If the forum just bans account sales, there will be less people who will go ahead and buy an account. There will be less people trying to sell accounts openly. Less accounts going as collateral for loans. Less spam. Less scams.
That is, the entire market for account sales will shrink (demand and supply, though I can't say which will be more or less).
I pointed out above that legit buyers of accounts would potentially get banned if the sale of accounts were to get banned, while the seller of accounts could claim that they got hacked. The forum will generally will not take action unless there is (very) solid evidence, so I believe that the seller would probably get the benefit of the doubt, while the buyer really will not have any explanation as to what they are doing with someone else's account.That is, the entire market for account sales will shrink (demand and supply, though I can't say which will be more or less).
Which discourages buying
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there will be less people who will go ahead and buy an account.
(though I didn't think all that. Well if we are implementing a ban, it should be done gradually, so most will be aware of the rules when the rules get strict.)I assume the buyer in the case will most likely be a newbie anyway, who wants to "earn" from posting and well.. he just broke a rule. It won't be very easy for the seller to claim and convince others his account was hacked.
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The only problem I see with that is, as you pointed out there will still be trades going on outside the forum which will be risky (very probable that an escrow will not be used and much more likely to be scammed).
Why do you think this? There are escrows on forum.bitcoin.com, there are escrows on reddit, and I assume that there are escrows on other marketplace-like forums. The forum administration of bitcointalk has zero influence on what is allowed on other forums, and influential members of the community here likely has a diminished level of influence of influence within other communities that are separate from bitcointalk.
Well I am not familiar with forum.bitcoin.com, and that is just my opinion. My point is, if someone Google's it (ignoring the bitcointalk.org results) the next ones may not be one in which the person is active at or familiar with, naturally he will not be aware of the escrow providers there (and the seller may not be very encouraging), and I am sure not many will take some time and do the research.
May be the seller can even claim the account was "hacked" with better chance of success.
Either way, the chances of getting scammed outside the forum are high.
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Well the only reason why accounts are being bought and sold are, directly or indirectly, to make useless posts for a campaign or to scam. So why not?
Maybe BadBear and/or theymos and/or another mod can comment on this, however from what I can tell, the account farmers (eg sellers) are worse with the spam then the people buying accounts for signature campaign purposes.
I agree though it may not be correct in all cases. Sometimes the buyer become the seller later.
Banning account sales will mean less account farming for selling.
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One other point that I forgot to mention previously, is that if someone is in need of money (who is not in the business of farming accounts) can potentially raise some money via the sale of their account. If this person does not have this option then, if they are desperate enough they may decide to attempt to pull off a scam to raise the money they need.
To be honest, if I need some money, I would just do something in the RL..
Selling my account wouldn't get me a "lot" of money anyway lol
Suggestion: Ban account sales from 10th June to 10th August and see how it goes?