Topic: delete Investor-based games section - page 2. (Read 2857 times)

Well shit, isnt that how ponzies work?? Even when they state that you may not be paid or he may just run with your money, he never tells you when or the odds you have of winning or loosing, thats my point exactly..

This is a forum about Bitcoin, the revolutionary currency that's changing the world.
As someone has previously mentioned in this thread, ponzi schemes have been around long before Bitcoin, and Bitcoin has no more to do with them than does fiat.

Which begs the question: How is it that fiat financial forums don't have sections dedicated to gambling and ponzis, but we do? What, exactly, are we suggesting here?

Let me give you an analogy.
Let's say I run an investment firm, and a kid's selling crack to crackwhores on my stoop. When I ask him to move along, you appear & tell me that the kid's running a perfectly legitimate business: crackwhores need crack, and he fills that need. I respond by pointing out that, being an overly concerned with appearances shallow banker type, I feel that rockstahs scoring crack on my stoop may cast a somewhat downmarket tint on my otherwise upscale investment firm, and may play a part in the less-than-stellar coverage given my financial institution by the mainstream press.

I further point out that the kid's free to sell his wares anywhere but on my stoop, because I'm superficial enough to believe that appearances count.

Get it?

If you don't state the odds or how a winner is chosen, then you are not clearly stating how it works.

This is also how I feel about casinos v HYIPs on bct. We are unable to vouch for any legitimacy for an online bitcoin based casino because there is no guarantee that its not just going to alt + F4 away with deposits after a while, which is exactly the same with a HYIP. Considering gambling vs scams IRL is entirely different because that 40 story casino isn't suddenly going to grow legs and try and walk away with your deposit.

Or I hope not. Although that would make a good Godzilla sequel plot.

So if i come here and say im going to launch a lottery, 0.01 each ticket, if you get lucky you might win 1 bitcoin but im not going to tell you the odds and it is not certain if anyone will win. Thats not a scam to you because i stated clearly how it works?

Scam: (transitive) to swindle (someone) by means of a trick

No one here is being tricked. If you know what the word Ponzi means, and you invest in a site named Ponzi, is that not willingly investing and not being tricked? I agree that Gambling sites are the exact same thing, you just play them in different ways. Provably fair and such are just buzz words. It doesn't mean that the odds are fair, it just means that they give you the odds, and you agree to those odds before playing. Traditional casinos and such aren't a scam, but they aren't provably fair.

I don't see why people want to censor things rather than just allow people to use their own judgement. I agree that hidden ponzi schemes are a scam, but all of these just come right out and say they are ponzis, no false expectations, no tricks, not a scam. If someone puts money in and get burnt, what is the difference between then putting money into a dice game and losing? And before you say odds, just because Ponzis don't have published odds, doesn't mean that you can't calculate your own odds.

shorena thanks for insight and I agree here:

1* we should not censorship some sections to newbies

2* is good, that we had all this shit on one place.

with this in my mind, actually makes more sense to leave as is, I'm just pissed to see guys daily loosing BTC here, that's all..

They are games based on an "investment", a form of PvP gambling. A ponzi is not openly telling you that it is one, it will try to hide the fact that they do nothing but moving funds around until the very end. A ponzi is by definition a scam, but its based on secrecy. Same with the gift cards, you cant tell in advance which ones are carded and which not.


No, I agree that a ponzi is bad. I would also not play the games in this section, but I will defend the right to play them for those that want to. If you cant see the difference between the game based on a ponzi principle and a straight ponzi I understand you, because I had problems understanding this concept at first as well.

> its probably best if you post from your main
Don't worry about it.

>The section is not named ponzis go here for a reason.
What's the reason?


Have we shifted the topic to discussing whether Ponzis are bad? Up until now I assumed that we're in agreement on that? If you wish, I could explain why ponzis are illegal in most of the civilized world.

How do you know its "BADTHING" and not "FORM OF GAMBLING"?


Its subjective, but I think BadBear can judge whether a post is contributing to the discussion. If you cant stay on topic it makes no sense to keep this discussion going.


How? How would you have told in advance that dice.ninja, hashie, etc. pp. was going to scam? Keep in mind that you are not asking for a users opinion, but for a staff enforced rule. Thus everyone else would blame you for their loss if you make a single bad prediction.

How can mods decide who is posting constructive stuff and who is not? Because recently i have seen a lot of people banned complaining here, this has to do with the topic because mods answer for investor based games not being deleted is that it wouldnt be possible to identify those scams that are disguised as games, in my opinion it would be possible

You've suggested that existance of credit card fraud would mean deletion of the digital goods section.
I've pointed out that no, it wouldn't. It would only mean that we must start a "Credit Card Fraud" section.

Existance of ponzi schemes did not mean the end of the end of the digital goods section. On the contrary, it brought about the *creation of ponzi section*.

See the parallels?

In other words, if BADTHING exists, we should accomodate it by starting a new subforum for it.

As far as separating the good ponzis from the bad ponzis? How about we ban the good and the bad, just like they do everywhere else in the world?

This is a Bitcoin forum, about Bitcoin. A privite forum, not obligated to become a platform for every fucking scam that was ousted from the rest of the world.

Im certainly willing to discuss default trust issue in a thread for that, yes. No reason to distract from the topic at hand.
I am not asking for anyone to be 100% correct, you are. You want the scams removed, but keep the legit games. I dont know how you can decide that. I want everyone to make their own decision. Maybe is a scam, there is no way to know in advance.

Quote from: doves on May 19, 2015, 12:24:12 PM

-snip-
If you don't understand why having a section of Bitcointalk dedicated specifically to credit card fraud may not be wise from PR perspective, I can expand on that.

Edits might not get seen, its probably best if you post from your main or sit out the waiting period. The section is not named ponzis go here for a reason. If those operating these sites are legit, its a legit form of gambling. Other forms of gambling e.g. dice sites that allow crowd investments have the same trust issues and can not be considered provably fair to the investor either.

People in default trust list aren't 100% accurate but they are more accurate than others.

Well shorena, someone has to decide whats right and whats wrong, you cant be 100% accurate, of course not but because you cant doesnt mean you should let every scammer do whatever they want, by your logic default trust should be eliminated aswell, since how do we know that people who is on default list is 100% correct always when they mark someone as a scammer or red trust them? Are you willing to delete default trust?

You did not get it apparently. The equivalent is a gift card section, because there are so many gift card sales in digital goods that it makes the section useless for anything else. Fun fact: This actually has been requested for domain names several times in the past. Now you have a section for gift cards, but you dont know which seller is legit and which is not. Same with the ponzi games(!) section. There is a seperate section because of the high amount of traffic regarding this kind of gambling.

How do you seperate those running a game from those running with your coin? You can claim that they all will run and I would believe you, but you have to prove it.

No, you got that exactly backwards. I'm saying that starting a "Credit Card Fraud" section on Bitcointalk is a bad idea.

According to "let's have a ponzi section" logic, we *should* start a "credit card fraud" section.
That way, all the credit card fraud will be gone from digital goods.
Rinse & repeat for your other points.

If you don't understand why having a section of Bitcointalk dedicated specifically to credit card fraud may not be wise from PR perspective, I can expand on that.

Yes we need it, its purpose is to distinguish the ponzi style games from other forms of gambling. It is possible that these games are indeed that, a game. They are not provably fair, or at least I have not seen a variant that is, but that does not mean the operator is scamming.


You dont get into that section by accident, it has a big red warning attached to it. If that is not helping, banning those kind of games is neither.


Blatantly censoring a section is not a good solution. If newbie dont know the section exists they can not make a choice.


There are many luck based games where you can tell the odds in advance. Not knowing the odds does not equal scam. Gambling is not inherently bad, neither is smoking, both are only bad if you have no control over it. If you smoke once in a blue moon you are not living unhealthy. If you gamble recreational with small controlled amount and you are aware of the risks involved you are not an idiot.

Besides one should be able to make a deliberate choice to ruin oneself, be that through gambling or through drugs. Prohibition is not going to change what people do it is at best hindering the flow of information.


Lets get rid of the service section while we are at it.


digital goods gone


blow away the alt coin section. All hail the nanny state.


The staff does not get involved in these matters. It would allow misuse and would result in a false sense of security for the users. This cloud mining site must be legit, the staff did not delete it yet.


Are you going to decide who is trustworthy and who is not? Without fail, in advance, for everything?

Are you saying that since we have a section dedicated to promoting ponzis, this somehow prevents bad actors from presenting ponzis as legitimate business?
By that logic, we should start a catchall section called "scamming and fraud," so the crooks could post there, and the rest of the forum would become 1000% legit.
Am I missing something?

So having a section called "investors based games" its a better idea? What do you think a newbie thinks when he sees something like that, clicks it and see only threads like "double your money" "350% back in 2 days" etc etc. some of them would probably fall for it without knowing what a ponzi is, if you want to mantain the section, call it "Ponzis and other games that are going to run away with your money someday"