Quote from: TerminatorXL on April 26, 2015, 08:09:01 PM

Are you saying account banning is pointless, and knowing an account could be banned is not a deterrent? But I thought this forum banned accounts?
Am I mistaken?

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Second, if you kill someone, there is a body, forensic evidence, etc. If people didn't publicly post about account selling, there would be absolutely no way of knowing that it was happening. What you propose is that moderators scattershot ban people in a completely unfair way, again to solve such a miniscule problem, or what you percieve as a problem.

You do understand that there are different levels of proof required for different transgressions, right? You must, because otherwise you couldn't possibly ban ban-evading accounts, where's the proof? Where's the due process? And yet, I'm sure it happens. How?
Many transgressions are punished on "more likely than not" basis, such as a 5-yr-old being made to stand in a corner for eating his cookies during class - no trial, no jury.

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But all this is strictly irrelevant, because you're simultaneously arguing that there's nothing wrong with accounts being bought and sold, or, to use the wording from my previous post, dealing in bitcointalk accounts is not a thing we do not want to happen.

Please make your position on this clear, since I'm not here to waste anyone's time.
If you think that buying & selling forum accounts is a good thing, and are happy that accounts are being traded, what's the point of discussing enforcement possibilities of rules against it?

You are correct, the entire conversation is irrelevant. Account selling isn't against the rules, and it was, there would be no way to enforce it, so the only difference would be our liability. "Well your rules right here say account selling is banned, but someone bought an account and scammed me, why didn't you protect me moderators Cry

" Why give people false expectations? Its the same reason that scams aren't moderated.

Accounts are banned, but that is generally to disuade spamming, or people who have become completely disruptive. You are incorrect when you say that transgressions are punished on a more likely than not basis, anything that is a bannable offense requires 100% proof in plain text. Bans aren't done on a whim. The rules were designed in such a way that moderators couldn't abuse anything more than deleting posts that shouldn't have been (which Theymos monitors and corrects if someone makes a mistake) I've seen one accidental ban in the past 3 years, and that was my bad which was fixed in a few minutes.

As I mentioned before, I dont really have an opinion one way or another about whether accounts should or shouldn't be traded at an ethical level. I do know for a matter of fact that banning people for selling or buying accounts would lead to more trouble than it has caused. Speaking of the trouble account selling/buying has caused, have we been able to point to a single confirmed instance? It is a bad idea to ban account selling whether I agree with it or not.