Topic: Remove Proxyban (evil fees) - email to get whitelisted for free - page 11. (Read 21180 times)

You see? The above user is one of those the forum would've lost if you, LoyceV, hadn't whitelisted them. I actually checked all the profiles of those listed there (though many haven't made a single post after getting cleared) and got the surprise of my life when I got to the quoted user and noticed the magnificent experience they have in tech. With just three posts within a day after registration, the user already garned 53 merits. Well deserved merits at that, owing to the calibre of users who merited there. I'm thinking – would jreesun had moved on (out from this forum) if no one whitelisted them against the evil fee?

Does that include asking a new user to do a video of their IP? I referred someone to the forum and wanted them to be whitelisted, not as if it was any big deal for me paying the evil fee for them. I had done that for two others in the past, actually. My new friend who was in correspondence with one of the handlers of the listed email addresses here was asked to do a video of their IP to prove a point that it wasn't a farmed account of mine. That really got me pissed and I told them to forget about that, that I would rather pay the evil fee for my mentee than make them pass through stress and expose their privacy for something as little as that.

My question is this – does asking someone to do a video of their IP not violate a user's privacy? I'm sure there are genuine newbies who may be facing this same issue. Kindly clear this up.[/list][/list]

I've just had a few users asking for help, without actually providing any of the information stated in the original thread. I've just sent them a link back to this thread, and if they read it they'll know what to do, I'm not going to spoon feed them for a lack of a better phrase. I want to know that they actually have put the time into reading it, and at least know the type of content that's needed in the email instead of me reiterating it through the email itself.

I haven't had to many users contact me though. Although, I imagine your probably getting a lot more requests than a lot of us due to your email being the first one listed, and there will probably be users who email every single email in the thread, just in case they can persuade one, but not the other.

No. Some don't even send their username, and I'm not going to share email addresses.

Do you consider it necessary to make a public list of users rejected along with those accepted?
Even though whitelisters could have varying views, it would help to know who has been rejected by other members, just as a heads up to others.
Most would simply change usernames, but hey, some will not, and it could be a bit of help.

I suggested to theymos to make it a sticky in Beginners and Help, but he doesn't think it's necessary. According to the PM he sent me, he already linked to this thread on the page that asks users to pay the evil fee. If someone wants to check and see how it looks, registering a new account with a free VPN service will probably trigger the evil-fee system for you.

I checked yesterday: This topic is mentioned on the "unable to post"-page already. I created a test user through Tor, and it was charged the maximum amount on evil fees.
I didn't screenshot it, and didn't keep the password.

I believe this topic should be pinned/ featured (like the latest announcement) or at least offered on the blacklisted page itself for blacklisted users.

Image extracted from xtraelv's thread:

I'm not sharing usernames yet. Weirdly, I've received several emails without their username.
I think asking for bans would be excessive (for now).

I suggest sharing the list of usernames you get from your email with the other whitelisters and immediately request theymos for a ban if someone's sending requests to all of you at once. Not if someone sends mail to another user after waiting some time for a response from one person, but the kind of requests that you see e.g. loan scammers doing (requesting on all the lending threads at once).

And immediately revoke whitelisting status for accounts that have been hacked as well.

I think it would be a good idea if this thread became a sticky in Beginners & Help. I have PMed theymos about it, so let's see if he agrees. If LoyceV keeps it updated with information about other whitelisters as well, it can be the go-to place for everything concerning newbie whitelisting.   

Its probably the best approach if the workload is unmanageable. Since, I've literally not received an email, but it seems that LoyceV has which is probably due to the fact that users are reading through this thread, until they find the first email address, and not reading the rest or the replies here.

So, it'll probably result in LoyceV having the majority of the emails, and the rest of us will get a few every now, and again which leak through.

Shared or not, you would get this issue either way as it will be up to the person that is reviewing it at the time. So, peoples success might actually depend on the discretion of the person that's reviewing it whether that's through a shared email or separate ones. In fact, here on the forum we have a shared system for reviewing reports. Basically, a lot of staff can see the same reports in the queue, but how its handled is down to the discretion of that individual moderator so it can sometimes vary on the action taken.

Having a shared email account is a welcome development but...the limitation is endless since there is no requirements on who to be whitelisted it's all personal judgement thing for example if A, B and C shared an account there is every possibility that B and C would want to check into the application that A marked as Rejected to see why the application was rejected in the first place and there is 40%-60% chances that either B or C would be like " oh c'mon I like what this user wrote why did user A rejected him? Why is he taking this whitelisting so personal? I would have to look into all his accepted or rejected application from time to time"

Shared email account would create doubts, privacy of personal judgement would be defeated, reputation would be damaged ( user C or B would not want to recommend user A in the future for his poor judgment ).

The best way is to have different emails to ease pressure or whatever the whitelisting is not a big deal anyways because 98% of those that would be applying are banned users anyways. This is an act of recycling.

Shared email won't solve this problem either, if Bob first request got rejected by user A there is 98% chances that Bob would create another email address and send back his application and this time User B would be the one opening it.

I thought about it, but (speaking for myself): I don't want another email address to keep track of.

Emails are starting to pile up. I must say they make it very easy to reject them, if they can't follow simple instructions.

Instead of having multiple email addresses for each person who can do the whitelisting, why don't you guys create a shared account that you will all have access to? I am sure that the 5 or 6 of you tasked to do it can trust each other to share the same password. You also know enough to not get phished, keylogged, etc. 

That will make it easier.
- All the emails go into the same place.
- Whenever you are doing whitelisting, you just take the next unread application from the list, work on it, and mark it as either solved or denied for everyone else to see.
- Any application that isn't being worked on should remain unread until someone takes a look at it. That avoids 2 users from working on the same application.

If everyone has their own email, users could apply to be whitelisted with multiple people. Rejected by #1 and #2, but accepted by #3. This would prevent that unless they come back with an alt account.

I like the way this is turning out that some reputable members are seriously finding a way to help out on this evil fee. In the past I had had to pay for two friends because they didn't know jack about Bitcoin and never had any at the time. Right now, I'm vouching for another friend who's very interested to grow and advance his knowledge of cryptocurrencies. I'm happy to be doing this for them.

Some feedback on this:
*I would suggest that a general inbox be setup that users can email that will automatically forward requests to everyone who is able and willing to help with this. The email address of the inbox can be changed periodically, as emails published are over time going to attract spam that will increase over time. You should still use a private email address because it may get exposed when you reply to messages, but your actual email address should never make it to search engines.
*If the above is implemented, those who are helping to CC the above inbox to alert others they are working on the case.
*The specific questions can vary from person to person, and can change over time, however, I would suggest that a template of questions for users to answer should be used by each person helping out. This should help standardize the process.
*Although follow-up questions will likely need to vary from prospect to prospect, each person should try to standardize follow-up questions to the extent they can.
*One question that everyone should ask should be something along the lines of "have you ever been banned from bitcointalk"? If you get the person on the record as saying they have not been banned, you can post their username here, and admins can periodically check if it appears the person is an alt of a banned user, and take action appropriately.
*I don't think being banned should automatically disqualify someone from getting whitelisted, specifically if they are trying to appeal their ban. If someone is banned and is wanting to appeal their ban, I think an appropriate response would be to tell the person to create a username with "_banappeal" appended at the end of their handle, and once this is done, automatically grant the request. A new forum rule can be implemented that these types of handles can only be used to appeal forum bans, and if they are used in ways that would normally result in ban evasion bans, the account will be banned. I would note that in the past, banned users have been allowed to do things such as responding to scam accusations against them, open and respond to scam accusations against others they allege to have been scammed by, and making payment arrangements to pay people they owe money to. These exceptions should continue to be allowed (and even potentially codified, obviously with limitations). I don't think it is appropriate to make people have to pay to appeal their bans. I think almost all bans issued are appropriate, however, everyone should have the ability to make their case, and if it costs money to appeal their ban, there may be instances in which perma bans are issued in error that never get appealed.