Bitcoin Forum

It's not the most pleasant subject to talk about but still comes as an issue.

After the sad news that (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5114042.0) we lost one more valuable member of our community, some of the ratings left from a DT2 member can no longer be changed.

Late example is this thread  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2212151.0).

Typical case of a hacked account, the real owner signed a message from his old posted address, some DT members tagged the account and now after the new recovery system is working very well, the account was recovered back to the original owner.

After the recovery all of the negative ratings were removed except one, the one from Zepher (rest in peace buddy).
See here :
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=147307

Zepher's trust list > http://loyce.club/trust/2019-04-06_Sat_20.17h/369879.html

I don't think Zepher will ever be able to remove the negative rating. Instead some DT members left a positive ratings to counter the negative one.
Still I don't think this is the best solution. I guess the admins should remove such obvious ratings, as here is no doubt that Zepher would remove it if he could.

What you think people?

It is clear from the link you included to Loyce's site that many users, including many DT1 users, value Zepher's feedback. Just because an account is inactive (for any reason), it does not invalidate all the previous feedback they have left. I think in this case it should simply be a case of an admin deleting that single, no longer accurate feedback.

I think the best option was the counter positive feedback as this isn't a critical situation that theymos has to step in. Him doing so in such a minor situation might open a reason for more individuals (you know those I'm taking about) to appeal for their negative feedback to be removed too. I think the only time theymos has to step in is when the feedbacks can soiled the users reputation outside forum and it's a false feedback resulting to arrest or government intervention. If a counter positive feedback can do the trick I see no reason why admin has to be involved.

On this special case theymos can help, but it look like trust moderation. Perhaps more people's will claim to admin for remove feedback's in near future. So counter feedback's is appropriate in my opinions. I don't think admin should involve with this kind of case. After many case will raise up. I believe this kind of case will found very rare, so it's possible to resolved by counter feedback's.

Agreed.
Short-term, it would be good if Admin can remove the feedback.
Long-term, and I'm thinking years here, I expect the number of inclusions to drop. Until then, keeping him in their Trust list seems like the least users can do to honour his memory. If Admin can intervene by removing the unwarranted feedback, users can keep him in their Trust lists longer.

I added a positive as well. Perhaps we could have an alert if/when these should be removed.

I wouldn't call it minor nor do I think that someone would be able to take advantage of it.

At any rate, I had doubled-up Zepher's ratings a while ago due to Og excluding him from DT2 so even if someone else would successfully appeal Zepher's neg it wouldn't matter and I'm sure other DT members would evaluate the situation as well. I'd say theymos should remove this one.

I don't think one-two negative feedback matters so much till some other DT members can give the member a counter positive feedback. It was sad to know one DT member passed away but thinking about his wrong/right feedback doesn't sound good. The admin shouldn't be asked for such small things that don't really make a difference for the user who can trade with the counter feedback freely.

In general I think if a DT member dies, his trust is still valid and I don't see a reason why it should be deleted.  The only exceptions to this are cases where someone might have successfully appealed the neg.  For example, if I suddenly died and one of the members I'd tagged for account selling had somehow turned into an extremely trusted member, then my feedback should be removed.  That's the kind of case which would have resulted in a successful appeal for me to remove it.

What happens when a DT member dies and no one knows about the death?  If it's a DT1 member, the lack of activity would remove the DT1 weight of the feedback, but he'd still be DT2 if I'm not mistaken.  It's a valid issue since a lot of members here don't really know each other and wouldn't really be aware that someone died.  Zepher was an exceptional case because he was active in a tight community like the collectibles one, but for a typical scam-tagging DT member?  It's not very likely someone would become aware of their passing IMO.

The death of members is quite a serious problem, and not just for DT issues. My partner uses a Chromebook for emails and watching history, health and cooking videos on You Tube, but she has no idea how to recover my Bitcoin in the event of my death. Maybe we could start a trusted members club to help in these situations.

This is correct. I can think of many reasons, ranging from everything from physical or mental health to various life events or circumstances, which would make an account suddenly become permanently inactive. As you say, if you or I disappeared from the forum tomorrow, it is highly unlikely that any other user would ever know why.

There are three potential solutions which I can see:
1 - All feedbacks are left as is, and the user has to be excluded from DT or have their ratings countered if not appropriate
2 - The community discuss and petition the admin to remove the inappropriate rating, while leaving all the other accurate ratings, as we are doing here
3 - There is a recent active requirement for you to be added to DT2 - much like you must have been active in the previous 3 days to become DT1, perhaps you have to have been active in the last 6 months to appear on DT2. This would not prevent users from adding the user in question to their own personal trust list, just that their ratings would not show up in DT.

Your trust ratings are based on your judgement of what is deserving of a tag. Your judgment is subject to change over time as you gain additional insight and experience. You may leave a rating today that you would disagree with in the future. There is no universal criterion for what deserves a rating (this is part of a larger problem with the trust system, but that is another discussion).

The question ultimately is who gets to decide if someone’s appeal to have a rating removed is successful? If you are around, then the answer is you, and this is based on your judgment. If you are not here because you passed away, are retired from the forum, or otherwise, then the decision becomes complicated. If someone else, or a group of people gets to decide then those who have you on their trust lists may not trust the judgment of this group of people. If you are alive but are (temporarily) away from the forum, perhaps unexpectedly, you might not agree with the decision of whoever decides the appeal, and if the rating is removed and you disagree then adding it back on would be controversial.

My suggestion would be to treat this as if someone will not remove a particular rating. If this means you take any particular action, or don’t take any particular actions, I would do the same in this case.

In this particular case, Zepher had already made his intentions clear.


I have already advised the particular member to contact theymos to see if he will remove Zepher's negative rating since the original owner recovered his account. I hope this does come to theymos' attention and the negative trust is removed since Jet Cash's and my counter rating are only patches, and does not help restore the person's account to the trust score that they deserve.

On cases like this I think its possible for you to call the attention of theymos. On SwingFirst's case I think we can already confirm that it is in the hands of the owner himself and the only thing left is the negative trust given by Zepher. Manually removing the trust might be more challenging compared to removing Zepher's DT status so SwingFirst really need to ask theymos for assistance on this part.

In my opinion changing ratings for inactive accounts is a rabbit hole we do not want to go down and will inevitably create more avenues for manipulation and abuse. I think that if a user is trusted, they should appeal to other users to leave them positive ratings to counteract the negative rating, specifically noting the situation at hand with a referenced thread. This should rectify the situation to a large degree.

Unfortunately, the way that the trust score is tabulated, it is not fair to SwingFirst. He has 3 positive comments, followed by Zepher's negative, followed by Jet Cash's and my counter trust. SwingFast's current score is 1 when it should be 30. This is an exception case; however, since we know Zepher is dead and Zepher made it clear what his intentions were in a post when he left the negative rating.
What makes it worse is that each unique positive rating that SwingFirst receives from now on will only add 1 point to his trust score instead of slowly counting up to 10 points toward his trust score.

Not fair according to who? Why is it the entire community now has to suffer a potential exploit because this individual user did not secure their account correctly? Yes it sucks, but if there are not standards then it is a continual never ending slow creep toward abuse. SwingFast made a mistake, they should bear the responsibility for it, not pass it on to the community as a whole.

^^I am not 100% sure that is the most up to date information, although I don’t recall it being any different than what I posted.

The above is why I don’t think it is appropriate to simply add positive ratings to counter the negative. My suggestion is to act as if he will not remove the rating, which technically is true (absent action from theymos).
What specifically should be done when someone leaves up an inaccurate rating is up for debate. However my opinion is they should not be in the DT network and if they have left other good/accurate ratings, then others can review the ratings and echo them if they feel it is appropriate.

This wouldn’t apply in this case, but if they leave additional negative ratings that others deem accurate they can also be echoed.

This is also a viable solution to this issue without playing the game of moderating trust ratings from the top down.

     If this was a normal case, everyone who had left the negative rating for the account being hacked would have removed the negative rating because it no longer applies. However, Zepher is dead, so that is just not possible at all. Sure SwingFirst's probably made a small mistake, but why should he not be restored to whole while someone else who made similar mistakes gets to get their account made whole. It isn't SwingFirst's fault that Zepher died. SwingFirst's getting restored back to whole as much as possible is the very definition of "fair."
    Personally, I don't have Zepher on my trust list. However, I'm not going to ask 19 DT1 members to remove him either.

Hey Jet Cash, have you seen my thread : [Postmortem crypto plan] : making sure my wife will know what to do ! (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5093345.msg49055575#msg49055575)

Maybe it can help you :)

I knew there is going to be a discussion here with different opinions.
I value the rest of the feedback left from Zepher, and I don't think it should be removed.
But here is one another example with hacked account and negative feedback left from Zepher :
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=114334

If by chance the original owner shows up with a signed message we will come back to the same situation as now.
I guess reporting to theymos those isolated cases should be ok but we need confirmation from his side.

Overall trust ratings shouldn't be changed by the mods unless they are obviously of abusive nature. But cases like this are rare because it is clear that Zepher left that negative rating because the account got hacked. He didnt have a problem with the tagged user and would have surely removed his rating if the account got recovered, which is now the case. theymos could intervene and remove the negative rating but also the positive ratings that were left by other DTs to counter the negative.

Hmm, I'm not sufficiently convinced that qwep is indeed a hacked account. In 2016, qwep asked for a loan.


In May of 2017, after a long period of inactivity, they applied to join a signature campaign using the same address.


Then in June of 2017, the account suddenly promotes some ponzi scheme, and suspicions are raised that it could be hacked or sold. Furthermore, I am not seeing a thread referenced that has a victim come forward and provide evidence that they were hacked. I'm more inclined to think the account was either sold by the original owner or never changed hands.  If someone comes back now and "recovers" this account, I'm not certain the negative trust about promoting a ponzi scheme should to be removed by others.

You are asking the wrong question. The question you need to be asking is why is he so special that the standards we all agree are there for a reason should be deviated from just to selectively suit this single user? What precedent does this set? Who decides who is special enough to get this extra effort? Yeah I wish he could be completely restored, but I also think it would be a net negative if a precedent of meddling in trust ratings is set for any reason as it degrades the reliability of the entire system. You need to make a choice between leaving him a counter positive and leaving him to deal with the minor setback, or making efforts to remove Zepher from the default trust instead of collectivizing the loss.

The precedent is that the person who left him the negative trust is dead. So it's not possible to have it removed in the normal and established way. Furthermore, I already presented the posting from Zepher himself that made it clear that he would remove the negative trust once the account was recovered. Shouldn't someone carry out his intentions for him, since he is now dead?


Theymos or Cyrus gets to decide.



I already left him a counter positive and do not have Zepher on my trust list. What additional efforts can little old me do? I only have control over my own trust list. It's up to the 19 DT1 members and 30 other members on whether they want Zepher on their trust list or not. Also, I really don't see what the "loss" is for the forum? All I see is a fine tuning of the rules to account for cases when the person who leaves trust is now dead, and cannot modify it themselves. (And since Zepher already posted that he would remove the negative trust once the account was recovered, I really do not see the "loss" for the forum of carrying out the intentions of the dead.)


Edit: Just for reference, here is Zepher's post again. I don't see how this is such an issue for having theymos carry out what Zepher stated that he was going to do.

Yeah Qwep account is done for IMO.

I knew Zepher quite well - Will it help you all if I add his ratings to mine (the valid ones that won't cause me too many pm's), that way if/when he gets removed from DT/lists etc)?  ... He was quite active tagging people for a few months I believe so many are likely still valid.

Thanks.

Emotions aside.

1-   I checked all of Zepher's negative sent feedback,  there is not a single user who is tagged by Zepher alone. ( even if there was, another DT can tag those a few acounts)

2-   I have also checked some of his "old" positive feedback which either now or in the future can be very misleading or inaccurate. ( based on the fact that people change)

an example : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=1245199;dt

3-  He also left many positive feedback for small deals that were done using escrow/ members who went first , etc.. , many of those users could be trust farming, they can turn to scammers at any moment, and that positive feedback will help them a lot assuming not everyone knows about Zepher's death.


Nothing personal , Zepher seems like he was an excellent member, may he rest in peace but i think the proper option now is to exclude him from both DT1 and DT2 . IMO that would be the best thing for the forum as a whole.

The precedent would be that it is now ok for the administration to change trust ratings. Of course Theymos/Cyrus get to decide, that is not the question, the question is why should they break the current precedent of NOT moderating trust ratings to suit a single user? The cost is that now moderating trust ratings will be an accepted thing, opening the door for manipulation and abuse by the staff. Even if they are not actively abusing their positions, this still necessitates a position where they have to pick and choose when to intervene, meaning some people will get this special privilege, and some will not, automatically creating an imbalance in the trust system as far as equitable treatment under it. SwingFirst fucked up by not securing his account properly, he should bear the cost, not the entire community in the form of debasing the reputability of the entire trust system even more than it already is.

Can we add one more category in feedback as "Inactive Feedback". That feedback will remain but will not take part in trust calculation.

Any person who has not logged into the forum for 1 year has all the feedback sent shown as Inactive feedback on other profiles. Inactive feedback still can be positive or negative.

Nice idea, but it must be shown directly to the user's profile, such as "This user has inactive feedbacks, take a look before you do any deal with him" to prevent scammy account being active again, just in case lots of DT members died and there is no other feedback from active users.