You aren't going to read anything I say anyway, so I'll just say Yes.

Alright, well that was just my input as someone who was a global moderator here for ~6 years, banned and warned countless people for the same thing, and was part of the collective conversation that established what moderator discretion is for these types of cases, and how and when we should typically enforce the rules.

No, but you are probably right here.

Its the forum's version of a restraining order. If people feel threatened/harassed by a member, they can make a local rule stating that they don't want them in any of their threads. Censorship means that you have no voice and no outlet. Its not censorship to tell people to get out of your house (your thread). You are free to make another topic elsewhere. No one here has the right to make other members feel not welcome here. Obviously, this is a shared space, so ignoring people is a tool for casually running into a member you have a problem with around, but ignoring is not the solution for when someone follows you around, thats where local rules come in.

This isn't something that gets a debate. The forum in general does not care if it hurts your feelings to not be able to break its rules. It doesn't matter if it makes sense to you, or if you think its fair, the rules are the rules. Meta isn't special, its a section about the forum itself, not about your relationships with others. The reason moderation rules are a little more lax in Meta is because its supposed to be a place where users can criticize the forum itself, and obviously, having a heavy handed moderation policy in place in a section meant for criticism looks shady. That does not give you any special permissions in the Meta sections. If your facts are unwanted by the OP of a thread, as dictated in the local rules, then your facts are not welcome.

You can make any argument if you'd like, but as I said, it really doesn't matter. I don't care to force you to believe me, but with this you should have complete knowledge of the rule, why it exists, and why it applies to you. Whether you agree or not. I'll point to this thread when you are banned and trying to say it was unjust, and how blindsided you were by the unfair moderator action.

I give pretty decent advice on the forum rules. If you choose not to take it under advisement, thats on you.

I don't really care if you agree or not, just know that it is against forum rules, and you can be banned for ignoring local rules. Moderator discretion on the matter would be like, not allowing local rules in a scam accusation thread, or not agreeing to enforce local rules if they are too complicated, too much of a hassle, or intentionally baiting people to break them.

People have the right to be left alone if they feel someone is stalking them across boards. If they say that they don't want someone posting in their threads, you can't post in the threads.

Do what you will with the explanation I've given you.



It does not. Be it the most insightful post of all time, or garbage, if an OP doesn't want someone posting in their thread, it is their right to not allow them to. Your remedy is to make a new thread so you can discuss what you'd like discussed.

Does not matter. As I said, local rules are there for a reason. If someone owns a thread and they don't want to hear from you, they have the right to not allow you to post in that thread. Create your own thread if thats an issue.





^ Not true. Individuals can set local rules in any board (again within reason as I pointed out before) If you set a local rule, regardless of whether your thread is self moderated, it is to be followed, otherwise moderators will take action.

No. People can set local rules (within reason). Some people don't want to have a debate regardless of the topic. If you feel your voice must be heard, create your own thread.



Not true. If I made a thread and said that someone was not allowed to post in it, and he did, he'd get a warning from a moderator first (post deletion), but a ban would follow if it continued. Local rules are relatively absolute. Now, some things are kind of unenforceable, like, if anyone posts in this thread, they owe me money. Or something to that effect, but not allowing individuals to post in a thread is within their right.

Thats not true. Its not about the posts not being serious, its about spamming other people's threads, which as I stated, I'm surprised hasn't gotten all members involved banned yet.



I really don't think I have to go find examples, if you are actually asking me to go through the post history of you and Tman to find cases where you two are having discussing something other than what the original topic is about because you are unaware of those cases, I'd be a little irritated.

This is a perfect thread for the involved parties to throw whatever accusations they want at each other, keep it here.

Why don't you just make local rules on your threads that say the other isn't allowed to post in them?

I am actually pretty surprised that all involved haven't been banned yet. You are not allowed to make a mess of other people's threads with your fighting. If you make a thread and the point of it is to fight, thats fine, but the rules about no off topic posts still apply to scam accusations and their rebuttals or whatever else this is.

I've seen a plethora of threads in meta even where one of the people involved will post, and then the other side jumps in and starts slinging insults. You can't do that here.

I'm really glad that I'm seeing my lemons example popping up everywhere. I also use lemons when I'm comparing triggered emotional responses from someone who has had five family members choke to death on lemons, and someone who has had no bad experiences with lemons.

Its been summed up pretty well, but lets put simply that trolling is bad forums behavior. Everyone will have a slightly different idea of what bad forum behavior is. The part that 99% will agree on is what we'll call the accepted definition of trolling.

Should someone be given red trust for trolling? Well it depends. It is absolutely fair to not trust someone because of their behavior. You can't give a complete and comprehensive list of what behaviors everyone will find unacceptable. No one is going to write you out a list that says

• I trust people that make jokes
• I don't trust people that use lies in their jokes
• I trust people who dislike lemons
• I don't trust people that are habitually disruptive: Read addendum 15 for definition of habitually disruptive

Point to specifics, and people will give you their interpretations on a case by case basis. If the question is whether you are a troll, I don't know, but I'd definitely consider you disruptive.

I'd be much more interested to hear thoughts about how its working from the viewpoint of genuine non sockpuppet newish users. To be fair, the majority of the people who have been voicing their opinions for or about the new DT system changes don't actually need DT in the first place. Almost everyone that has posted in this thread so far have been here for quite a while, and have already established their own good trading, risk mitigation practices. I'd be curious to see if any new users have thoughts on how the changes have either increased risk visibility, made them trust the DT lists more or less, or inspire more or less confidence that they'll at least get a basis for available feedback information.

I find it hard to have an opinion one way or another, because I don't personally use DT feedback. I lean on the side of helping people that need it out, but its rare that they voice their concerns, so most DT related meta threads end up as a political discussion among legendary members.

There would have been zero discussion about the matter for the last few years if the bolded statement was true. People make mistakes, they take actions to fix them, and its done. Unless they constantly defend their mistakes. You don't get to say, hey I'm sorry I was wrong, but actually I was right you just don't understand. I can almost guarantee there would never have been a problem with Vod, or me now, had you just said, "yeah, it was my mistake" when someone called you on it.

I absolutely completely understood your justification to me. And thought it was wrong. Its not prejudice, there are just inconsistencies in the story which lead me to believe you are not being truthful. If you are being truthful, it doesn't change anything, because it still makes me question your ability to rectify your mistakes. Being able to convince yourself that you are the victim for screwing someone else over is WAYYY more alarming to me than making a mistake due to a cultural difference. I've been trying to avoid telling you what the correct answer to the situation would have been, on the off chance that figuring it out on your own would have given a possibility of redemption.

The analogy I told you about the tourist giving people the middle finger, and whether it made sense for them to continue giving people the finger after being told of the cultural difference in meaning, was meant to spark the idea that you should have stopped defending yourself and simply given up on the idea that its ok to do something untrustworthy because of a cultural difference. When you find out you made a mistake due to a cultural difference, you say, hey sorry, this is why I thought this was ok, but I understand its different here. I'm sorry. You don't go on defending your actions and calling others out because they are misunderstanding your culture. Making a mistake and fixing it isn't a big deal. Making a mistake and continuing to try and justify your mistake for years says something about your character.

The reason I was so sure of my decision was because we fully discussed everything. I got an inside look at how your thought processing works, and thats where I found the problem. My feedback isn't meant to warn people that you are a dishonest scammer, its that there is the possibility of them getting screwed over by you, because you are exceptionally able to warp and twist what most would call common sense in order to justify your own actions, even when not a single person is on your side.

I have absolutely nothing invested in my negative feedback to you. Its not a fight I need to win, power tripping, or a matter of pride. If I had to say I had any attached emotion, it'd be that I'm a little irritated that you think I'm being hasty, when we've spent so much time talking. Claiming I'm misunderstanding the situation when I've given you ample time to clear up any misunderstanding, and even responded back on any unclear points I might have had is a little demeaning.


TLDR:

My tie in to why this is relevant to this thread, is that DT takes effort. I don't leave someone a negative on something iffy, and many other DT members do the same. It took hours of discussion with you before I felt comfortable doing so. I absolutely believe I gave you a fair shake and put in far more effort than is reasonably expected to coax your true intentions out. That said, DT's purpose is to give accurate/reliable feedback. You might disagree with me, but I gave people resources to investigate my claim for themselves. If they don't agree with me, they don't need to heed my advice. Thats essentially all there is to it. The same is true to your feedback about me, if they don't agree with your claim, they are free to ignore your feedback. Thats how it works, DT is just a good starting point for those who don't know who to trust yet. Give a member a few months here, and they create their own weighted trust lists, at least in their head if not by physically altering their list.

We are not going to agree with one another, and I'm perfectly alright with that. I just hope that we can agree that each other's feedback will only matter those those who choose to value it based on their own perception of its merit.



*edit* Quoting for my own future reference...

It really could not have. We resolved things the absolute best we could. We exchanged probably over 30 messages, and spoke in depth for well over a week regarding various matters. Neither of us have any misunderstandings of each other, and we both left each other appropriate feedback. I believe that this is a perfectly acceptable outcome. Those who think my judgement is wrong, likely understand Anduck's point of view, and his feedback may be exactly what those people would want to know about me. Likewise in the opposite direction. People who dont care about any of our points of view will ignore each others warnings.

For the most part, the DT system works exactly how the users want it to work. The tool in of itself is just a hierarchical post it note. The people that bring up a cause in Meta or the Reputation sections are who define what the system is used for. Why its become accepted to give negative trust to Scammers, Spammers, Account Farmers, etc are all because of years of history of people asking questions. Debates have been had over, for example, why its ok to give account farmers negative trust. Theymos didn't put any rules anywhere that said, You must mark account farmers with red feedback. Who did they scam? No one. Why is it ok to give them red trust? Well, because people find their actions undesirable and untrustworthy when it comes to accountability and building a community. That resolution came out of a lot of discussion though. The system changes that Theymos would enact are making DT as a tool more flexible for its users, not creating some sort of regulation around it.

As far as I know, the only rule when it comes to DT and the Feedback system, is that you may not spam people's feedback. Everything else is user created. When the community as a whole like like to see something change, it'll change in that direction. That doesn't mean people having a tantrum will get their way however.

I've been collecting leeches for a while now. I figure when we slip back into feudalism, the one with the most leeches gets to be the doctor. I'd be damn good at feudalism, so I'm excited! The people of this forum could probably create a pretty decent fiefdom if we put our heads together. We just need a handful of engineers, a handful of the hardcore survival people, we've got the agriculture fellas, and someone to help dig the moat.

(post is sarcasm and jab at government, not off topic rambling. The invitation is real though, lets dig a moat!)

When you hit the report to Merit Source button, how would Merit sources be notified? Would there just be a page somewhere with a compiled list of posts that people thought were deserving of merit? When I read this, the first thing that came to my mind was god awful PM spam, if you aren't proposing that, I don't think its a terrible idea. I don't imagine it'd be implemented by the forum, but as others have said, it is a tool that a third party could create.

I like the initiative, I support either permanent signature bans, or permanent bans. You know as well as I do, that there are never cases where someone gets punished just for mis-citing an article or something like that. Its always blatant spam that people are trying to disguise to get their post count up. In that case, a permanent signature ban is just as effective as a permanent ban. If you can't spam for profit anymore, your account is useless, and its the same as if it had been banned.

I hold extreme prejudice against copy and paste spammers. I personally find it to be the worst offense on Bitcointalk that one can commit. Of the handful of rules here, the purpose is to keep the boards clean and usable. There are always extenuating circumstances for offenses that go against the rules, that make it a little more understandable, but copy and paste spamming is the one thing where there should be no tolerance. Its spitting in the face of every member here, and the staff. To make a mistake and go off topic and spam a thread is a human mistake. I see copy and paste spamming as malicious. If you can't spend 2 minutes to even formulate your own ideas to post, you do not belong here. If your intention is to come here to make money from paid signature advertising, thats absolutely fine. If you post in topics that don't interest you because you must keep your post count up, fine. Who cares if you are feigning interest in a topic? As long as you aren't detracting away from other users who are there because they are genuinely interested, no one cares about your intentions. When you join a discussion with no intention of even trying to add to it, its time that you leave.

On a side note, I'm not a fan of the fine idea. Sure it'd dissuade people from getting caught, but there is still the opportunity that its profitable enough for them to continue spamming if they are only caught with a certain frequency.

I'd agree with you, if someone made a mistake and misunderstood you, left feedback based on that misunderstanding, and then refused to fix it when they came to the realization that they were wrong, thats a problem. The question is, you said you demonstrated their wrong assumption, did they acknowledge that? I'm sure theres pages of argument somewhere, but like I said I'm just giving you my general opinion on what is and isn't acceptable use of feedback.

If I claim I'm the Queen of England, and someone calls me a liar. I then say, Nah man, I'm the Queen of England. That isn't clearing up the issue. Until that other person rightfully agrees that I'm the Queen of England, the issue isn't resolved. That or they just leave it as I'm a liar and don't listen to my decrees which sucks for me. If I have some good proof that I'm the Queen of England, but they still wont listen, the next step is talking to whoever added them to DT and asking them to review the case. If someone on their trust list is doing it wrong, its reasonable to believe they will be removed.

Not to drag this topic off topic, but your case is one of those 99 to 1 rare scenarios I was talking about where one guy says its not a problem, and 99 say it is. I'll agree with you the Warning! Trade with extreme caution! text isn't to my liking. I'd rather there be no text at all, and no numerical score, so people would just read all of someone's feedback before trading with them. But again, its not worth neglecting a rating that the majority of people will want to know about, just because of that.

I'm not going to respond to anymore directly relation questions to that in this thread, the only reason I addressed it here was because it does explain what I meant when talking about % of people viewing a situation.

I've been using the term subjectively accurate meaning that its a reasonable statement. One could follow the train of thought that lead someone to make their claim, even if they don't necessarily agree. Everyone is going to see a situation differently, but as long as a real good faith effort is put into leaving feedback, I don't see any problem with it.

If someone was harassing me for example, at what point is it harassment, and at what point is it just annoying, a joke, or all in good fun? If 99% of people think its all in good fun, and I'm taking it as harassment, its likely that I'm overreacting and negative feedback wouldn't be appropriate. Switch that to 99% think its harassment and 1% think its a joke, its probably justified for a negative as harassment. The times where its 99% one way and 1% the other way, there isn't a need for discussion, it is what it is. That is the exception though, you don't see a thread often about a confirmed scammer disputing their negative feedback, or someone who got negative feedback out of nowhere. When opinion may be split 50/50, I don't think its worth suppressing information that 50% may want to know before deciding to trade with someone.

My point is that if someone leaves feedback because they strongly believe that something is wrong, I don't think thats abuse. Thats what feedback is for. As long as the feedback is not misleading, its up for individuals to judge its validity. The 50% who disagree with the claim and the proof provided are free to ignore it.

*edit* And again, I haven't looked at the claim against you, I'm just speaking generally how I think feedback should be handled on subjective topics.

Thats not true. Behavior does have an influence on whether you'd trade with someone or not. I personally would not trade with someone who exhibits concerning behavior. The trust system is supposed to be about accurate feedback for members, the content is more or less decided by whats acceptable by the community, and to this point, giving someone a negative for trolling, being an account farmer, owning multiple accounts, being racist, etc isn't something thats unheard of. It would be abuse to claim that the guy is a serial scammer because of their behavior. It isn't abuse to point out that behavior however.

I personally wouldn't give out negatives for trolling, but I also wouldn't give out negatives for owning multiple accounts or account farming, and thats the generally accepted practice by the community. I however certainly would give out a negative if it was for harassment or something of that nature.

Again, I didn't read through Cryptohunter's posts to prove to myself whether there is anything worth being concerned about from their posts. My position is that if the behavior issue is subjectively accurate, then its worth noting. I'm not claiming the claim itself is accurate or not, I'm claiming that the basis of the claim, if accurate isn't abuse.