He didn't harm anyone here
One could argue the 3 future winners of the contest will be harmed. I guess it'll be up to them to create an accusation, but in my opinion that will look greedy.
He can always say that he urgently needs the money and that he cannot afford it at the moment.
That's a good point, and I wouldn't want to discourage users from doing nice things because they fear reputation damage if they can't fulfill it. That's also the reason I didn't leave (neutral) feedback with
my post about it.
I do not see any difference in Symmetrick Ratimov's promise too. He can not deny a trade that was agreed between him and other parties.
It wasn't really a trade.
I've had a (back then reputable) online casino offer me a monthly sponsor deal for loyce.club. After the first month, they didn't keep their promises anymore. By now that account turned into an exit scam, but at the time it didn't seem like a good reason for a scam accusation. I lost nothing from breaking a promise to something I never had.Sym-whatshisname said "sponsor". That's very different from "donor". Sponsorship is very likely to be a contract because it implies that the sponsor is receiving something in return. Words matter. No one forced him to call it that, his choice, his contract, his failure to execute.
He basically bought some temporary reputation without paying for it when he decided his reputation isn't worth the money anymore.
You could even argue that a flag type 3 is warranted but only if raised by a participant, I mean, if I was told that if I participate and do a,b,c I could win some x prize, and after that you decide that you no longer want to give me my potential prize, you have certainly violated a contract.
That's a good point.
Ratimov's post was only #11 in the thread, which means most participants posted after his
pledge to increase the prize money by ~10 fold.
Such actions should be frowned upon, or else, someone can start a thread saying they will give away 10 btc for the winner, gets a ton of merit for being generous to the community, and then a few weeks before payment time, they pull the plug.
A few Newbies tried this with a (small) giveaway, then earned Merit, and didn't pay. That's why now most users stopped giving Merit to Newbie giveaway threads, but reputable members still get Merited when they do this. After all, those posts are worth reading.