Topic: "Long-term offers" - gonna have to tackle this 1 eventually (Read 6565 times)

This should be in banner bold at the top of the "Long Term Offers" section.

I've actually considered doing objective-based evaluations on various topics for every single Bitcoin business and offering them the opportunity to explain via Skype, phone, or email their responses then offering a rating because of it. I've only made a partial list and I'll just put two of them here:
If they store Bitcoin, do they have an exit address?
If they provide two-factor authentication, is the third party service/hardware sound?

The problem is that not all of these questions would be universally-applicable and it would be a huge under-taking to do it for free. Also, there are some businesses that would not want to share certain things publicly out of a somewhat legitimate fear of losing competitive advantage. I tend to lean more on the detractor side of this, however. If a business isn't willing to explain how it makes you money, it is very likely the way it makes money is you.

I think a community effort for coming up with objective-based ratings might help get us started, but it could be that we would need multiple people offering this sort of service along with newsletters and "consumer reports"-style review.

To be honest though, we probably needed this a year or more ago. There will be a lot of people claiming we are going on witchhunts or "in cahoots" if we would just up and do it now. It'd honestly be a lot of unforgiving work and the community would be similarly unforgiving if a business went up and disappeared.

I support theymos.  Sorry, bitcoin gods. 

Just leave everything the way it currently is.

I won some BTC at this game...a little over BTC2.  I had a good feeling it was a ponzi and will be nearly convinced it was if Matthew loses his bet (to be completely convinced, I'd need to look at a balance sheet and see incoming deposits being sent out as interest payment).  I don't feel morally entitled to the BTC2 that I "earned" in "interest."  I am grown up enough to see that when a story sounds too good to be true, it is. I had a decent hunch I was being lied to when I made my deposit, although the revolutionary nature of Bitcoin does blur the lines between plausible and crazy just enough to keep one second guessing oneself. 

I think it would be best for the community if those who profited on this scheme helped make restitution in some way...although I doubt anyone profited enough to make much of a dent in the losses.

So, in summary, forum staff should not decide which investments are worthwhile, but they can decide who's credit ratings are worthwhile?  
Either all credit ratings should be stickied or none of them should. But I agree with Gavin that ideally this whole section should move to another TLD.

Patricks rating are just as much a joke. AFAICT, he hasnt actually checked any wallet addresses, seen any bank statements or has any way to actually verify that what is being said is true. He is just believing the ponzi operators on their word. Big surprise they all get high ratings. Its frigging hilarious.

Talking about them isn't the problem, it's the active promotion and solicitation.  If the "business" is happening elsewhere, then we won't have dozens of "where's my money" threads here whenever a business fails.  Look at reddit - they discuss the hacks and failures but the reason why we get dozens of threads about each failure here is because it's here where the schemes are launched and promoted and where the operators have solicited users.

Agree.

If they are going to stay, do not police them. You will make mistakes and nothing could be better for a ponzi operator than to get whatever stamp of approval the forum starts handing out.

But I think they should go.

If you want to let people talk about whatever it can be in off-topic it doesn't need a serious sounding name like "Securities".

Wait... let me get this straight...

1) you, like theymos, approve of credit ratings and wish more people published them.  (I also agree with this - then over a long sample size (years and years) we will see who has published more accurate credit ratings)

2) you say my credit ratings are a joke, but then in the next sentence say that they are "mostly right" - and I strongly disagree as I think others would that I have "clearly not put any real effort into gather information" on this subject as you claim.

Investing in a ponzi is marginally unethical at best. The bad guys are the scumbags who invest and are shilling for something that they know is a ponzi.

Also patricks thread clearly has no business being stickyed. His credit ratings are completely worthless and based on almost nothing other than the fact that they people are still paying out. Stickying that thread gives it legitimacy that it doesn't deserve.

Micon is dead on. Promoting fake "credit ratings" done by a ponzi operator is like letting a fox watch the henhouse. Dude is pulling the long con, and this forum not only supports it, but actively promotes it.

As i said in another thread, we'll see history repeat itself soon enough, and everyone is going to bend over and thank the scammers for the privilege.

Since when did I delete my posts? I stand behind every word I say, and at the time of my posting you did label everyone as a ponzi. True, the mechanics of their lending program might be strange considering the weekly interest and not yearly interest, but remember the fact that the spread of MTGOXUSD is sometimes more than 1%, and the weekly fluctuations is more than that. An interest of 1-2% is sustainable given the current pricing fluctuations of Bitcoin.

I somehow missed this. My response was not meant as a rebuttal -- it was just a reaction. Nausea.

I didn't know his age (though I'm not surprised); it was more of a comment about his apparent age as judged by his actions.

I approve of this. The more credit ratings, the better.
Sorry, but that's an absolute joke. I would guess that it's mostly right, but you've clearly not put any real effort into gathering information. Additionally, you are ONLY focusing on what you believe are ponzis. Where are the ratings for the legitimate investments? If you want to be included in a sticky, you will need to actually work for it.

I've been watching this story unfold and share your judgement.

Speaking as the interested outsider, it's this kind of attitude that will make it harder for people like me to get other people to adopt bitcoin. Much of how bitcoin is perceived by the world starts here in this forum, like it or not.

He's 21.

That so-called credit rating system is and always has been a bad joke. Reminds me of the credit-rating that led to the financial meltdown in 2008. Ratings based on nothing...

and theymos stands ready and eager to give the scammer some legitimacy by going out of his way to make it a sticky.

I hate to ask, but why are you so intent on fulfilling every sterotype of the techno-savvy but real-life naive 20 year old boy?