for many reasons, some obvious and some not)

Isn't it funny how the biggest defenders of the default trust are those setting atop it? these people are not bitcoin supporters. a supporter of bitcoin would encourage decentralized consensus proof of trust algorithm. maybe they don't understand that bitcoin is decentralized proof of trust in and of itsself, but on the same token, perhaps they are corrupted morally and feel the need to protect their bottom line, by keeping a monopoly on the trust system, and their corruption has overriden their logical thinking algorithm. food for thought :-)

There's not a flaw in my logic, but there is in yours. Everything can be abused in the world so should we get rid of that too? Nothing is perfect or flawless. The trust system serves its purpose as a guide regardless of whether it's perfect or can or is abused or not. Mods can abuse, users can abuse, police can abuse etc etc. That doesn't mean all those things are worthless and should be gotten rid of. Should we just get rid of the entire forum since it can be abused? No, we make do with what we've got. If you don't like the trust system or the way the forum operates or is run simply don't use them. You're not forced to nor are you obliged to take any trust or feedback sent/received seriously. That is entirely up to you.

Edit: KWH has good points.

Selling of accounts is nearly impossible if not completely impossible to control. You will have a hard time proving an account sold or bought if the account owner wants it that way. No one knows for sure everyone with whom they deal. This is the way the internet works and has so from the beginning. Simply insist on escrow for your trades it will protect in the future, problem all but solved. As has been stated many times, Trust is a starting point not an end all, be all.
I know this is hard and one has to do a little thinking but a little common sense goes a long way. Let me give you an example:
Account "Fred" has 20 positives. When looking at 15 of them, they are left by the same newbie and the trades are for $5 Paypal for the equivalent in BTC and all made within a week time frame. Could it be possible this was "bought Trust?" Possibly alt account of the buyer?
My thinking process would lean towards yes. The next conclusion would be either stay away or start following the Trust trail for more information. Also, after 15 trades for $5, would I trust a deal for $500? No I would not.
Account "Alice" has 5 trades from 5 different people on the Default list. All were buys over $300 each over a 1 month time period. If I wanted to sell a $300 item to this person, would I? After reading ALL Trust and it checks out, I would use escrow and proceed.
Same account but "Alice" has not posted for a year. I would suspect a stolen or sold account and either use escrow or pass on any trades.
Some Trust is spiteful and malicious but normally it is easy to spot.
Bottom line: You need to protect yourself, sold account or not, use your brain and don't rely on others telling you what to do. If you don't like the Trust system, don't use it. To say it is meaningless is, well, meaningless.




Same can be said for your position. After placing new rules to protect that are unenforceable, you now have a false sense of more security.

OK so lets just do away with pretending that the trust system actually matters then, can we?

The entire component should be removed from the forum since it is already prone to being abused.

You're like the American government trying to defend an indefensible position. You won't accept that there is an underlying flaw in the root of your logic.

No, it makes sense. Your argument doesn't though. You seem to think that trust is only meaningless because accounts are allowed to be sold, but whether they are or not makes no difference to the trust system because accounts will still be sold regardless. Banning the sale of accounts changes absolutely nothing, apart from maybe making people like you think they're now a little but safer, when they're not.

Unless you are trading with a bought account, in which case trust is absolutely meaningless.

And how can you know if you are conducting a trade with a bought account?

You can't. Ergo, Bitcointalk's trust system is meaningless.

What? That makes no sense. If it wasn't allowed, people would know that its not allowed.

Most of the time people don't stop to even think about it. They don't stop to consider they may be speaking or trading with a bought account. Its not really up to you to decide whether or not they should know this, the simple fact is, they don't.

Trust means nothing so long as accounts are bought and sold here.

I will be happy to provide the service of listing and pointing out bought accounts for general public awareness.