Bitcoin Forum

I will not post a long diatribe as my question is simple.

What does good grammar have to do with trust? I apologize if this has been discussed elsewhere on the forum; I dug around a bit, but couldn't find anything related to this. This is not an attack on the merit system, as it serves a very good purpose and rewards deserving posters accordingly.

Nevertheless, why are good posters trusted by default? In my humble opinion, the logic of having 250 merits or even 1 merit to be voted into DT is seriously flawed.

Are we placing more value on creating good content than on things like successful trades? By definition trust has nothing to do with posting good content or being a higher ranked member. There are lowly ranked members with more integrity than half of DT combined. Merit & trust are mutually exclusive and should remain so.

Shh...this is an english forum,thats why if you cant execute good grammar,nor spelling you are definitely a shitposter.Trust on the other hand is only for those Godly DTs here,look at the new DT1 members which automatically distrusted by the cult without valid reasons,it is valid for their own belief but if someone randomly distrust these DT members they will get instantly redtrusted (even if you are newbie or legendary member) because it is conspiracy against the DT cult who runs the bitcointalk.Theymos knows what to do thats why he gave us the chance to nominate members,but then the cult is joining forces to remove these newly added people in the DT list.

It's not "flawed", it is "well thought".

IMO, the idea of including merit requirement to "Trust Rank Voting" is to prevent newly created accounts, 1-merit Jr.Members or even 10-default-merit Members (which can be easily mass-produced by a single person or group) to participate in the voting.
With merit as the filter, we can always assure that most of the votes are from active users, not from an army of 0-merit accounts.

Check this post by theymos about that "voting": Page25 - DefaultTrust Changes (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5095156.msg49220414#msg49220414)

not true, neither the contrary is, proof is , you ! your English is good, but your posts are shit. on the other hand, there are members with weak to mediocre English who post very constructive and valuable information.

Having good grammar isn't the only measurement  for merit or trust mate. Combination of good grammar & constructive posts is the key.

On the other hand voting system in DT selection is fair enough IMO. Please think before ask anything about this system that if any untrustworthy member select there it could ruin forums fame. Restrictions built for safety.

This could very well be true, but the question remains...  What's a better way of doing it?  theymos is trying his best.  If you propose a better way, it would likely be considered.

Really you are not familiar with new DT selection system. Merit is nothing for candidate. Merit is required for voter's.  It's very simple, who have not earned yet at least 10 merit how he will choose DT members ? Candidate criteria is only should be above member rank and active. What is the relation with DT and transaction? DT system isn't for make transaction. DT system made for prevent scam from the forum. So why always people's compares with transaction? If you have made transaction then just simply you can leave positive feedback's even you are not on DT network. You have made many successful transactions it doesn't mean you should on DT network. Successful transactions doesn't indicate that your feedback's will be accurate. DT system depend on judgment, if your judgment is good then people's will vote you, not for successful transactions.

Trades on the BitcoinTradetalk forum are not moderated,  but DT Members are doing their part to keep it clean.

Who would you trust ? And old member with zero trades but escrowed a large amount of BTC to facilitate a trade or bounty and never stole them, or relatively new member who completed a single but successful trade of over 50 btc ?



But it does have to do with reliability, which IMO can only be proven with time
"firm belief in the reliability, truth, or ability of someone or something."


But they also have no reputation to lose. "To whom much is given, much more is tested"


The Trust system is obviously not perfect/might never be, but I do think it is work in progress. Eventually as times goes it'd come close to what  everyone most people are expecting.

I beleive good proposal will obviously considered by theymos. Recently one of my thread including poll posted for same kinda purpose and many users participate there. I have got so many suggestions on that topic from our experienced forum users which cleared my confusion will work for others IMO.

Here is the thread link: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5100199.msg49345492#msg49345492

They aren't.

theymos has essentially created a democracy for choosing users to be DT1. The 250 merit cut off is to earn a vote, not to be trusted. No one (except theymos himself) is "trusted by default".

There needs to be a way to limit votes to real members, otherwise anyone (including scammers) could flood the forum with alts and vote themselves on to DT. Merit is a simple way of doing that. I struggle to go think of any other simple way to differentiate users other than a newbie jail, which brings with it a significant number of other problems. If you have any suggestions, I'm sure theymos would be interested to hear them, as OgNasty has said.

As an aside, thank you for starting a mature discussion and not just mudslinging.

You do not understand 1 significant difference. Personal trust ≠ Trust network. You can have a good Trust network, but your personal trust can be 0: -0 / +0. Likewise, you can have high levels of personal trust, but does not have any sent feedback and configured by DefaultTrust your Trust network. What benefit will your inclusion in the DT-lists bring in this case?

In elections, users choose those who have a good Trust network!

default, DT. Merit & trust are mutually exclusive, as you say,
I give an example:
"The bitcointalk member who was lucky because he received default trust, DT controlled the forum members and opportunities exclusively."
For DT success and work are not two separate things. they like to give and judge other members, but don't feel the need to do it.

Trust is not the exclusive property of the bitcointalk Forum.
It is very unfair to control other members exclusively, such as controlling a slave.
if this right rules through deception and power, but once fraud is revealed they must depend exclusively on power. @themmos.

"Nothing can be more real than all animals created solely and exclusively for human use."

"That we are not much sicker and far more angry than we are because exclusively for the most blessed of all the bitcointalk members."

The better way is 100-150 earned merits plus 1500 + activity. Hence getting the best of both worlds and also you give a guarantee of a longer history here to review before making a decision.

Also you do not allow it to be GAMED as easily by those that are able to reward their own political groups with merit and ensure they control the entire DT system because even self awarding merits to their own group will not allow them to push possible ALTS and new friends into DT. They will be able to bestow merits on them but they will still have to wait for the objective and fair metric of activity to be met so that will slow them down greatly and filling it full of newly joined buddies.

Putting in activity and lowering merits to earned 100 or even 150 would be far more sensible.

Guarantees more history to review, longer time without scamming, not as easy to collude and control. More to lose since gaining that activity again which can not be gamed even if you have a bunch of pals as merit sources is going to be impossible to speed up.

Really though both systems of control should be entirely separated but on a anonymous forum that is probably impossible to ensure.

Probably an old member whom earned respect and trust from the people for years like OgNasty.

I i really think he should be cut some slack,it takes quite a lot to run a forum and it's almost impossible to please everyone,rules and modes of operation must be set,and it will be done to the best of knowledge of the administrator.
Even if other methods are proposed,it will be impossible for it to please all and sundry

I think theymos thought this a long time before implementing it here in the forum. We all can see the criteria needed for a forum member to become a DT is with merit and it is not a mere forum member which the forum member is not a farm account or jr. members.

Fair enough. In other words, one has to be a good poster first to earn a vote for DT1, while possible trustworthy members with less meritable posts are sidelined. Correct me if I'm wrong, is the foremost criterion for selecting DT1 posting skills?

If this is the case then merit is no longer a simple reward for good posts and determining account ranks, but it is also a potent political tool. So, I was a bit surprised when theymos removed a member as merit source for political reasons. After-all he created the system.



The member's only mistake was announcing he was awarding merits for political reasons beforehand. However, we know other members are doing the same, while pretending to be awarding them to good posts. If merit is essential to getting on DT, then it is clearly a political tool, and can be abused for political gain.



I have no idea yet. Nonetheless, it is quite obvious that the new model is deeply flawed and I'd advocate for returning to the previous model until something better than this suffices. This new model can be gamed easily, and I expect it to be proven shortly.

I totally agree with you, what a drawback to the current system are:

  - The increase of trusted members greatly makes reliance on one feedback incorrect.
  - The limitations of the old members, many of the trusted members "DT1 & DT2 " currently did not spend 500 days activity in this forum, which makes their knowledge and evaluation less depth of the old members.

In fact if you do not have any background on cryptos, the 500 days is not enough to trust your assessment.

No system can be flawless. No matter what idea you come up with, there will always be abuse against it. Sometimes you can prevent your system from that abuse, and sometimes you cannot.
The idea of including Merit system in selection of the DT members is to make a democratic DT while preventing the excessive abuse that it could get by the large number of useless voters. A person should definitely not be trusted only by his posting behavior, but again, a bad poster is always a bad thinker, and a bad thinker doesn't really deserve to be in charge of anything. So the criteria of being higher than Member rank in order to be able to get into DT is quite well thought.
Then comes voting, which plays the main role in all this. A democratic system depends on the votes of the public for the selection of the ones in charge, and this can be largely abused as we all know. So the criteria for the only votes to be counted should be from people who earned Merits is only to prevent the abuse and allow only responsible people to decide who should be in charge. Now if the ones who are considered to be responsible decide to abuse the system, you cannot really do a lot about it.

That’s to gain a vote & it should probably be more.

Ultimately if that's the question you're asking, then I would say those two things shouldn't have much to do with each other--but I have a hard time believing Theymos didn't consider the issue when he made the most recent changes to the DT system.  I also don't think he wouldn't realize who he'd be putting on or removing from DT1 when he made those changes, e.g., Lauda on, OgNasty off.  Don't know anything about Theymos, but he seems like an engineer trying to optimize a system with what he has to work with.  Unfortunately all of the parts don't quite fit all together perfectly, and the result is what we have today with the trust system.

I'd be interested to hear what Theymos has to say about Cobra's input on the matter (don't know how to make the Greek symbol in his username).  I suspect to a somewhat neutral 3rd party it does look like madness going on and I can see the desire to just scrap the system entirely--but I don't know if that's a great idea or not.  I'll have to check to see if Theymos replied or not.

Anyway, it's not about grammar.  People do earn merits on local boards, and members do earn merits even if they write horribly broken English if the posts are helpful enough. 

True, and this is a potential drawback of the new system. However, I would argue that if you are a proven trustworthy member, and have been here for any length of time, you would have absolutely no problems earning 10 merit, which would give you both a vote for DT1 and the potential to be elected to DT1 yourself.

There are plenty of users with high activity who have farmed it by just spamming in Games and Rounds - such (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=902229;sa=showPosts) as (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=923938;sa=showPosts) all (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=374492;sa=showPosts) these (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=888909;sa=showPosts) spammers (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=522297;sa=showPosts). 500 days spent spamming Games and Rounds or ICO Announcements isn't worth 1 day spent in Meta, reading the stickies and learning about the forum.

That will sadly do you no good because if someone with 250 cycled merits does not want you there it is likely they will collude with the small circle of pals to get you removed.

250 earned merits are the key positions in the trust system.

cryptohunter, you shouldn’t have a problem getting 250 ‘earned’ Merit?

You’ve been here a long time, you know how the forum works. You should get that in 12 months max if you’re a good poster.

Sorry no if you are not a colluding ass kisser like yourself or hanging in meta for months backslapping and cycling them around then that is not going to be easy.

Certainly coming to their home board into the nest of vipers and bitch slapping them all around with facts demonstrating they are bunch of merit cycling colluders and trust abusers isn't likely to gain you much merit either.
.

Go tell gjhiggins, smooth, davidzimbeck and a host of real valuable posters how you are a 10x-20x more valuable poster than them too.

Merit score is meaningless according to suchmoon. As he says good poster bad poster is meaningless without definition and criteria. Hence why merit is a misleading and dangerous metric to try and build upon.

I mean you have over 400 can you show me some of your best original thought inspiring contributions so I can see these great and valuable posts.

the merit system has done a great deal to lift up those who discuss (in a positive light) the merit system...ask the many genius young coders out there who have a merit of between 1 and 2...surely, they will tell you "merit is NOT about some kind of exclusive club...no...no...no...its really all about the crypto, dude...really!"...some day (not so soon, i suspect) we will get to see the numbers regarding merit for discussing actual tech shit vs merit for discussing....well......merit

Being a "genius young coder" (not that you should believe anyone claiming to be one) has nothing to do with deserving merit. Actually, if one gives themselves that title then they are likely to be an asshole who doesn't write posts which deserve merit. Besides, there is no inherent need to have merit aside from reducing some rank-related restrictions.

I would just ask you a simple question have you ever gone through anyone positive trust history and seen any other the reason to the positive trust being as a result of good post or merit.
Every trust one get be it negative or positive has a reason

Development & Technical Discussion (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=6.0) has one of the highest post-to-merit ratio so it doesn't seem that genius coders would have any trouble earning those merits. However if you see some undermerited ones please report (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5093271.0) them to your friendly neighborhood merit source. Thank you.