I have been wondering the same thing since I registered on this forum, and I must admit that it is not yet completely clear to me why such activities are not completely banned. What should be emphasized is that buying/selling BTT accounts was completely legal until 2015 (let someone correct me if I'm wrong), and only then did it become something that was pushed into the gray zone.
Why is it even considered a gray zone? I honestly don't know what good can come out of those transactions. Am I being too blind/narrow sighted? I would really love to have a moderator comment on this matter mainly due to the fact that, for me, there are numerous negative points of view:
- By having these kind of threads opened on our forum shows that anyone with a wallet can have an account that is probably well more placed than the user would ever be if he created it. While I support the idea that whoever ends up buying these accounts ends up not being able to get all the "juice" from it because he/she will probably try to enter campaigns and their posts quality (especially newer ones) won't be on par with the other ones
- The sole activity of selling is for sure something that diminished the credibility of our forum because we allow those kind of activities to exist - While we may not support them we for sure don't block it so the gray zone isn't even a thing to be considered because for sure new members/visitors will just think "what kind of forum/website allows one to buy accounts and easily circumvent it's user class system?"
- It basically promotes futures scams. If we have so many good measures implemented to prevent/try to avoid users falling into these scams, why on Earth shouldn't we also adopt the same rigorous criteria for account selling?
I agree that the current situation around buying/selling BTT accounts does not send a good message to all those who come to this forum for the first time - because it all comes down to how well someone can perform the whole operation and become a Hero or Legendary overnight. For me, buying such an account is almost identical to plagiarism - because the new owner actually takes over all the content of the old owner and presents it as his work. Someone will say with the consent of the previous owner, but this is definitely not ethically correct with everything else that comes from such purchases.
For me it is even worse - you are impersonating some who you aren't and plus you're showing to other newcomers / members that there is a 2nd way for them to obtain accounts far much easier than starting their own account, and the activity itself isn't a bannable/prohibited offense, so why would they thought that they shouldn't do it? When they look at the time that they would have to invest vs paying for an "highway" entry, why wouldn't they consider the latter one?
What surprises me even more is that those who sell BTT accounts or buy them are rewarded with negative feedback, while some reputable members who participate in such agreements as escrow do not bear any responsibility - at least a very strange attitude of those who lead the main word in DT. If they want to discourage this kind of trade, then everyone involved in it is equally guilty and should bear equal responsibility.
This is also something that it is not clear to me. There's a saying in my country that's something along the lines of - You are a thief when you steal something but you're also one if you're still watching over someone who is stealing. Do you think we should open a separate thread for this discussion @Lucius? Perhaps there's really something that we are not seeing in this subject because whether we like it or not, this has been in the so called "gray zone" since 2015 ...