Topic: Ponzi schemes & Investor Based Games (Read 360 times)

I'm pretty sure we completely agree on this. I don't believe tagging people for promoting gambling is the correct use of the Trust system, and I'm pretty sure it will get the user excluded.
I responded to the (hypothetical) scenario in which savetheFORUM said his opinion doesn't matter.

I don't think tagging people for wearing a gambling signature just because they are wearing it is the correct way to use the trust system. Luckily no one does that. In your own Beginners guide to correct use of the Trust system, you wrote that evidence should be provided. Where is the evidence that the member will scam or is likely to scam? The fact that he is wearing a signature, can't be considered as valid evidence if you ask me. 

If we look at things that way, where does it stop? If I have negative experience dealing with Germans and Italians (just an example), would it be a correct use of the trust system if I tag people for speaking German or Italian with a negative trust? It would be an unfounded and biased opinion. I am deliberately using an extreme case as an example.

@savetheFORUM will correct me if I am wrong, but when he mentioned warning about the ponzi, he meant that short explanation of Investor-based games board, which says "Games where the main factor is whether or not new "investors" join the game. Also any Bitcoin-denominated investment product with an APY far above the reasonable market rate". And indeed, when you read that explanation, there is no doubt what it is about.

That doesn't mean that board is a safe place where you can freely advertise scam without fear of being tagged, but just the place that forum stuff decide to create in order to clear gambling board, which was swarmed by those scams some time ago. Whatever you do on this forum reflects on your reputation, so if you are willing to advertise scam, you will pay the consequences.

Where is the warning? On the website? Are they saying you might lose your funds as well? Rather they are promising a high return. Overall Ponzi Scheme is a liar, they telling revenue will be generated by investing your funds in various places. But aren't doing anything. A few Ponzi rotating money for a few days and a few Ponzi just skip with funds. Although gambling sites not showing warning we are familiar with gambling from childhood.

Not exactly. It wasn't opinion. It was a lack of knowledge.

Forum is free for everyone to post anything if it's not against forum rules. Actually announcing a service here means promoting. It's not just here, if you make an announcement in Cointelegraph simply means you are promoting that.

I've never seen any account get sold on any other forum I visit. The only reason I can think of, is to pretend to be an established member to scam someone. Bitcointalk is the only forum I know that allows to monetize your signature space, so that gives people a different incentive (although it has lead to a lot of spam). I've seen people get tagged years after they bought their account, and I've seen bought accounts that only got a neutral tag and are still good community members. Not all account buyers are bad, and not all people who created their own account have good intentions.

There is no community consensus on anything. That's probably why theymos doesn't want to decide on those things.

It is true that occasionally DT members leave negative feedback to trolls which is definitely wrong ( while neutral is appropriate one, if one feels so strongly about tagging) but that is more of an exception than the rule. If you as a DT member constantly keep doing that, chance are that sooner or later you will be out of DT system, which is not perfect of course, and there are manipulations there as well.


If that crypto enthusiast read the rules, he would see that account sale is "allowed but discouraged". Pretty enough for anyone with an honest intentions. After all, I see no reason why would someone buy the account, other than for financial benefit either through sig campaign, or promoting some business, so I don't really buy a story about "crypto enthusiast".


Tomato tomahto. What is the point of this so called "announcing" other than promotion? That's why they post it there, to promote the ponzi.

The DT system is not the most efficient and if you do come across such users who use the system wrongly, you should add then to your distrust list ~xxxuser. More members should get involved in the trust system to better understand how it works.

There is sometimes no general consensus on 'what the community believes. Also, what is believed is not always practically enforceable by the mods or admins

In the same line which the user understands that account selling is allowed they would also see that it is discouraged, this should prompt them to look around as to why and find out that it is frowned upon, then make their decision. Most users involved in this do not bother to check the rules about their actions.

I get that, you are right. The problem is that we follow some rules of the forum while sometimes we would give the excuse that everyone have their own opinion and are free to tag other members based on their own judgement.

I have seen people being tagged as a troll and those who tagged them, they are part of DT, while Theymos clearly mentioned one should not use negative trust for trolls.

Note: The example I gave to tag gambling promoters doesn't mean I feel gambling is wrong, I myself gamble, it was just an example to show judgement one has can be different from others which implies that you may believe Ponzi are scam or you may not because they are being posted in the section which warns users about the potential risks.

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I think that is the real problem, what the community believes should be the rules, methinks.



For reference, I am against account sales as well. But consider an example.

Imagine a new crypto enthusiast joins the forum and reads the rules, understands that account selling in allowed. He then buys an account and later gets tagged. Did the user made any mistake? I don't think so.

If the community believes something is wrong, Theymos/moderators should make a topic to at least aware others about it.


Anyone who promotes any scam should be tagged, agreed. But posting in the section made for them is't exactly promoting but rather announcing it.

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Similarly a warning against Ponzi means people are aware that if they invest in a Ponzi they will lose money too.

Note: I never compared gambling with Ponzi, I just gave an example to express how opinions can differ.



You see how with time opinions can change


I am not against tagging Ponzi promoters. Announcing your website to a section meant for it, isn't exactly promoting rather announcing. Anyone who takes money/shares to promote them is wrong and should be tagged.

Don't mix gambling with Ponzi. Gambling doesn't guarantee any ROI and no one scamming you (scam gambling means scam) there. You are losing funds literally there. Losing funds and scams by fraud shouldn't consider the same way. In Ponzi scammer are promising you xx% in your investment, but during gambling, you are fully aware you would lose or win. If you think Ponzi also one kind of gambling, then it's just for you, not for all.

Why admin created this board? I don't know the exact reason, but Ponzi Scheme was most popular once a time and many users were involved with it. So most probably that's why admin creates an opportunity to take the risk and earn. Although I wasn't born in the forum during that time, but I was familiar with Ponzi. But believe me, I learned Ponzi word after joining this forum. Before that, I thought they are all legit and dishonest owners skip with funds (Lol).

Why tagging Ponzi promoter? I or a few DT members think Ponzi a kind of cheating. So who promoting Ponzi he could cheat any other way as well. So it's risky for forum users hence we are tagging. Before believing this user everyone would notice the red tag.

There has always been a big gap between what's allowed by the rules of the forum and what's acceptable by the community.  Consider that scams aren't moderated, i.e., even proven scammers won't be banned from bitcointalk.  Does that mean we shouldn't tag those idiots?  Nope. 

Same thing for account sellers and Ponzi promoters, although I have stronger feelings against the former category than I do against the latter.  Not that I support Ponzis, but since there's an entire section devoted to them and they're basically considered a form of gambling here, I suspect most members know what they're getting into.  In real life, that isn't true, but on this forum I think it's pretty much the case.

But if you're completely anti-Ponzi, there's nothing wrong with leaving members who promote them a negative trust.  In fact, I think it's a good thing to do, since it might be the only warning a naive member might see before participating in one. 

You're wrong here: every tag matters: the Trust-system is decentralized, and if you believe someone deserves a tag, you should tag them:
If that means you tag users because they promote a casino, you'll probably get excluded by other users and your feedback won't ever reach DefaultTrust, but that's all part of the way the Trust system works.

It's from Spiderman
If you disagree with (most of) the feedback someone left: exclude them from your own Trust list.

That won't work, not all boards show Trust-scores.

I like it too, it's one of the best things about this forum. I am very active on several other forums for about 20 years now, and they are very restricting and very trigger happy when it comes to banning people, sometimes over insignificant stuff so this approach is quite refreshing.

I say let them post anywhere, and forum members will handle that, as they do with any other scam found on any other board.



Thanks for shining some light on why that board was made. That makes sense, if Gambling Board was  overrun by them, but still kinda sucks to have specific board just for them.


If you think that anyone who promotes gambling can't be trusted, leave negative feedback. Investor Based games board is not meant to be a safe space for anything, it's just the place where those types of scams are posted and then its up to forum members to decide whether account posting that can/cannot be trusted.

I'm sorry I never disagree or make opinions about anyone. I just felt that if a particular section is made for a particular thing, let them either post there or just delete the section. I'm flexible with my own opinion as you can see I reported a Ponzi and here I am sort of fighting arguing for their rights:)

I will try and explain you from a different angle.

According to me anyone who promotes gambling should be tagged, it's my personal opinion like you have yours about Ponzi. Does that mean I should leave negative feedback to all the gambling sites? Of course not. What I think doesn't matter, I believe, as long as the admin has created a space for something.



Agreed. But i remember a good quote from you or someone I remember "with great power comes great responsibility " and tagging people to post Ponzis in a section created just for the same purpose is not right.



I repeat, I don't want Ponzis to get promoted instead just want that section to be removed.

You're looking at this in the wrong way: feedback is meant for things that are not dealt with by Mods. Ponzis (and scams in general) are allowed, but "punished" by the community.

I kinda like how this forum stands for it's mission "to be as free as possible". There are more than enough forums on the planet that ban all kinds of things already. That doesn't mean I like it, but I love the freedoms this forum gives. It's quite unique.

The reason Investor Based Games board was created was that most of the Ponzi related things were posted in gambling section which was irritating and most of the reputed members during that period were running these shady scams especially forum donators and many reputed members during that period used to vouch for these scams claiming that they are getting money even though those were shitty scams.

Many things that were normal during those time period are frowned upon now and many users changed their opinions and views in multiple things and some were even involved in those practices are now advocating against those shady things which is good.

We should not allow Ponzi and anyone promoting those should be warned and tagged.
 

We would then be going back to the 'scams are not moderated on Bitcointalk' problem. If they are not moderated, such topics and their child board (created for whatever reason) can't be touched unless they are breaking any of the unofficial forum rules. Tagging and warning others is the only thing that can be done in that case.   

Imho, removing that section would be the best. Some would say "but it's better to have specific section just for those ponzies so they don't spread around" but why even encourage them when absolutely nothing good can come out of having that here. Its not like that board is busy anyway, there is no more than couple of threads each month.



That part has been explained to him, which he chooses to ignore. We tag users that are promoting those scams, and those that are ready to promote something like that can't be trusted. It's somewhat similar to account sale; it is allowed but trying to do that will get you tagged.

Exactly my point.

There is nothing wrong in tagging them and hopefully one day they will start getting banned as well. But OP is questioning why have a section where such kind of crap can be posted only to have those who post there tagged?

I guess it's better to keep it the way it is than to have that sewer spill over to the normal parts of the forum. I look at the off-topic board the same way. I'd rather have users talk about what kind of jam is the best in off-topic than seeing that in Beginners & Help or Bitcoin Discussion.   

And what's wrong with the fact that we tagged such a participant? If he is capable of cheating in the Investor-Based-Games section, do you think he will stop and only be there? The one who cheated once will cheat twice. Fraudsters need to be flagged, no matter where they write. It doesn't matter how ordinary users feel about it. The forum takes the main step, it warns, and to believe or not to believe the swindlers, this is where the freedom of choice comes in.
With the same analogy, we can say why there is a bounty program section? After all, there, bounty hunters also need to understand all the risks to participate in such programs.