Shill Accounts/Orders - "please provide additional evidence"

Mods - start a talk between you guys and give @Sephrata a mod position to keep his investigations going. Everyone in this forum wants that so there is no reason to not give him mod status. I'm sure if we make a poll for that, he will get like 90% of votes. If you guys are here to "serve the people" and you guys constantly complain about how the resources are stretched and don't have enough mods to take care of everything, it makes sense to get @Sephrata on board as a mod.

And since no one is getting any type of remuneration, why not have another pair of hands helping to keep the forum going smoothly and reduce the number of these types of threads?

It would be nice to receive an answer as to why the mods don't want to upgrade the OP. And please don't start saying the same "no one initiated a discussion about this".

I nominate @Zwielicht to open this type of thread for the mods to discuss. You are an admin so I'm putting "pressure" on you to lead the way.

Speaking generally - not to this specific case. I think it's important to understand the process behind ban decisions from reports being made on the forum, just because someone has a suspicion and half the story doesn't mean they are correct. When threads are reported we look at the detail provided. “Suspected fraud account” isn't the level of detail we need - we have a number of backend admin tools that we use to verify connections and other details. Long gone is the IP match = ban hammer mentality.

For example 2 reports I dealt with:
"Guy is bumping 2 marketplace threads with same payment ID links provided" - sure it looks like a reason to infract - until you understand that the seller has a promotion going on across their 2 marketplace threads.

We get this sort of misunderstanding all the time. We're looking to improve transparency for all but without exposing too much as those few nefarious users can use this to get around our traps.

We all know the story about the boy who cried wolf - we have the same issue here. Where members hit report and quote "suspected fraud account" multiple times - and that's it - less weight is added to their future reports and over time they simply get removed, sure this sometimes means removing a report that's correct, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day . Where reports are successful and result in a ban then weight is added to future reported posts and it's surfaced quicker. Basically the better and more detailed the report the better and when in future we may be fortunate enough to have them apply to a mod role we can use this data as part of the application. Never had a successful report? Unlikely to become a mod. Had hundreds? We want you.!

Report reason comments like - "Diamond Damien - reported - I have proofs" aren't really the level of detail we're looking for. Give us what you have and we'll review. When proof isn't provided in the report, we ask for the proof and it's not forthcoming then we check using our tools and deal with the case as we see fit.

If someone simply reports your account with no proof would you expect to be banned? Equally, if you walk into a shop and another customer tells the manager you are shoplifting but the CCTV shows nothing being touched, then a search of your bags results in nothing found, you are not going to be banned from the shop. But the manager probably won't take that report from the other shopper so seriously next time.

Now ways to improve this - instead of an open report button we're looking to a more detailed style of report where we take the reporter down a decision tree submission style collecting information along the way, similar to the track you're taken if you've ever reported a tweet. Adding to the transparency of what we're looking for in a report again without giving the crown jewels away.

We're always on the lookout for new mods - but we don't just throw mod accounts at the first person that asks - we have an amazing team that has built organically over the years, the mod application form appears on the bottom of every page https://www.blackhatworld.com/applicationform/staff-application-form.1/form these are reviewed on a case by case basis, we will be doing another drive after BHW 2.0 has launched.

Asked - answered - closed.