Topic: Someone give you negative trust for participating in a PONZI? (Read 5955 times)

Original http://www.krone.at/Oesterreich/Tschetschenen-Quartett_pruegelt_Wiener_spitalsreif-Sittenwaechter-Story-498170

And if any of you are in any doubt, NO! Nowhere is Sharia Law in effect in the E.U.

How's this going on for you atm OP ?

1. You're not going to shit a brick, because impossible.
2. Why would he add it to official rules, when
  2a. there *are no official rules* on this forum
  2b. Theymos is braking the rule himself, and getting paid for it

And yeah, you have to obey the laws of the country you reside in. That's just the way things are

If that's the case, that US law is the criterion for what can and can't be discussed, then:

1) I'm going to shit a brick
2) Someone should add that to the official rules

I'm not supporting ponzi's or supporting the people who support them.  But I do think it's a fair point that the laws of any country are sorta arbitrary and as far as I can tell, it's the rules of the forum as established by the forum dictators which govern what's discussed here and what's not.  I think the point that bitcoin itself is illegal in some places puts a fine point on that.

Theymos is a scofflaw, and laws are not always enforced. If you speed and don't get a ticket, don't assume that speeding became legal.
AFAIK, he has always cooperated when called upon to do so, so it might be smarter for "them" to look the other way on petty stuff.

Then why is poker advertised here? Same goes for the sportsbooks? That does not hold up if we are using American laws.

Sounds like the "if you buy drugs, you're sponsoring terrorism" argument. If operating a ponzi is illegal (it is, in US, where theymos' at), so is facilitating such operations (running a subforum where 90% of the users are participating in/promoting ponzis). If OP is breaking the law, so is theymos. What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Neg rate theymos too.


Bitcoin isn't illegal in US, theymos is a US national & is running this forum from US soil. That's what counts, legally.

Because he didn't just invest in a ponzi, he promoted it and condoned it's use. He is trying to trick users that could not know how schemes such as this work into investing and possibly being scammed. As dooglus said:

My apologies, I misread your original message. Regardless, my answer is very similar to the above. He isn't just investing, he is promoting a known scam. I would say this justifies a negative trust.

That's irrelevant imo. If I were found to steal from people IRL, I shouldn't be shown as trustworthy on a forum simply because my conduct there was acceptable. Whether he is promoting it here, on another site or on a giant billboard in his city center, he is still promoting a scam openly and deserves the repercussions for doing so.

Personally, I think this is the problem. I am glad that you are open about the way that such services work, but I believe that this should be given to them along with the initial announcement of the thread. I think that it is fair that people understand what they are investing in without having to ask.

I can agree with this, though it is debatable that people should do their own research before investing in anything and understand what they are getting into therefore not needing such an obvious name.

Personally I can't say that I would persecute users for investing in a Ponzi, though it is definitely immoral if you understand how they work. However, promoting an investment similar to the way that OP did - whilst knowing exactly how the scheme works - is definitely worthy of a negative trust.

I do agree, yes. The problem comes in that without negative trust tags, a newbie has no possible way to see that such services are immoral and will eventually scam (even though trust can only be seen by logged in members, which I believe should definitely be changed). I believe that what you have described here:
Is a good way to deal with the problem of ponzi operators and negative trust, however this is again not the subject that this topic describes.
I think that the negative trust on OP is justified even if he may not be running a ponzi simply because he is giving his word as a "Hero Member" that such a service is safe to invest in and will continue to pay, which we all know it won't. Whilst his rank may not mean much to those acquainted with this forum, to a noob this rank may be misinterpreted as something trusted and take his word; possibly causing them to be scammed.

This isn't relevant to the topic. Please at least read the thread before spamming for your bit-cents.

We need to get over this illegal aspect, bitcoin is illegal in some areas. Are we to believe suddenly you will dump bitcoin if it gets banned in your Country? Maybe we should ban all talk of anything that is banned in any Country to be safe.
No matter where you are morally, you either need to live and let live or find another hobby. This righteous b.s just is a divide and conquer tactic.

Well first of all, You give a completely different response then some here in this thread and I can respect that.



First of all I am not against warnings at all, quite the opposite actually and I never lured anyone in promising great profits or anything. I made them aware of the system and the pits they can fall in but only when asked. I even think that the subforum should be renamed Ponzi's Pyramides and HYIPs just to make it even more clear. In another thread I explained why it is better to have a controlled space for that kind of things where in you can keep them small and tight and the losses of the noobs of the bitcoin community (not the bitcointalk community) can be low as the coins they put in seldom go over the 0.01BTC I mainly referred to the law because someone mentioned Ponzi's are illegal.


Well for some in here it is not about the long time member presenting it as legit service. It is about everyone that is joining a Ponzi in the subforum and according to their account everyone who is joining is proving they are a scammer hence the cute red warning:


The problem they cause by this I explained here:


So by them tagging everyone, you have to agree that it will even become more obscure for a newcomer to see the legitimate negative trust on the ones organizing as everyone is wearing the same tag.

So I have no problem what so ever with a warning in every new thread, it could even be an automated message that gives an ever clearer warning than the standard warning above the sub. I have no problem with tagging every operator deep in the red and explain it in the topic itself. But I do think it will miss it's goal if you will tag everyone.

IMHO anyone participating in ponzi signature campaign should be given a benefit of doubt.A member can not be held responsible for wearing a signature of a service or website which later turned out to be ponzi.How is one supposed to know a potential ponzi? and if a member wearing a signature is expected to know,the forum staff should delete the signature campaign thread itself

1. Because you're supporting a ponzi, and it's operator. May I say, operating a ponzi is illegal, and by investing, you're assisting the operator, and you're basically assisting in a crime.

2. Same as above.

3. Some people deserve it. If they cant see the red italics at the top of the scamzi section, it's their fault. Oh, and the countless threads about butthurt investors telling people how bad ponzis are.

1. So if investing in ponzi schemes arent illegal, why are we giving negative trust for investing?

2. But the person who got the neg isnt running a ponzi, you shouold look into the matter more

3. Maybe some of them dont know, im pretty sure he didnt get those refs from bitcointalk hence why i dont see the need for the negative rep on his profile

Dear Confused:
Outside of society's norms, you're free to jerk it to grannies, just like other freedom lovers are free to label you & tell everyone about it.
No rules for you = no rules for them. Everything not expressly forbidden is permitted

Risk/Reward in that aspect you are offered the same outcome. There is a added factor in ponzi that makes it more of a problem but you are working with the same dynamics by definition. I gamble,so its not like I am bashing it. Was a member at a few sportsbooks back in the day that went under and kept funds,so I got the same outcome as if it was a pyramid scheme and dude ran off in the end.

Again: Dice, Ponzis, and poker are all forms of gambling, but the rules are different. Though you could insist that poker ain't gambling due to its inherent dishonesty: the guy across the table from you is allowed, within the game ruleset, to lie (bluff).

If you judge what some one does with there bitcoin you are allowed to in a free world. What you should not be allowed to do is restrict what some one does with their funds because you see it do be stupid or ill advised. Any form of expression that is connected to a account is a restriction because it allows people to judge those that partake. If I have to walk around with a label on my head that says I am into granny porn,it would be a rough go. Negative rep works in same way.

Again I see that messing up between gambling and ponzi.
Ponzi is not at all similar to gambling.

In ponzi there is no fairness or trust that could get back your invested money.
When you participate in a ponzi your success or failure is entirely dependent on the whims of known scumbags.

In gambling everything can be verified and the website stays for very long time. Have you ever heard of the term probably fair?

You mean step out of society's norms & into the traffic to gamble online & invest in Ponzis? Err... How about no?
I'm not letting the government "creep back in" anywhere. Mainly because it never asks for my permission, oddly enough. But it *will* step in, without knocking. And ban the shit out of Bitcoin for everybody.
Because you just *had to* gamble away all your money to make a political statement.

Sorry for being late.

Probably not, no, but I expect it would depend on the circumstances. Regardless, this is irrelevant to the topic at hand.

Noobs miss the bright red "Warning: Trade with extreme caution!" under a user's name several times, why would they read a note in a subforum?
Though assuming that everyone read everything they should, there's still a few problems. The first being language barriers; not everyone speaks English and not everyone may understand what that message means.
The second being human nature. People tend to believe things differently should it affect them positively. For some people a scheme they invest in could promise to kill a child per investment, though their own greed will have them invest for personal gain anyway.
Lastly, if people like OP were to post on threads saying how legitimate the promoted service is, do you not think this would lower/nullify the warning given by the forum?

Then there is nothing we can do against that apart from put it in obnoxious bold red lettering, which isn't going to happen. I'm sure that they would read the posts in the thread though, so once again people like OP making the service seem legitimate doesn't help.

They can, yes. However, afaik claiming that you didn't know a law existed doesn't then make that law not be applied to you. Regardless, as said above, the legality of Ponzis is not what the problem here is (and is likely an issue for another topic/board).

The problem should this happen is not how 'uncool' it would be to leave everyone a negative, more that if that were to become the norm any users with a legitimate negative trust would be overlooked and could scam further.

The topic here isn't about a noob getting a negative trust for investing in something he shouldn't. This topic is about a member who has been here for a long time trying to legitimize a service that he knows will become anything but.

That isn't the point in tagging them. The tag is to show other users that the person running the ponzi shouldn't be trusted with their money.

This isn't the point. OP didn't just invest in a ponzi, he promoted it to over 100 people. Please don't try and tell me that all of these 100 people know exactly what a ponzi is and how it works.

Child.

Yeah, Ponzis are a form of gambling. That's why they are to be posted in a subsection of the Gambling subforum.