Banning bought accounts isn't the most challenges if refered with the incidents that had happened with the mentioned accounts. What matters most is how to get rid of the culprit who's responsible for selling of those accounts because when you get rid of those obvious bought accounts, the farmer selling the accounts will still create more accounts to be sold. That's if really it's succeeded in banning the available sold ones.
What I don't know is whose obligation is it that tracks bought accounts so they can always keep on hunting them to justify the forum scam free with the bought accounts.
Banning the buying and selling of accounts is a challenge. You're not just going to ban an account simply because you feel the writing pattern has changed or the person nows spam. Before you ban such accounts you have to be certain with proof that the account was sold and bought by someone else.
What if the person who bought the account is actually using it well? What if he makes posts that help the community and don't break any of the forum laws? What do you do then? Make an exception? I think there will be too much grey area if the buying and selling of accounts is illegal, that's why it's not illegal but discouraged.
Even in the real world, there are things that are not illegal, but not ethical.
When I was new in this forum, I was found of criticizing theymos and his method of moderating the forum. But as time passes, I understood that everything was well thought out, maybe from past experience of forum moderations.
- Scam not moderated: If scam was to be moderated, I imagine the hassle in admins and moderators to determine that someone is a true scammer.
- Sales of accounts: If this was prohibited, how would the forum know who which accounts changed hands
- Multiple accounts: If multiple accounts was prohibited, it means there will be regular ip scan by the admin to determine multiple accounts and those browsing privately will pose a big issue.
So, in order to avoid all these, alot of freedom was given and even moderation is treated in case -by- case basis.