Bitcoin Forum

I think that several of the problems with Trust were because three different goals were being jammed into one system:
 1. Getting a general idea of someone's trade history and trustworthiness in one convenient location, sort of like reviews on sites like EBay.
 2. Warning newbies/guests who don't know how to research properly about high-risk people.
 3. Deterring scams by creating a cost to scamming (ie. you'll "lose" a veteran account).
 
To improve this, I've split up these use-cases:

Use-case #1 is the old trust system, but I made the descriptions on the rating types a bit more general and removed the concept of a trust score. The numbers are now "distinct positive raters / distinct neutral raters / distinct negative raters". You should give these ratings for anything which you think would impact someone's willingness to trade with the person, but you should not use trust ratings to attack a person's opinions or otherwise talk about things which would not be relevant to reasonable prospective traders.

Use-cases 2 and 3 will be handled by a new system of flags. You can create a flag using a link on a person's trust page.

A newbie-warning flag is active if there are more people supporting such a flag than opposing it. It shows a banner on topics started by the flagged user for guests and for users with less than 7 days of login time. For all users, a "#" is shown next to their trust scores.

For contractual violations only, a scammer flag can be created. This is the only thing which causes the "Warning: trade with extreme caution" warning to return. It also triggers a banner similar to the newbie-warning banner which is visible to all users. A scammer flag requires 3 more supporting users than opposing users to become active.

A new scammer flag should be created for each separate alleged incident. In the spirit of forgiveness/redemption, scammer flags expire 3 years after the incident if the contract was casual/implied, and 10 years after the incident if the contract was written. These expiration times might be administratively changed in specific cases.

Creating or supporting a scammer flag is actively affirming a set of pretty clear fact-statements. If someone knowingly supports a flag containing incorrect fact-statements, then that is crystal-clear abuse, and I will seek to have such people removed from DT ASAP. People who are habitually wrong, even not knowingly, should also be removed.

Only users in your trust network count as supporting or opposing flags. For guests, the default trust network is used.

Also, a few miscellaneous changes:
 - All of the sections on users' trust pages are now paginated, so the page doesn't expand to massive size anymore.
 - The ordering of sent feedback is now consistent with the other sections.
 - "Risked BTC" is removed.

PM me if you find bugs.

You should give these ratings for anything which you think would impact someone's willingness to trade with the person, but you should not use trust ratings to attack a person's opinions or otherwise talk about things which would not be relevant to reasonable prospective traders.

Creating or supporting a scammer flag is actively affirming a set of pretty clear fact-statements. If someone knowingly supports a flag containing incorrect fact-statements, then that is crystal-clear abuse, and I will seek to have such people removed from DT ASAP. People who are habitually wrong, even not knowingly, should also be removed.

The original accuser can withdraw their support, but they can't delete the flag. So other users could take it up even if they withdraw.

Flags need to be actively supported.

Here's a user with a flag that you could support/oppose:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=157669
And if you log out or use a newbie account, you can see the banner on their topic:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2690003.0


Yes, but make sure that if someone goes there, it's clear what the flag is about.

Scammer flags should usually each have distinct topics.

They're not. I decided that too many negative ratings aren't flag-worthy, and there's no way to automatically determine it. If you believe that a past negative rating is flag-worthy, you'll need to create a flag.

Anyone can create them, but support/opposition is only counted from people in your trust network. So if a newbie creates one, probably it will not be active from anyone's perspective, and it will thus have no effect unless it gets additional support from others.

These limits are in place:
 - Per 180 days, you can only give 1 flag of each type to a given user. So you can't give someone multiple written-contract-violation flags in 180 days, for example.
 - Globally, per year you can only create 1 flag per activity point you have, but at least 1/year.

Here someone created a contract-violation flag:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;flag=9
Since that's clearly a test account, feel free to support it or oppose it as a test.

Note that right now it's only linked in a small note on the target user's trust page:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=2626817
And listed on their inactive-flags page:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=2626817;page=iflags
And shown as an entry in the sender's sent ratings:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=2626816;page=sent

If it gets enough support, it will no longer be listed in "inactive flags", and will instead move to "active flags".


Correct.

You can create both a newbie-warning and contract-violation flag if you want.


Correct.

SafeDice has the honor of being the first to get an active scammer flag: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=396610


Right, except that they're sorted by activity.

Yes, one of the victims can.


Correct.


It's probably best if one of the victims makes a flag and the rest support it.

A yellow box is used if someone creates a newbie-warning flag, which on the "Add flag" page reads as follows: Due to various concrete red flags, I believe that anyone dealing with this user has a high risk of losing money. (This flag will only be shown to guests/newbies.)

A red box is used if someone creates a scammer warning flag, which on the "Add flag" page reads as follows: This user violated a casual or implied agreement with me, resulting in damages. or This user violated a written contract with me, resulting in damages.

Your trust ratings are irrelevant to the displaying or coloring of the flags.
 .....
If someone has an active yellow colored newbie warning flag, they will display a # next to their trust scores and a warning box to all guests and newly registered (under 7 days logged in time) users.
If someone has an active red colored scammer warning flag, they will display a !!! next to their trust scores and a warning box to all users.

A newbie-warning flag is active if there are more people supporting such a flag than opposing it. It shows a banner on topics started by the flagged user for guests and for users with less than 7 days of login time. For all users, a "#" is shown next to their trust scores.

For contractual violations only, a scammer flag can be created. This is the only thing which causes the "Warning: trade with extreme caution" warning to return. It also triggers a banner similar to the newbie-warning banner which is visible to all users. A scammer flag requires 3 more supporting users than opposing users to become active.

As I mentioned in the flags topic, there are three very separate scopes for trust which need to be kept separate. For scammer flags, the point is to damage the person's forum existence in order to deter future scamming. This is a very serious action which should have a very high bar. Because it's so serious, I only want actual agreements considered here. In legal systems, there's additionally such a thing as tort law and statutory law, but the forum is very far from having the kind of cohesive legal system which could handle such things in a halfway-reasonable way. The only thing that approaches clear-cut scamming is violation of an agreement. If non-contractual offenses are allowed in the scammer-flag space, then we're going to get factions of forum users constantly fighting each other, which is exactly what I'm trying to stop. I'm sick and tired of big escalations and never-ending feuds over highly-subjective and/or relatively minor things.

For non-agreement issues, use a newbie-warning flag and give them a negative trust rating. These actions are in the different scopes of warning newbies or informing other users of your opinions, which have less severe consequences and therefore lower bars.

I hate having to "defend" BSV and BCH, which were created with deception in mind, are technologically bankrupt, and are run by huge assholes, but you can't say that their supporters broke a contract with you when they didn't. Give them a newbie-warning flag if you want, but not a contract-violation flag unless they actually broke a contract with you. (Note that you might have a case for breach of implied contract if you were actually tricked into buying one of these coins instead of BTC.)

Normal font is displayed for users who are on your own personal trust list. Small, italic, grey font is for users who are not on your own personal trust list. If you do not have a personal trust list, then default trust is used. You will always appear as normal to yourself.

I can put a flag on my own account. This should be disabled as before.

https://i.imgur.com/50omTSR.png

I think the code of trust score should be Bolded on the profile to be more effective

Creating or supporting a scammer flag is actively affirming a set of pretty clear fact-statements. If someone knowingly supports a flag containing incorrect fact-statements, then that is crystal-clear abuse, and I will seek to have such people removed from DT ASAP.

In my guess:

• Yellow is for active flags.
• Red: is for trust.

So, if someone got both red trust and active flag, their flag boxes will be displayed in Red.

Furthermore, Trust Warning is prioritised than flag:
If someone only get active flag: profile page will be shown with #, like newsilike.
But if someone get both red trust, and active flag: profile page will be shown with Trust Warning, there is no #, like SafeDice.

Someone said it relates to DT member or not DT member supports, but when I flagged myself (here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=1520746)), my name in Support list normally displayed, not in smaller fontsize, italic fontstyle, or in grey color.

There will be even more drama than before. :D

There will be even more drama than before. :D

I think this will mostly consist of you wining and bitching about your loss of power. It should make it more clear that you never cared about protecting others, but wanted power and money/business for yourself.

This is a terrible, terrible idea.

It was.  I misread the title as "Welcome Fags" and woke up too late in the day to get in early with the start of this thing, and now I'm excluded by Lauda and have otherwise been thrown into a part of this shit I'd rather not be in.  And hey, I'm a relatively pro-rainbow type of guy....but all of this is extremely different and it's very hard to understand the basics when I have to weed through all the garbage--which I'm now adding to with this post.

Should have stayed in bed today.  Is it too early to start drinking on the east coast?

Showing what is essentially a scammer flag to people with account ages only less than 7 days essentially just opened the door to 10,000's of scammers. There are so many accounts that I've previously tagged that I no longer can, because it doesn't fit into the narrow definitions.

Theymos is excluded by Lauda too. Theymos is asking for a DT-wide exclusion of Lauda for flagging a known scammer. What a time to be alive.

https://i.imgur.com/qfEQkNF.png

Not much of a fan of drinking, but I guess it's never too early.

Two types of flag:
What is difference between newsilike (Yellow Flag Box) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=157669) and SafeDice (Red Flag Box) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=396610). They both get active flags, but one is in yellow flag, and another one is in red flag.
https://i.imgur.com/gZaLgB4.png
https://i.imgur.com/AxCdCVl.png
Answer:
- Yellow Flag Box: Newbie-Warning Flag
- Red Flag Box: Scammer Flag

Newbie-warning flag
For example:
Active Newbie-warning Flag
https://i.imgur.com/aQchKIO.png
https://i.imgur.com/gZaLgB4.png

Scammer Flag
For example:
Active Scammer Flag
https://i.imgur.com/zNMingD.png
https://i.imgur.com/AxCdCVl.png


Text Format inside Flag Box
https://i.imgur.com/1pokrAu.png
Need confirmations from theymos.

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Guide:

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2. Questions and  one bug (found by @isasenko, I already tested it myself).
Meaning of smaller font size, italic font style, and grey color of supporters?
https://i.imgur.com/1pokrAu.png
Someone said it relates to DT member or not DT member supports, but when I flagged myself (here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=1520746)), my name in Support list normally displayed, not in smaller fontsize, italic fontstyle, or in grey color.

Potential explanations (need confirmations from theymos):

Bug
User can flag his or herself, that's weird, and should be disabled.
I tested it myself and can actually do it.

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3. Community suggestions
1.
2. Let me be the first to start a bitching thread about the flags (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5153509.0)
There are suggestions on design of Warning Icons, that should have same colors as of Flag Box:
- Yellow Icons for Newbie-Warning Flag.
- Red Icons for Scammer Flag.

3. @theymos [Suggestion] New Flags Section (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5153606.0)

Some changes:
 - If the number of pre-flags-system negative trust ratings is greater than the number of all positive trust ratings, a warning banner is shown for guests & low-login-time newbies.
 - I added "These warning banners will disappear when you have 7 days of login time. You should familiarize yourself with the trust system before then." to the newbie warning banner. Note BTW that it usually takes months for someone to get 7 days of login time: among all 4096 users with 6.5 to 7.5 days login time, the account age (lastLogin-dateRegistered) is: maximum 3216 days, minimum 7.5, median 677, average 936.
 - The pages you see after clicking "next" are now bigger.
 

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Some people are acting as though these changes are "letting scammers off the hook", but I don't really think so. Let's assume for a moment that flag types 2 & 3 are too restrictive and will therefore never be used. Even then, you can still give scammers negative feedback, which will display next to their posts in orange, and the threshold for giving negative feedback has been loosened. You can also give newbie-warning flags very easily, and the warning which this creates is shown to more people than any previous warning.

The only thing that scammers got is that they don't have red trust scores or a "trade with extreme caution" warning. But when you consider the measures in the previous paragraph, who is actually going to be scammed due to the absence of this? I think few if any. IMO the main point of these things was to punish/deter scamming, which is what was causing a lot of drama. And by making the threshold for this specific thing higher, it became reasonable to lower the threshold and widen the effect for the other warnings.

I think that scamming will be net-reduced due to these changes.


If someone creates a newbie account and tries to scam with it, they have roughly the same ability as before. The only thing they might be missing is a tiny piece of screen real estate shown only to logged-in users with a trust score and "Trade with extreme caution!" The more effective warnings are the banners, which have been expanded.

If someone does a long con, they have more to lose, since the scam flags create a banner for all users, and it's more exclusive and therefore meaningful. This can give you a bit more confidence in veteran members.


Newbie-warning flag.


That's all misuse of the system.


If you have not been scammed by him, then you should not create a scam flag. A newbie-warning flag and/or trust rating would be OK.

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On agreement types:

A written contract is a piece of text taking the rough form of "I will do this, and then you will do this in return," where both sides clearly agreed to it. It needn't be super formal, but there definitely shouldn't be any case of someone not realizing that they were agreeing to something. "I'll send you 1 BTC for the coin" -> "OK" is enough of a written contract.

Exactly what falls into an "implied agreement" may be somewhat grey-area, and certain very obvious torts may also count. Let's see how the culture around this develops.

There are three very separate scopes for trust which need to be kept separate. Newbie-warning flags are only for warning newbies, not for warning experienced members who should know better, or for harming the target. The "#" symbol is supposed to be inconspicuous, since it's not supposed to be a warning or a "mark of shame".

(I won't rule out adding a per-post warning for newbies if people evade the per-topic warnings, though.)

No, you are just not allowed to use the high-power scam flags -- intended mainly for punishing people, not really for preemptively warning about scams -- without first being scammed. You can still use the newbie-warning flags and negative ratings, which have plenty of warning power.

Type-1 flags are more subjective. If you believe:
 - Anyone dealing with the user is at a high risk of losing money, due to red flags which any knowledgeable & reasonable forum user should agree with, and not just due to the user's opinions.
 - Enough of the above-mentioned factors are listed in the linked topic.
 
Then you can support it. If you believe the first but not the second, then you should oppose it and create a separate flag. If you believe that the first is incorrect (ie. people dealing with the user are not at a particularly high risk of losing money), then you should oppose it.

The type-1 flags on Quickseller, BSV, etc. aren't misuse of the system by either supporters or opponents.

they will require great evidences to create a scammer tag or else they will be outcast from their beloved powerful positions.

Wasn't that always the case?

Creating or supporting a scammer flag is actively affirming a set of pretty clear fact-statements. If someone knowingly supports a flag containing incorrect fact-statements, then that is crystal-clear abuse, and I will seek to have such people removed from DT ASAP.

- or - alternatively an icon for verified accounts.

Do you think experienced users are unable to perform their own research and come to their own conclusions?

Or, are you unhappy that you can no longer impose your opinions on everyone else?

Anyone who's been here long enough to not have the newbie flags shown to them (7 days of log in time), is knowledgeable enough to visit a given user's Trust page before doing business with them.


What do you mean by 'verified'? KYC? :)

Perhaps by a signed bitcoin message and another member that will vouch for the member.

Car dealers have advertising. Second hand cars have ownership history.

A second hand car will not necessarily have a history of every owner and this history is generally only available for potential buyers, not anyone riding in the car, or driving next to the car.