Bitcoin Forum

Here's my bitcoin-otc rating:

http://bitcoin-otc.com/viewratingdetail.php?nick=Herodes&sign=ANY&type=RECV


When I looked at it just now, I received a -10 rating from someone named Supa, and by looking at it, it seems he's been giving a lot of people a -10 rating. This is immature, foolish and scammy.

I never traded with this guy, and if you check around on bitcoin-otc, you can see that lots of big names, like sturles and Nanotube also got neg-rated. So this is obvious misuse.

Can we fix this somehow, or protect against it in the future ?

Should bitcoin-otc be invite only perhaps, so that only users with good ratings could add friends or people they think are honest ? Seems like giving avg. joe access is destined for failure, what if someone sets up lots of users and makes ratings of legit users seem bad ? Unless there's some protections in place, that would be possible.

Now, this is not a very big deal for seasoned traders, and I won't lose any sleep over it, but when trying to do some deals, newcomers may be scared off if I have a -10 on my scoresheet so to speak.

What do you guys think ? Perhaps in cases like this is should be possible to speak to Nanotube and have the user in question blocked from making feedback, but I guess that would be futile as he'd only make a new account..

It doesn't seem like a problem to me.

The concept of a Web of Trust relies on a chain of people connecting parties. If you've never traded with this guy, and I've never traded with him, then the -10 won't matter. If he's in our connecting chain, a quick glance will show what you just discovered - that the guy has a history of issuing only negative reviews.

WoT isn't a score intended to verify that you're cool; it's only intended to give some background information to help me make that decision.

As an aside, there's no reason an improved WoT couldn't be built so that transactions were input prior to them taking place, and the initiation signed with both parties' keys. Then, only verified transactions would hit the network.

Know a programming language? :) If you can import user data from the existing system, you could build this as an overlay.

Sure do - unfortunately too busy with other projects. Thanks for the opinions though, seems reasonable.

I understand exactly how you feel. I have gotten probally 4 or 5 from supa,supa1,supa2,supa3,supa4, and supa5.I also have 5 or 6 other negitive ratings from fake shill accounts that tried to blackmail me with negitives into paying him off.I contacted nanotube(otc owner) who refused to do anything about it. Something needs to be done. Even a simple feature such as when someone reaches -100 all of there ratings disappear or something like that.

yea the second part lol. Just if you check my ratings you will see i have like 10 ratings from scammers/shill accounts negatively rating me.

Perhaps the possibility of rating should only be allowed if both parties have PGP-signed a trade contract ? If anyone wants at this point in time, they could write a bot to neg-rate everybody with several false users, and thus wrecking the entire market as there would be too much data to sift through for legit users.

You mad bro?

The idea is that you would both irrevocably agree to be rated prior to transacting.

That's the idea - you're taking a risk by transacting with someone who refuses to agree to be rated.

This wouldn't necessarily exist to the exclusion of the current system, either, but as an augment to it. If someone agreed to a price, then agreed to a pre-authorized rated transaction, and has a good rating already - there's a very good chance they are trustworthy. When those requirements aren't met, you are taking on additional risk.

I tought a little bit about it.

I think admin (nanotube) should be able to remove ratings that he clearly see is malicious. For instance a user that neg-rates many other uses without having done trades with them, and get a lot of complaints about his actions.

If there's doubt - then a neg rating should not be removed.

Or it could be a decision made of the most trusted users on bitcoin-otc, for instance nanotube, sturles and more.

I've learned that Nanotube refuses to remove any ratings, something that I can understand, but if it gets to a point where the system is abused too much, it might lose it's value, and then action is required.

Very much this.

Also, OP, if you look at that user's outgoing ratings, there's a flood of -10s. So? Nobody cares. The WoT rating is a relationship not a scalar value, please see here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=110861.msg1227871#msg1227871).

sure i understand, but why allow abuse anyway - i don't see the point of allowing abuse. would you be indifferent if there was 100 fake users rating you -10 on your account ? still would not be a problem ?

I used to feel this way too. Now I just think that it's the price we pay for having a decentralized, anonymous marketplace, and any attempt to censor that noise would be against the principles of said decentralized marketplace. There is no denying though that it's prone to noise.

If I trade with you on IRC I'll know that rating was bullshit, but if I look you up on localbitcoins.com and see -10 imported OTC score, with no way to ask other users why the -10 rating from this guy then it hurts your rep for sure.

Supa is a butthurt troll : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=94573.0

That's in implementation issue with LocalBitcoins.com.