I request that the rules list be reviewed and updated with appropriate guidance to users about the form of spam known as ICO bumping.
It is obviously spam by any reasonable (or even useful) definition of the word. I don’t think anybody can reasonably argue that users should not already expect to be banned for it, just as for any other form of spam. Nevertheless, on grounds that more user education is usually better than less, I suggest that it would be wise to give this issue an explicit treatment in the unofficial rules list that everybody is supposed to read.
Unfortunately, I myself do not know and could not readily find any relevant quotes from administrators or staff on this issue; I would appreciate if somebody could provide some.
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That's already covered by the list of rules since it:
1) Limits thread bumps to once per 24 hours.
2) Prohibits users from incentivizing posting (or, consequently, participating in such incentivized posting) in one or more specific threads if the incentive is an altcoin.
3) Limits incentivized posting to Games and Rounds (where only Bitcoin giveaways are considered on-topic)
Here are the corresponding rules:
2. No off-topic posts.
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13. Bumps, "updates" are limited to once per 24 hours.[2]
14. All altcoin related discussion belongs in the Alternate cryptocurrencies and it's child boards. [3][4][e]
15. No on-forum altcoin giveaways. [6][e]
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Games and rounds (child board of Gambling) - "Spreadsheet games, forum-based games, and discussion of individual rounds/games on other sites." All Bitcoin giveaways, raffles, contests also go here.
I might try to work the "you can only incentivize posting in a Games and Rounds topic" into the rules at some point, but I'm not sure whether I should do so and if I should, how to do so properly because each rule added bloats the thread to the point where it becomes useless for the average casual user (the audience this thread was aimed at in the first place).
Yet pretty much every ICO bumping service is breaking all the ones that you have listed (fake conversations per definition break all 3 and they are paid in tokens or altcoins usually). What are you doing about them?