Selling Bitcointalk Trust - which subforum to use?

[funtotry]

What kind of joke is this? Buying people trust? What a shame just ruining this forum.

Exactly how I feel. The direct "buying of trust" is very corrupt and is NO way at ANY advantage to the community unless you want there to be more and larger scams. Trust should ONLY be given for successful trades or sales.

[Sarthak]

You Bespeak too much.

Just STFU with your caterwauling already.  Anyone with two brain cells to rub together saw this coming.  People warned you you'd pay for it, now just take what you've earned like a man, pussy-boy.

And BTW circumventing a ban is not likely to help your situation, so you just keep right on digging that hole you're in and I'll keep pissing down onto your head to keep you hydrated. 

Wow! Your English skills are amazing! I hardly understand these type of English Blames! So complicated

[tspacepilot]

No reason to get upset.
We're not dealing with legacy trust systems of yesteryear, Vod.  No!  This paradigm-shifting, game-changing disruptive technology is on the tipping point of turning into a Black Swan.  Revolutionary stuff, Vod, not to be rushed.

As soon as our legal team irons out the last few kinks and gives us the go-ahead, it's ON, it's Showtime!
Now then...
Will you be purchasing this Trust for your personal use, or as a gift for A Special Someone?

I'm not upset.

I'm just calling you a bullshitter.   

And I'm done feeding the troll.

Vod, this isn't just any troll. And this is satire worthy of Jonathan Swift. Why am I the only one to see it?! Am I wrong?

Exactly.  The satire here is quite clever.  Personally, I really think that the meaning behind the OP's suggestion ought to be addressed.  How is it okay to purchase an account with positive trust but not okay to just directly purchase the trust?  What's the principled difference there?

[redsn0w]

No reason to get upset.
We're not dealing with legacy trust systems of yesteryear, Vod.  No!  This paradigm-shifting, game-changing disruptive technology is on the tipping point of turning into a Black Swan.  Revolutionary stuff, Vod, not to be rushed.

As soon as our legal team irons out the last few kinks and gives us the go-ahead, it's ON, it's Showtime!
Now then...
Will you be purchasing this Trust for your personal use, or as a gift for A Special Someone?

I'm not upset.

I'm just calling you a bullshitter.   

And I'm done feeding the troll.

Vod, this isn't just any troll. And this is satire worthy of Jonathan Swift. Why am I the only one to see it?! Am I wrong?

Exactly.  The satire here is quite clever.  Personally, I really think that the meaning behind the OP's suggestion ought to be addressed.  How is it okay to purchase an account with positive trust but not okay to just directly purchase the trust?  What's the principled difference there?

I think the difference is when you are buying a forum account you buy all the forum account (so also the positive, negative and neutral trust // with all his history). The problem is the "practice", and it is obviously that is not so intelligent buy directly trust when you can buy a "green forum account".

[tspacepilot]

I think the difference is when you are buying a forum account you buy all the forum account (so also the positive, negative and neutral trust // with all his history). The problem is the "practice", and it is obviously that is not so intelligent buy directly trust when you can buy a "green forum account".

I don't understand.  You seem to be emphsazing the point that there's no real difference in principle.  The question is this: why would it be okay to purchase a new account in order to subvert the trust system but it's not okay to simple purchase trust to subvert the trust system.  They are both ways to subvert the trust system but one is okay whereas the other isn't.

[SaltySpitoon]

I don't understand.  You seem to be emphsazing the point that there's no real difference in principle.  The question is this: why would it be okay to purchase a new account in order to subvert the trust system but it's not okay to simple purchase trust to subvert the trust system.  They are both ways to subvert the trust system but one is okay whereas the other isn't.

There isn't much to understand. Why is selling trusted accounts ok? Because people say so. Why is selling trust not ok? Because people say so. There aren't rules, the community as a whole dictates what is ok and what isn't ok to do. For example, leaving feedback for someone you haven't traded with. Why is that ok? People have rationalized that it is necessary to preempt scammers, so it is an accepted practice, not a rule.

If I had to take a stab at guessing why people care more strongly about trust selling, is because the initial trust they receive could be a lie. Lets say someone has an account that they have completed 10 successful trades and have 10 positive feedback that they are selling. The trust adds to the value of the account. That value then is carried along at the time of sale. So say an account is 1 BTC, and the trusted account is worth 1.5 BTC because of the trust, the sale price is going to be 1.5 BTC, meaning the scammer buying the account will need to scam more than the 1.5 BTC, otherwise they lost money. Generally an account is going to be worth more than its trust because of the time put into the account, and sig campaigns, etc. I believe that is why buying trusted accounts to scam isn't a commonplace thing. Its just not profitable, but I could be entirely wrong, that is just my theory.

Say you wanted to buy trust, not the account. Your account is worth 1 BTC. You pay 0.1 BTC for the trust, and the feedback says that you were trusted with 50 BTC. Your account might then be worth 2 BTC (That is if people don't just disregard that kind of feedback from non well known people) you can then try to scam for 2 BTC, and if you succeed you made .9 BTC, making the act of buying trust possibly feasible.

That said, I still don't think that either is a commonplace thing, because all it takes is one guy to say, hey that trade looks fishy, make a thread about it, and everyone involved is marked a scammer, and whoever trusted that person on default trust on the first place would have to deal with a lot.... and I mean a lot of hate.

That all said, there were a lot of rational details that people overlooked here, so their panties got into a wad for nothing. First the OP didn't have a default trust account, they had no understanding of how the trust system worked. If they did have a trusted account, it was most likely on trust depth 3/4 which would be relatively meaningless. We don't know how much the OP was charging for trust and we don't know if their trusted account had any weight at all. I actually hoped that they did have a trusted account, because the only way to see how it would have all played out. I have a few theories on why selling trust isn't profitable either, but we would have had to see it in action.

So in conclusion, what is ok and not ok is dictated by the community. I think that people are more outraged by trust selling because it is more likely to be profitable for a scammer than buying an account outright. The reason the trust system has been in place this long and this topic is just coming up sort of speaks for itself.

[Quickseller]

That all said, there were a lot of rational details that people overlooked here, so their panties got into a wad for nothing. First the OP didn't have a default trust account, they had no understanding of how the trust system worked. If they did have a trusted account, it was most likely on trust depth 3/4 which would be relatively meaningless. We don't know how much the OP was charging for trust and we don't know if their trusted account had any weight at all.

I asked him how much he was charging, however he refused to answer, and is more evidence that he was trolling as opposed to actually selling trust.

I actually hoped that they did have a trusted account, because the only way to see how it would have all played out.

They most likely did not have an account on default trust considering that he was banned for ban evading it would be likely that as of when he created the account that his other accounts were already banned, and as a result would be unable to leave positive trust (he was actually banned multiple times making it even less likely that is "main" account is both on default trust and not banned).

I have a few theories on why selling trust isn't profitable either, but we would have had to see it in action.

The reason is the same that it does not make sense to buy a trusted account and then scam. Default trust accounts have additional value because they are on default trust. It is unlikely that someone is going to be able to sell enough trust in order to make up the additional value their account has for being on default trust. It would be easy to detect when someone is selling trust, especially considering that someone could simply buy trust on an alt account and then whoever ends up leaving that person positive trust is the person selling trust and can be easily called out, and as a result would likely be removed from the default trust network. I was actually about to do this right before the OP was banned, but abandoned the idea once I saw that he was banned.
There have been some people in the past who have essentially been selling trust either via their escrow service or other services they offer (that are often overpriced). Many of them have been removed from default trust for a variety of reasons, while some others remain. Some people who are clearly trying to farm trust attempt to use these people's services.

The fact that trust is being defacto traded via various services makes the decision to leave positive trust for someone a much more complex question then it should be. If I had left positive trust for everyone that I provided escrow services to, on every occasion that I escrowed for them then a number of people who I personally find sketchy would show as having significant amounts of positive trust because of me which is not something I want.

[KWH]

I don't understand.  You seem to be emphsazing the point that there's no real difference in principle.  The question is this: why would it be okay to purchase a new account in order to subvert the trust system but it's not okay to simple purchase trust to subvert the trust system.  They are both ways to subvert the trust system but one is okay whereas the other isn't.

<snip> Because people say so. There aren't rules, the community as a whole dictates what is ok and what isn't ok to do.
<snip> I believe that is why buying trusted accounts to scam isn't a commonplace thing. Its just not profitable, but I could be entirely wrong, that is just my theory.
<snip>
That said, I still don't think that either is a commonplace thing, because all it takes is one guy to say, hey that trade looks fishy, make a thread about it, and everyone involved is marked a scammer, and whoever trusted that person on default trust on the first place would have to deal with a lot.... and I mean a lot of hate.

That all said, there were a lot of rational details that people overlooked here, so their panties got into a wad for nothing. First the OP didn't have a default trust account, they had no understanding of how the trust system worked. If they did have a trusted account, it was most likely on trust depth 3/4 which would be relatively meaningless. We don't know how much the OP was charging for trust and we don't know if their trusted account had any weight at all. I actually hoped that they did have a trusted account, because the only way to see how it would have all played out. I have a few theories on why selling trust isn't profitable either, but we would have had to see it in action.

So in conclusion, what is ok and not ok is dictated by the community. 
<snip>
The reason the trust system has been in place this long and this topic is just coming up sort of speaks for itself.

Very good post, too bad it will fall on deaf ears (for the most part) by a few hard heads only wanting to stir up trouble.

[Pentax]

<snip>
So in conclusion, what is ok and not ok is dictated by the community.

Yeah, it should work that way, although I can think of some instances where it doesn't.  We have a hardware vendor on this forum that abuses the self moderation privileges to the point where they are running a bot to cover up the the truth about their ongoing scams by using this bot to censor users.

The community effected by this company has raised holy hell about it and gotten nowhere.  They continue to run this bot after scamming millions out of people on false promises and are now using this bot on a new self-moderated thread to try to sell a new product.

I like the fact that the forum doesn't restrict activity very much and in principle agree with this laissez faire approach, although I do wonder how things are resolved at times and whether it's a whim, a rule, or the opinion of the community that ultimately decides.

[harlenadler]

What you're doing is very unintelligibly announcing that you accept bribery, assuming you are being honest, which is not likely the case. The forum's rules need to apply equally and fairly to everyone - and trust should be earned. You've just eradicated any chances of ever making money selling trust - every 'sale' is a honeypot, with the buyer willing to report your account for bribery. You will be quickly removed from the Default Trust, and those who remain will give you so much negative rep that your account will become basically worthless. You don't want that, and that's why you're not going to do this. Troll.

[tspacepilot]

I asked him how much he was charging, however he refused to answer, and is more evidence that he was trolling as opposed to actually selling trust.

I guess I'm not completely surprised that you can't seem to see that satire is a form of argumentation which is not equavalent to trolling.

The fact that trust is being defacto traded via various services makes the decision to leave positive trust for someone a much more complex question then it should be. If I had left positive trust for everyone that I provided escrow services to, on every occasion that I escrowed for them then a number of people who I personally find sketchy would show as having significant amounts of positive trust because of me which is not something I want.

I'm curious if you've ever actually left positive trust for anyone who you didn't see as more powerful than you in some way or another.  You've revealed yourself many times as the kind of person who steps on people who you see as below you while kissing the asses of people you see as above you.  Anywhoo....

@Salty, your post seems to boil down to an observation that the system is irrational and we have this system because people have tolerated it.  That's certainly true, but highlighting the irrationality of this (as OP does) is one step towards making a better system, IMO.

[Steamingoff]

Hello everyone.
Let's say I own a default trust account and decided to make a few bucks by helping people out.  Wanted to know which subforum to promote my business in.  I'm planning on using trusted escrow, so not scamming.
Thanks.

that's gay trust must be earned not bought by a newbie like myself

[Vod]

Hello everyone.
Let's say I own a default trust account and decided to make a few bucks by helping people out.  Wanted to know which subforum to promote my business in.  I'm planning on using trusted escrow, so not scamming.
Thanks.

that's gay trust must be earned not bought by a newbie like myself

How is gay trust different than normal trust?

If I trust a person and someone else trusts the same person, is that gay trust?

[tspacepilot]

Hello everyone.
Let's say I own a default trust account and decided to make a few bucks by helping people out.  Wanted to know which subforum to promote my business in.  I'm planning on using trusted escrow, so not scamming.
Thanks.

that's gay trust must be earned not bought by a newbie like myself

Hard to know what sexuality has to do with it.  But if you'd read closer, you'd note that you're very welcome to buy a trusted account from a "reputable" account seller.  So, I ask you, what's the difference?

[Operatr]

Hello everyone.
Let's say I own a default trust account and decided to make a few bucks by helping people out.  Wanted to know which subforum to promote my business in.  I'm planning on using trusted escrow, so not scamming.
Thanks.

that's gay trust must be earned not bought by a newbie like myself

How is gay trust different than normal trust?

If I trust a person and someone else trusts the same person, is that gay trust?

No its not like that.
Its like, If two guys trust each other, its called gay trust. If two gals trust each other, its lesbian trust. If cross trust each other, its straight trust.
As simple as that. Its all elementary

[shorena]

-snip-
How is gay trust different than normal trust?
-snip-

"Gay originally used to refer to feelings of being "carefree", "happy", or "bright and showy"[...]"

Its not as serious. Trust sold by OP would most likely be gay, because its mainly carefree as nothing was actually risked. I doubt it would be marketed as such to avoid confusion with lesbian trust, which can only be given by accounts under control by the people of Lesbos. As such lesbian trust is rare and highly valued.

As someone on DefaultTrust you should know.

[tspacepilot]

-snip-
How is gay trust different than normal trust?
-snip-

"Gay originally used to refer to feelings of being "carefree", "happy", or "bright and showy"[...]"

Its not as serious. Trust sold by OP would most likely be gay, because its mainly carefree as nothing was actually risked. I doubt it would be marketed as such to avoid confusion with lesbian trust, which can only be given by accounts under control by the people of Lesbos. As such lesbian trust is rare and highly valued.

As someone on DefaultTrust you should know.

You guys are hillarious.  And you are right to ridicule the way Steamingoff uses "gay".  Nevertheless, I think going down the rabbit-hole of ridiculing Steamingoff for his blockheaded use of language distracts from the serious point this thread makes: ie, it's okay to purchase a trusted account, and it's okay for trusted members to farm/sell/buy accounts, but somehow it's not okay to purchase trust directly.  I really have a hard time seeing how the latter is any more problematic for the trust system than the former. 

(Note: I've never bought/sold/farmed accounts or trust, but I have been abused by an account seller who is on default trust (for now).  As far as I can tell, this was in part motivated by said account-seller's market interests in driving up the purchase price for farmed accounts.  However, I won't be purchasing any accounts to try to undo the wrong which was done to me (this would be submitting to blackmail).  But this experience has highlighted for me how much shady-dealings there are around here in terms of the trust system and account purchases/sales.  That's one of the reasons why the satire in this thread resonates so strongly with me.)

[shorena]

-snip-
How is gay trust different than normal trust?
-snip-

"Gay originally used to refer to feelings of being "carefree", "happy", or "bright and showy"[...]"

Its not as serious. Trust sold by OP would most likely be gay, because its mainly carefree as nothing was actually risked. I doubt it would be marketed as such to avoid confusion with lesbian trust, which can only be given by accounts under control by the people of Lesbos. As such lesbian trust is rare and highly valued.

As someone on DefaultTrust you should know.

You guys are hillarious.  And you are right to ridicule the way Steamingoff uses "gay".  Nevertheless, I think going down the rabbit-hole of ridiculing Steamingoff for his blockheaded use of language distracts from the serious point this thread makes: ie, it's okay to purchase a trusted account, and it's okay for trusted members to farm/sell/buy accounts, but somehow it's not okay to purchase trust directly.  I really have a hard time seeing how the latter is any more problematic for the trust system than the former. 

(Note: I've never bought/sold/farmed accounts or trust, but I have been abused by an account seller who is on default trust (for now).  As far as I can tell, this was in part motivated by said account-seller's market interests in driving up the purchase price for farmed accounts.  However, I won't be purchasing any accounts to try to undo the wrong which was done to me (this would be submitting to blackmail).  But this experience has highlighted for me how much shady-dealings there are around here in terms of the trust system and account purchases/sales.  That's one of the reasons why the satire in this thread resonates so strongly with me.)

I think "buying trust" in general is problematic. Yet, account trades are not essentially linked to buying trust. E.g. from someone on Default Trust I would expect that they request to be removed before selling the account. On the other hand it would certainly increase the price and thus there is no incentive to do so.

You also cant just reset the trust rating in case of a sale, because #1 a sale is not necessarily public in every case #2 you would have to limit this on positive ratings to avoid a misuse by scammers. This essentially leads to "ban all account sales", which is heavily discussed currently and IMHO missing the point. If we would ban everything that could potentially lead to a scam, the board would be useless. Registering an account could e.g. lead to a scam, just to name one extreme "solution" that is none.

[Lorenzo]

<snip>
So in conclusion, what is ok and not ok is dictated by the community.

Yeah, it should work that way, although I can think of some instances where it doesn't.  We have a hardware vendor on this forum that abuses the self moderation privileges to the point where they are running a bot to cover up the the truth about their ongoing scams by using this bot to censor users.

The community effected by this company has raised holy hell about it and gotten nowhere.  They continue to run this bot after scamming millions out of people on false promises and are now using this bot on a new self-moderated thread to try to sell a new product.

I like the fact that the forum doesn't restrict activity very much and in principle agree with this laissez faire approach, although I do wonder how things are resolved at times and whether it's a whim, a rule, or the opinion of the community that ultimately decides.

I don't see why a non-self-moderated thread can't be created so that the discussion can take place there. Do a search for 'uncensored thread site:bitcointalk.org' on Google and you'll see many examples of this happening when people got fed up with having their posts deleted from the official self-moderated thread and decided to start their own.

Nevertheless, I think going down the rabbit-hole of ridiculing Steamingoff for his blockheaded use of language distracts from the serious point this thread makes: ie, it's okay to purchase a trusted account, and it's okay for trusted members to farm/sell/buy accounts, but somehow it's not okay to purchase trust directly.  I really have a hard time seeing how the latter is any more problematic for the trust system than the former.

If someone sold an account which another person had left positive trust on, that sale is beyond the control of the person who gave the trust so it doesn't impact the value of that person's trust ratings. If it is accepted that accounts can be bought or sold, then whether or not an account happens to have existing trust is secondary. Any justification for restrictions that try to prevent the sale of trusted accounts can also be carried over to the argument that all account trading should be banned.

[tspacepilot]

<snip>
So in conclusion, what is ok and not ok is dictated by the community.

Yeah, it should work that way, although I can think of some instances where it doesn't.  We have a hardware vendor on this forum that abuses the self moderation privileges to the point where they are running a bot to cover up the the truth about their ongoing scams by using this bot to censor users.

The community effected by this company has raised holy hell about it and gotten nowhere.  They continue to run this bot after scamming millions out of people on false promises and are now using this bot on a new self-moderated thread to try to sell a new product.

I like the fact that the forum doesn't restrict activity very much and in principle agree with this laissez faire approach, although I do wonder how things are resolved at times and whether it's a whim, a rule, or the opinion of the community that ultimately decides.

I don't see why a non-self-moderated thread can't be created so that the discussion can take place there. Do a search for 'uncensored thread site:bitcointalk.org' on Google and you'll see many examples of this happening when people got fed up with having their posts deleted from the official self-moderated thread and decided to start their own.

I'm pretty sure that "official" threads are not really a thing.  There are self-moderated thread and there are non-self-moderated threads.  I don't think one type is any more official than another however non-self-moderated threads are certainly less suspicious (to me, and I think to others) if you want to actually see debate take place.  In this sense, I agree with you that while self-moderation can be abused, there's a natural solution (one I've used myself), ie, start your own thread.

Nevertheless, I think going down the rabbit-hole of ridiculing Steamingoff for his blockheaded use of language distracts from the serious point this thread makes: ie, it's okay to purchase a trusted account, and it's okay for trusted members to farm/sell/buy accounts, but somehow it's not okay to purchase trust directly.  I really have a hard time seeing how the latter is any more problematic for the trust system than the former.

If someone sold an account which another person had left positive trust on, that sale is beyond the control of the person who gave the trust so it doesn't impact the value of that person's trust ratings. If it is accepted that accounts can be bought or sold, then whether or not an account happens to have existing trust is secondary. Any justification for restrictions that try to prevent the sale of trusted accounts can also be carried over to the argument that all account trading should be banned.

Indeed, and this is basically what Shorena argues above.  That because we can buy-and-sell accounts then of course we can buy-and-sell trusted accounts.  But I hope it's become quite clear that this makes the trust system effectively a system in which we can buy and sell trust.  I think that's what the OP was driving at, and I think it's a well-reasoned point.  I'm not sure how/why buying and selling trust isn't just as "okay" as buying and selling accounts.  As far as I can tell, it's effectively the same thing.

@Shorena in re whether or not default trust accounts are bought and sold.  You may be right that it doesn't happen often, but how would we really know?  I don't understand what you mean about "there'd be no incentive", it seems to me that if you have a default trust account and you have a buyer willing to pay a lot for it, the incentive is there, whether or not the two people reach a deal is some sort of empirical matter.