Oh, come on. Do you think Theymos really takes into account any altruistic motives when someone is requesting a name change?
It may be... I am sure theymos has his own reasons for when he accepts such a request and when not... But I think, in this case, it was an altruistic decision...
It might appear to be the case with OP, but when it's also an option to pay for the name change (admittedly nobody is going to pay 50BTC these days for that privilege) I seriously doubt that's much of a factor.
Well, this is the problem here... OP had an altruistic request and, as much as he'd also want to protect some innocents, he could not pay 50 BTC for that... Probably theymos took this also into consideration...
As much as I appreciate Theymos for keeping the forum alive, I don't believe for one minute that he'd move a muscle to stop scammers on telegram. Just look at how they flourish on his own forum and that should be enough to prove my point.
Yes, sadly, scammers are everywhere... But I don't think that he just thought about scammers from Telegram. I think he just did a gesture in sign of good faith, trying to help some people... I don't know how to say... but as a comparison think of this: imagine a good cop, walking in his free day, outside his jurisdiction... and he assists at a theft... and he decides to get involved, to catch the robber. Robbers are everywhere and such gestures are rare - the cop was in his free day and also outside his jurisdiction, but if he just felt at that moment that he can help and he also wanted to help... he just did it... This does not mean robbers will ever be scared by cops being on duty nor about cops being off duty. They'll still rob people... But, from time to time, such gestures occur...
I may be wrong, of course, or too naive, as I still believe in people acting on good faith to help others, but this is what I think...