Suchmoon's thread where he demonstrates the clear net gain of retaining tagging.

[truth or dare]

Suchmoon will present a robust argument for retaining the subjective tagging system over a move to a flagging system that is based upon transparent objective standards.

I will use this initial post to present the advatages and disadvantages of both eventualities.

We shall all await suchmoons comprehensive and robust argument for retention of subjective red tagging.

Any member may contribute but remain civil and refrain from ad hominem and detailing with irrelevant speculation.

This is an important and serious debate. I will insist it is moderated to a high standard.

Over to you suchmoon, I have already had this discussion several times in my very short post history.

I will give suchmoon the opening here as a gesture of goodwill.

I will attempt to demonstrate that the old tagging system is clearly net negative and should be abolished.

Let's see if we can have a sensible and polite debate that is not destroyed by petty personal squabbles.

We all want what is best for the entire community.

I give you all... legend, scam hunter, DT,  merit source

 s u c h m o o n.

Tumultuous applause in high expectation !!

[ChuckBuck]

I will insist it is moderated to a high standard.

So what are the high standards you mentioned? Which criteria does it and how tall is it?

This is an important and serious debate.

Who will be present in this discussion? Other than suchmoon, there are no other names 

I will attempt to demonstrate that the old tagging system is clearly net negative and should be abolished.

And exactly why should it be abolished?

[truth or dare]

Have another round of drinks, our star guest suchmoon Will be here anytime now.

Just to keep our audience happy I'll take the liberty of answering a few points early.

Equal 'status' and 'credibility' are of no importance when discussing matters that do not require trust or faith in either party. There is no reason at all to feel Suchmoon is inadequate or is going to try to trick you.

The high standards will become evident as we progress. Staying on topic and submitting posts with some discernable value directly related to the core topic will suffice.

Do you mean why would you want to abolish something that is net negative? or you wish to know why it is net negative?

Let's give suchmoon a little longer. Any moment now...

He is probably forming a very compelling argument for retention of the old red tagging system as we speak. Which I will help him understand is full of holes.

He may of changes his mind.

[DooMAD]

A return to the old tagging system, would again begin damaging the entire forum, as it made many just leave never to return.

Or simply claim they're leaving and then start using a new username in an attempt to hide the fact they've been red-tagged.   

[DooMAD]

A simple look at the rate of speed new posts occur across the forum since 2014, shows their has been a mass exodus of users.

If those users were of a similar calibre to yourself, it's safe to assume nothing of value was lost.

You should probably factor in the significant portion of this "exodus" comprised of spammers and plagiarists that were banned.  Quality over quantity is preferable and I'm pretty sure we're not going to miss those accounts.  The rate of new posts is an invalid metric to judge the success of the tagging system.

[HCP]

The rate of new posts is the perfect means of judging the success or decline of a forum.

No, it's a useless metric for the purpose. What if we suddenly get millions of new posts a day... and 90% of those new posts being made are all in Altcoin Bounty threads or thread bumping ICO annoucement threads? Does that suddenly make Bitcointalk a success simply because the post count is going to the moon? Or does it just make it a dumping ground for every shitcoin/shittoken ever devised and all the bounty hunters trying to make $2 by spamming all over the boards?

Fairly sure the SNR is a lot better since:

1. The bottom fell out of the altcoin ICO market
2. A large portion of plagiarists/spammers/spinbots got banned

As DooMAD said... Quality over Quantity.

[truth or dare]

The rate of new posts is the perfect means of judging the success or decline of a forum.

No, it's a useless metric for the purpose. What if we suddenly get millions of new posts a day... and 90% of those new posts being made are all in Altcoin Bounty threads or thread bumping ICO annoucement threads? Does that suddenly make Bitcointalk a success simply because the post count is going to the moon? Or does it just make it a dumping ground for every shitcoin/shittoken ever devised and all the bounty hunters trying to make $2 by spamming all over the boards?

Fairly sure the SNR is a lot better since:

1. The bottom fell out of the altcoin ICO market
2. A large portion of plagiarists/spammers/spinbots got banned

As DooMAD said... Quality over Quantity.

It is interesting this " Quality over Quantity" argument you are both advocating. Plays very nicely into supporting the argument for scrapping the tagging system.

Quality warnings based upon objective evidence and standards are indeed superior than a lot more subjective invalid noise. The noise devalues the quality warnings and can be gamed and manipulated to prevent free speech and this can in turn enable high level scammers operate with impunity and silence their critics or those wanting too raise the alarm but fear personal retribution.

When is theymos removing the tagging mess and moving to the flagging system?

One could argue that to receive red tags now alone demonstrates you have been investigated and there was zero evidence of you being a scammer or attempting to scam.

[DooMAD]

It is interesting this " Quality over Quantity" argument you are both advocating. Plays very nicely into supporting the argument for scrapping the tagging system.

Quality warnings based upon objective evidence and standards are indeed superior than a lot more subjective invalid noise. The noise devalues the quality warnings and can be gamed and manipulated to prevent free speech and this can in turn enable high level scammers operate with impunity and silence their critics or those wanting too raise the alarm but fear personal retribution.

Flags aren't suitable for all types of transgression.  I don't believe Theymos ever claimed the flag system was intended to replace the tagging system.  It was made clear at the launch of the flag system that the two were for different uses:

I think that several of the problems with Trust were because three different goals were being jammed into one system:
 1. Getting a general idea of someone's trade history and trustworthiness in one convenient location, sort of like reviews on sites like EBay.
 2. Warning newbies/guests who don't know how to research properly about high-risk people.
 3. Deterring scams by creating a cost to scamming (ie. you'll "lose" a veteran account).
 
To improve this, I've split up these use-cases:

Use-case #1 is the old trust system, but I made the descriptions on the rating types a bit more general and removed the concept of a trust score. The numbers are now "distinct positive raters / distinct neutral raters / distinct negative raters". You should give these ratings for anything which you think would impact someone's willingness to trade with the person, but you should not use trust ratings to attack a person's opinions or otherwise talk about things which would not be relevant to reasonable prospective traders.

Use-cases 2 and 3 will be handled by a new system of flags.

Why would anyone advocate not giving users a general idea of someone's trustworthiness unless you wanted to exploit that sudden murkiness to "operate with impunity", as you put it?

[truth or dare]

It is interesting this " Quality over Quantity" argument you are both advocating. Plays very nicely into supporting the argument for scrapping the tagging system.

Quality warnings based upon objective evidence and standards are indeed superior than a lot more subjective invalid noise. The noise devalues the quality warnings and can be gamed and manipulated to prevent free speech and this can in turn enable high level scammers operate with impunity and silence their critics or those wanting too raise the alarm but fear personal retribution.

Flags aren't suitable for all types of transgression.  I don't believe Theymos ever claimed the flag system was intended to replace the tagging system.  It was made clear at the launch of the flag system that the two were for different uses:

I think that several of the problems with Trust were because three different goals were being jammed into one system:
 1. Getting a general idea of someone's trade history and trustworthiness in one convenient location, sort of like reviews on sites like EBay.
 2. Warning newbies/guests who don't know how to research properly about high-risk people.
 3. Deterring scams by creating a cost to scamming (ie. you'll "lose" a veteran account).
 
To improve this, I've split up these use-cases:

Use-case #1 is the old trust system, but I made the descriptions on the rating types a bit more general and removed the concept of a trust score. The numbers are now "distinct positive raters / distinct neutral raters / distinct negative raters". You should give these ratings for anything which you think would impact someone's willingness to trade with the person, but you should not use trust ratings to attack a person's opinions or otherwise talk about things which would not be relevant to reasonable prospective traders.

Use-cases 2 and 3 will be handled by a new system of flags.

Why would anyone advocate not giving users a general idea of someone's trustworthiness unless you wanted to exploit that sudden murkiness to "operate with impunity", as you put it?

I appreciate your continued attempt to debate this very important issue. From which arises most of the fighting and arguing in meta and rep. More importantly has serious impact upon members freedom of speech.

Firstly we need to be careful not to conflate theymos's intentions with what can be demonstrated as inviolable truths. His speculations or hopes for how the system might be used is not the same as how it can and is going to be used. His understanding or predictions of the negative implications and damage of those designs may not have been clear to him when he made that post.

What I am saying is little value in posting what theymos thinks the use of the design is, or how he hopes the design will be used or the problems he thinks it may solve.

We need to take actual scenarios and analyse / scrutinize the objective positives and negatives of the design.

"General idea of one's trustworthiness" - this is clearly a subjective concept that is open to manipulation and abuse.

It is not based upon objective evidence of scamming or any directly financially related wrong doing at all, it is not even related strongly to any behaviors that are directly related with intention to set up a scam. If there was any objective evidence at all related to scamming then a flag would be appropriate.

Failure for a person's behavior to reach that threshold means you have no evidence at all to demonstrate they are directly financially high risk at all.

If you can not present objective evidence of scamming or attempting to scam then your speculations have no solid foundation. You are admitting your opinion of their high risk is essentially groundless and is open to personal bias ( allergy to lemons), open to lies and abuse where you can claim that you think it makes them financially high risk to damage their account, When you do not believe that to be the case at all. Open to manipulation and bartering of red trust removals where a scammer can force tag and flag support removals or they can retaliate with tags on any subjective grounds they like.

The damage to a members free speech having to weigh the risk of red tags against the benefit to them personally of speaking the truth.

I would challenge any member here to produce a single scenario that you can demnstrate where there is a clear net advantage to retaining the old subjective tagging system.

The inviolable truths I presented are just that.  The insoluble problems of keeping the tagging system are indeed insoluble.

" General trustworthiness " is such a dangerous and subjective term it is a high level manipulators and scammers wet dream. These type of subjective and open terms that almost exist to ensure objective useful and valuable standards are defunct and dismantled should be avoided at all costs.

[DooMAD]

" General trustworthiness " is such a dangerous and subjective term it is a high level manipulators and scammers wet dream. These type of subjective and open terms that almost exist to ensure objective useful and valuable standards are defunct and dismantled should be avoided at all costs.

I appreciate your desire for things to be that black and white, good and bad, scammer and not scammer, etc.  But sadly human beings rarely conform to such absolutes.  Trust is inherently subjective.  There's no way to remove that from the equation.  I wouldn't rule out further tweaks or enhancements, but I also wouldn't support the removal of tagging unless there was a suitable replacement that still allowed for subjective ratings.  Flags alone are not sufficient to do that.  I personally want to hear a range of opinions before forming my own conclusions.  If you have trouble accepting the opinions of others, you are free to ignore the tags.  What you can't do, as much as you might like to, is to simply declare an "inviolable truth" when you have, in fact, merely given an opinion and then insist that everyone sees the matter the same way you do.  I'm afraid it doesn't work like that.

[truth or dare]

" General trustworthiness " is such a dangerous and subjective term it is a high level manipulators and scammers wet dream. These type of subjective and open terms that almost exist to ensure objective useful and valuable standards are defunct and dismantled should be avoided at all costs.

I appreciate your desire for things to be that black and white, good and bad, scammer and not scammer, etc.  But sadly human beings rarely conform to such absolutes.  Trust is inherently subjective.  There's no way to remove that from the equation.  I wouldn't rule out further tweaks or enhancements, but I also wouldn't support the removal of tagging unless there was a suitable replacement that still allowed for subjective ratings.  Flags alone are not sufficient to do that.  I personally want to hear a range of opinions before forming my own conclusions.  If you have trouble accepting the opinions of others, you are free to ignore the tags.  What you can't do, as much as you might like to, is to simply declare an "inviolable truth" when you have, in fact, merely given an opinion and then insist that everyone sees the matter the same way you do.  I'm afraid it doesn't work like that.

Thanks for your continued willingness to debate in a civil and reasonable manner.

I believe that your needs and desires can be accomodated whilst avoiding the inexorable costs and damaging implications of the tagging system in its current form.

I dispute that the inviolable truths that I listed are my opinions. These are objectively verifiable undeniable statements of truth.

Which one of them do you claim is merely a subjective opinion?

Soon we must move to real examples and scenarios to analyse and weigh positives and negatives of an objective flag only system or keep with a subjective combined flag and tag sytem.

Surely in terms of being scammed then scammer vs non scammer is the very most important distinction and one you want the ability to discern as quickly and accurately as possible?]

[HCP]

Person A agrees to sell Person B a widget for X BTC.

Person A then takes 3 weeks to ship the widget because "reasons"
Widget arrives damaged
Person B wants a refund/compensation.
Person A says no and points to their "shipped at buyers risk" clause on their listing.

Given this somewhat simple scenario, should Person B create:

Flag? Type 1, 2 or 3?
Trust Rating? Positive, Neutral or Negative?
Both?

I'm fairly confident, that in spite of your conviction that the answer to this could be clearly set by a few "objective" standards... different users would have different opinions and valid reasoning for using every single of those options if they were Person B.

The "inviolable truth" is that trust is subjective. That much is clearly evidenced by looking at the way the trust system is currently being used. Some users think people who buy/sell accounts are not trustworthy. Some do not. Some users think that people who enrol multiple accounts in the same campaigns are not trustworthy. Some do not. Some users think that people who like lemons are not trustworthy. Some do not. Some users think that the trust system should be used exclusively for "trading". Some do not.

If trust wasn't subjective, then everyone would think/act the same way and everyone would agree on all of this... and they clearly do not agree. Hence the large amount of conflict and disagreements. Sadly, it's just the way humans* are. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I admire your tenacity in attempting to "fix" the system according to your beliefs/ideas... but did it ever occur to you, that not everyone shares the same belief system as you? You may not agree with someone else's opinion, but they are still entitled to it... and currently, they're also entitled to express those opinions via the trust system.


* and cats, foxes, robots, attack helicopters and whatever else people want to identify as

[truth or dare]

Person A agrees to sell Person B a widget for X BTC.

Person A then takes 3 weeks to ship the widget because "reasons"
Widget arrives damaged
Person B wants a refund/compensation.
Person A says no and points to their "shipped at buyers risk" clause on their listing.

Given this somewhat simple scenario, should Person B create:

Flag? Type 1, 2 or 3?
Trust Rating? Positive, Neutral or Negative?
Both?

I'm fairly confident, that in spite of your conviction that the answer to this could be clearly set by a few "objective" standards... different users would have different opinions and valid reasoning for using every single of those options if they were Person B.

The "inviolable truth" is that trust is subjective. That much is clearly evidenced by looking at the way the trust system is currently being used. Some users think people who buy/sell accounts are not trustworthy. Some do not. Some users think that people who enrol multiple accounts in the same campaigns are not trustworthy. Some do not. Some users think that people who like lemons are not trustworthy. Some do not. Some users think that the trust system should be used exclusively for "trading". Some do not.

If trust wasn't subjective, then everyone would think/act the same way and everyone would agree on all of this... and they clearly do not agree. Hence the large amount of conflict and disagreements. Sadly, it's just the way humans* are. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I admire your tenacity in attempting to "fix" the system according to your beliefs/ideas... but did it ever occur to you, that not everyone shares the same belief system as you? You may not agree with someone else's opinion, but they are still entitled to it... and currently, they're also entitled to express those opinions via the trust system.


* and cats, foxes, robots, attack helicopters and whatever else people want to identify as

Well, we are going to have to look at the positives and negatives of this example.

You have provided a very clever test and this would be at the furthest end of testing the objective standards system. I will give a few possibilities that still ensure the insoluble problems of a totally subjective sytem are mitigated and free speech of the entire forum is protected.

clear terms are always going to be very important for members traders protection.

I mean from those details it is arguable from both sides unless the text was stupidly hidden that refutes there was reasonable expectation to get in tact goods.

Bob should have not agreed to the damaged in transit.
Bob should have insisted on an agreed date guarantee for delivery.

Alice should have made sure the terms are clear. Her reasons for the tardiness and breakage may be genuine.

With escrow you would have made these terms clear. Of you go into a subjective wide open transaction then you will get disappointed people.

Like if someone says I will build you a home to live in for 300k. Then those details are not going to be sufficient terms to agree to.  I mean they may mean a terrible shack in a terrible location in 59 yrs time.

You can not expect the forum to shoulder the insoluble problems of a subjective system and the massive costs to allow a sloppy system of trade to continue.

 Those huge costs start with the terrible cost to free speech of the entire forum, leading to scammers at a high level having tools to silence those wishing to speak out against them, dilution of clear objective scamming warning with lemons or bickering between injured parties with no clear wrong doing either side. Subjective tagging can be used to ruin innocent members accounts, destroy their businesses, destroy their potential rev streams, and give abusers unfair advantage to trading and rev streams.

You see those insoluble problems or negatives will always exist there is no way to ever fix them whilst tagging exists.

Of course if your example demonstrated there was a clear case of the if it gets broken tough luck was deliberately presented in a huge wall of miniature text and there was credible cause to beleive that they did this to send you already broken stuff then you could open a level 1 flag and see who supported or rejected the flag was appropriate.

The level one flag will always have some subjectivity anyway but it must be directly related to scamming with direct financial damage. The objective standard here is that it must be directly related to finacially motivated wrong doing scamming.



If he text was of a sensible size to give fair warning of terms there would be no flag in my opinion.  There could be feedback from both sides claiming the other was responsible when clearly both are. Opinion may favour Bob but that does not mean Alice scammed him or did anything intentionally wrong. If you could have reasonably expected you item there before 3 weeks and want to ensure it is not broken then make sure it does not say it is your problem of it gets broken in transit.

This is at the very furthest end of being ambiguous. There is no clear objective blame to either side although many would perhaps favor Bob because he seems to have been given the worst deal or a trade by the Subjective terms we all assume would be fair.

So open up a level 1 flag,  see who supports it and leave a written feedback that will no longer be positive or negative it is just feedback for people who want to thoroughly research a member before conducting trade.

This example is directly based upon financial damage and possible deception but that part would be subjective to a degree.

You will still be able to have an opinion, subjectivity is being hugely reduced. I mean the more you permit subjective terms trading the larger the subjectivity will remain with the level 1 flag. In Bob's opinion he was scammed with direct financial damage. Alice could be innocent but here lack of secure packaging and hiding Her clause in font size 1 text in 5000 word wall of words the same colour as the background was left her open to being a suspected scammer.

This is not like a flag for saying you enjoy lemonade or for posting a quote someone does not like or for saying someone had sex with your parents when they did not and all the other stupid reasons we see tags for.  I mean all of Those things can go on feedback but they are not negative there is no negative score.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Or simply claim they're leaving and then start using a new username in an attempt to hide the fact they've been red-tagged.   

Yeah, obviously like OP's pattern. 

I don't think the trust system has anything to do with an efflux of members in any given time frame.  If anything, there are probably people who find the level of shitposting to be utterly repulsive and never come back.  And if some people left because they got some red trust?  Fuck 'em.  They should have joined the Thick-Skinned Posse instead.

OP is on ignore, so I didn't read anything he wrote here and I would suggest people at least consider putting him on ignore--the more attention he gets, the more nonsense he's going to post and it doesn't matter which account is writing it.  He's made all the points he could possibly make and nobody with any power here on the forum gives a shit.

[truth or dare]

Or simply claim they're leaving and then start using a new username in an attempt to hide the fact they've been red-tagged.    

Yeah, obviously like OP's pattern.  

I don't think the trust system has anything to do with an efflux of members in any given time frame.  If anything, there are probably people who find the level of shitposting to be utterly repulsive and never come back.  And if some people left because they got some red trust?  Fuck 'em.  They should have joined the Thick-Skinned Posse instead.

OP is on ignore, so I didn't read anything he wrote here and I would suggest people at least consider putting him on ignore--the more attention he gets, the more nonsense he's going to post and it doesn't matter which account is writing it.  He's made all the points he could possibly make and nobody with any power here on the forum gives a shit.

This is a typical example of a member that fears a move to an objective standards based system.

He is on record for claiming his best achievement in this forum after many years is ' getting on to a highly paid signature campaign ' does that sound like a member that would be happy if his love of lemons had deprived him of his prime achievement of all time here.  One must also consider he admitted that he would support a possible scammer out of loyalty.

I would recommend to ignore his speculative self confessed detailing tactics, he admits that he has not read the OP.

Instructing people to ignore members during their sensible debate threads should be deleted.

So back to the sensible debate.