As it stands now, forum account sales are explicitly allowed, but many people on DT are giving negative trust to those who either have attempted (successfully or otherwise) to buy or sell forum accounts, sometimes many months or years after the fact. To make matters worse, certain forum members are doing this in the open without consequence.

The above two facts are in conflict, and the existence of both are harming many forum members. I have seen countless forum members have their reputations ruined after they reviewed the forum rules, and possibly the recent activity of prominent forum members who show up as having high trust/merit stats, try to engage in transaction consistent with what is reasonably based on their above observations, and end up with their reputations destroyed without a warning to amend their behavior.

The above two facts are harming countless forum members who I believe are acting in good faith, for no reason, and has the same effect as excluding these forum members from the community for no reason.

As a result of the above, one of the two below rule changes needs to be implemented:
*Forum account sales are banned, effective x date in the near future. If it is determined ownership of an account transferred after x date, the account will be permanently locked, and all people involved in the transaction (buyer seller) will be considered for a ban
*Leaving (DT) negative trust for engaging in a forum account sale transaction is prohibited, which will be applied retroactively. If this rule is implemented, forum members should remove these ratings on their own, however if they do not, the ratings should be removed by the administration (which will include ratings left after the rule is effective), and if someone leaves ratings for this reason (or closely related enough to reasonably conclude the root cause is a forum account transaction), they will be considered for a ban.

Whichever of the above is implemented, the rule needs to be actually enforced by the administration.

In either case, some freedoms will be infringed upon, however this is superior to the alternative of many people being harmed by the above referenced conflict. The current implementation of both above facts arguably infringes on a greater amount of freedoms.

I have no financial stake in the outcome of the above, current or anticipated. However I do have an opinion as to which option would be less intrusive, but I will not state it. There are arguments for and against both of the above rule changes.

I have added a poll for forum members to voice an opinion.

edit:

for those that say "scamming is allowed" I would respond by saying it is not explicitly allowed per forum rules. The forum will not moderate scams, while forum account sales are explicitly allowed per forum rules. The administration has previously tagged alt accounts of scammers when the evidence was clear they are a scammer.

I am interested to see the opinions of certain forum members.