There seem to be 2 problems regarding that. One is more mods are required, or the existing ones need to be more active.

The other problem is that apparently they consider something illegal (and therefore against the rules) only if there's absolutely no doubt. If there's a 99.99% of chances a thread is offering illegal goods then no action is taken because it's plausible the seller is just crazy and is selling at a loss. As a result the whole section is full of illegal items.

Being realistic, I don't think admins will ever explicitly forbid trading accounts and ban everyone who tries to sell or buy an account, for the same reasons scammers are not banned.
If I'm wrong then correct me and in that case I'd ask them to begin with banning known scammers.

The fact something is "allowed" on the forum just means a user will not be banned because of that. It doesn't mean it's OK to do it.
I don't see much difference between not mentioning something and "explicitly allowing" something else. What's not on the rules is generally allowed, unless it's so obvious it's forbidden that it's not worth mentioning.
Anyway, if admins won't ban scammers then it wouldn't make sense to ask them to ban account traders. If they change their minds about that then please do ban known scammers.

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That being said, I don't think trying to trade an account automatically deserves negative trust, and even less so being escrow for account trades. It deserves negative trust if the seller is helping scammer, either explicitly or by not doing something he could do.

For example if an old account with positive trust is being sold then that account could easily be used for an exit scam. If another Sr. account with neutral trust is sold then it would be much more difficult it's used to scam.
If a DT account is sold then there's a big chance it's used to abuse the DT system.

I would propose something less extreme: neutralizing sold accounts.
By that I mean accounts on DT should be removed from DT before being sold. Accounts with positive trust should lose that positive trust.
That could be done by informing of the sale to those who added that account to their trust list or left positive trust.
Those same users who were notified could then monitor the sold account for fishy behavior.
I want to say the seller should also check for the buyer trustworthiness, but that would probably be impractical as any untrustworthy user would just create a brand new account to buy another one.

The problem I see now with tagging every single user who tries to sell an account, or even ask a question on a sale thread, is that those ratings can dilute. I've seen sellers write "don't worry about my negative trust, it's just for selling accounts".

I don't think tagging everyone involved on account sales reduce the number of scams happening on the forum, and that should be the main (probably even only) objective of the trust system.

I agree with OP the rule regarding account sales is not clear enough. If we reach an agreement here then we can ask mprep to reflect that on the list of rules. If not then he could add something like "if you try to sell or buy an account you won't be banned but may get negative trust".

That would be arguable at best, up to the moderator.
But it's not even too important as the OP could explicitly bump the thread as if he were asking for more providers.

Yes, but that only applies for that specific scenario. A small change could avoid that:

The scammer could ask who can sell gift cards, and then his alt could offer their services, posting an auto-buy link.
Other alts could accuse the OP of trying to scam (to justify the warning at the top of the thread) and vouch for the first alt.

All of this while the thread is locked and nobody else can intervene.

I see. I hadn't thought of that.

The warning would help a little because newbies would at least know scammers are not banned (unlike most other forums) but a warning next to every post made by a scammer would be much better.
theymos, any chance you make this change?

That could happen but it's a much less serious problem. The main problem is when the scammers themselves create self-moderated and/or locked threads so nobody can post any warnings. This is practically solved with the announced change.
If a scammer posts on someone else's thread then the creator of that thread or anybody else can post a warning.

I too would prefer to see a warning next to every post made by a known scammer but I don't think it's a considerable issue.

I'm glad to see negative feedback is removed from several profiles who posted here.
We should try and leave negative trust only if we strongly believe someone has scammed or is trying to do so, especially after this welcomed change:

Leaving neutral trust or ~excluding someone from the trust list is one thing, but negative trust must be reserved to fight scammers, not for ego fights or misunderstandings.

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Edit: Please note I'm not supporting one or the other party. Please don't try to make it look like I do. I want to be as far away from this senseless discussion as possible.
All I'm saying is this fight (as well as a lot of other recent discussions on Meta and Reputation) is not about scams so no negative trust is deserved.

Please post:

• The PM where he gives you his email
• The full email (including headers) where he gives you his PayPal address
• It would help if you post the BTC address you gave him, so we don't have to retype from the image

I've PM'd him and asked to reply here. Meanwhile I've left negative trust.

FYI any PayPal payment can be reversed.

Absolutely, a lot of things must be done there:

• Adding new subsections, as you propose. They could include: gift cards/coupons, domains/websites, scripts/templates/software, ...
• Better checking for items not on the right sections, too frequent bumps, illegal items, ... Maybe another moderator is required in addition to the existing ones.
• Showing trust to guests or requiring to register before visiting that section
• Disabling self-moderated threads and not allowing to unlock locked threads

Yes, I get that. But how can even the first (and most likely only) hack be proven?
The best-case scenario is he wasn't responsible to neither secure his account or delete the hacker's posts. Wort-case scenario is the account was never hacked.

Indeed, nothing to apologize for. Actually...
How can a hack be proved? A signed message could prove the account is now held by the original owner, but there's no way to prove it wasn't under his control at some time. It's trivial to change one's IP address to simulate someone else accessed the account.
I hope this alleged hack is recorded. If this happens again I think the ban should be permanent.

The person is banned, not just the account. If you were banned then you're not allowed to post anywhere with any other account. The only exception is posting on Meta for a ban appeal.

If you post anywhere else using this or any other account then it's ban evasion and your new account will be banned too.

Do post proof of the sale and the fact he scammed you so the account is flagged.
A brand new account claiming an account was sold is not proof enough (although seems completely possible and probable).

Anduck and Vod left negative trust to each other. It's clear actmyname don't think they deserve that negative so he left counter feedback.
Theymos has said it's OK to do that if you strongly disagree with the left feedback.
Why is that stupid? A more complete description would have been better but that feedback is absolutely OK.

Post proof so we all know it for a fact and you can be sure they will be out of DT extremely soon.

You're not doing any favors to the forum by keeping this information to yourself and just rant instead. Don't be an accomplice. Share the information you have... Or lock this thread if that was just a lie.

After OP PM'd me I checked his list from my mobile and thought the change he made was much more significant. I see I made a big mistake when comparing willi9974's default trust with vs without him as DT1.

I've now taken more time to analyse it and realized there still are way to many users added by him that have left positive trust to him and have little other reasons to be there. I don't think they deserve to be DT2 and so I've decided to re-exclude willi9974. I can't say he is wrong at deciding whom to add into his list but I do say I strongly disagree with his requirements to add someone as DT2.

Being on DT1 means choosing DT2 users and under that logic I don't think willi9974 should be DT1.

I insist on the suggestion I made soon after this new DT selection method was implemented:

He's been just excluded now after LoyceV's post. I'd guess default trust (;dt) is cached once in a while. It should be updated after some time.

Clearly the main (only?) parameter for him to add someone into his trust list is having received positive trust from them. So excluding him from DT1 makes a huge difference in his trust.

Yes, probably. Finding some logic to fix this issue you mention would be much harder than limiting the size of the list. Just favoring the one with most votes won't do it, much less so the one with the older account.

That could be an option, except newbies would be basically choosing at random.
But really what I meant with a hybrid system is mainly the current system plus a black list plus a white list.
So some users would always be on DT1 (unless theymos removes them, as with the old system), others would never be there (regardless of how many votes) and all the others would depend on votes. More factors could be added too.

Edit: Maybe it would help adding some obscurity or hidden randomness to the system, so it's more difficult to manipulate it by adding someone knowing that will have desired effects. We should add people whose feedback (and the feedback left by users added by him) we trust and that's all. Maybe we shouldn't know every detail of the whole system.

Wow. Now you just attack me without any other intentions.

What I'm saying (in case you're interested in an input and didn't just mean to say "I want to be in DT1 and whoever distrusts my feedback should be removed") is it wouldn't make sense to automatically grant DT1 status to older members versus newer ones, as you suggested. Being an old member doesn't necessarily mean being trusted or being impartial when leaving trust or choosing DT2 users. It would make more sense to grant that status to those trusted by more users.

That, or we return to the previous system where theymos picked DT1 members. Or we get a hybrid system.

If the list gets too big and the limitation is automatic then it would make much more sense to increase the minimum required amount of total inclusions a member must have: +2 or +3 instead of the current zero for example.
Or it could be manual with explicit white- and blacklists.