Few suggestions

Feeble-minded.

Would you add more fuel to an already burning interest? Whether the interest is malicious or not, you cannot be certain. But even if we don't know his intentions, there is at least one way to stop it from growing.

 

I don't know what that's supposed to mean :l lol

 

*sigh* Figured I'd have to simplify it.

Let's see, your suggestion was to ban people who post threads like this.

Now, my argument is that you'd only be encouraging them to do what they're doing. Now, let's assume there's a guy named Bob. Bob is a twelve year old RuneScape player (and Sythe member, referred here by his brother) who doesn't really understand much about computers. While PKing, he hears about some guys that "DDOS" other people gaining millions of easy GP without a sweat. Curious, he googles it and finds more about it from Wikipedia.

Even though he doesn't really understand how it really works, he is determined to learn how to "DDOS", because he desperately wants those expensive Prayer levels on RS, and for that, he needs cash; and for cash, he needs to spend a considerable amount of time on the game, but Bob wants to get his goal as soon as he can.

Because he doesn't have many sources, he decides to search for "Free DDOS'er" on Google. He goes to a few random forum topics, but they all have posts saying that the OP has a virus in the link. Closing the tab, he notices a YouTube video. He clicks on it, and then watches the entire thing attentively. Then he reads the description, and sees a link that says will give a program helping him to DDOS.

Even though Bob is twelve, he has a little bit of common sense. Because he's not very e-social, he decides to go to the one online forum community he's a member of; Sythe.

Because he's twelve and hates reading, he has already skipped the rules when he joined. So without any knowledge of what's allowed and what's not, he decides to post in the RS2 Cheating section asking whether the link is safe or not. People doubt his intentions, and think he should be banned before he decides to DDOS some random Sythe member.

What people don't realize is once you do this, you'll only enrage Bob. He will still be determined to find the answer to his question, and will google further. By co-incidence, he may run into HackForums, a more reliable community when it comes to hacking or the sorts. He'll immediately join, and gain more knowledge on the subject than he'd ever gain by asking it on Sythe.

Years will pass, and one day Bob will become a well-known hacker on the forums. He will recall of Sythe, and how the staff there shunned him. He will want his revenge for the grief they caused him, leading to a massive DDOS attack which will then lead to a long server downtime; or he might want revenge against the person who banned him.

Now, what would happen if we simply warned Bob? Why didn't we just tell him, "Hey Bob, I think you should know that DDOSing, hacking and stuff like that aren't allowed on Sythe. You should stop it if you really value your Sythe account,"? Wouldn't that have made him think twice, and possibly made him make a different decision?

As the owner of your community, your only concern should be the safety of your members, and your members alone. It's like America poking into the business of other countries, when your own concern should be your own bloody problems. Don't increase the amount you have by enraging others.

 

By this logic we should not ban scammers that have conducted large trades, as if they're banned, they'll charge back.

Also, Reductio ad absurdum.

I disagree with the first suggestion because of censorship.

I agree with the second suggestion, as clearly they've shown intent in malicious activities, and should be punished as such. Maybe a 30 day suspension would suffice to those asking about these illegal activities.

 

The reason that we call them scammers in the first place is because they charged back.

I guess I can agree with this, since you are so bent on giving out at least some sort of punishment.

 

So charging back is the only way to scam?

If someone shows intent to commit malicious activities, would it be fair to say they be punished?

You shouldn't need to employ a slippery slope-like Reducto ad absurdum argument, which accounts for 1 out of 1,000 and hence therefore the rule should not be enforced.
It's exactly like saying fish is bad for you because if you eat too much of it, it will cause mercury poisoning. True? Sure. Absurd? Definitely.

 

Even if a scam was committed in a different trade, I have never said nor implied the punishment should be different. And anyhow, a scammer who has been banned is highly likely to charge-back on all of his transactions, so I think it'd be foolish to co-operate with someone who has been proven dishonest.

Warned.

The situation I described is one of many possibilities. They could start evading; and maybe even scamming too, since a ban on their heads wouldn't mean much to them anymore.

 

Actually, this isn't a scenario. But let's get real. The people who post this aren't 12 year olds.
Maybe switching it from a perm to temp ban?