Bitcoin Forum

Why?
I know there's a lot of debate about the trust system, but if we've got it, why not use it and display it everywhere?
Just had a look at a standard newbie question "Place to invest?" and there's some goon with -32 pushing a ponzi, but his trust doesn't show so there's no indication for the OP that the post is of dubious value.
I know Caveat Emptor blah blah but this seems anomalous.

indeed it should be displayed everywhere, theres no point in hiding it, specially for newbies, im pretty sure it would be useful for them to know when someone is promoting something, a link or whatever if he has -60 trust they shouldnt bother clicking the link or at least be really careful. I think what it should be done is something like a guide for every new user, something that pops up and explains how everything works, maybe for the first 20 logins a pop-up showing how trust works, the time limits, avatars etc etc

Agreed, it should be, there's np opportunity cost to not showing it.

I think trust is only displayed in the Marketplace & it's sub sections, so that's - Child Boards: Goods, Services, Currency exchange, Gambling, Lending, Securities, Auctions, Service Announcements, Service Discussion plus Trading Discussion, Scam Accusations & Reputation.

Just by looking at the board names above you can see why trust is displayed there. I sort of see it from both sides, why does trust need to be displayed in Bitcoin Discussion & Speculation etc as you're not doing any potential business with anybody there & no services are being offered there. If they are they soon get moved to the correct board.

From the other side maybe things should be transparent, if somebody has lots of negative trust why shouldn't it be totally visible immediately. It's a difficult discussion & I'm glad I don't have to make it ;D

**Always make sure you do your due diligence when entering a trade with another member here - look into using an escrow - there are many trustworthy members offering this even for 0% fee**

One does not need to trust a person who is giving an advice and the Beginners section is just to help newbies. There are some members who try to confuse them by promoting ponzis. It should just be ignored as even members witha  good trust promise scam ponzis in their signatures. Only when you are dealing with the users like Marketplace, Lending and similar currency exchange/trading sections need one to be trusted and not the other sections.

It's not needed in that board. There isn't any sales thread there.

I'm not too sure. I think it would be good to have, since newbies are easy targets for scammers. at least they would be curious about the red numbers and could make a background check

Why not? Why wouldnt you need to trust a person who is giving advice? Do you just take advice from anyone doesnt matter what? Do you realize how stupid that sounds, i thought trust was the main thing for an advice, any troll could give advice but when someone who is -60 gives an advice i would definitely not even read what he has to say.

It should be there for the same reasons that it should be displayed in the technical support and alternate clients sections.

Scammers could easily give intentionally bad advice to a new user that makes it easy for the scammer to steal from the newbie. One example would be that a scammer tells the newbie to PM them with a seed or password that should be kept secret. The newbie who knows how SMF works would know that by clicking on the 'online' button on the user's profile would go straight to PM'ing a person (and they would never view their trust rating). Another example would be a scammer telling a newbie to back up their wallet file to a website that they control, which is obviously a bad idea.

In the technical support and alternative clients sections, people routinely send wallet files to others in order to help with troubleshooting and someone with a low/negative trust rating should probably not be receiving these wallet files. There are also a few people that probably shouldn't be giving advice in that section that are.

I think it could be valuable in Beginners and Help for sure. It's probably not uncommon for deals or scams to originate there. Lots of naive newbs looking to make (or lose) some money etc. It's not really relevant in the others but can sometimes help you identify trolls easier (a lot of accounts seem to start trolling once they get neg-bombed).

I think its not required in this section because you are not going to deal with that guy, he is just giving you his point of view. he will help you through all the way, if you see its not benefited to you just ignore him.

I agree that it should be shown everywhere. What is the downside of showing it in every thread/sub?

Because the argument is it's not relevant to some boards. Does having negative feedback effect your posts/contributions in Politics and Society? Nope, but it might if others let it effect their opinion on that user though even though it shouldn't given the circumstance.

When a person is stupid enough to listen to the advice of any random person (disregarding his trust and only looking at his rank) and invest in scam ponzis and when a person is stupid enough to gamble his money taking someone's advice, what can the forum do? The forum has already said that scams/trust aren't moderated and now if we start displaying the feedback of a person who is giving an advice, then people will want it in the Politics & Society section and Meta section and other sections saying that I should know how trusted a person is before I talk to him.


It's obvious that where trust isn't needed to be analysed, the feedback cannot be visible in those sections. Although I feel that a person can have their feedback shown in every section of the forum, it's the feature of the forum only to not show it in sections which do not involve any kind of trust needed.

I would also agree it should be displayed everywhere... but it seems like the Beginner/help area is somewhere it should already be enabled. IMO someone not trustworthy enough to trade with is not someone I would want a newbie getting advice from, and most newbies may not even be aware that a trust system exists.  It would give beginners a more obvious view of the trust system so they at least know there is something there to read through.

Some of the other sub forums may be more debatable, but I would think it should be shown in newbie/beginner areas.

We should try everything possible to lower the scam rate. As the biggest forum for bitcoin it would make an impact i think.

The downside, someone might not be taken too serious in politics, stand in no relation to the downsider i think

Besides, did anyone care about red trust when a normal discussion goes on? I didnt. So the downside might be less of a downside like it might look.

Which members with high trust promote ponzis in their signature?

I also agree that trust should be displayed in the newbie section. Don't really see any negatives and could save some newbie from taking bad advice.

There are probably some advertising for Cloudthink, which is allegedly a ponzi.


Well it obviously doesn't need to be show in Politics, but feedback can influence your perception of a person in numerous ways. If someone says something they don't like they can easily just try to attack or discredit that user by calling him a scammer or bringing his feedback up. There are times when I've not been sure if someone was trolling or not, then seen their negative feedback and then thought it was more likely they were, so it can influence your opinion of someone (sometimes for the better or worse).

Hm... i think youre right. I remember having taken the red trust as decision help too often, when i was unsure what to think about something someone wrote.

Ok, lets say politics is really no place where trust has to be shown. So maybe its better to enable it by default and only disable wherever its really not needed?

That's already the case in most of the forum. It's already displayed in the relevant subs in the Marketplace for instance, but doesn't need to be in most of the rest of the forum.

I am pretty much going to research anyone I do business with, on and off bitcointalk and see if they are in a WoT anywhere. While it would be nice to display a trust score everywhere, it costs nothing to simply pull up a members profile and read the comments which I would probably do anyway.

Unfortunately most people aren't as thorough, but no amount of restrictions or warnings we put in place are going to stop some people from getting scammed. People really do need to learn to look after their own money and do everything they can to protect themselves, but sometimes it takes getting burned before they realise this sadly.

You are correct. "Be your own bank" doesn't help people who rush into things sadly. My only advice to those new to bitcoin and the forums, is research well, and if you have the slightest doubt then do even more research. It just might save you a few satoshi down the road. ;)

Youre right, its probably unavoidable being scammed in the community when youre new here. Happened to all old members too already.

You say its already the way i said, but i dont think that the threshold is correct then. Its unlikely that anyone will try to scam in politics subforum, but its likely on many other subforums where trust isnt shown yet. So i think the value that some scammer can speak more freely on the newbie forum is not in a correct relation to the risk that brings to newbies.

Saying that... it could be easily circumvented by using a new account to try scamming people. An old member only would look more trustworthy. Im not sure though how much this is raising the risk.

I have red trust not to be trusted at any time, do not trade with me I have scammed millions of BTC.
jk

I have red trust for playing ponzi and winning, I am guilty of profiting from it.

Next time I win, I will not post about it, the hyena crowd that is here' would want to hang me on the gallows for it.

Some people eh  ;)