Sorry, wanted to address this as soon as I when I get notified through mention, but I had an uhh, interesting weekend, and I can only reply today.

Well, to summarize, we're in a loop.

I used to be quite active in weeding out scam projects, scam bounties, and other scam-related ICOs on the altcoin token sub-board before I realized it was something that we [as the whole forum, be a DT or "regular members" who has "duty" to protect and help each other] can not win simply because greed conquers all... yes, even love.

One tackled, the other will emerge. Literally.

I caught one BM before with very bad quality and lots of failed, non-paid, project. Tagged them, and they simply created another forum username. IIRC, they didn't even bother to change their TG group. They used the same channel, just posted it with different forum username as the previous one got burned.

Did the bounty participants bother to even notice this? Apparently, no. Though the real answer is, "yes, but they don't care".

Why? I strongly assume [as you and others have laid it out nicely] because it's a simple task for them.

One to three minutes daily. So there's nothing much to lose. It's a small gamble with nothing to lose for them that they don't seem to really bother with the outcome or the warnings and the red flags that's been laid by others in front of their eyes. "If it's paid, good. If it doesn't, well, it's just three minutes of my day, so yeah I don't really lose anything."

With that said, and before going with another wall of text below, I'll repeat what I said above: to summarize, we're in a loop.

Why? Because the answer to your questions, in an ideal world, will be:


1. Have a known record to manage bounties and proven to do their own DD before accepting as a sign that they do care about their participants instead of their own self-interest.

2. No, for obvious reason: security and guarantee that the participants will be paid, one way or another.

3. Tagged? No. They didn't meet the tag-feedback criteria, that'll be an abuse of DT power. Ignored? Yes. The red flag is waving at them, they choose to ignore, so they worth being ignored.

4. I still care. Though I barely actively hunting them myself, I still attend to each and every threads about bounty scam, give my hand as best as I can. Though the shit still keep on going the same regardless.

5. Fund escrowed? No. As stated on point 2, security and guarantee of payment. With fund being escrowed, the guaranteed payment is there, so no need for further collateral. No escrow? Well, yes. You play cheap by not escrowing fund to secure payment, the bounty shall need a collateral in other form.

In reality, through the glasses of all common sense served with a splash of lemon that sounds very anti-utopia, the answers are:


1. Nothing. Why? Greed. No requirements matter, even when we insist on it. If we set parameters for a BM to be eligible to manage a bounty, and we have a handful of trusted BM, who will reject a scam project because they do all their DD and know the likely outcome of the project, the project owner will just jump through BMs and eventually landed on the forum's non-approved BM that will manage the bounty. And the participants will still jump head first to that campaign managed by those non qualified BM, because, hey, three minutes.

I think this is actually how the shits begin and we ended up with this current situation: because scam-project owners got rejected by known BM and managed to get a BM-wannabe. Loop.

2. No. But refer to point 1. It'll just be another BM-hopping until they find a greedy BM-wanna-be who accept non-escrowed project. Shall those BM be tagged, then? Since they accepted a non-escrowed campaign? Ideally, yes. But in reality, won't mean much. As evidenced [by my own experience] they'll just create another account. Loop.

3. They still can't be tagged for the reason above --DT power abuse-- but if ideal world say they're eligible to be ignored, does reality agree? No. They can't be ignored. Because that'll just facilitate the scam projects and the non-qualified BM to strive and grow. The protests are ignored, unheard by the forum and their DT, they're walking free.

So the forum will hear and burn the BM. Aaaanddd... we're back to point 2 where the burnt BM will just create another account [perhaps with a fresh set of TG channel, as a precaution from the preying DT eyes], waiting for another project to hire them. Rinse and repeat. Loop.

5. [Yes, under the perspective of reality, this question should be asked and answered before number 4]. Doesn't matter. If we require projects to perform KYD, scam projects will just make fake KYD that the qualified BM will reject and the non-qualified BM will accept with open arms. As evidenced by many projects who stole ID and photos online, that can easily be found by the BM, [didn't want to brag, but it usually take less than five minutes to do a scan through the "team" section for me to find those stolen ID] or anyone, really, and yet those BM-wanna-be failed to do that.

Either they failed because they didn't do their DD and choose to blindly accept the project or they know and they don't care because they feel protected by the disclaimer they put at the bottom of the first post of their bounty thread.

4. We should. But to what end? What action and precaution and corrective measures can we take? We take action against it or not, we still ended up at the exact same spot due to all the reasons explained above. This is why point number 4 was placed at the end of the list and answered last: because this is the end and the beginning of the loop.

With that nihilistic speech slapped to the table, I'd like to also add [that rather contradict my own boring wall of text] that we're not hopeless yet. There's still an outcome.

All five of those heads of Hydra laid in front of us, we can probably find a way out. Though it's not exactly ideal or preferred, as the outcome is either involving an act of:

1. Kidnapping theymos, tickle him to near death [uhh, sir, have mercy on me, that's just empty words, not a real death threat, please don't ban me], every hour on the hour, to coerce him into eradicating the whole altcoin bounty section [before anyone protest and lead us to the topic and discussion about how this forum will be empty without campaign, the topic being discussed here is bounty campaign, the one on the alt-coin token board, the one where spam posts was conceived, born, and roam through the forum, not the signature campaigns that's formerly reign under mixers, presently and previously filled mostly by casinos] or,

2. By --quite likely we'll end up with-- violating the very core of trust feedback and trust flags, by automatically tagging [red is preferred] new accounts that want to manage bounties without prior projects in their CV, regardless of the outcome of that campaign they managed until they can prove themselves, of which the tag will then be removed, as they've prove themselves to be a qualified BM [this is how they were born in this nihilistic world, by the way] and instantly leaving a flag to those qualified BM who failed their duty, even just once.

It will require us, as the whole forum, to take that feedback and flag as the only duty and actions that DT take to ensure the wellbeing of the bounty participants. You got into a bounty with neg-tagged BM? You forfeit your right to raise any protest against the BM. You want to get paid or get a chance to protest if you didn't get paid? Well, choose BM that doesn't have a tag, work with them.

While as a BM, you want to be sure that the campaign is paying and you gradually get yourself free from the [abusive] neg tag? Well, work your ass. Do a proper DD, force the projects to do escrow, find a stairway to heaven and steal one of their gold wall, sell them to pay the hunters because your employer didn't pay you, or... find theymos and a dozen of good quality feathers... uh, point is, we don't care. You pay your participants. Period. That's the only way you get the neg tag slowly removed.

Though at first it will sound like me contradicting myself on the loop theory, specifically loop 3, about the scam projects BM-hopping, in a long term and with tremendous support by majority of those hunters in form of giving their best to cooperate and only work for BM that already cleanse themselves from the Darwinian selection called horde of neg-tags and insta-type-2-or-type-3-flag through finishing their pilgrimage and prove themselves as qualified, we'll slowly get ourselves a collective BM that'll only accept qualified projects. And perhaps qualified hunters too, as the bounty-hopping-slash-gamblers three-minutes-of-my-day hunters were selectively eliminated through ignoring their angst and cries and pleas when they didn't get paid campaign.

As for the bounty-hopping projects owner, well, just know that those BM-wana-be will do anything to get themselves through the storm of red-tags, so either you expect to be pressured to escrow or you'll get less and less participants and exposure as the hunters will learn that they'll face a risk of working for free for those BM-with-tags, so they'll prefer either the one with clean tag or the one with escrow... which basically the same.

Have I said we'll most likely violate the very core of trust feedback and trust flags through option 2? Yeah. But, it's either the loop, theymos and feathers, or abusing DT power. That, is sadly the only [current] options we have [that crossed my mind] in the anti-utopia reality-with-dash-of-lemon world, observed from the glasses [perhaps a bit myopic] of someone that once dedicated his life hunting scam projects before forced to concede and take a more passive role as reinforcer instead of a buster.