Bitcoin Forum

While exploring the forum I found a thread of DT2 trust abuse (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5133374.0) where one of DT1 member made his alt into DT2 member and sending positive feedback to each other account which is clearly an abuse of DT power,somehow it caught into the eyes of other members so now they were out of DT system.

To avoid these kind of abuse in the future we need to have some requirements like ranks and number of earned merit to be on DT2 as well like to be in DT1.By the current system there is no requirement to be on DT2,if someone from DT1 added you into their trust list then you will be on DT2.Let's discuss about this and find a solution. :)

Not sure it is already suggested or not

I'm not in support; Reason: The criteria for you to be a DT member irrespective of the level should be based on trust and nothing else. Putting a rank status criteria will restrict well deserving members who don't have the required merit to rank up as not everyone is interested in ranking up e.g ICOethics. These individuals are interested in combating the scam ICO's etc on the forum. so if they have earn the trust of DT1 member then they deserve to be ranked higher (DT2) and beside irrespective of the measure the forum puts in place those who want to abuse the system will still do so (99% of the time, they'll be catch though). Also giving only higher rank member the privilege to be in DT 2 will make the busting of those abusing the system through alt even much harder.

Edited: earning of 10merit isn't that difficult compared to the rest ranks. A user that have the member rank status if proven worthy can take on any role on the forum even merit source or moderator (my opinion).

I don't support your suggestion. Good users are good users, and their qualities don't depend on their ranks. The forum has some genius guys, whom hidden behind the mud, and some day they might appear as shooting stars, like nullius (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=976210)
The forum, itself, has some staffs who hired when they stood at lower rank, like Halab (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1053119), whom likely hired to work as forum staff from Full Member rank. I don't know that there are staffs started below Full Member rank or not, but maybe.

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DT members mostly been chosen from reputable users, it means they mostly are reputable, high rank users.
Another point is DT members will be chosen partially based on their past contributions to the forum, that in turn lead to most of them are higher rank users.
Lastly, fake voted DT members (at lower ranks, or even higher ranks) will be excluded from time to time, like this one:
User got voted into DT1 by sockpuppets (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5128907.0)

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To conclude, I think that you suggestion is unneccessary, and the requirements that DT2 members should be higher rank members should be considered as un-official requirement, like what we have had so far with forum rules: Unofficial list of (official) Bitcointalk.org rules, guidelines, FAQ (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=703657.0)

If DT1 members has criteria of atleast member rank then why not for DT2.If they deserved to be on DT2 then they are not going to find hard time on getting merits if we have such criteria then can restrict some kind of trust abuse.

A DT1 member doesn't have to be Member rank, that's only needed to vote.

Also, the example you gave wasn't someone who put his alt on DT2.

I beg to disagree. We have had a lot of high-ranking members here in this forum that ended up being scums and did scams to a lot of people. Being a good and trusted member is earned by doing trades and doing good for the forum, not for the time they spent here nor the activity of their accounts. DT2 shouldn't be that strict, and AFAIK ranks only matter when voting for someone to be in the DT1/DT2 and not necessarily staying in the said rank.

Yeah, so the whole thing starts with a wrong example, a bit clickbaitish  :D
Besides, reading the topic seems like the "abuse" was solved and the system worked

I'll join the mob and say that the requirement would affect more new members that are really helping the forum and it won't prevent that much abuse, with thousands of high-rank accounts lying around it will simply make the market prices for such accounts spike up.

You're mistaken about the issue to which you've linked as an example.  Neither of the alts were on DT1, but one was on DT2.  Each account left positive feedback for the other, not disclosing that the accounts were linked.  So, your suggested resolution would have done nothing to prevent that scenario.

I don't think we should have any rank requirements for inclusion on DT1.  Using many sock puppets to vote for another sock puppet is not likely to go away, but it's pretty easy to detect.  The system has shown it can filter it's self rather quickly once abuse has been noticed.

OP misunderstood the mentioned case. DT1 didn't add his alt on DT2, but DT2 left positive feedback to his alts and abuse merit system. However, adding rank is not going to prevent DT abuse. I don't think its very difficult to earn TEN merits. To be honest, lot of DT1 not understand different between trust user and trust feedbacks. Few peoples are thinking that I they trust someone then they should add them on their trusty list instead of leave positive feedback. We need more awareness regarding trust system really.

Sorry for misunderstanding that case anyway still have hard time on understanding the DT system,need to get some coffee and have read the DefaultTrust changes (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5095156.0) few more time to know it better. ::)