Topic: Haunebu and 3kpk3 - merit system abuse (Read 869 times)

You are making a good point here. The term "no alt accounts are allowed to be enrolled in this campaign" is indeed confusing because in fact, enrolling an alt account is allowed. It should get re-phrased to "enrolling multiple accounts in this campaign is not allowed".

For example, I'm in MixTum campaign right now but it would be possible for me to enroll an alt account (let's call it 2miau) in a different campaign, let's take CryptoGames.
In opposite, it wouldn't be possible for me to enroll my alt account 2miau in MixTum campaign because my main account 1miau is already enrolled. I would be participating with 2 accounts in MixTum campaign, which would not be allowed.

Like you've pointed out correctly, the term is very confusing and should be changed to "enrolling multiple accounts in this campaign is not allowed". Some campaigns have already implemented the clearer term.

Allow me to step in here. When a rule is put into a campaign, that rule applies ONLY to that campaign normally. The specific rule you mention about alts means that if you are the owner of usernames bob and jo, then either bob or jo is allowed to be in that specific campaign. They cannot both join that 1 specific campaign. If you get bob and jo accepted into the 1 campaign, then you are cheating that campaign and will be kicked out and possibly tagged for cheating.

The term alts is in no way confusing, you are just making it confusing and spamming this topic. It's fine to have a question or not understand something, but make a new thread asking for clarification or pm someone and ask the meaning.

Us? actually 4 users including me are understand about the rule except you.

Since the rule you pointed about related to crypto.games campaign, then you need to ask Lutpin not Little Mouse.

Don't make it complicated, alt accounts joining in the different campaign is fine, if you keep insist it's wrong, then well I can't explain anymore because I will just repeat what I've said before.

No he did'nt do that. coin.games & crypto.games are different. What im trying to say is he enrolled 3kpk3 account on coin.games and have been accepted when his alt account (Haunebu) is already participating crypto.games which is not allowed based on the rules provided by crypto.games signature campaign manager.

The term 'Alternative Accounts' is causing confusion for us.

I don't really understand what point you are trying to drive in.

Question:
1. Did Haunebu and 3kpk3 apply and get enrolled in the said signature campaign at one point? If yes, please provide the information in this thread.

Im just giving some insight here about this accounts.

About the rules you provide maybe I should not put it on my 1st post since yeah it might irrelevant. But yes you allowed to participate a person that his alt account is already in another campaign (Not really allowed let say you just didn;t know about it) but the crypto.games rules he really violated it at the time he/she used alternative accounts to join that campaign.

As stated of the rules of crypto.games signature campaign:

Now that you know about these accounts, will you still allow or continue to participate the mentioned accounts to your campaign?

Most DT members stopped tagging or won't tag just merit abusers, however, if there is evidence that the person behind the alt accounts has been cheating on multiple signature or bounty campaigns using his alt accounts. This is when most members could come out to negative tag the offender and his alts.

I remember tagging a number of members who were involved in merit abuse, but the major reason was bounty abuse. The merit system abuse mostly helped me to connect their accounts.

It's just a rule relevant for each campaign, so if he enrolled both of his accounts in the same campaign, he would violate the rule and DT could tag him. However, since he just enrolled 1 Account for each campaign, he's not violating the rule. But could be interesting to follow (or to track) if he enrolled both Accounts in the same campaign in the past. If so, a negative Tag for Signature campaign abuse would be appropriate.

Edit: Solosanz and Little Mouse were faster, thanks for stepping in.

Crypto.games rule isn't allow ban evader and cheater to join in their campaign, while Coins.game rule isn't allow cheater.

Both of them participate in different campaign, when a campaign manager said only one account per person is allowed, it's not mean the other account can't participate in the other campaign.

Go catch him where he use two accounts to apply in the same campaign.

I think you misunderstood this rule, same as the rule of crypto.games
As forum allow alt account, everyone is free to have more than one account. This rule says you aren't allowed to participate in coins.game campaign with more than one account.
If you are referring to an abuse?

As of now Haunebu is part of [Crypto.Games] ★ Signature Campaign ★ Hero - Legendary[Full] ★
You can verify it here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/166babOzU2gCs7bycNiQ4nq-OJCUObaRs3CVmozubCTE/edit#gid=968004812

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3kpk3 is part of COINS.GAME | Most Rewarding Crypto Casino | Signature Campaign Up to $100
Verify here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Yy6HjijOFKbHS2DY1yW2vYD9eSVJLaxHj_3jNLKAApk/edit#gid=0

One of the rules of participating Crypto.Games Signature Campaign:

And COINS.GAME Signature Campaign

I've not decided what to do here as well, maybe my tag will be negative or just neutral and mabye the abusers will be lucky this time because DT doesn't seem to care much about the case. Of course, I reserve the right to leave a tag any time as according to our pinned forum Merit guidelines by hilariousandco, a negative tag for this abuse is "almost certainly leading to you to receive negative feedback if discovered" but we'll see.  
For now, OP hasn't replied here, especially regarding my question if I should send Haunebu a PM to give him an opportunity to clarify if he is still the original account owner (another possible abuse: buying /selling Bitcointalk Accounts).

I really don't like how Haunebu reacted when he realized he can get away with it and maybe I'll re-consider a tag if there's more evidence presented that he didn't show any guilt for meriting his Alt excessively / no sign at all, that he regrets his abuse.

I took it to my sleep and mulled over it the entire day after, I have to say I'm still inclined more to the idea that as Haunebu did not scam any forum members [at least none proven or being pointed out so far], a negative tag is not warranted [in spite of what hilariousandco said].

In attempt to gain a deeper insight on how to face this matter and what DTs did on such cases, I ventured through the reputation board and from a quick glance that I did, I found that what case of merit abuse warranted is a neutral tag with mention to the said violation, unless there is another violation being involved [account sold, hacked, the merit is being sold/bought, and the likes]. For example, ltcrstrbrt, or the older one, HunnyFinance.

Nonetheless, I have to agree that there should be a consistency in DT on what warrant a tag and what doesn't [though, if I'm not mistaken, the general consensus is cases should be taken on case-by-case basis], and that if this case is not cleared, one might use this case in the future to argue their negative tag.

Thus, unfortunately, the best way I can see from my position right now is to bow down from this thread until there are more DTs giving their opinion on what to do with Haunebu, and I will adhere to the consensus once it is reached. I will respect whatever tag you're leaving to Haunebu and 3kpk3, though.

I'm very much in favor of forgivenness. For example to give people a second chance after they admit their mistake, even for plagiarizing under certain circumstances and that's also why I'm not in favor of our current "ban evasion" rule, because such a rule is exactly the opposite of forgivenness. Everyone needs a fair chance to admit his mistakes and a fair chance to improve.
But I'm also in favor of drawing a clear line to prevent abuse from getting more common. Every member should know that certain practices here are frowned upon and it's important to avoid such abuses, like Haunebu and his Alt did. If these members are really valuable for our comunity, they will admit their mistake, accept the consequences about the involved accounts getting tagged and then, they can start from scratch building a new Account, where such abuses are avoided. That's a fair second chance in my opinion.

As a DT member, consistency is very important for me. When Merit was introduced, the consensus was pretty clear that sending of Merit to our own Alt Accounts will almost certainly lead to red trust.
If Haunebu and his alts are getting out of this untagged, we are at risk, that someone else will come here, setting up a bunch of own Alt Accounts and sending them Merit from his main account. In case he's getting a negative tag (which would be deserved in my opinion) he could point at Haunebu and his Alt, where no negative tag was issued.
And DT would be in trouble to explain it properly because it would be a very inconsistent story.
That's why I'm in favor of tagging the abusers because DT needs to be consistent about our Merit guidelines and issue a fair punishment for the abusing accounts because it's important to prevent abuse in the future.

Hmm... I stand corrected on the merit cluelessness. I admit that I didn't check the log [I assume the log didn't cover that far back to 2018, just like the archiver by loyce and ninjastic] and thus didn't aware the full depth of the merit distribution. I assumed that both accounts sent a huge amount of merit once, realized or being warned about it [or got educated by himself] and stopped doing it.

If the distribution was spread evenly throughout the year, then yes, I think Haunebu should be, at one point, aware of the implication of his action and continued on doing so before stopped altogether.

I am now torn for the negative, though. I initially inclined to think that even the merit abuse is proven, then the tag should be a neutral one, given the negative dictate,



and on this case, there were no risk [at least according to my opinion, but I am open for discussion] of trading with Haunebu, i.e., he's not scamming anyone. But your reference of what hilariousandco said moved me an inch or two from my stance. I am now not sure what to do.

May I ask your opinion if I counter hilariousandco's opinion for red tag with the one given by theymos, [I stole it from nutildah's on previous page]


if we consider that as it's been five years since both account exchange merits, then it's probably safe to assume that the mistake happened in the past and won't happen in the future. Thus, red tagging them will pose as a mark-of-shame instead of a warning for others.

What's your thought on this?

I'm really trying to understand, why Haunebu and his Alt 3kpk3 shouldn't be punished for what they did and where it violated the quote from theymos but when doing research on Reputation and Meta, I'm just getting even more convinced, that it would be very deserved to give out a negative tag for both.
Even then, they could create a new account, moving on and (hopefully) learning from the mistake, they did on their old accounts.

The abuse happened until late 2018, where everyone was well aware how Merit should be used, how important it was for ranking up.
We had many guides on Meta, that sending Merit to our own Alt is not allowed: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/faq-everything-you-need-to-know-about-forum-activity-account-ranks-and-merit-2766177

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/faq-everything-you-need-to-know-about-forum-activity-account-ranks-and-merit-2766177

I just can't believe it's just "Merit cluelessness", it seems much more like deliberately sending it to his own account.
Repeatedly, back and forth, again and again. This abuse happened from April 2018 to November 2018:


https://bpip.org/smerit.aspx?to=Haunebu&from=3kpk3


https://bpip.org/smerit.aspx?from=Haunebu&to=3kpk3

This is massive abuse and it's running for over half a year. A total of 39 Merit was abused (16 3kpk3 account, 23 Haunebu account)

I'm not buying the excuse that some members were "clueless" about Merit.
It's everyone's duty to read the Merit guidelines.
Back then, DT's position was very clear that there's no excuse of using Merit fraudulently.
Many abusers played the "I didn't know" / "I'm just a bit clueless" card. But DT called the bluff right away.
And for the case of Haunebu and his Alt 3kpk3, it's very clearly deliberate abuse. Sending Merit to our own Alts is not allowed.

Another important point, why I believe Haunebu and his Alt 3kpk3 shouldn't complain in case DT will tag them, is because we have seen many similar cases.
Like for example here: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/tagged-merit-abuse-5-alt-accounts-4862145
Similar case, where Merit was sent between Alt accounts, Alt Accounts were proven by solid proof.
Abusers got tagged by marlboroza and Lauda. Didn't cause any controversy.
Case happened also in late 2018.
And in my opinion, our Haunebu and 3kpk3 case is much worse.

That's why I believe a negative tag is appropriate and deserved.

Sadly, I have to disagree. In my opinion, [negative] tagging Haunebu [and 3kpk3] account for merit abuse would violate the quote from theymos.

The post quoted, as you've very nicely laid out, is about leniency [though I think that case is for Merit Source and about how they exhaust their merit quota]. Combine that with what yahoo said here on #22 that the merit exchange happened close to when the merit system is being introduced and everybody is still fumbling with sending and receiving merit, and that he has never exchanged any between both ever since, there's a huge chance that Haunebu didn't know what he may or may not do with his merit. So, it's a case of merit cluelessness rather than a merit abuse, which warrant even more less [negative] tag. Tagging him for such would step into the realm of "something stupid involving merit".

If a tag should be given, at best, it'll be a neutral tag to indicate the alt-connection to give pointer to campaign manager if he's ever enrolling both of his account on the same campaign, but not for the merit abuse cluelessness.

Yeah, I didn't click the links in OP, so our case seems pretty obvious here. Many thanks for sharing.

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I've re-read everything and especially the quote of theymos about Merit selling got a bit misinterpreted here in my opinion. He said:

In his statement, he's leaving lots of space for speculation.
Because who defines, what's similarly bad like Merit selling (theymos: "probably anything less than selling merit")?
In my opinion, sending Merit to my Alt Account is such a case. We can still argue if it needs to be deliberate, repeated sending to our Alt Account.

In his quote, I believe theymos only wanted to express to be very lenient how someone spends his sMerit, as long it's not directly involving Merit sales (x Merit for x BTC) or sending Merit to our own Alt Account.
For example even if I send 50 Merit to this post from holydarkness and do it 2x again for similar posts, it's not abuse because
- it's not selling
- holydarkness is not my Alt Account
- the quality provided is enough be be a meritable post (yes, can be argued if it's deserving 50 Merit)

Conclusion:  
In my opinion, a tag to Haunebu Account for Merit abuse would not violate the quote from theymos. Opinions?

According to this old digging by decodx, yes, they shared an address and username. This was part of OP's evidence on his opening post, though he can only share link because the thread was locked. It was also repeated here [quoted below], so their alt relationship is pretty much established.



[p.s.: I envied your avatar, LOL]

Nice catch, @OP but do you have a really convincing proof, it's really his Alt Account?
Just sending Merit, even for large amounts as long as posts are at least halfways useful, doesn't prove anything. Do we have more proof like linked BTC / ETH addresses or shared Social Media accounts?
If not, it's just not enough proof in my opinion. 


Indeed, in his early days, Haunebu submitted many German posts.
But it doesn't look like a hacked or sold account, there's no posting gap at all.

@OP
Do you want me to shoot him a PM? I could ask for some clarification and verify if it's still the original (German) owner, I speaking German. 

Don't feel bad that nobody is nailing the two accounts just like what you thought will happen because I don't think that it is a scam or some sort of offense that needs immediate attention.

Sending merits from one account of the other by the same user is called merit abuse and not scam because the user hasn't taken anyone's funds to render a service and didn't or has involved in any scam activities. You should know what scam is,this is a big word and is like you want to tarnish the user reputation. The DT members will look up to it,if the action is worth a neutral tag or not.

I'm quoting the original post being referred here in full [below], just for the sake of added context. If I may add, aside from what yahoo said, one that's also not allowed is to add one's main account into alt's their trust list [on this case, I'll assume Haunebu is the main and 3kpk3 is the alt], though it's ok to add your alt to your main's trust list.

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It's already established that they are alts, that's not illegal on this forum. It's only illegal if they are joining the same sig campaign at the same time or abusing bounty campaigns.

You need to pay attention to how long ago the abuse happened. I read 2018 which is pretty close to the time merit became a thing here. People were still learning what is and isn't acceptable.

DT isn't condoning scamming or abuse of the system. We are going by what the admins have set the guidelines as basically. You can always ~ the 2 accounts in your trust list and ignore them, but seems like you will not be happy until they are punisihed(which isn't going to happen). Just let it go man.

They're [arguably] abusing merit, I'll take your word for that and won't bother to crosscheck, but do they cheat the community that warrant a negative feedback? You requested us, the DTs, why doesn't we leave them a negative feedback. And you've been repetitively asked, "what scam?"

Perhaps I should invite you to reacquaint yourself with what trust feedback said and dictate,



Do the users you mentioned poses a high-risk to the community if they trade with them? If you can provide arguments backed with evidences that they poses such threat --thus will potentially scam the community-- I'll probably consider about leaving tag. Otherwise, it's a case of merit abuse, not a scam.

Convince the tagger via PM to remove it or open a thread about it to see how many users support deletion, usually it heavily influences the tagger's judgment.

Not wanting to flag does not mean defending, DT Members will no longer aggressively flagging in merit abuse unless it is related to other issues that incur financial losses. Again, the evidence you bring with you is not enough to call them scammers by community standards. In the real life, not all abuse is part of scam.

Certainly. If the account that left the negative is still around, you just need to ask them to remove the negative. Perhaps present a thoughtful explanation to them why you think it should be removed.


What's the scam here?


Obviously not.


But you're not right. I didn't even bother to check your references because they have nothing to do with the issue you presented. So no, I would not be on the other side if you had a 'green account'.

I like this approach, is there an option to remove negative reviews from a few years ago?

Actually, why are you defending this scammer Haunebu and 3kpk3?

Will you defend all cheaters in this same way?

Is it really that you don't want to admit I'm right because I have a red tag associated with 1xbit? Wouldn't it be nice to prove me right, huh?

Now think about what it would look like if I did it with a green account?! Would you be on other side?

Meh. They haven't exchanged merits since 2018, almost 5 years ago. Only one of the accounts is in a signature campaign. In general its not really a good idea to tag users retroactively for this kind of thing, especially since it happened so long ago.

There's a couple of (what I strongly suspect are) farms of sig campaigners that frequently exchange merit with themselves. If/when I do bust them, the merit exchange will be supplementary evidence and not the primary reason for the tag.

For example, a long while back there was an account farm that exchanged just enough merits to rank themselves up enough to qualify for DT voting... They were blacklisted from the trust system by theymos and received tags from various DT for attempting to manipulate the trust system.


Additionally, theymos offered this guideline about the issuance of red trust for minor 'crimes':

If you give one person permission to do bad things, you either don't realize what you're judging or you don't know what you're doing.

There's no such merit scam. I wouldn't say merit exchange with alt accounts is cheat the community, but it's unethical. Since @theymos already pointed out leaving negative feedback because of merit exchange isn't appropriate, then we need to deal with it.

What I don't understand is why no one give neutral feedback to both @Haunebu and @3kpk3 accounts? this can be a reference whenever a campaign manager want to accept them to be in the campaign.

However I checked the feedback you leaved on their accounts, do you think you're correct by leaving negative feedback? I will tag your account with neutral feedback.

Do you think fraud is only about money? I have provided evidence of cheating. Are you defending someone who deliberately wanted to cheat the community?

I'll quote this one as it summarizes the latest exchanges of communication. Has someone suffered a damage or financial lost caused by the user you mentioned? Or, does the user you mentioned poses a risk of causing other user financial damage?

Congratulations! You just justified every merit scam! 

It's not.


If theymos says this, don't expect much from the DTs in this regard.

Nobody talk here about plagiarism, campaign cheating or other things. Case is clear - Merit system abuse!

Is it a scam or not? Say it straight and we'll all know what to do whit it

If it comes down to that alone, I don't think you're going to get more than a neutral tag. Another thing is that apart from the merit abuse it is seen that they are alts that have joined the same campaign or that have plagiarized, things like that, as it has happened in other occasions.

Theymos himself said that he was not going to give importance in merit issues to anything but selling merits.

At this point, I am presenting evidence that a fraud has occurred. Yes, merit abuse!
edited..

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Is the merit abuse scam something that DT members no longer pays attention to?

I don't understand this part. Which scam is this? The merit abuse? Or did you find another evidences [that you're yet to present here on this thread] that they scammed someone?

Hi yahoo, nice that you look in to it

Let's start with this:


He didn't have to sell anything, he just cheated by trading merits between his own accounts. It is confirmed, where you have doubts?

Edit: Even if my feelings were hurt, is it mean that his cheating have point to get no consequences?

Unless they're involved in selling merits, then i'm really not interested. It looks like they did send merits to each other(23 each) which some members may end up tagging them for. I can't see how long ago it was(more then 120 days for sure though).

I do think just because you got your feelings hurt for someone telling the truth about a scam company you wanted to represent doesn't mean you should go on a personal vendetta and try ruining them. Don't advertise for a scam company and you wouldn't have been tagged.

The fact that I drew attention to these two accounts is because they both behave in the same arrogant and aggressive manner.
I started a casual discussion about 1xBit and only from these two accounts I had been getting insulted. It seemed strange to me, so I used the Bitcointalk search engine and in couple of seconds I found this information.

As I wrote earlier, this is information that has been found by other users. I don't know how these two accounts managed to avoid the consequences of this scam. I'm guessing this is just an oversight.

I just have a few questions to ask you.

The proof you included in your post are there recent? Or the same with the ones that were used back then? If “Yes”, why did you choose to open a thread against him now in the reputation board? Because I just went through both of your post history and I found out that you had an issue because he called the casino (1xbit.com) you were promoting a scam which it really is.

I can see that this was reported in 2021 and at this time merit abusers were already being punished by neg tags but why was this case left? There might be a reason to it probably due to the time the merit exchange happened or something similar.

I would like to present evidence that the owner of the Haunebu and 3kpk3 accounts was cheating by trading Merits between his own accounts.


It seems that this user believes that he can cheat and will not face any consequences. So I decided to try harder and write this post.

Here is evidence of his cheating:


Accounts connected by decodx - Only link, because thread is locked: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.56144066
Accounts connected by Piggy - Only link, because thread is locked: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.41613620

Direct connection in trading merits between Haunebu and 3kpk3: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.41673580



I didn't make deep research, just collected information from other users research.

One thing I can add is that until September 2017, the person behind Haunebu account wrote only in fluent German and was well educated technically, after that date only English spam began.