Scamming Subforum Closed

While Mindbuster and I come up with a workable solution for managing the Scamming subforum, it has been temporaily removed.

The problem is that such a forum makes it much too easy for one member to run a smear campaign against another member, often without proof of wrongdoing. Presumably the purpose for this is to appeal to the EF commmunity to make a judgement, or to inform other members to beware. The problem with this approach is that there are always two sides to every story, and one side will always present the story in a manner that is favorable for one's own "case". It is unrealistic, then, to expect the court of public opinion (other EF members) to make a fair and unbiased judgement, since this "court" rarely ever has enough information.

Another problem is that the scamming forum demands an inordinate amount of attention from the moderators, who are already very busy. Their valuable time should not be spent settling flame wars, scandals and pissing matches. If it is, the rest of the forum suffers.

The general rule on EntropiaForum is that such issues should be worked out via PM, or through the filing of a support case with Mindark. The purpose of this forum is not to discuss such private matters in public.

Rule # 13
Personal issues between individuals or within a society should NOT be debated in the public forum areas. Such threads will be removed, since they often promote an escalation of rudeness, insults, and flaming. There are always multiple sides to a story, and airing the issues in a thread invites other forum members to become third-party subjective judges regarding issues of which they have no first-hand knowledge. Too often, this results in problems not only to the individuals, but to entire EU societies and the EU and EF communities as a whole.

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At the same time, we understand that reporting certain common scam tactics on this forum helps other members avoid becoming victims. We are trying to find a compromise that is in the best interest of EF as a whole.

The scamming section on EF has so far caused more arguments and division of the EF community than it has done good, in mine and Mindbuster's opinion. We are considering creating instead a special section that outlines the more common scam tactics, so that newer players can learn what to avoid (such as the armor upgrade scam, etc.). An announcement will be made once MB and I come to a final decision on the bast way to handle this issue.

Please do not post threads that were formerly permitted in the scamming section, such as accusing an individual of wrongdoing. The first step should always be filing a support case.


All of the old threads are still in the database, so if it is decided to reinstate the old scamming forum, nothing will be lost.

Thanks for your cooperation.

good call on this

Yet more and more censorship

Seems everything is censored now, what is the definition of a forum I wonder!

Think that's a good plan. There's value in people being able to post about types of scams they've witnessed so that people are aware of the dangers. But naming and shaming here is pointless and problematic imo:

(i) Possibility of false accusations,
(ii) Should be dealt with via MA not EF,
(iii) Is of no use to people unless they are planning on memorising the names of all the supposed scammers,
(iv) Only causes arguments,
(v) Just warns scammers that people are on to them, whereupon they can close down their old avatar and restart with a new unknown avatar.

great points Jimmy

It's not closed; it's completely removed if I'm not mistaking

While working toward a solution, just disabled creating new posts in that section, but keep the existing threads readable.

If you don't, then now is the time for former soc-scammers to get into new socs again because noone can check their history

Jimmy B said:

(iii) Is of no use to people unless they are planning on memorising the names of all the supposed scammers,

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You never run a check on someone by searching for usernames on this forum before trading or allowing them to soc?

stevel said:

Seems everything is censored now, what is the definition of a forum I wonder!

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I think this is a great idea. Freedom of speech should not be a means to defamation of character. If the person did the crime then proof is needed. I'm glad that 711 and Mindbuster have recognised this and are working to put a system in place to report scammers with the needed safeguards to protect the innocent. Sorry if you view this as censorship. I view it as due diligence.

In my opinion, a good compromise would be to disallow the naming of a scammer to prevent smear campaigns. Scam tactics and screenies can be posted but names cannot be mentioned and must be removed from the pictures posted.

Naming names is almost always pointless anyway. 99% of the time it's a fake account that probably doesn't exist any more by the time someone posts here. The other 1% of the time when it's a known avatar the post will just start a war of people arguing whether or not the person is really a scammer.

What if the forum was only for posting about the MO of scammers and how specific scams work. This is the actual information that is useful for noobs that want to make sure they don't get scammed.

Good move. I especially like the idea of listing some of the most common scams (not Skams) without any names, to help noobs avoid them.

+rep to you, 711 - whoever you are.

EyeContact said:

You never run a check on someone by searching for usernames on this forum before trading or allowing them to soc?

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No. I'm quite capable of determining whether or not someone is trying to scam me during a trade; by myself. I'm in a small society, we all know each other pretty well - we've only had one new member since I joined as far as I can recall. If I was to encourage someone else to join it would be either someone I already know in-game or in RL, or possibly a disciple (in which case I would get to know them first).

I honestly couldn't tell you a single name that appeared in the scamming section of the forum. And I couldn't care less. If I have ever spent any time in that section it is because I do think it is useful to know the MO of scammers. I'm not interested in who's doing it though.

I am not the Police, nor am I MA. If I spotted someone scamming I would contact MA about it. If I was the victim of a significant scam myself I may well contact both. If the scam was new I would publish the method here. The forum's purpose in this matter can only be to provide education, not to deal out justice - we don't have the right nor the means.

simple solution is to stipulate no names, in the case of drawing attention to a particular problem, or names backed by screenshots of the incident. problem there is that often the scammee doesnt realise until its too late and chat windows are closed.

other than that, the way forward is heavy moderation. i can see thats fun. shame to see the forum go though, its needed to curtail the excesses of scammers.

Mindbuster and I have come up with a solution for this issue.

We have created a new subforum named ooOOOoOOooOoOOOoo for outdated threads and closed parts of EF. This subforum is closed to new threads and posts.

The former Scamming forum is now a subforum of ooOOOoOOooOoOOOoo, which will allow the threads and post content to be read by all members, and indexed in the forum search utility, but no new replies or threads can be created.

A new rule has been added to the forum rules prohibiting personal accusations of scamming (naming EU avatars or EF members).

We will also move several threads that ouline some of the more common scamming tactics (such as armor upgrades, armor coloring, etc). into the Sticky threads area and Noobs corner to help keep new members informed on how to avoid being victimized by would-be scammers.

711 said:

Mindbuster and I have come up with a solution for this issue.

We have created a new subforum named ooOOOoOOooOoOOOoo for outdated threads and closed parts of EF. This subforum is closed to new threads and posts.

The former Scamming forum is now a subforum of ooOOOoOOooOoOOOoo, which will allow the threads and post content to be read by all members, and indexed in the forum search utility, but no new replies or threads can be created.

A new rule has been added to the forum rules prohibiting personal accusations of scamming (naming EU avatars or EF members).

We will also move several threads that ouline some of the more common scamming tactics (such as armor upgrades, armor coloring, etc). into the Sticky threads area and Noobs corner to help keep new members informed on how to avoid being victimized by would-be scammers.

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Was it part of the new policy to purposely delete the scamming post about a well-known uber player in a closely related society? I went to go find it and all references to it seem to have been completely removed, while other scamming posts were copied over to the new location.

My understanding was that post followed the rules of the scamming thread at the time, so I'm not clear why it was deleted while others were copied over. It had already been locked, and obviously was not a gross abuse of the rules at the time it was posted or else it would have been removed immediately. Am I to understand that friends of the forum and it's owner/mods will get extra protection to their reputation dispite their mistakes?

Don't get me wrong ... I don't wish to rehash that particular "scamming" report ... but it bothers me that there is no reference to this post at all left on this site, as if it never appeared, while the other posts from that forum were copied over without hesitation.

From what I heard, the reason the poster decided to make the post here was because he felt passionate about ubers' mistakes/scams/disputes not be covered up as favors while only lower-level players are exposed. It just feels like this is what is happening here ...

+ rep coming your way Felicity

Felicity said:

Was it part of the new policy to purposely delete the scamming post about a well-known uber player in a closely related society? I went to go find it and all references to it seem to have been completely removed, while other scamming posts were copied over to the new location.

My understanding was that post followed the rules of the scamming thread at the time, so I'm not clear why it was deleted while others were copied over. It had already been locked, and obviously was not a gross abuse of the rules at the time it was posted or else it would have been removed immediately. Am I to understand that friends of the forum and it's owner/mods will get extra protection to their reputation dispite their mistakes?

Don't get me wrong ... I don't wish to rehash that particular "scamming" report ... but it bothers me that there is no reference to this post at all left on this site, as if it never appeared, while the other posts from that forum were copied over without hesitation.

From what I heard, the reason the poster decided to make the post here was because he felt passionate about ubers' mistakes/scams/disputes not be covered up as favors while only lower-level players are exposed. It just feels like this is what is happening here ...

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I thought personal attacks (implied or otherwise) should be kept in PM.

Joser said:

I thought personal attacks (implied or otherwise) should be kept in PM.

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Arent' scamming threads always personal attacks?

Einstein said:

Arent' scamming threads always personal attacks?

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Thus the reason for that forum's closure...

Joser said:

Thus the reason for that forum's closure...

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Fine, but all the other scamming threads were copied over to the dead forum. Except the one that I mentioned has been removed, it's inaccessible, and there is no sign of it on this site (even when looking through history of the person who posted it).

So my question is why the conversion/policy applied differently to the uber-friend of the forum admins than it does to the other "scammers" who were mentioned in posts on that thread.

The solution was simple, allow the continuation of Scammers...Beware posts, providing solid proof was also supplied in the form of screenshots.

Instead, we are now not allowed to name and shame atall.

One step closer to George Orwell's 1984, Equilibrium and any other Dictatorship & Mind Control philosophy you can think of.

Felicity said:

Fine, but all the other scamming threads were copied over to the dead forum. Except the one that I mentioned has been removed, it's inaccessible, and there is no sign of it on this site (even when looking through history of the person who posted it).

So my question is why the conversion/policy applied differently to the uber-friend of the forum admins than it does to the other "scammers" who were mentioned in posts on that thread.

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Rule #23 was updated to include chat logs - if we are thinking of the same post.

I think Felicity has a point. +rep for Felicity.

Not wanting to get into the discussion of what is, and what is not allowed on EF. I love EF and spend a lot of time here. I do agree that it can be a difficult thing to sort the wheat from the chaff. And I have no problems with rules etc. It is not my forum, and if I want to hang around I will abide by the rules as far as I can. But I do have a problem with the favouritism on a supposedly 'Independant' forum that seems to have been displayed.

All other Scamming posts are there, but un-replyable to. Fine. No problems there. A useful reference of known scammers etc till the date it was taken down and moved. How come one thread has been removed, while all the rest remain??

Johned said:

Rule #23 was updated to include chat logs - if we are thinking of the same post.

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kinda convenient retrospective application of the rules though. the discussion in question didnt occur to me earlier (personally i dont see as it as scamming as such, just good old fashoin tit for tat amongst the aristorcracy), but in retrospect its obvious that this spured the change to the rules. Which is sad, as it mean a little bit of the sence of community is lost.

aridash said:

kinda convenient retrospective application of the rules though. the discussion in question didnt occur to me earlier (personally i dont see as it as scamming as such, just good old fashoin tit for tat amongst the aristorcracy), but in retrospect its obvious that this spured the change to the rules. Which is sad, as it mean a little bit of the sence of community is lost.

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Sorry Aridash; cannot agree with that phrase "a little bit".

+rep to Felicity.

There is no "favoritism" here. As I explained quite clearly on IRC, if anything there was REVERSE favoritism. If TanMan had posted a private MSN chatlog of ANY other people, he would have been banned immediately and the thread removed. Precisely to avoid accusations of favoritsm, my hands were tied.

I thought the rule about posting PMs and such was clear enough before, but TanMan apparently wanted to use semantics, and said "well the rules say nothing about chat logs". To me and most people I know, it is common sense that one should not post any form of private communications on a public forum without explicit consent of the parties involved, and regardless of the source of the logs. After this incident, it became clear that a more specific rule was needed that include email, chat logs and such.

711 said:

To me and most people I know, it is common sense that one should not post any form of private communications on a public forum without explicit consent of the parties involved, and regardless of the source of the logs.

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I think everyone posted ingame screenies of pm's in the scamming forum?

Einstein said:

I think everyone posted ingame screenies of pm's in the scamming forum?

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I did not create the Scamming forum, I inherited it, and had issues with it from the beginning. Also, Mindbuster shared the history of that subforum with me, and he never really wanted to add it in the first place, for all the reasons I listed in my earlier posts in this thread.

Again, as I have discussed on IRC (check your logs), I cannot make all the changes I would like to EF overnight. As some issues rear up and call for attention, they increase in priority. This issue with TanMan's thread simply sped up the removal of the scamming forum, which I had planned to do anyway.

711 said:

I did not create the Scamming forum, I inherited it, and had issues with it from the beginning. Also, Mindbuster shared the history of that subforum with me, and he never really wanted to add it in the first place, for all the reasons I listed in my earlier posts in this thread.

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That's fine, and yet you chose to retrospectively apply the new rules only to the one post that was about a "forum friend" (I'll leave it at that, you know what I mean).

As Einstein mentioned, I'm pretty sure the other posts that you transfered over included private chat logs related to the scam .. as that was one of the rules of that old forum that they be included. Yet, all of those were transfered over without problem.

My issue is not related to that particular player, or even that post. My issue is with the fact that you are chosing to apply the rules differently, and the only reason I can see for it is favoritism.

I'd hate to think that this forum is going to moderate the news shared here (on whatever subject, in whichever thread) based upon how it makes the "forum friends" look.

Personally i think it's great the scamming forum is gone, it's nothing for a big forum like this because making up a fake scamming thread is way too easy, even with screenshots. And ones reputation can get fucked pretty quickly.

I just don't like favoritism.