I issued the ban. Quote from the thread:
- If you have less than 10,000 followers, then post an LTC address so that we can pay you in LTC. This is to avoid dust payment.
Quote from the stickied thread I've linked in the ban message (additional emphasis added by me):
Incentivizing posting within one or several threads via low effort tasks (e.g. signups or proof of participation for liking, following, subscribing, retweeting,
tweeting a single tweet, joining a channel or group, etc.) is not allowed as it falls under the "no altcoin giveaways" rule (
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2103687.0):
You can't offer to pay people who post their addresses, usernames, etc.
Accepting signups or requiring proof of participation for tasks requiring substantial effort (e.g. signature campaign signups, weekly social media campaign reports, media (videos, images, articles, etc.) bounty signups, etc.) via a thread posted in Bounties (Altcoins) is allowed though.
The user in question posting the thread in the wrong board is on them and the only thing this changes is that the participants didn't get bannned (as per how theymos handled a similar case in the past). The effect of this giveaway is the same as many others that had their threads trashed and their accounts temp banned: a low barrier of entry and an incentive to post for altcoins. The ban issued was of the same duration as similar offenses in the past. While I personally wouldn't be against lowering the duration to 14 days, I didn't feel like it was my call to decide on exceptions based on favoritism or subjective assessments of what's "cool". That's something you're going to have to petition theymos for.
The thread was brought to my attention via a report. So if you notice any similar giveaways (in Bounties (Altcoins) or other boards), feel free to report them.
The last one I remember happened with a newbie who was genuinely asking question on mining board, but his post/s was/were deleted. Ultimately, by giving the excuse of keeping the forum clean, we are demoralizing genuine crypto lovers, or what message you think are being sent to them?
From what I've heard, the mining boards have much stricter moderation compared to most other sections. If you think they're going overboard, I'd suggest either starting a Meta thread about it or PMing theymos and / or Cyrus.