Topic: User banned - Possibly misunderstanding the idea of a regular social bounty (Read 817 times)

An update for everyone. Just came home from Hospital few hours ago. I was hospitalized on 23rd, and I did not have any facilities, did not have physical condition to come online to give an update. I am doing well now. Please keep me in your prayer.

Thanks buddy for doing this. I sent a text to onemd on telegram.

The ban isn't permanent - it is (or was; see end of post) 30 days.

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The intention is irrelevant - the task and payment method is what's at fault. I could say that I'm paying X amount of BTC in coin Y and that'd still count as incentivizing posting in exchange for altcoins since all you are doing is changing the way you measure the amount of coin Y. As for what task is considered substantial, that has to be assessed on a case-by case basis. I listed all the most common cases in the pinned thread in Bounties (Altcoins) of what's allowed and what's not but in situations where those examples don't apply, it's up to the mod to decide whether the bounty is something that's dodging (intentionally or otherwise) the spirit of the "no on-forum altcoin giveaways" rule or is it something that no longer resembles a giveaway in the amount of effort the participant has to undergo. As for who's at fault, the onus on complying with the rules falls on the person making the decision to give away altcoins. Obviously, if such an interpretation is being maliciously abused to run altcoin giveaways with impunity while burning random fall guys, the same punishment may be applied to the person "suggesting" the idea (though this far from what has happened here).

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Cause only on-forum altcoin giveaways are prohibited as per forum policy. As to why, I can't look into theymos's head and tell definitively but if I had to guess it's a mix of (1) the forum being BitcoinTalk, (2) any amount of BTC given away being worth something as opposed to a coin that you could create out of thin air, (3) the policy being consistent (no exceptions for specific altcoins) and (4) altcoin giveaways in the past generating tons of spam both directly (large number of low value threads and posts) and indirectly (if a user who's just there for the giveaways needs to reach a certain rank, he's rather likely to just spam the forum till he reaches it).

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You could argue that but crediting a gambling site's balance with BTC is still a promise to give BTC (essentially sending funds to a custodial wallet). Now, there's an entire discussion on custodial wallets and coin ownership to be had there ("not your keys, not your coins" etc, etc), but the common-sense perceived obligation on the part of the custodian is that the wallet owner has ownership over what's stated in said wallet (both in terms of the type of coin and amount). As can be seen from past events, that obligation isn't always honored but the forum doesn't moderate scams.

However, when it comes to LTC, you have to keep in mind that the forum considers it to be at the same level as No-Name-Coin that the dev could print billions of at no cost. So while most forum users would agree that LTC has a perceptible cost to acquire, there is no "established altcoin giveaways are good tho" rule for the sake of consistency and altcoins being second fiddle to the coin the forum was created for. This could change in the future (if theymos decides so) but I have no reason to believe anything of sort applies here.

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Having read through all the arguments / points of view and (as I've mentioned) being on the fence myself about reducing the ban duration to 14 days, I've realized there's quite a bit of confusion and lack of information about this particular aspect of the "no on-forum altcoin giveaways" rule outside the altcoin sections. There's a reason I've started the unnoficial list of rules thread back in 2014 - information about how a regular user should behave was scarce and scattered all around the forum. So while I still believe that the banned user in question broke a number of rules by starting that thread, I no longer think the punishment fits the offense. Had the user ran a giveaway promoting a business, one could expect a much higher degree of professionalism and thus more thorough due diligence. However, since the user was just someone who felt like giving away BTC in the first place, considering the lack of a sticky in Games and Rounds I think this warrants a more lenient, albeit still rather strict treatment.

Reduced ban duration to 14 days minus time already being banned.

Thats fair enough. Most of the time, my participation in these types of threads is advocating for or against rule/policy changes, not that rules are being enforced incorrectly. The latter would generally be fairly cut and dry, and any mistake in implementation would be quickly pointed out, and the issue would be quickly solved. Also, FWIW, I have always seen you conduct yourself professionally as a moderator, even when those you are dealing with may not be.

The intention of the rule in question is to prevent people from promoting altcoins, and to keep the main subs related to bitcoin. In my eyes, a bitcoin IOU is the same as bitcoin, except it has counterparty risk. This is the same for any exchange, casino, or service that accepts bitcoin deposits.

I've also seen many casinos give away small amounts of Bitcoin credited to the user's account. Those amounts are often lower than the withdrawal fees, and those giveaways don't get banned.
One could argue this isn't Bitcoin, but a token on a website. I can't say this is better than paying LTC on-chain.

He didn't get a permanent ban.

The reason it wasn't moved to the altcoin board is because of the rule about incentivized and low-effort posts in exchange for altcoins if I understood it correctly. Post your address here to get Litecoin type of threads aren't allowed in the altcoin boards either. Posting a spreadsheet where the users could apply for Litecoin would be OK.

I am just wondering why low-effort and incentivized posting is allowed for bitcoin giveaways. Those are still spam posts even though bitcoin is the reward. 

Although I am still hitting my head against the wall to understand mprep's interpretation, the topic could just move to altcoin (bounty) section since it's obvious that intention of OP was not promoting LTC but paying in LTC (low value amount to avoid dust payment) and BTC to perform a task which is to tweet Elon.

How would one determine if the task is not substantial. Those who will get paid in LTC was asked to make a certain tweet which was already given but those who will be paid in BTC was ask to make their own tweet, but it has to go with the original idea of OP.

This is where it gets even worse. Initially OP had plan to pay everyone using BTC. But when I suggested him that he should consider paying the small amount using an ALT (possibly I suggested LTC) to avoid dust output of BTC he agreed. Then I revised the terms and give him the revised terms to update his original post. With years of experience if my understanding of rule is not clear then how would we expect a user like OP (who is very new to this forum) will understand this special rule correctly. In fact, this rule is becoming confusing as we speak. If we focus on only the responses of this topic we will see except mprep and maybe PN7, rest of us are thinking the thread was just fine and actually protesting the action that mprep has taken.

How would you now apply the rule now when it's very clear that OP's intension was modified by me, and he reposted the topic after taking my suggestion. If it really is a bannable offence (let's say all of us are wrong but only mprep's interpretation is right) then does OP deserve ban, or it should be me?

That's good to know.

I understand the point you made at the start of this post, but considering how difficult it is to interpret the rules of Bitcointalk by regular users sometimes, and the fact that OP had clear intentions to give out bitcoin by escrowing the coins, could he be pardoned and have the permanent ban changed to a 2-week temp ban instead? His original thread would have to be re-written to be in line with the rules, either the way I explained in my previous post, or any other way that is better and/or more suitable.

Each ban is reviewed case-by-case and the decisions the staff make in this particular case don't need to have repercussions on other similar cases just like unbanning a user who copy/pasted wont make all copy/pasters unbanned.

For the record, I have not participated in the campaign by OP nor do I know him. Just in case someone asks. But I don't think that with him gone this community will either be safer, cleaner or a better place.

While theymos is much more lenient with the interpretation or application of other rules ("constructive free speech" and all), I have not seen this leniency in suspending creators for altcoin giveaways. The spirit of the rule, at least in my eyes, is "no altcoin giveaways, neither in their traditional form nor disguised as something else" and I don't see a reason to not apply that to someone who "didn't mean it" since quite a few who get banned for violating the rules legitimately "didn't mean it" or "didn't know". I've already explained (in a previous post in this thread) how an exception to such a policy could open up holes. Which would require even more exceptions to patch up. And while yes, theymos has stated that he doesn't believe in rule of law, he does believe in forum policy being consistent:


While the big boss is free to make whatever judgments he wishes, the last thing I want my (a moderator's) judgment to be is arbitrary.

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Yes, the "no incentivizing posting via low effort tasks in exchange for altcoins" is an extension of the "no on-forum altcoin" giveaways rule, since quite a few people moved on from just giving away altcoins to requiring users to retweet something or post a canned tweet (essentially complying with the letter of the rule but dodging the spirit of it).

You can give away BTC in Games and Rounds. It's even mentioned in the thread you've quoted.

I can only act on rule violations I see and can verify (and that applies for all rules). That's the nature of not being omniscient. If someone is secretly incentivizing posting in exchange for USDT, a user is free to report the PM asking for a USDT address, link to external evidence, etc.

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I've already PMed both Cyrus and hilariousandco about creating a new sticky thread in Games and Rounds yesterday, but they haven't responded yet. Regarding the duration, as I've mentioned, I didn't feel like it was my call considering that the altcoin incentive was rather clear and IIRC I have not seen theymos reduce ban duration for organizing altcoin giveaways. As for rule changes, that's something you're going to have to petition theymos - I don't really have much say in the matter.

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If I understood the premise correctly (you don't have to post in either of the threads to participate in the LTC part of the giveaway / low-effort bounty) then yes, that's completely fine.

This reminded me of that case when a bunch of members got temp bans for participating in a combined giveaway of bitcoin, tron, ethereum, XRP, and I think Litecoin. It might have been BitCasino that organized the whole event. The members got the chance to select which coin to get as a reward, those who selected altcoins got banned, those who wanted bitcoin weren't. 

@mprep
Would this have been allowed?
- The same type of thread is posted in the same sub with the payment method being Bitcoin.
- OP makes a note that any payment below a certain amount will be made in Litecoin (to avoid Bitcoin dust payments) with a link that leads to a different thread in the altcoin bounty section.
- The linked bounty thread has a google spreadsheet where the users sign up after they have completed their social media bounty.

The LTC is being awarded as part of a social media bounty task like any other social media task in the bounty section that entails posting, tweeting, liking, etc. No altcoin is given away in Games & Rounds or Services section. There is also no incentivized low-effort posting because the users have to apply through a google spreadsheet.

Would that be allowed?

Exactly. I see no connection between altcoin giveaways and the topic in question. From what I can tell, this wasn't a giveaway but a bounty. Members had to do a specific task to be paid.

If this was the message onemd wanted to post on Elon's Twitter, how is that promoting altcoins?

It seems disproportionate to get banned from this forum because of a procedural error given the organizer's intentions.

If that's allowed, it would work It's just slightly more complicated to get a payment request shortly before making the payment.

I don't think anyone is arguing to allow those again (but weirdly enough it has been happening on the bounty board for years).

My understanding is that users would give away altcoins in a way that each account would receive fractions of a cent worth of the altcoin, but said altcoin would receive basically free advertising/promotion.

Allowing altcoin giveaways would also lead to many more people joining the forum solely for the purpose of claiming these giveaways. We would see more accounts with 5000 posts with no merit, and almost all of their posts would be in the bounty altcoin giveaway sections. The costs associated with these types of threads will quickly add up. With some decent marketing, we could see some giveaway threads with 10, or 100 thousand (or more) posts, and a multiple number of page views. The cost of storing 100k posts, plus 2x+ page views for thousands of threads will quickly add up.

Be careful what you wish for. Unlike BTC, most altcoins are using this forum for promotion and AFAIK that's one of the reasons to not allow giveaways, to contain altcoins to their specific boards, etc - because otherwise it would turn into uncontrollable spamming shitshow. As discussed above, this might be somewhat mitigated by allowing only well-established ones but some of those like ETH have huge fees too and there's a bunch of scammy ones even in CMC top 10, so how exactly would you pick which ones to favor?

Or we could stick to Bitcoin and promote LN (or whatever the current scaling panacea is) instead. It seems counterproductive to cater to the specific use cases unless BTC is fit for those use cases. If it doesn't work for small giveaways - don't do small giveaways. Otherwise it'd be like allowing to discuss ETH on the Dev & Tech board because Bitcoin doesn't support ERC20 and we really want to talk about ERC20.

From what I've seen, funding in general isn't the problem.

Considering how many users disagree with those rules, that is quite likely.

Also: I know scams aren't moderated, but it just doesn't seem right to me that scamming 1 LTC is allowed, but giving it away gets you banned. I'm considering creating yet another topic to try to have some forum rules adjusted.

Whatever professional courtesy is required, as long as the 'no altcoin giveaway' rule is going to remain as-is, I think there should be a warning in the games and rounds sub. Having forum members post a LTC address to receive payment for a low effort task is a violation of forum policy as currently implemented.

I also don't think it is entirely unreasonable for someone to read the forum rules, and in good-faith host a giveaway that gives away both an altcoin and bitcoin, and believe they are following the rules. Moderators are experts of forum rules and policy, but normal users are not. Assuming the person has not caused major problems in the past, I would argue for a reduced ban 'punishment' that is reduced by 1/2, or so.

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It seems to me that the OP is trying to get his foot in the door in starting a business managing advertising campaigns, and is having trouble doing so due to high transaction fees when measured in USD. I would say that healthy competition in the marketplace benefits everyone and that when possible, barriers to entry into the marketplace should be low. As such, I would repeat my suggestion that the rules be changed to allow for on forum giveaways upon the host paying a fee that is intended to cover the cost of resources expanded by the forum associated with allowing the giveaway.

The point 3 comes under point number 2, I believe. Low effort giveaways are allowed in BTC but not in altcoins (would be great if a mod can confirm)



You can't give altcoins or even BTC? I am asking because I have seen many instances where users were paid in BTC for posting their username.



I agree and rules are quite strange because there are so many giveaways in that section that discuss the prize in BTC and might be paying out in USDT (which is a altcoin, we know) but just because OP made a mistake of mentioning LTC, he got banned. It hurts even more when someone as sincere as Royse777 was working with him because if there was slight doubt, it would be Royse777 who would have made it clear.

Bitcoin... bitcoin... bitcoin.

Support and defend bitcoin against all the evil intentions.

This has become very much subjective and confusing at the same time.

To summarize what I understood...

1. Bitcoin giveaways are allowed
2. Alt coins giveaways not allowed - OP will get a ban and participants will be banned if posted in ALT section.
3. Low effort tasks/giveaways not allowed any where on the forum - OP and participants will be banned

Now as far as the topic in question is concerned it was a BTC giveaway since major portion of the payment was already in BTC which is >83% in BTC and rest <17% in LTC

Now what "Incentivizing posting" rule says, this is what I understand from a quote from theymos


Now the OP in discussion clearly didn't had any such intention of posting, where a post in a thread makes you eligible of any incentive. It was same like any other signups on the forum where you need one post with participants info. Yes you can impose the rule here if you want but that will be unfair to “Bitcoin community”.

Sometimes we need to evaluate the situation differently... mprep as mod yes you did the right thing from your end since you evaluated the op and the topic from "Alt coins giveaways + low effort task" perspective. But in reality the OP never had any of such intention. His topic was purely for the betterment of  “Bitcoin”... he just tried his own way of realizing Elon that what he is portraying against bitcoin is wrong. That's why you see so much sentimental support from bitcointalk members for him.

It's not an argument but you see we don't have 55 millions followers like Elon Musk...even if whole bitcointalk community try to support bitcoin against Elon he can outperform us with a single tweet our total Bitciontalk member are just 3m. So I will say as a bitcoin supporter op did not deserve a ban here.

This:

Having read all the comments carefully, I have to admit that I do not entirely agree with the moderator's decision here.
As the member initially intended to pay the bounty with bitcoin, it is evident that he had no intention of violating the forum rules. Upon other members' recommendation, he agreed to pay smaller portions in altcoin.
Okay, maybe that wasn't the best decision, but does it really deserve such a harsh punishment? In the spirit of this forum, wouldn't it be better to alert the member that his actions are inconsistent with the rules and that he should go back to the original terms of the bounty campaign?

I agree that rules should be followed, but even theymos don't support a strict adherence to them.


What do you think the mission of this forum is? I would really like to hear what other members think.