Ooo, merit. Very impressive. The above is VERY relevant, because you just showed up within the last year, and as a result you were not around to witness previous happenings, therefore your conclusions are based on limited information. You even explicitly said "I don't know about that particular staff and vod's story and i don't care", so you are not only poorly informed, you are willfully ignorant based on your own statements.

The premise you are presenting is a logical fallacy called a false choice.

1. Badbear was staff. Badbear removed Vod from his trust list. Vod was removed from his trust list as a direct result of his abusive behavior. A staff member agreed his behavior was abusive.

2. This is not an all or nothing premise. The staff can exercise selective enforcement and also make credible choices simultaneously, they are not exclusive concepts. Furthermore there is more than one member of the staff.

3. See 1 & 2.

Quoting for reference since Vod's strategy is one of topic sliding.

What exactly am I supposed to respond to? I don't answer for anyone but myself as I already stated so, asking me to defend the actions of others will of course net you no reply. BTW the word is censored.

Sure I know what you mean, and I don't agree, and I explained in detail why, point by point, but you refuse to respond. The word is senseless BTW.

How convenient you start with your hyperdeconstructivist attitude, I take the time to carefully reply in detail, then you just cry about it being a waste of time and you are suddenly above responding. BTW criticism of you, while you may find it insulting does not automatically make it an insult. Only you can control if you are insulted, and I am sorry your ego is to utterly fragile.


I see, so suddenly you want protection under my metric! Thanks for demonstrating its usefulness. Unfortunately we are not operating under my objective metric of a standard of evidence of theft, violation of contractual agreement, or violation of applicable laws, we are operating under a subjective free for all, one you take full advantage of on a regular basis. Under the current standard we are operating under, even Theymos himself said leaving you a negative rating was completely valid, and after seeing you feign remorse and then move right back into unrepentant abuse just as you always do I decided to leave that rating for you because you more than earned it. As far as your mental illness, that is evident from your own continued unyielding escalation of unrepentant abusive behavior, but that is not why I left you the rating, I left it because you doxed and reported a user to the IRS as a form of retribution for their criticism of you. It is more than evident you have trouble controlling yourself.

I never said the end user needs to know how the calculations are made, however this system is already too complicated and opaque to the point that hardly anyone understands it as it is. Adding more parts to a system creates more opportunities for the system to be broken. Furthermore every time one of these little patches are added it just gets worse and worse. We should be simplifying this cluster fuck, not just duct taping over it.

You are correct in pointing out that my proposal would not solve the issue of people including people in their clique regardless of how extreme their behavior is as well as selectively excluding their opponents. Regardless of this though, they would under my proposal still be required to substantiate using evidence any actual negative ratings and that tool of abuse would largely be removed from them as the barrier of entry of manufacturing false evidence is much higher. Furthermore this again returns accountability back upon an accuser that negative rates without substantiation. This mass shitting of negative ratings all over the user base with zero accountability is the primary tool of retribution and abuse used. As a result they can exclude and include away all day, but the ones leaving the negative rating will be required to substantiate their claims, unlike now where they can just say "I believe XYZ and I don't need to explain myself" regardless if they actually have any evidence or actually believe it.

This will build a clear trail of patterns of behavior people can reference that will be created each and every time they attempt to leave an abusive rating, as opposed to now where they just put on their little clown show and hide in the confusion because they have no obligation (accountability) to take any of it seriously. The difference is my metric is inherently objective in subject matter, whereas currently the metric is totally subjective leaving a 4 lane highway of a loophole for abuse. I want to use the objective metric to turn that highway into a narrow dirt road that leaves mud caked all over them when they take the abusive route. They will continue to abuse, yes, but now they will have to lie to the whole forum over and over and over again about objective facts, which is far more difficult.

There may be situations where people may want to label some one is a scammer when it does not fit firmly within the rubric of theft, violation of contractual agreement, or violation of applicable laws, yes. However nothing is preventing people from simply creating a thread in the appropriate subforum and leaving a neutral rating with the thread referenced. If a user is doing due diligence, this is something they will see. If a user is not doing due diligence, no one is going to save them from themselves as a fool and his money will always be parted. We should be training new users to do due diligence and carefully review ratings, not just look at flashy red and green bits next to the avatar. Additionally the lack of due diligence combined with a squad of pretender police gives a false sense of security that scams are moderated, making users more open to cons when they should instead be doing their own due diligence.

So because I don't blame capitalism for every starving person I blame the poor for being poor? What? Your brain is like a birds nest of disjointed Communist platitudes. Banking cartels are not capitalism, they are criminal monopolies that I don't like any more than Communism, especially considering they INVENTED Communism, and this is documented fact. The fact that these cartels exist does not impugn the entire ideology of capitalism, nor make capitalism responsible for every poor or starving person on the face of the Earth. Communism kills. It literally lines people up and shoots them. It intentionally causes famine in order to genocide its own populations. Worst of all Communism crushes peoples SOULS and MINDS by lowering everyone to the lowest common denominator in the name of "equality".

Oh look it is Woke China Bro, one of the few people with even lower grade replies than Captain Postmodern there. So now everyone that starves while capitalism exists is the responsibility of capitalism now? WAT? Communism directly killed AT LEAST 100 million people, about 60 million ALONE in China. Freed a billion people my ass, the Chinese are subjects that are not even allowed to choose what they want to say and read.

In your opinion what makes this not off topic?

That's all I ever have is unsubstantiated. Look at me ma I'm Vod! You forgot to throw in "I am rubber you are glue" while you are at it, that might have been more credible.

You mean like calling me a liar over an over when you run out of arguments? Good show old chap.

Yeah why would you care to inform yourself about a subject when you can be totally ignorant and have a strong opinion about it anyway, Mr. I just had my 1 year anniversary here? I never said anything about "ultimate unquestionable proof of anything". At the time BadBear was basically Theymos's right hand man and was pretty much the main moderator. That is not the case any longer, but you were not around for any of this anyway so what the fuck do you know? If you really care about my signature you can read more here, but clearly you are just here to brown nose and play little games. If you don't like my attitude maybe you should check your own.

Yet the trust system is supposed to help new users the most now isn't it? Is not a new user's defining characteristic the fact that they are less able to determine these nuances? On one hand you claim that we need to protect them from themselves by leaving preventative ratings, yet on the other hand they can determine what is good or bad for themselves. Which is it? It seems you just juxtapose whatever fits your narrative at any given time. You are in fact dismissing the negative consequences and determining we should only look at the positives. It is not a matter of being fair, it is a matter of accuracy, efficiency, and signal noise resulting directly in many other issues. I am not asking we tailor a litany of rules. This is another refrain I hear regurgitated from you over and over. Having a simple standard of evidence and accountability for that evidence is not "tailored rules for every scenario", it is a quite general objective metric.

It is a systemic problem, and it has been for years. Most people just walk away and never come back. For every conflict you see there are about ten times more people that just say fuck this place and never come back. People don't want to invest time and resources into a place where ones hard earned reputation can be stripped over arbitrary bullshit at any given time with no due process or recourse whatsoever. It is more than "annoying spam", it is causing the overall community itself to fragment and destroy itself. Furthermore it is way too easy for a bad actor to step in and manufacture this kind of drama purposely and create more and more of these wedges. You go ahead and dismiss my warnings as you always have, one day it will be your turn on the hot seat and I will point and laugh as I reference all your poo pooing quotes.

Its cute how you do your semantic gymnastics here to not only call me a liar when the words came right from you, but then also use it as an opportunity to make it seem as if you are some how substantiating your original claims of lies that you abused the trust system over originally. Bravo for packing the maximal amount of horse shit into such a small package. You are used to small packages aren't you? After all, that would explain a lot of your behavior.

I am familiar thank you, not that I give any credit to history lessons from a person that denies the over a hundred million were killed by Communism. None of this explains why it is now suddenly an issue.

Funny, you completely ignore a giant detailed reply to each of your points then accuse me of avoiding replying to "main points". I didn't lie about anything, I explained myself using solid logic and replied to each of your points, point by point giving very specific alternatives. I am sorry if the hamster running the wheel in your brain has given up for the day and you have to resort to accusing me of lying and ignoring your arguments when I very clearly replied to each of them in an extremely detailed manner. Apparently your ego takes precedence over an intellectually honest discussion, but whats new?

P.S. learn how to use quotes.

Lincoln caused the civil war. Also no one really wins civil wars. He never gave a fuck about slavery, he even explicitly said if he could end the war without ending slavery he would have. I have mixed feelings about Nixon, there are a lot of things about him I do not like, but at least he wasn't an ineffectual spinless turd like some of the other presidents we have had. Trump is simply dealing with the hand crafted cluster fuck created by previous administrations (on both sides of the isle) that was left for him. So far I think he is doing a good job, but more can always be done. At least he has made a notable change in trend.

Great. I am glad I took the time to make a thoughtful, logical, point by point reply just for you to run away because you feel like you have run out of arguments. Good show. Instead you opt for baseless claims that I want to let scammers freely scam. Who is the liar? Some one call chicken little, the sky is falling again. I have come up with an alternative, it is in the wall of text above.

1. This could be addressed first of all by making a thread in the "reputation" subforum to discuss the issue and alert others to it. This thread could then be referenced with a neutral rating. This has the additional benefit of training new users to read trust ratings instead of just looking for little red and green flashy bits and moving on. We are already operating under "a kind of natural selection deal." People who are not doing due diligence can not be protected from themselves, and their behavior currently under the existing model already gets them into a "shit spot". Even if by happenstance they get protected once or twice, the cause of the issue is still not being resolved, resulting in the inevitability of their being robbed.

2. This seems to be the constant refrain, that more staff will be needed to do this when in actuality no additional staff intervention would be needed, in fact probably even LESS would be needed than the current system. This theoretical gang would with every retaliatory or baseless rating be subjecting themselves to public scrutiny as there is a standard of evidence and a simple form of due process (requirement of the objective standard). As it is currently, no one has any accountability for their ratings or exclusions, it is just a matter of "I believe XYZ" and I am not even going to bother explaining myself. This objective metric makes this giant loophole for abuse MUCH smaller, and again redirects accountability back to those making the accusation if it is seen to be lacking. They may very well gang up to continue abuse, but now everyone will see exactly what they are doing and it will be MUCH more difficult for them to justify their actions as opposed to the current system we have now where no one is obligated to explain any of these choices or "beliefs".



Noise is by definition invalid. To restrict noise would not restrict valid ratings. Now you might want to argue there are things people should be aware of that would not fall under the objective metric of a standard evidence of theft, violation of contractual agreement, or violation of applicable laws, which is a fair point, but like other users you are inherently excluding the bad results of subjective ratings while demanding we only address the good. Anything that does not fall firmly within the objective metric can be handled with a thread in the "Reputation", "Market Discussion" or "Scam Accusation" subforums, along with a neutral rating referencing the thread. Saying that using a system that is wide open to abuse is good because it allows us to see who is abusing it is an asinine argument. Nothing would prevent these kind of judgements based on several other factors. So you are saying you would rather have the cluster fuck of constant infighting we have now because it shows who is abusive, as opposed to an objective metric that cuts out the vast majority of this bullshit before it even starts?

Badbear was a moderator at the time. Moderation is a paid position. Paid position = staff.

You are now entering a mode of less of a constructive critical conversation into the realm of hyperdeconstructivism in an attempt to avoid honestly reviewing the information I am presenting.

Your example is a poor one as I already explained. Lets say that those self moderation and locking abilities were removed tomorrow, what then? Is the problem that no one was warned or was the problem that the user did not do due diligence to begin with? You are focusing on treating the symptoms while totally ignoring the cause. Furthermore you are totally ignoring again the negative consequences such as the rampant abuse that results from this massive loophole of subjectivity, as well as the fact that legitimate ratings will be lost in all the noise of the frivolous ratings. Once people see negative ratings are given out for minor infractions, they will literally be trained to ignore them because they are so common, defeating the purpose entirely.

You talk about how we should be less tolerant of abusive ratings, but what does that even mean? What do you OBJECTIVELY suggest be done to limit this? You aren't providing any solution to the issue, you are just saying that's bad and people shouldn't do it. The system would indeed NOT need to change dramatically. I explained in more detail here how this system would operate under these standards.

My statement was not a lie at all. You ceded that "...too many frivolous ratings creates signal noise and allows actual fraud to be buried in the din. Not only that, no one ever addresses the security threat of users having the ability to extort trusted users with false ratings in order to force compliance and silence." The logic then follows that if this premise is correct, then negative ratings can not sufficiently serve as both a warning and as a penalty. These concepts are exclusive. If it is just a warning, then overuse of the warning is literally training people to ignore it, defeating its purpose entirely. If it is a penalty then it creates the security threat allowing for its abuse as a tool of extortion, and needs to have an objective standard applied to it. If it is both a warning as well as a penalty then there is zero clarity in what any of the ratings actually mean, and again they are all lost in the signal noise and real fraud uses this to hide in as people ignore the excessive ratings.

Regarding your underlined area, you misread. The barrier of entry I was referring to was the barrier for THE HACKER, and my point was that the concept is to raise the barrier for them high enough that it is not worth the HACKER attempting to defeat it using that methodology. The point was not to say we shouldn't even try because the barrier is too high.

Again, "proven to work" is totally subjective and open to interpretation, because as you state we are never going to stop it completely, only force them to change methods. Instead of addressing the symptoms (methods) we should be addressing the cause (lack of due diligence). Additionally you are totally ignoring the COST of creating this barrier for fraud. We could hire a 24/7 squad of special investigators to track down scammers and that would be a great barrier, but what would the cost be monetarily and otherwise? My point is the cost of creating your so called barrier of "preventative" rating comes at the expense of not only allowing abuse resulting in endless disputes, extortion, as well as defeating THE ENTIRE PURPOSE of the trust system by allowing it to be abused so much people are trained to ignore the red ratings anyway. All this does it put us firmly right back at square one, only now the community is ripped apart and the trust system is controlled by abusers and real fraud is ignored in all the noise.

How does anyone ever learn anything? They need a feedback mechanism. How to kids learn not to touch a hot stove? How did you learn not to get scammed around here? I know how I did. I never suffered the delusion that some one was weeding out con artists here and made the effort to do my own due diligence. If there are a bunch of people running around tagging users and pretending like they stop fraud, that is counterproductive to the atmosphere of one needing to do due diligence and protect themselves now isn't it? New users see these trust police running around and crying from the mountaintops about how much fraud they supposedly prevented, and new users will most certainly get the impression that they are being protected. It is exactly this atmosphere that feeds new users into the wood chipper of fraud, all so a hand full of wannabe internet police can give themselves a sense of relevance and authority.

Again, nothing I said was a lie. You are agreeing that frivolous ratings are detrimental, yet you pretend that operating under a system allowing them to be used is not counter productive while providing no changes or solutions. Who are you trying to convince, me or you?

"Again, don't try to prove one point giving arguments for another one. These counterproductive effects are not produced by leaving preventive negative trust when clear scam signals are present. They're the effect of leaving too many negative trust for other, poorly justified reasons."

I am not, I am following the chain of logic as I explained above. Your statement that counterproductive effects are not produced under your very specific exclusive metric of "when clear scam signals are present" whatever that means, is automatically exclusive of the abusive ratings which would still be allowed under the metric of preventative use. You are advocating a system that allows for abuse, then exclusively only addressing the non-abusive aspect of it. This is not intellectually honest.  You are free to have a different opinion on this, but you are not free to just summarily exclude all the bad results and say no you only look at the good results.

There is a cost to allowing preventative negative rating. The fact is not having the objective metric for negative rating INHERENTLY allows for the abusive behavior, and I argue the detriment of that system outweighs the benefit. The detriments being constant infighting and degradation of the community as a result of constant manipulation and retaliation, the drowning out of legitimate ratings in the noise allowing actual fraud to go unnoticed, extortion, and most importantly feeding new users into the wood chipper of fraud by giving them a false sense of security as described above.

To clarify, you are using the term "signals" in a very different and confusing way than I am using it. When I say it creates signal noise, I am talking about a technical terminology. If you see a traffic signal, and it flashes red, you know to stop. If that same traffic signal starts flashing red, then green, then red again, that is signal noise and it is hard to know what action to take then. This is what I mean by signal noise. I don't know why you insist on using that specific word in that way but the way you use it, the word "evidence" or "indicators" would be more appropriate. A negative rating is supposed to operate as a signal to treat a user with suspicion. If that signal is misused, then naturally confusion results, ultimately resulting in that signal being ignored. I am advocating for an objective standard of evidence of theft, violation of contractual agreement, or violation of applicable laws exactly to reduce that signal noise, and again restore meaning of a negative rating by drastically narrowing its definition.