Wrongly accused "sock puppet" accounts - Request to the community

General Discussion
#18

It is funny how this topic comes up every time the price rises. But seriously guys, it is just too late. So much time has passed since then and there was already so much discussion. Also, there was plenty time to do all the necessary things to receive a stake. And then there was plenty time for complaints afterwards.

I did not receive a stake because I missed the deadline. But the price of XEM was VERY low for a long time and it was possible to buy XEM for the price of Lollypops.

So, what I am saying is, you need to get over it. You can’t just sign up somewhere and be gone for two years and then come back and expect everything to work itself out.

#19

I understand the viewpoint of wanting to be done with all off this and move onto other things. I feel the same way. I would like to thank those of you who provided the reasons for your thoughts of just closing the matter instead of just saying “its over get over it”.

I do have a few questions that I would like answered before I drop this though.

How many people were eliminated from the final stakeholder list? rajc stated that EVERY Single sock puppet would claim that it is wrongly accused. how many people would that be to sort through? How much time would it take? I do not know how many people are extremely wealthy on this forum but $26000 is a lot of money. You could pay someone for 2,600 hours of work at $10 an hour to sort through this for the cost of one stake. I fail to see how it would be difficult to find someone trustworthy to take the time to sort this through for a percentage of stakes returned.

As far as the topic coming up as the price rises it only makes sense. In my case after my wife and I were on the final stakeholder list and we got our wallets set up we thought that everything was taken care of. I only had access to my work computer at that point and did not want to download the wallet onto it. So we just checked the price every month or so and did not see a reason to sell. So we did not download our wallets until this recent price pump as this seemed a good time to sell a portion as the price is high and we are expecting our third child in August and needed the money to prepare. we were shocked and horrified that our balances were 0. That is also why we did not buy more when it was cheep. We thought we had full stakes and did not need any more.

As far as being gone for a length of time and expecting things to work out, I still have my NXT, a partial bitcoin and a scattering of other coins. Why was it strange to expect that I would have my NEM as well? I addressed the issue as soon as I realized I did not have it.

When it is stated that NEM is made up of volunteers and does not have the time nor energy to sort this out anymore. Would it help if my wife and I contributed 10% of our stakes to the person or persons who help prove or disprove that we are not in fact sock puppets? That would be nearly 5000 dollars. Even if it took 100 hours to get this sorted out that would equal 50 dollars an hour, far from volunteer work! I do not understand this argument.

One of the problems of crypto currency in general right now is how unforgiving it is of mistakes or misinformation. Until we can take steps to start solving this it will be far out of reach of the average person and general acceptance. If this can be resolved I would be quite willing to post topics on bitcoin talk and the nxt forum about how awesome the NEM community was in fixing a mistake that happened a year ago. Also I would be willing to bring it to out local paper. I am quite sure that it would be very good PR and an interesting human interest piece about how NEM helped a family who is expecting their 3rd child recover their lost funds. I would not be surprised if others would be willing to do similar things. It seems like the community would actually come out ahead by doing this.

Hypothetically, what would be needed to prove ownership of the stakes that were taken from those who followed the steps to reclaim and were on the final stakeholder list? Bank records? pictures? Skype conversations? There must be some way to prove that we are not puppets and that we did play by the rules.

Thanks again for you time

1 Like
#20

You said you setup your wallet in the beginning, did you not verify the initial balance at the time?

I feel your pain if legit … but I think the big concern is once 1 is given, there would be endless requests for claiming again. There was a time to state your case but its come and gone.

#22

Greentea, Thanks for your thoughtful response. From what I can remember I registered my account through the token I received before the distribution took place. Since I had taken care of this and my name was on the final stake holder list I assumed that everything was good to go. I never thought that the “final” stakeholder list was not actually final. When my wife started struggling more with pregnancy related depression I put all of my Crypto stuff on hold and did not check back into it until things started going better in our personal lives. At that time I was convinced that we had received our NEM stakes. apparently I was in error.

One question that I would still like addressed is about the endless requests if any account is granted their NEM. How many accounts were eliminated from the final stake holder list? Also from that number how many brought their concerns up? their surely can’t be that many left? are their 10? 20? 50? It is a finite number of accounts and from what I understand each account has at least 2 other accounts tied to it. Which should further reduce the number of cases that need to be looked at. Does anyone have this number at hand? Or could anyone show me where I could find the stake holder list along with the people that were eliminated? I could do the research myself.

#23

There was a fixed amount of people from whom the stakes were taken away from, so there wouldn’t be endless requests. That’s just a bad argument.

There were people who were wrongly accused of being sockpuppets, and if they have the proof to show that they weren’t, why can’t you just let them do that? There might be some work to go through these requests, but shouldn’t fairness and equality be the core principles of NEM? That’s at least how it was marketed in the beginning. Do you think that removing people from the final stakeholder list without notifying them personally and without giving them the chance to protest even after some arbitrary time limit has passed is fair and equal?

“NEM will follow the principle of fluid organization. We believe the
NEM’s core principles of fairness and equality will attract many other
talented developers and helpers.” - from bitcointalk

2 Likes
#24

@XDM Here quote from other thread

Tech Support FAQ (Update: 0810017)
#25

Pheromone,
Thanks for the response. To redeem/claim a stake we had to take the token that we were given and claim it on the website to create our privatekey/account correct? I did this during the redemption time. So I thought I claimed my stake. I believe that it was not given to me due to a sock puppet allegation. This is different from me never claiming it as far as I can tell.

From the link that you gave it seems that there are over 2 billion NEM in the sustainability funds. It seems like there is enough there to return the funds that were taken from that last sock puppet hunt without damaging the development of NEM. It could actually help it if there would be a news campaign about the return of the funds to those that it could be proven incorrectly taken from. One of peoples big fears with crypto is that one mistake can destroy all of your finances. While that is true to an extent for instance if you give someone your password and they steal your funds, I think it could go a long way if there was a community that was committed to helping those that it could.

Most of the stakeholder links that I could find link to pages that no longer exist. Does someone have a link that shows the people that were eliminated from the “final” stakeholder list?

1 Like
#26

and what kind of proof that would be? who will decide if that proof is enough? community voting?

i personally can not thing of any proof that could not be faked with that kind of money they are asking (few NEM stakes)

#27

Out of curiosity do you still of the evidence that was used to eliminate people from the final stake holder list? Seeing if that evidence could be addressed would probably be a good place to start.

#28

I think, you can still find all the evidence you need in this forum and bitcointalk… e.g stakeholder list and discussions, final list, verification methods etc.

1 Like
#29

i did some digging for you.
Most gdocs links with stakeholders lists do not work any more. The main guy responsible for distribution (utopianfuture) is not in crypto any more - Last Active: June 14, 2014, 07:41:24 PM according to bitcointalk.

what i could find:
there were 2 rounds of stakeholder audit, first was https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=496112.0 second i did not find (there is some not working link in gdocs file below)

some working link to probably not updated stakeholder list:
NEM final stakeholder list - post UP
as you can see in “addition” tab that there were at least 16 wrongly accused socks who got their stakes back

btt thread about "NEM stake complaint, questions etc."
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=450200.0
there is where ppl were writing these kind of complains from February 05, 2014, to May 09, 2014,

June 13, 2014, - new main btt thread "NEM Official Non-Moderated Thread [Updates & Discussion]"
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=650274.0

  • looks like they had final stakeholder list, but link does not work, there is just some info about distribution

next btt thread "NEM - New Economy Movement - Refund/Account Change Requests & Complaints"
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=650500.0
from June 13, 2014 to August 19, 2014 - handled mostly by patmast3r since ut was gone

Launch was at March 31, 2015, so there is LOTS of posts/threads to go though and I dont have time for that.

this btt post sums it nicely:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=450200.msg4958162#msg4958162
"I have been following the nem threads and am amazed at the lengths some people go to get a bigger stake. Whole family members down to toddlers are apparently getting in on this. Peoples greed has no limit. Devs are doing a really good job at trying to keep it fair but it seems the parasites are allways close by. Some of the stories here stagger the imagination. I have teen kids that im getting involved in crypto. I get them to mine the easy coins like ccoin where they see how things work and can get some blocks with relatively low hash. I will share my stake with them and not try to swindle out a stake for some made up family members and friends. Why cant you people do the same???"

2 Likes
#30

"what kind of proof that would be?"
Well actually it’s first your task to show the proof for the accusation.

Yes I was one of those who got accused of being a sockpuppet. I had reserved only one stake and there is no way someone could have claimed another stake from my computer or ip address. So I had no reason to even consider the possibility that I might not get my stake and only noticed it when trying to open my wallet for the first time. The only explanations I can think of are a mistake and someone deliberately removing innocent people from the list.

2 Likes
#31

Thanks rajc,

I will look though these. I did find the final stake holder list that you posted. Do you know what the highlighting means? Also what does the scientific notation mean in the hash column? both my wife and I have it. this is what is after my nick 7.17E+18.

#32

that is not final stakeholder list, so you are still there … you were probably eliminated in second round, but i dont know who did that …
that scientific notation is some tx id, but google sheets displays it wrongly

#33

what is your bitcointalk account?

#34

You can gather the data etc, however I think it’s not possible to re-open the redemption process. The community have decided about it long ago.

If you still interested, you can buy from the open market and start harvesting for more. At 0.01cts/xem now is still good price, as it still in beta stage, if everything goes according to plan, it could worth more.

Also anyone can take part in building, marketing, other activities to earn bounties / regular payment. If you search in the forum you will find who to contact for specific project. It may not be the same as at initial participation call, but it’s a start.

#35

We were on the final stake holder list and we did the redemption process in time. The thing is that the adresses we were given during that process show zero balance.

Amen!

2 Likes
#36

The logic here: Something was decided long ago by someone and now nothing can be done anymore. It just proves that the people behind nem are as greedy and selfish as with any coin and the talk of fairness is just basic bullshit advertising. Oh we can still buy nem from the open market with a good price? Well that comforts a lot when the stakes that would now be worth $25k were basically stolen from us.

1 Like
#37

I agree with you.

I knew NEM was going to become valuable because it did a lot of things that no other coin did. So I created a bitcointalk account especially to safeguard my stake, with a special password, so that if my regular bitcointalk password got stolen somewhere else, that it would not affect my stake.

I checked back a few times, and I thought I had claimed my stake… instead I also just got an empty account.

It’s little things like this, that give community projects all over the world a bad name. Just a few community members make decisions that affect others.

I still hope someone else comes up with a better coin than NEM… because it doesn’t looke like NEM will be it, and the NEM people have made enough money now, so they don’t care any more. That is what people who are only in it for the money do. Once they have money, they stop caring. They don’t even try. They don’t even know what they want the money for in the first place, they just want more and more money.

With this stake, I could have started a company. I could have provided employment for people. I could have made the world a better place.

But now it will take me much longer.

#38

I also have backup copies and links… for if someone can get through to the overlords.

I have another plan - if there are enough of us, and if we can convince most NEM holders to let us become part of the community, and if the overlords still refuse, we can just fork it.

Or start a new coin, the perfect coin is not out yet, nor is the perfect distribution model… but there are some good bits to pick and choose from.