While I agree with several of your conclusions here, and you bring up very good points about there being no limiting factor on frivolous negative ratings, I think your solution is lacking and is only adding more complication to an already over complicated system. The system needs to be simplified, not added to. My suggestion is to have a standard of evidence of theft, violation of contractual agreement, or violation of applicable laws before leaving a negative rating. This solves the primary issue of there being no limiting factor to false or frivolous negative ratings with minimal effort, creates a simpler system, and less counter productive side effects.
The end user does not need to understand how the calculations are made. The end user only needs to know they should leave a negative rating if they strongly believe the person to be a "scammer" and a positive rating should be left if you have affirmative reason to believe the person to be trustworthy AND you should not leave a positive rating if there is a good reason to believe the person is a scammer (this is a lower threshold than to leave a negative rating, but will prevent a scammer from completing a small number of trades to erase the 'trade with extreme caution' warning. This particular proposal is designed to ensure there is something semi-resembling consensus for any labeling of someone as a scammer. I don't think the requirement to present evidence of xxx alone is sufficient to prevent frivolous negative ratings. I am following both your and OgNasty's separate disputes with Vod, following what is being posted, it is clear that Vod is in the wrong, yet he continues to have many trust inclusions despite his lies and deception -- I believe this is because he has sufficient allies that he supports and who in turn support him regardless of either being right or wrong, they all simply refuse to criticize eachother no matter how outrageous they behave. I believe if it is required to publicly post evidence of "xxx" to post a negative rating, unless the administration gets involved in trust disputes, which I know theymos does not want to in ~all cases, those who are currently giving frivolous ratings will continue doing so, and will present troll posts as evidence, and others will continue to support these people out of fear of getting tagged themselves, or getting excluded from the trust network. I also believe that someone displaying (multiple) red flags of being a scammer should be grounds for being labeled as a scammer. A brand new user asking for a loan without collateral is fairly clearly intending on scamming (even though their scam attempt is so transparent that labeling these people a scammer is probably unnecessary). If someone were to explicitly say they intend on stealing money once given the opportunity, I don't believe they would meet your criteria for receiving negative trust, but I believe others should be warned about this person's intentions. marcotheminer is another good example of someone I believes should be tagged as when he recently returned from a long hiatus, he started taking out loans in escalating sizes, and eventually tried taking out a $xx,000 loan, which is constant with someone trying to engage in an exit scam (he was actually tagged by many before this, which was not appropriate). Someone running what is very clearly a ponzi should also be tagged. Yes, someone displaying a "red flag" of being a scammer is very subjective. My proposal would address this problem by requiring there to be something resembling consensus for someone to be labeled a scammer. If I label someone as a scammer because they are displaying x red flag, and you disagree this red flag means this person will scam in the future, you can counter my negative rating, and others can chime in via their own ratings, and the system will only display a 'trade with extreme caution' warning if there is consensus, while leaning towards not displaying the warning, constant with the principal of the presumption of innocence. |
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If Vod is correct about the number of posts, that would mean taking over 5,000 days assuming one post was checked per second. You can download one page (up to 20 posts) per second. In ideal circumstances this would take just a month, in reality probably 2 months. Ahh yes, that is my mistake. I am not sure what the distribution of page lengths look like, but some pages are shorter than 20 posts, for example for threads with 21 posts, the second page will have one post, and a thread with 3 posts will have one page with 3 posts. So long as the average thread length is above 30 posts, it would take an upper bound of 2 months to scrap all the posts. he problem was the very large number of BS-posts like "good project". You should be able to filter these types of posts out. Ditto with posts under a certain length that would not be reasonably plagiarism. |
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He also has been able to produce the specific posts that have been reported when people are asking about their ban. I assume hilariousandco can just view all reports, which makes it easy to find the specific post. Bingo. I don't message anyone, but I'm also - arguably - the most active moderator, or at least the one who is active in posting publicly, so people tend to go to me rather than the admins or anyone else. Fair enough. Sounds like a reasonable explanation. If Vod is correct about the number of posts, that would mean taking about 5,000 days assuming one post was checked per second.
5000 days is wrong... It will take 593 days to scan the current total post count. Total forum posts 51,269,556 / 86400 secs (24hrs) = 593.40 days The 5,000 day figure was based on Vods half billion post figure. I am mostly interested in the tool - the bot - used to actually report the plagiarists.
Most likely, the bot scrapes posts on the forum, compiles them into a database along with who posted and the date/time of the post, and cross references the posts among other entries in the database. Presumably other sources of writings are also compiled into the database, such as news articles, blog posts and similar, and the scraped posts are also crossed checked against these entires. It would be very similar to how google or any other search engine works, except the database is run on your own server. |
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There appear to be multiple people reporting plagiarism, although suchmoon is very clearly one person running a bot to check for plagiarism and I would not trust her to not use her bot to check for plagiarism against her enemies (very broadly speaking).
I had assumed that the bot will go through 1 to 2601082 accounts and will check every post to find plagiarism. If Vod is correct about the number of posts, that would mean taking over 5,000 days assuming one post was checked per second. I don’t think this is what’s happening. Also, without saying as many words, suchmoon strongly implied she would not report lauda plagiarism if it was found. |
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He also has been able to produce the specific posts that have been reported when people are asking about their ban. I assume hilariousandco can just view all reports, which makes it easy to find the specific post. This is true. He was also the first to actually care about the problem years before any serious push was done to address it and find instances of plagiarism in masse. He also appears to care about addressing the problem a lot. I would be seriously surprised to learn that he is in no way involved. |
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Does anyone has any real information about what tool is used and by whom to actually make these bans happen? Yes I'm curious  Are you asking who is reporting the plagiarism to the moderators? Or do you wish to know which moderator is actually banning forum members? There appear to be multiple people reporting plagiarism, although suchmoon is very clearly one person running a bot to check for plagiarism and I would not trust her to not use her bot to check for plagiarism against her enemies (very broadly speaking). I presume that Hilariousandco is at least involved in reviewing the reports and banning people. Many who have been banned are addressing their appeal threads to him, so I would reasonably conclude that he is sending a PM when a person is banned. I don’t think he is a well known enough of a moderator for this many people to address their appeal threads to him and so few/none to other moderators. He also has been able to produce the specific posts that have been reported when people are asking about their ban. I would be surprised if he is the only one working on this though. |
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Bitcoin is not money. And a wallet is hardly a bank account.
The same principle applies to property found inside a safety deposit box, even if rent is paid. The relationship between Hhampuz and BestMixer is similar to that of the one between a depositor and ia bank, or perhaps a client and a lawyer. In the case of a lawyer holding client funds, keeping the money separate is insufficient, the lawyer must keep detailed records of client funds, and if the detailed records cannot be produced, the lawyer would be disbarred. A lawyer commingling client money with their own can result in the lawyer going to jail.
Separately, at the end of the day, the money in question belongs to BestMixer who hired Hhampuz to safeguard the money and spend it for advertising in a very particular way. Hhampuz received payment for this service. I see no benefit to BestMixer for Hhampuz moving the money or using it for his personal use. No, keeping its location secret will not benefit BestMixer because it’s exi is already public. |
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You should have some read Quicksie Property is generally deemed to have been abandoned if it is found in a place where the true owner likely intended to leave it, but is in such a condition that it is apparent that he or she has no intention of returning to claim it. and In the United States, property left behind by a tenant is generally presumed abandoned after anywhere from 1 week to 1 year, and if unclaimed, may be disposed of or sold to recoup storage costs; in some states the difference may be kept by the landlord, in others returned to the tenant, and in others it must be turned over to the state or county. Edit: then you have this as well Under American common law, treasure trove belongs to the finder unless the original owner reclaims. Some states have rejected the American common law and hold that treasure trove belongs to the owner of the property in which the treasure trove was found. These courts reason that the American common law rule encourages trespass. Leaving money in escrow does not match the description of Eads v. Brazelton; the money was intended to be spent on advertising, but due to circumstances caused by Hhampuz (him closing the campaign), and the Dutch government (seizing the business), it was not. Further, Hhampuz was not acting as a landlord to BestMixer, it would be more accurate to say Hhampuz was acting as BestMixers agent. In the US, most state laws require banks to turn over unclaimed property to the state after 3-5 years of no communication, and as mentioned, the bank does not keep the money, it is sent to the state. Hhampuz did in no way "find" the money from BestMixer. |
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Ability to include someone in your trust list as "Ratings Only" I've thought of this option, and I do think it can be helpful. It would be nice if we could add a custom depth to each of inclusions, but like o_e_l_e_o mentioned, it would add complexity to an already complex system. Maybe a custom depth setting can be implemented as an option, and not a requirement. Well yea, you don't ever need to use any particular feature. "Trade with Extreme Caution" warning This is one of the philosophical debates about the current system; is it a "trader" rating or a "trust" rating? Should it be limited to those who've completed trades with one another, or is more than that? It's my opinion that the trust system is designed to be more general and broad, and therefore more useful than merely a "trade" rating. There are many attempted scams that don't necessarily involve a trade of goods or an exchange of currency. And anyone could simply start trading in rinky-dink transactions that amount to only a few dollars and still earn a high trade rating. If it was limited to only trades, then every one who dealt with CanaryInTheMine would like a trusted individual. We know that's not necessarily the case. My understanding of the intention behind the current implementation of the trust system is it is intended to not be limited to those who you have personally traded with. If trust ratings were limited to trades, a scammer could simply never trade with someone on DT (or never scam someone on DT, but trade with them), and no warning would ever show, which on its face would be a bad thing. This proposal is trying to solve the problem that a single person can effectively torpedo a person's reputation without any real recourse, even if many others on DT disagree. It effectively takes three people to override a single negative rating, and this number grows exponentially as each additional negative rating is given. There is a small group of people who frequently leave negative ratings together, that effectively cannot be overridden -- when 4 people leave a negative rating, it will take 17 positive ratings for for person to show as having not negative trust, and when 5 people leave a negative rating, 33 people will need to leave a positive rating. The above group of people tends to leave very controversial ratings with impunity and without consequence, and this results in this group of people collecting additional support from others because they fear themselves being targeted by this group, and do not want to lose their reputation for arbitrary reasons (or for the underlying reason of opposing/pushing back against this group of people). This particular proposal removes the ability to label someone a scammer for an arbitrary reason. If there is pushback to someone being labeled a scammer, it will take many people labeling the person a scammer, and if there is enough pushback, the person will effectively not be labeled a scammer. I don't think someone needs to have actually scammed to be labeled a scammer, and it is sometimes appropriate to label someone a scammer if they are showing "red flags", however it is my belief it should be pretty clear cut if someone is being labeled a scammer. In any case, everyone will be free to review the text (and references) of trust ratings and come to their own conclusion if it is safe to trade with someone or not. -snip-
Remove the ability to exclude a person from your trust network:
This feature sounds good on its face, but is actually harmful to the trust system and the community.
As an example, SaltySpitoon has BayAreaCoins on his trust list. if BAC leaves controversial ratings, he is unwilling to remove after a public discussion, if the rating is controversial, SaltySpitoon should remove BAC from his trust list. If BAC is unwilling to do this, a decision should be made to either accept the controversial rating, or to remove SaltySpitoon from your trust list. This will force people to be accountable for who they have on their trust lists.
-snip-
I'm not seeing your example there, isn't that the accountability we are talking about? If BAC leaves controversial ratings, it would reflect poorly on me as me lending my trust in his ratings. As a result, I should remove him from my list, or others will doubt my ability to be a judge of ratings and exclude me. That is a feature we want correct? Not many people know how to determine who has included who on their trust list. I am not referring to BAC, but under the old implementation of DT, you had at least one person who not only left many controversial ratings, but also refused to even defend his ratings, and chose to instead troll anyone who tried to defend themselves (which, BTW sent a clear message to others to not even try to defend themselves), and you were in no way held accountable. You were not the only one, Blazed had many people on his trust list who left many controversial ratings, and I am not aware of him being held accountable in any way. Both you and Blazed either ignored the problems, or pretended they didn't exist, and never engaged in any substantial discussion on the ratings of those in question. Going back further, CITM had a trust list that many people found very controversial for many months, if not over a year, and to my knowledge he did not encounter any problems in conducting business, and was only removed from DT1 when he left an indefensible negative rating for Dogie, who was able to concisely defend himself -- I have my doubts that the rating in question would have even mattered had it not been for dogies contributions to the forum. So no, I don't think having someone on your trust list who leaves controversial ratings will reflect poorly enough on you to resemble anything close to you being held accountable. As for the ratings only part, if BAC has someone on his trust list that I think is too volatile to be on DT, the process starts again, the individual gets pressured, BAC would get pressured, and then I'd get pressured in that order if nothing is done about it. In that case, I could exclude that person and it'd be settled.
In this example, everyone who has BAC on their trust list would need to exclude the volatile person, which is not ideal because not everyone will notice the problem right away. A better example of this is probably Blazed, who as mentioned above, had many people on his trust list who had no business being anywhere near DT. I consider him to be generally trustworthy, have successfully trusted him with $x,000 in the past, and would probably be willing to trust him with $xx,000 if we were engaging in a trade that I believed to be mutually beneficial for the both of us. His ratings were similarly good. His trust list was not, nearly his entire list was compromised of people who I don't want in my trust network, and as such I eventually excluded him, knowing how the trust system worked and how to use it. |
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marlboroza is a liar who likes to twist facts for the benefit of those who he is allied with. I would not take him seriously. He is intent on smearing and attacking anyone who is willing to speak out against any of his friends. |
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I think it is time to change the people who are in DT....
A small group of people have decided to give negative trust for reasons that have nothing to do with the person being a scammer.
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Its been less than 6 months since the last changes were made, I think theymos should wait another 6 months before fiddling with the system. People are still adapting to the last upheaval. To introduce more changes now would just add to the confusion.
I don’t think the current implication is working. This is for many reasons. My proposal should completely eliminate any trust disputes for controversial reasons. If someone starts leaving inaccurate ratings with inaccurate comments, they can be blacklisted. If someone leaves a negative rating you do not believe makes the person a scammer, you are free to ignore it. This is already the case. If you don't agree with a rating, ignore it or exclude the person who left it. It is only possible to exclude someone from your own trust network. This will do nothing to address how others will view trust left by this person. As mentioned, the majority of businesses use the default settings so any rating left by anyone in DT, and if considering doing something such as giving an unsecured loan, looking at these ratings is logical. Further, it is not possible to exclude an individual rating because all ratings are calculated in trust scores. The calculation for if a warning is displayed doesn’t need to be done by users and I don’t see any major drawbacks if individuals don’t understand this. |
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I believe it has been established the current implementation of the trust system is not working. This in large part can be attributed to the Default Trust changes implemented this past January, but the underlying root cause of the problem is a very small number of people leaving a very large number of controversial ratings. I believe a lot of these people have proven themselves to be untrustworthy, and should be labeled as such. The most appropriate solution, IMO is to blacklist most of these people from being able to ever be in anyone's trust network, unless they are explicitly added to a user's trust list, but I do not believe this will happen. If memory serves me correctly, the trust score algorithm was changed not long after AMHash stopped honoring their obligations. The algorithm was changed so that negative ratings had much greater weight, and positive ratings had much less weight. The instance of a single negative rating would further lower the weight of positive ratings. I believe this goes too far, and is not appropriate if the administration is unwilling to mediate trust disputes, as appears to be the case for many years now. To resolve the problems with the trust system, I would propose the following: Remove the ability to exclude a person from your trust network: This feature sounds good on its face, but is actually harmful to the trust system and the community. As an example, SaltySpitoon has BayAreaCoins on his trust list. if BAC leaves controversial ratings, he is unwilling to remove after a public discussion, if the rating is controversial, SaltySpitoon should remove BAC from his trust list. If BAC is unwilling to do this, a decision should be made to either accept the controversial rating, or to remove SaltySpitoon from your trust list. This will force people to be accountable for who they have on their trust lists. Ability to include someone in your trust list as "Ratings Only": If someone has left many good ratings, but is not good at maintaining a trust list, it should be possible to only trust the person's ratings, but ignore their trust list. In the above example, if SaltySpitoon refused to remove BAC from his trust list, but has left many good ratings over the years, someone may decide to include him in their trust list as "Ratings only" so that his trust network would see his trust ratings but would completely ignore his trust list. This will mitigate some of the problems and controversy caused by the above. Removal of Trust Scores: This is the most drastic, and probably the most controversial change. Forum members will be free to leave comments with their various types of ratings, but this will remove the harm associated with the controversial ratings. If someone leaves a negative rating you do not believe makes the person a scammer, you are free to ignore it. Ratings will be able to be filtered by if they are left by those in your trust network, and further by if the rating is positive, negative or neutral. This will force users to draw their own conclusions as to how trustworthy someone is. Further, this will also mitigate the "this person has good judgment" and "this person helps out" type positive ratings that some people have who lack any real trading history, but show Dark Green trust currently inappropriately. Modification of when the "Trade with Extreme Caution" warning will be displayed: Even if trust scores are not displayed, it is still appropriate to give a warning displayed in marketplace posts and in PMs by/from people who are reasonably scammers. The Algorithm to determined if this warning is displayed should be changed. Additional warnings should also be introduced. No ratings: If a person does not have any ratings, positive or negative (ignoring neutral), a warning should be displayed saying the person does not have any reported trust ratings within your trust network. Ratings, but no "Trade with Extreme Caution" Warning: If a person will not have a "Trade with Extreme Caution" warning, a message should be displayed encouraging people to review trust ratings, and attempt to evaluate the person's trustworthiness prior to trusting the person. "Trade with Extreme Caution" warning: This determination if this warning is displayed should depend on if they have any previous positive ratings, and if they receive any positive ratings after their first negative rating. If the person does not have any previous negative ratings, nor do they receive any positive ratings subsequent to receiving their first negative rating, they will display the "Trade with Extreme Caution" warning. This is simple and should not be controversial, if a single person believes a person to be a scammer, and no one contests this, the person should display this warning. If the person has between 1 and 3 positive positive ratings, and no positive ratings after they receive their first negative rating, they need at least 2 negative ratings from unique people to display this warning. If the person has more than 4 positive ratings, and no positive ratings after they receive their first negative rating, they need at least 3 negative ratings from unique people to display this warning. If someone leaves a negative rating, subsequently removes the rating, and adds a negative rating back on within a month, the date the original rating was left shall be used to calculate when a person received their first negative rating. If someone receives at least one positive rating after the first negative rating, their status as a scammer is disputed. If a person's status as a scammer is disputed, the number of negative ratings (in addition to the numbers listed above) need to be left for a member in order for the warning to be displayed: y = [(n^2)/3], round up n = number of unique ratings received after the first negative rating received, unless the member has received at least 4 positive ratings subsequent to their first negative rating, and if this is the case, it will be: the number of positive ratings received subsequent to their first negative rating, plus 20% of positive ratings received after their first negative rating The above formula will make it difficult to label someone as a scammer if many people disagree with this conclusion. The specifics can be tinkered with around the edges if necessary/deemed appropriate.
The selection process for how DT is determined should also be reformed, but that is another topic of discussion.
What do you think? Should the above be implemented? Vote above, select "yes" or "no" for each proposal. |
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Accounts here are worth exactly 0 BTC, you should have no expectation otherwise. Your account could be deleted/banned tomorrow for absolutely no reason, without any sort of recourse. The market seems to disagree with you. There appear to be willing buyers and sellers who are willing to exchange valuable property for forum accounts. This is in light of the risk of accounts getting banned for arbitrary reasons (or legitimate reasons for actions done by prior owners). Just because we've come to expect a certain level of fair treatment doesn't mean its guaranteed. I don't think it is appropriate to intentionally have unfair policies in place, nor to encourage people to act unfairly, nor to facilitate unfair behavior If the problem is that users see any negative feedback as a blanket statement that someone will scam them the second they trade with them, thats not an issue with the system, thats a problem with the userbase. If I can leave people negative feedback because they like lemons, and it effects their trading in the slightest, we don't need to issue a rule saying that I shouldn't leave people feedback about lemons, we should issue a mandatory exam and pledge that people will think critically about all features of this forum before using them. Every negative rating affects a person's score the same way, regardless of the comment attached to the rating, to the extent the person is in your trust network. Many businesses that operate on the forum will use the DT network as a basis for evaluating someone's trustworthiness, including as a basis for hiring someone. If you do not agree with a particular rating, it is not possible to ignore the rating when calculating a person's trust score. Also, once a person has a strong foot in the door of being on DT1, it is nearly impossible to exclude them, regardless of how controversial they are. I am very against setting up rules surrounding what you can and can't leave feedback for. I am against this and regulating the marketplace. However, the current situation is sufficiently harmful to the economy and the community that I believe some regulation is appropriate. Personally, I don't find people that default on loans deserving of red trust if they stay in communication with the person that lent them the money, and proactively make an attempt to rectify the situation. How many people do you think would be thrilled if I managed to make it a forum rule that you can't leave people negative feedback for defaulting on a loan if they stay active after doing it?
The difference between your example, and leaving negative trust for trading forum accounts is that a loan default is the breaking of a promise, and not honoring the terms of a contract. The trading of a forum account, or the discussion of doing the same is neither. |
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To be honest even IF HHampuz decided to move the funds WITHOUT a request from BestMixer, this doesn't mean at all he won't return said funds upon request of bestmixer team. I'm sorry, when you are handling others' money, you do not get the benefit of the doubt. To me the only thing he owes bestmixer is to keep these funds secure for some time, say a year, before it would be ok to use them for himself, or for whatever he wants. Everything about this statement is ridiculous. There is absolutely no basis for stealing BestMixers money after a year, Hhampuz has no right to any of the money in any circumstance other than the payment of previously agreed upon fees for holding their money. Further it is absolutely crazy to suggest it is not only okay to commingle customer assets, but to spend customer assets for his own personal use. Keeping assets separate from your own personal assets is a basic principal of acting as an agent for a third party, be it as a lawyer, as a bank, as a securities broker, be it any other agency relationship. |
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Is there any chance we will upgrade the NasyFans donation and mining addresses to 3Nasty... to use SegWit to save on TX fees?
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2) interpret Theymos' words however you want.
So I was not wrong in my interpretation? You can interpret my words however you want as well. As long as you know you're breaking a forum rule, I don't care what you do. This is a lie. You know very well the trust system if not moderated. |
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- If you want to make a rating stronger, increase "Risked BTC". 50 extra risked BTC is equivalent to an additional rating. ^ This doesn't apply any more and has not for quite some time. Just change your trust rating to zero risked and be done with it as it won't make a difference. The algorithm for trust ratings previously would take the extra 50 BTC risked amount into consideration, and it now no longer does. When theymos made the statement, it was true, however he later changed how trust ratings are calculated, and his statement is no longer true. The current algorithm can be found here, and is posted below: if there are no negative ratings
score = 0
for each rating, oldest to newest
if this rater has already been counted
continue
score += min(10, round_up(months since rating))
else
score = unique_positive - 2^(unique_negative)
if score >= 0
start_time = time of first negative
score = unique_positive since start_time - unique_negative since start_time
if(score < 0)
return ??? (orange)
move score to range [-9999,9999]
return score
[/quote] |
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I wonder if there will be the same fake outrage we saw when Bill Gator released his PM. Even if OgN did say he would give merit for Vod's thread, this does not change the fact that Vod said "I'll expect...merit" |
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This shit's definitely gone too far. If only there was something else we could do, like maybe theymos could implement a forum feature allowing us to express our displeasure or even - gasp - distrust of certain individuals so that we wouldn't need 15 threads about each one.
The ability to exclude a person from your trust list harmed the trust system. Instead of holding a person accountable for including someone who should not be in their trust list, users now have the option of excluding the person who should not be in the trust network. And the problem is........? Perhaps you should have read the rest of the post jackass. Your history of sticking up for scammers and acting in bad faith has not gone unnoticed. As stated, the problem is people are not held accountable for having someone in their trust list that has no business being on a reputable persons trust list. |
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