SebastianJu getting seduced by trust farmers - and he's loving it!

[PistolPete]

feryjhie got sold in an auction today. No biggie, account changes hands like cards in a deck in the org named Bitcointalk. The seller, a new account rolled to just sell the account even got a default trust from SebastianJu who was escrow. Apparently the escrow somehow risked 0.255BTC and was so grateful to the Newbie for having the priviledge of being the escrow that he couldn't wait to give a default rating.

No biggie again, the Legendary Escrow Service is the middleman of choice for all sorts of traders angling to get that coveted feedback as a quick glance through the sent feedback reveals. What was concerning in this particular case was that the sold account itself received a rating. This seems to be a new policy for the popular escrow, who has seen a sudden rise in business coinciding with him doling out default feedback.

What do you do if you want to buy an account here? Make a new account, use SebastianJu to escrow the trade and ask him to provide the feedback to the new account and voila! you are the proud owner of an account which is going to turn green in 5 months.

But then, escrow fortunes rise and fall with the everchanging landscape of default trust. devthedev was the most popular at some point but was discarded like a stale bread when escrow.ms wielded his axe. bitpop had a few days in the sun but that was cut short quickly. Now master-P, who has worked so hard to buld up his rating is the only viable rival, but his insistence in being a miser in the sent feedback means he is left eating SebastianJu's dust.

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[EcuaMobi]

feryjhie got sold in an auction today. No biggie, account changes hands like cards in a deck in the org named Bitcointalk. The seller, a new account rolled to just sell the account even got a default trust from SebastianJu who was escrow. Apparently the escrow somehow risked 0.255BTC and was so grateful to the Newbie for having the priviledge of being the escrow that he couldn't wait to give a default rating.

No biggie again, the Legendary Escrow Service is the middleman of choice for all sorts of traders angling to get that coveted feedback as a quick glance through the sent feedback reveals. What was concerning in this particular case was that the sold account itself received a rating. This seems to be a new policy for the popular escrow, who has seen a sudden rise in business coinciding with him doling out default feedback.

What do you do if you want to buy an account here? Make a new account, use SebastianJu to escrow the trade and ask him to provide the feedback to the new account and voila! you are the proud owner of an account which is going to turn green in 5 months.

But then, escrow fortunes rise and fall with the everchanging landscape of default trust. devthedev was the most popular at some point but was discarded like a stale bread when escrow.ms wielded his axe. bitpop had a few days in the sun but that was cut short quickly. Now master-P, who has worked so hard to buld up his rating is the only viable rival, but his insistence in being a miser in the sent feedback means he is left eating SebastianJu's dust.

This seems to be a problem if real. I'd like to read SebastianJu's version.
A single positive default trust feedback makes an account green so it should be given only when one really thinks someone is trustworthy. And as described in the profile page the risked amount should always be set to zero if the other person sends first. It doesn't make sense that an escrow includes a non-zero risked amount unless there's something we don't know, in that case that extra information should be included in the feedback.
I really think escrows shouldn't leave feedback at all unless something particularly positive or negative happened in the deal.

[ColderThanIce]

This seems to be a problem if real. I'd like to read SebastianJu's version.
A single positive default trust feedback makes an account green so it should be given only when one really thinks someone is trustworthy. And as described in the profile page the risked amount should always be set to zero if the other person sends first. It doesn't make sense that an escrow includes a non-zero risked amount unless there's something we don't know, in that case that extra information should be included in the feedback.
I really think escrows shouldn't leave feedback at all unless something particularly positive or negative happened in the deal.

I too am surprised when escrow providers leave positive feedback to the people involved in the transaction, especially when these people are on DefaultTrust. It definitely gives people a false sense of trust and degrades from those people's rating. I really don't mind when escrow providers give out neutral feedback or none after the transaction, since there is no trust involved on the escrow provider's end.

Edit: I just took a look through SJ's rating and it appears that he puts amounts in for all transactions he escrows. Probably just a pattern he follows but he should probably change that, considering he isn't the one risking the bitcoins.

[redsn0w]

The users must read 'positive  all the trusts' (the comments) and not only look at the green trust score (or in another case the red score)  . In that case no one will be scammed, I'm sure of this thing.

[Yamato no Orochi]

this is ridiculous. the seller and buyer should be the ones who left a positive rating to the escrow, not the other way around.

if this keeps up someone can just create another account and do fake trades multiple times to get trust.

[qwk]

The users must read 'positive  all the trusts' (the comments) and not only look at the green trust score (or in another case the red score)

In a perfect world, the trust system wouldn't be needed.
This is not a perfect world. Newbies will trust whoever flashes some shade of green.
Newbies won't ever understand the trust system, heck, even the great old ones don't always.

[subSTRATA]

The users must read 'positive  all the trusts' (the comments) and not only look at the green trust score (or in another case the red score)  . In that case no one will be scammed, I'm sure of this thing.

unfortunately, people dont do this so often; some people dont even bother using escrow when dealing with newbie accounts, what makes you think everyone looks through someone's trust profile? he's free to do what he wants, but giving positive trust to everyone he deals with is something i agree on being excessive, especially for those newbie accounts that are created solely for the purpose of selling an account.

[Quickseller]

I talked to him about this in the beginning of June and his response was something along the lines of that he wants a record of the transaction.

I would not personally give positive trust this liberally as it makes it easy for people to farm trust which ultimately leads to bad things.

[redsn0w]

The users must read 'positive  all the trusts' (the comments) and not only look at the green trust score (or in another case the red score)

In a perfect world, the trust system wouldn't be needed.
This is not a perfect world. Newbies will trust whoever flashes some shade of green.
Newbies won't ever understand the trust system, heck, even the great old ones don't always.

I think it is needed a good F.A.Q page about the trust system, and it should be linked in the maintab. The newbies (and not) should learn more if they want to stay alive (here in the forum).

The users must read 'positive  all the trusts' (the comments) and not only look at the green trust score (or in another case the red score)  . In that case no one will be scammed, I'm sure of this thing.

unfortunately, people dont do this so often; some people dont even bother using escrow when dealing with newbie accounts, what makes you think everyone looks through someone's trust profile? he's free to do what he wants, but giving positive trust to everyone he deals with is something i agree on being excessive, especially for those newbie accounts that are created solely for the purpose of selling an account.

It is not our problem if someone doesn't take 5 minutes to check the trust profile of someone else, before start the 'deal'... or am I wrong?

[subSTRATA]

It is not our problem if someone doesn't take 5 minutes to check the trust profile of someone else, before start the 'deal'... or am I wrong?

more so 5 seconds than 5 minutes, but it is true that it is up to the people involved in the trade to check the trust summary. the problem is, people are naive and dont bother to do so.

[qwk]

It is not our problem if someone doesn't take 5 minutes to check the trust profile of someone else, before start the 'deal'... or am I wrong?

Yes, you're wrong.
As long as we maintain a trust system, we should take care of it and how it is perceived by someone with no previous experience a.k.a. newbie.
If the system we maintain flags someone as "green" or "trustworthy" on first glance, we can't simply sit back and say "but you should have looked closer at his ratings".

[redsn0w]

It is not our problem if someone doesn't take 5 minutes to check the trust profile of someone else, before start the 'deal'... or am I wrong?

Yes, you're wrong.
As long as we maintain a trust system, we should take care of it and how it is perceived by someone with no previous experience a.k.a. newbie.

I used to think like you, but recently I've changed idea. However I can agree with you but until a certain point.


PS: dark or light green trust score doesn't mean exactly trustworthy, when all the users will learn this thing then I am sure the forum will be a better place.

If the system we maintain flags someone as "green" or "trustworthy" on first glance, we can't simply sit back and say "but you should have looked closer at his ratings".

This is why I said "I think it is needed a good F.A.Q page about the trust system"  basically how the trust system works (so all the newbie users will not have any excuse).



Sorry if I seem arrogant.

[ajareselde]

I agree with op. There's an obvious bunch of people that are abusing trusted members just in order to get feedback from them.
That is why the trust settings as they are now are faulty, and the main problem are exactly trusted members that are ignoring everything and giving
away "blind trust" to anyone who use their services.

I tried to contact such members in cases where shady deals were being made on the fact that they have green trust, but i was ignored most of the time.
I guess they just want people to come to them to make deals, regardless of their motives.

cheers

[SebastianJu]

Hi everyone. First:

feryjhie got sold in an auction today. No biggie, account changes hands like cards in a deck in the org named Bitcointalk. The seller, a new account rolled to just sell the account even got a default trust from SebastianJu who was escrow. Apparently the escrow somehow risked 0.255BTC and was so grateful to the Newbie for having the priviledge of being the escrow that he couldn't wait to give a default rating.

No biggie again, the Legendary Escrow Service is the middleman of choice for all sorts of traders angling to get that coveted feedback as a quick glance through the sent feedback reveals. What was concerning in this particular case was that the sold account itself received a rating. This seems to be a new policy for the popular escrow, who has seen a sudden rise in business coinciding with him doling out default feedback.

What do you do if you want to buy an account here? Make a new account, use SebastianJu to escrow the trade and ask him to provide the feedback to the new account and voila! you are the proud owner of an account which is going to turn green in 5 months.

But then, escrow fortunes rise and fall with the everchanging landscape of default trust. devthedev was the most popular at some point but was discarded like a stale bread when escrow.ms wielded his axe. bitpop had a few days in the sun but that was cut short quickly. Now master-P, who has worked so hard to buld up his rating is the only viable rival, but his insistence in being a miser in the sent feedback means he is left eating SebastianJu's dust.

Where do you get the idea from that the account was the one i gave a rating?

Im open to critics regarding how i use the trust system so i want to first explain how i handle trust.

I think the trust system is for showing others that forum members can deal with others without scamming. Thats why i give neutral trust for items traded under a worth of $50, and green trust above $50.

For me the trust system is an indicator that someone has already a trail of good trades. You get ratings on ebay too when you traded successfully regardless of if you used paypal so that there was no way of scamming. The trust system should simply how that someone can trade correctly.
 
So when i escrow an account then there are two parties involved that did a trade. And when both behaved the way they should do a trade then i give trust. I dont think that im not allowed to give trust only because im on default trust. At the end the new owner of the account would either use the new account or make the trade with his normal account. When he behaved correctly then he needs a good trust rating in order to show that he trades correctly. And when the buyer is chosing to use the new account then this is his new identity.

Generally im not a friend of account trades when they have trust but thats something that happens and is allowed. And the new owner will use that account regardless if anyone is knowing that he is a new owner.

By the way... i act when i see that someone is trying to gain fake trust. But again. What should the trust rating say if not that someone behaves while trading?

This seems to be a problem if real. I'd like to read SebastianJu's version.
A single positive default trust feedback makes an account green so it should be given only when one really thinks someone is trustworthy. And as described in the profile page the risked amount should always be set to zero if the other person sends first. It doesn't make sense that an escrow includes a non-zero risked amount unless there's something we don't know, in that case that extra information should be included in the feedback.
I really think escrows shouldn't leave feedback at all unless something particularly positive or negative happened in the deal.

I too am surprised when escrow providers leave positive feedback to the people involved in the transaction, especially when these people are on DefaultTrust. It definitely gives people a false sense of trust and degrades from those people's rating. I really don't mind when escrow providers give out neutral feedback or none after the transaction, since there is no trust involved on the escrow provider's end.

Edit: I just took a look through SJ's rating and it appears that he puts amounts in for all transactions he escrows. Probably just a pattern he follows but he should probably change that, considering he isn't the one risking the bitcoins.

So how would you handle it? I set amounts when the trading parties set amounts. Since then i know that they dont care if the amounts are stated.

And how can a good trust rating be wrong when a trade went correctly?

I talked to him about this in the beginning of June and his response was something along the lines of that he wants a record of the transaction.

I would not personally give positive trust this liberally as it makes it easy for people to farm trust which ultimately leads to bad things.

I did not say anything of a record, that makes no sense. I told you that i think the trust rating should show that someone is trustworthy to deal with. Might be some people use it for rating their friends or so but for me it shows that deals went well.

And yes, we spoke about that. And i agreed that i should be more strict. Thats why i only do neutral rating for values lower than $50.

By the way... you remember why i contacted you? Because i needed to hear your opinion regarding someone trying to gain illegitimate trust.


Anyway... im open to suggestions. I believe the trust rating should show that trades went well. So if the established members think i should handle it differently then let me know.

[ColderThanIce]

This seems to be a problem if real. I'd like to read SebastianJu's version.
A single positive default trust feedback makes an account green so it should be given only when one really thinks someone is trustworthy. And as described in the profile page the risked amount should always be set to zero if the other person sends first. It doesn't make sense that an escrow includes a non-zero risked amount unless there's something we don't know, in that case that extra information should be included in the feedback.
I really think escrows shouldn't leave feedback at all unless something particularly positive or negative happened in the deal.

I too am surprised when escrow providers leave positive feedback to the people involved in the transaction, especially when these people are on DefaultTrust. It definitely gives people a false sense of trust and degrades from those people's rating. I really don't mind when escrow providers give out neutral feedback or none after the transaction, since there is no trust involved on the escrow provider's end.

Edit: I just took a look through SJ's rating and it appears that he puts amounts in for all transactions he escrows. Probably just a pattern he follows but he should probably change that, considering he isn't the one risking the bitcoins.

So how would you handle it? I set amounts when the trading parties set amounts. Since then i know that they dont care if the amounts are stated.

And how can a good trust rating be wrong when a trade went correctly?

I'd handle it a little differently. I don't think I'd leave users trust just because a trade goes well, since the escrow provider doesn't need to put trust into any of the other parties. However if someone asks for a trust rating after the trade, I'd leave them a neutral trust rating, unless I truly do trust the user. I escrow a transaction here and there on my main account, and although plenty of the transactions are over $50, I wouldn't necessarily trust all the people I deal with, so I don't leave them trust unless they ask. If they do ask, I usually leave them neutral trust so that others know they've successfully completed a deal or two, but that I wouldn't completely trust them, especially if the user is a newbie, or this was their first trade.

One possible problem I see with the neutral ratings for escrows below $50 is that users could just create two accounts, ask you to escrow a "trade" between them, and receive positive trust on both accounts for fairly cheap without any trade having actually taken place. I don't know if you charge a fee, but if so it would only cost them about $0.50 + 0.0001 BTC (1% fee + tx fee) to potentially have two green accounts to sell (or do whatever else with) later on. I'm not saying that this does happen, I'm just mentioning that this could be a potential problem with leaving positive feedback after a trade.

As for the risked amount, it's really not a big deal at all, but it's supposed to be the bitcoin that you risked during the transaction. Since you didn't risk any bitcoin, it technically should be 0 BTC. But since you leave a comment saying that you provided escrow for the users I really don't think that's a big deal, people should be able to figure things out.

[EcuaMobi]

Anyway... im open to suggestions. I believe the trust rating should show that trades went well. So if the established members think i should handle it differently then let me know.

I like that $50 policy. The problem I see is that when you receive the payment first (as you always do when acting as escrow) the actual amount you're risking is always zero, regardless of the amount of the trade. Therefore by your logic you should always leave a neutral rating when you're escrowing.

Risked BTC amount is money that the person could have stolen or did steal. For example, if you do a currency trade where the other person sends first, your feedback for them would have 0 risked BTC and their feedback for you would have risked BTC equal to the BTC value of the trade.

It's my understanding that the field 'Risked BTC amount' for positive ratings somehow says what amount we can trust a user won't scam for because he's already had the chance to scam for that much and didn't. For example if I make some work for BTC1 I usually get 50% beforehand. I receive BTC0.50, I do the job and then I receive the other BTC0.50. The person I dealt with could have scammed me for BTC0.50 after receiving the work, but he didn't therefore I leave a positive trust with a risked amount of BTC0.50.
If someone pays 100% beforehand then the amount I risked is 0. He couldn't scam me in this case even if he wanted to, therefore I don't know whether he's trustworthy for BTC1, BTC0.5 or any amount.

If you escrow a deal then both parties send you the good or payment first to you. In that case you're not risking anything. You don't have any way to know whether they would have scammed if they could. Again, the amount you risked to them is zero.

[SebastianJu]

This seems to be a problem if real. I'd like to read SebastianJu's version.
A single positive default trust feedback makes an account green so it should be given only when one really thinks someone is trustworthy. And as described in the profile page the risked amount should always be set to zero if the other person sends first. It doesn't make sense that an escrow includes a non-zero risked amount unless there's something we don't know, in that case that extra information should be included in the feedback.
I really think escrows shouldn't leave feedback at all unless something particularly positive or negative happened in the deal.

I too am surprised when escrow providers leave positive feedback to the people involved in the transaction, especially when these people are on DefaultTrust. It definitely gives people a false sense of trust and degrades from those people's rating. I really don't mind when escrow providers give out neutral feedback or none after the transaction, since there is no trust involved on the escrow provider's end.

Edit: I just took a look through SJ's rating and it appears that he puts amounts in for all transactions he escrows. Probably just a pattern he follows but he should probably change that, considering he isn't the one risking the bitcoins.

So how would you handle it? I set amounts when the trading parties set amounts. Since then i know that they dont care if the amounts are stated.

And how can a good trust rating be wrong when a trade went correctly?

I'd handle it a little differently. I don't think I'd leave users trust just because a trade goes well, since the escrow provider doesn't need to put trust into any of the other parties. However if someone asks for a trust rating after the trade, I'd leave them a neutral trust rating, unless I truly do trust the user. I escrow a transaction here and there on my main account, and although plenty of the transactions are over $50, I wouldn't necessarily trust all the people I deal with, so I don't leave them trust unless they ask. If they do ask, I usually leave them neutral trust so that others know they've successfully completed a deal or two, but that I wouldn't completely trust them, especially if the user is a newbie, or this was their first trade.

One possible problem I see with the neutral ratings for escrows below $50 is that users could just create two accounts, ask you to escrow a "trade" between them, and receive positive trust on both accounts for fairly cheap without any trade having actually taken place. I don't know if you charge a fee, but if so it would only cost them about $0.50 + 0.0001 BTC (1% fee + tx fee) to potentially have two green accounts to sell (or do whatever else with) later on. I'm not saying that this does happen, I'm just mentioning that this could be a potential problem with leaving positive feedback after a trade.

As for the risked amount, it's really not a big deal at all, but it's supposed to be the bitcoin that you risked during the transaction. Since you didn't risk any bitcoin, it technically should be 0 BTC. But since you leave a comment saying that you provided escrow for the users I really don't think that's a big deal, people should be able to figure things out.

Yes, i always state that i ESCROWED a trade, i dont state that i traded with them, its clear what happened to everyone reading.

Sure, im not very much at risk, except someone tries to scam me with 2 accounts, which luckily didnt happen yet except someone trying to scam trust with fake transactions. I worked together with the staff and all the details are with the correct persons now. You wouldnt believe how many accounts seem to be owned by single persons that dont have to do better things than using them to scam one way or another.

I dont take a fee, though i accept donations.

Youre right, i did not really risk though when i state i escrowed then it should be clear that its the amount in escrow.

I checked around on other members accounts and found that ALOT of green trust comes from escrows. Maybe the most. Even when not, you would need to forbid two trading partners, that use an escrow, to give each other green trust. Because they didnt risk anything too by using the escrow.

At the end the trust system would become pretty much useless since green trust would be given to friends you know. Which would be arbitrary to some extend since friends are treated different naturally. Does it need to mean someone wont scam only because he behaves with you as your friend?

So i know the trust system is not perfect but i think it should be used. It doesnt make sense when everyone on the forum has no trust at all because everyone is using escrows that eliminate risks.

And it doesnt make sense to only give green trust to those that trade without escrow since that isnt really a behaviour that is a good thing. Reward for NOT using escrow, surely the opposite what scammers teach on here.

[SebastianJu]

Anyway... im open to suggestions. I believe the trust rating should show that trades went well. So if the established members think i should handle it differently then let me know.

I like that $50 policy. The problem I see is that when you receive the payment first (as you always do when acting as escrow) the actual amount you're risking is always zero, regardless of the amount of the trade. Therefore by your logic you should always leave a neutral rating when you're escrowing.

You are right. Though i state explicitly that i only escrowed, so its not that someone can think that i bought something from that user. And the amount would logically show the amount the trade was for. I mean the info fields are there and could be used i think. Since at the end we dont want that someone really RISKS some coins. The chance of being scammed when risking is simply way too high on the forum. So using escrows should theoretically eliminate every risk and no green trust should be given to any involved party then. I dont think thats what the trust rating is for.

Risked BTC amount is money that the person could have stolen or did steal. For example, if you do a currency trade where the other person sends first, your feedback for them would have 0 risked BTC and their feedback for you would have risked BTC equal to the BTC value of the trade.

It's my understanding that the field 'Risked BTC amount' for positive ratings somehow says what amount we can trust a user won't scam for because he's already had the chance to scam for that much and didn't. For example if I make some work for BTC1 I usually get 50% beforehand. I receive BTC0.50, I do the job and then I receive the other BTC0.50. The person I dealt with could have scammed me for BTC0.50 after receiving the work, but he didn't therefore I leave a positive trust with a risked amount of BTC0.50.
If someone pays 100% beforehand then the amount I risked is 0. He couldn't scam me in this case even if he wanted to, therefore I don't know whether he's trustworthy for BTC1, BTC0.5 or any amount.

If you escrow a deal then both parties send you the good or payment first to you. In that case you're not risking anything. You don't have any way to know whether they would have scammed if they could. Again, the amount you risked to them is zero.

Though i think even with an escrow there are enough chances of a scam happening. I had those cases too but luckily the truth came to light. So there is still a risk. And that lies in a scammer that can forge the evidences so that event he escrow is scammed. The risk is way way smaller of course but still there. So i think a trade that ended with all parties happy is a good trade and everyone can give each other the hand and say "Yes, good trade, lets do it again." Which translates to me like a first impression of green trust.

[twister]

I think all default trust members should only leave neutral trust ratings, it documents the trade or whatever and doesn't adds any color to any parties. I suspect one other member who I think is an account farmer and is doing deals with his alt accounts and using default trust escrows to receive green + on his both accounts which he might sell later for extra profit due to green ratings. He recently sold an Hero Member account which went for 0.55 and he knows that the green ones will go for even better. He picks only default trust escrows, first Devthedev but he got removed so he lost his chance to get green, then Maidak, he got bad trust then he did one with TC and the account he was selling, he chose QS for it hoping to receive another +1 but it didn't work out because the buyer didn't wanted to use QS.

I think some people are seeing it as easy opportunity to get green, do some trades with Default trust members or ask them to escrow and wallah you're green, the account value is up and you're considered trusted.

[SebastianJu]

I think all default trust members should only leave neutral trust ratings, it documents the trade or whatever and doesn't adds any color to any parties. I suspect one other member who I think is an account farmer and is doing deals with his alt accounts and using default trust escrows to receive green + on his both accounts which he might sell later for extra profit due to green ratings. He recently sold an Hero Member account which went for 0.55 and he knows that the green ones will go for even better. He picks only default trust escrows, first Devthedev but he got removed so he lost his chance to get green, then Maidak, he got bad trust then he did one with TC and the account he was selling, he chose QS for it hoping to receive another +1 but it didn't work out because the buyer didn't wanted to use QS.

I think some people are seeing it as easy opportunity to get green, do some trades with Default trust members or ask them to escrow and wallah you're green, the account value is up and you're considered trusted.

And what would be the sense in a forum empty of green trust?

What will you do when someone gets into default trust and suddenly all ratings he gave are on that level?

How will you prevent trades going on that would not be done when no green trust would happen? I mean real trades. You simply cant. You would be surprised which kind of account network some scammers have. Surely they wont have a problem giving some trust around here and there.

There will normal trades happen with green trust and there will trades happen only because there is green trust. There is no way to prevent that. You might stop giving green trust completely to trades. But then the trust system would render useless. Either using the trust system or not using it. But when it gets used then surely it can be misused at times. The only way is to use your head and see if a trade might be faked. If im unsure about that then i only give neutral trust.

[EcuaMobi]

And what would be the sense in a forum empty of green trust?

Of course being extremist never makes sense. The trust system would be useless if nobody (or almost nobody) had green trust as much as if everyone (or too many people) had it. When I make a successful deal with some significant risked BTC then I almost always leave positive trust. When the risked BTC is zero or close to zero then it's very subjective. It depends whether the other party was very communicative and nothing at all was fishy; basically if my guts say the user is trustworthy. Of course it's OK to leave positive trust on several of those cases but not always and that's up to the person leaving the trust. It must be checked cased by case.

You are right. Though i state explicitly that i only escrowed, so its not that someone can think that i bought something from that user.

Yes and that's very helpful when people really check the trust. But something really important to consider is that even if we don't like it several newbies will blindly trust green accounts without actually looking at the actual feedback, +10 could look like a lot. Therefore we need to be somewhat strict when giving those away and check them in the future time to time for a possible rectification.

[Quickseller]

I talked to him about this in the beginning of June and his response was something along the lines of that he wants a record of the transaction.

I would not personally give positive trust this liberally as it makes it easy for people to farm trust which ultimately leads to bad things.

I did not say anything of a record, that makes no sense. I told you that i think the trust rating should show that someone is trustworthy to deal with. Might be some people use it for rating their friends or so but for me it shows that deals went well.

And yes, we spoke about that. And i agreed that i should be more strict. Thats why i only do neutral rating for values lower than $50.

By the way... you remember why i contacted you? Because i needed to hear your opinion regarding someone trying to gain illegitimate trust.

I believe that you said said (among other things - I think this is the most relevant and important of what you said):

It shows that the person did trade successfully without problems before. Thats what i think is the positive trust for.

You had contacted me because you were afraid that you were being targeted by trust farmers, and wanted advise as to how to proceed. I would say that your overall sent trust ratings has improved greatly since we spoke. As of now, I would not support your removal from Default Trust, and would probably oppose any push to have you removed.

I do like the fact that you have a minimum trade value that you will give trust on, although I think there is a good chance you are still being targeted by trust farmers. Tomatocage had told me that his minimum trade size to leave a positive trust rating is 1BTC, although even this may be too low. I personally like the policy that OgNasty follows (at least the one that others have posted that he has), that is something along the lines of that he won't leave trust unless he has done a number of trades with you.

I would also point out that I recently received a PM (I assume that he does not want his identity revealed because he specifically asked his identity be kept secret when he messaged me regarding other DT issues/threads in meta) saying that he passed on using you as escrow on a 20+BTC deal because you give out so many trust ratings saying "I escrowed one of his deals and all went fine... "

in my experience, very few people ask me for trust after I escrow a trade for them, and even when they do and I decline to give them trust, they still seem very happy that I was able to help them with their trade and still generally would leave a very positive review for my services. 
I think that PistolPete brings up a good point about a flaw in the trust system. It is not difficult to farm trust by using various escrow services. You are not the only person who often gives out trust after acting as escrow, and there is an argument to leave positive trust after you act as escrow. A large percentage of the escrow agents are also on DefaultTrust, as there is a relationship between a person's trustworthiness and the chances they are on DT (as someone is more trustworthy, there is a greater chance that they will be trusted with others' money).

Another point is the fact that almost all deals involve only one person risking any amount of bitcoin, and there is the question of when it is appropriate to leave positive trust when nothing is risked. This question also makes it complicated to say when exactly it is appropriate to trust someone with your money.

[criptix]

to be honest i do not think that it is a good idea to give trust as a escrow.

the partys using the escrow should give the escrow positive or negative trust.

the trust system here has quite a broad definition and i think the best way to give positive trust is if you risked x amount of money to someone and dont get scammed by that person.

the trust of someone who has nothing to lose is quite worthless in my opinion especially here where you can trade accounts and trust.

[koshgel]

I don't like the idea of positive trust for escrow transactions at all. Personally, I dismiss any trust I see relating to escrow and add DefaultTrust members that dish it out frequently to the exempt list of my trust. As has been proven by OP, it is easy to farm escrow trades from members.

If you want to keep record of a transaction, use neutral trust.

Edit: The same can be said about microloans -

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=329895

positive trust for .02 loans 

[DiamondCardz]

I too am surprised when escrow providers leave positive feedback to the people involved in the transaction, especially when these people are on DefaultTrust. It definitely gives people a false sense of trust and degrades from those people's rating. I really don't mind when escrow providers give out neutral feedback or none after the transaction, since there is no trust involved on the escrow provider's end.

Edit: I just took a look through SJ's rating and it appears that he puts amounts in for all transactions he escrows. Probably just a pattern he follows but he should probably change that, considering he isn't the one risking the bitcoins.

I've posted about this previously. I feel like this is a serious problem and escrows on DefaultTrust who do this and don't even bother considering the consequences really need to have their position re-considered by whichever depth 1 person has them on their trust list. Escrows should not be giving positive feedback to the people they escrow for except in very rare circumstances - perhaps something like a very large mining farm escrow contract.

[criptix]

hm..  just checked the default trust and it seems atleast some escrows are doing this and even posting the escrow amount in the risked btc section.

this is serious bs and im actually thinking of deleting this ppl from my default trust.
also recommending this to everyone else.

also it would make the problem even more worst if the escrow would take payment for it, because this would be just plain trust selling.

i hope some other ppl will check the default list escrows too

[Blazed]

I often do escrows and do not hand out feedback for them unless they are large (normally over 5BTC). I was at one point giving some feedback for small loans (back in 2014). I will be removing all those feedback's..I see the account in question has feedback from me for that very thing! done...

I have been very stingy on the feedback left lately  

[master-P]

I don't have anything against Sebastian, I still believe he is one of the most trustworthy users and escrow providers here on bitcointalk considering the amount of funds he has handled in the past without a hitch. But I do agree that he should be less liberal with the amount of positive trust he gives out. I mostly only give out positive ratings if I had to specifically "trust" the other user with any value. There are definitely instances where I have also given out positive ratings when I did not have to trust the user with any value but I would usually leave the "Risked BTC amount" at 0 to help illustrate this.

Ever since being put on the default trust list (this was before I started my public escrow service) I've been very careful of when and who I give positive trust to. There are few instances where users would ask me to leave positive trust for a transaction I escrowed for but this is usually just something I end up ignoring (no offense to these people), simply because I don't believe that's how the trust system should work. It's not a "feedback" system like ebay where both parties leave a rating at the end of the deal.

There has definitely been some very obvious trust farmers who have contacted me but this just gives me another reason to be more conservative when leaving trust. I don't want people to use my escrow service only to gain a trust rating because then I'd rather not help escrow at all.

I don't see any other escrow provider to be "competition" because I don't do escrow as a business. This is not my way of making a living, this is just me volunteering my spare time on these forums to help make trading safer. So again, just wanted to make clear that I don't have anything personal against SebastianJu or his escrow service. He is very active and I am sure many of us can appreciate that. I have personally had to use his escrow service before at least once.

Not sure where I'm going with this anymore, the bottom line is I think Sebastian should definitely be more conservative in giving out positive trust ratings. Especially with the updated trust system where it's actually quite easy to get "green" trust with just one or two ratings. There are other/better ways to help keep a record of your transactions imo. In the end everyone has the right to leave positive/negative trust to anyone for whatever reason but being too liberal while on DefaultTrust can lead to trust farming/abuse.

[shitaifan2013]

while I do understand the issue, I doubt that such a lengthy discussion is leading to a conclusion.

the easiest/fastest way in case you feel that SebJu is giving his trust/reputation away to easily, is to exclude him from your own trust list by hand.

that's what I did, when he started to participate in signature campaigns of not trustworthy sites and gave away positive feedback way to easy. don't get me wrong, I think tghe person behind the account of SebJu is one of the most reliable/trustworthy german users, but I myself  simply don't wanna get fooled by the feedback he's given to people who would otherwise never ever make it into my trusted cirlces.

[koshgel]

while I do understand the issue, I doubt that such a lengthy discussion is leading to a conclusion.

the easiest/fastest way in case you feel that SebJu is giving his trust/reputation away to easily, is to exclude him from your own trust list by hand.

that's what I did, when he started to participate in signature campaigns of not trustworthy sites and gave away positive feedback way to easy. don't get me wrong, I think tghe person behind the account of SebJu is one of the most reliable/trustworthy german users, but I myself  simply don't wanna get fooled by the feedback he's given to people who would otherwise never ever make it into my trusted cirlces.

I've done the same thing. The problem is that newbies don't understand the trust system can still be gamed by these loan/escrow trust farmers.

hm..  just checked the default trust and it seems atleast some escrows are doing this and even posting the escrow amount in the risked btc section.

this is serious bs and im actually thinking of deleting this ppl from my default trust.
also recommending this to everyone else.

also it would make the problem even more worst if the escrow would take payment for it, because this would be just plain trust selling.

i hope some other ppl will check the default list escrows too

Please list any users you find on the DefaultTrust freely giving out positive trust for microloans and escrow service.

[feryjhie]

feryjhie got sold in an auction today. No biggie, account changes hands like cards in a deck in the org named Bitcointalk. The seller, a new account rolled to just sell the account even got a default trust from SebastianJu who was escrow. Apparently the escrow somehow risked 0.255BTC and was so grateful to the Newbie for having the priviledge of being the escrow that he couldn't wait to give a default rating.

No biggie again, the Legendary Escrow Service is the middleman of choice for all sorts of traders angling to get that coveted feedback as a quick glance through the sent feedback reveals. What was concerning in this particular case was that the sold account itself received a rating. This seems to be a new policy for the popular escrow, who has seen a sudden rise in business coinciding with him doling out default feedback.

What do you do if you want to buy an account here? Make a new account, use SebastianJu to escrow the trade and ask him to provide the feedback to the new account and voila! you are the proud owner of an account which is going to turn green in 5 months.

But then, escrow fortunes rise and fall with the everchanging landscape of default trust. devthedev was the most popular at some point but was discarded like a stale bread when escrow.ms wielded his axe. bitpop had a few days in the sun but that was cut short quickly. Now master-P, who has worked so hard to buld up his rating is the only viable rival, but his insistence in being a miser in the sent feedback means he is left eating SebastianJu's dust.

Dude you have no proof of your guess which was made from envy or hate, I don't know what previous owner of the account did to you , although he wasn't a scammer or a bad guy at all but you must to know that I have nothing in common with him.


You're wrong and I can prove this , I'm the first owner of account conteaza(which I sold few months ago) and somebody might knows me as a signature designer.
I have the BB code of a signature that I made a year ago which was not shared with nobody,here's the link

You've got another participant here  
I hope 3D effect is clear enough

and code

Code:

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I can show more code examples if it's necessary .

I fully agree with Sebastian's policy and I don't think big volume of a trade must be the main criterion to give a positive feedback . I know guys which are not so rich to make trades with let's say 10 BTC but they are very trustworthy ,  they are few but they are ..

[SebastianJu]

And what would be the sense in a forum empty of green trust?

Of course being extremist never makes sense. The trust system would be useless if nobody (or almost nobody) had green trust as much as if everyone (or too many people) had it. When I make a successful deal with some significant risked BTC then I almost always leave positive trust. When the risked BTC is zero or close to zero then it's very subjective. It depends whether the other party was very communicative and nothing at all was fishy; basically if my guts say the user is trustworthy. Of course it's OK to leave positive trust on several of those cases but not always and that's up to the person leaving the trust. It must be checked cased by case.

Thats mostly how i do it too. I mean a $50 trade is significant already, i think. And when i think something is fishy then i would not give green trust. Only then i give green trust.

On another level, giving green to one but not to another raises questions by the one that did not get it. Then you need to explain.

Luckily these cases happen very seldom.

You are right. Though i state explicitly that i only escrowed, so its not that someone can think that i bought something from that user.

Yes and that's very helpful when people really check the trust. But something really important to consider is that even if we don't like it several newbies will blindly trust green accounts without actually looking at the actual feedback, +10 could look like a lot. Therefore we need to be somewhat strict when giving those away and check them in the future time to time for a possible rectification.

The steps from newbies doing trades without escrow, from learning what trust is to checking out the trust from someone they way to trade with are rather thin.

I agree that this should be handled carefully.

[SebastianJu]

I talked to him about this in the beginning of June and his response was something along the lines of that he wants a record of the transaction.

I would not personally give positive trust this liberally as it makes it easy for people to farm trust which ultimately leads to bad things.

I did not say anything of a record, that makes no sense. I told you that i think the trust rating should show that someone is trustworthy to deal with. Might be some people use it for rating their friends or so but for me it shows that deals went well.

And yes, we spoke about that. And i agreed that i should be more strict. Thats why i only do neutral rating for values lower than $50.

By the way... you remember why i contacted you? Because i needed to hear your opinion regarding someone trying to gain illegitimate trust.

I believe that you said said (among other things - I think this is the most relevant and important of what you said):

It shows that the person did trade successfully without problems before. Thats what i think is the positive trust for.

Yes. I believe the trust ratings should show that the member traded on bitcointalk successfully before without problems arising. Its not for my personal record keeping, though maybe i understood your sentence wrong. Its a record of trades on the forum that can show a person viewing it what this account did. The more info the better the image a viewer can get about that person. Of course, when a rating says that an escrow was involved then the risk was not much. But still i would want to read about past trades rather than having a blank trust page.

You had contacted me because you were afraid that you were being targeted by trust farmers, and wanted advise as to how to proceed.

Thats correct. The case was a person with multiple accounts, not even small ones. At least staff knows all details and they observe them.

I would say that your overall sent trust ratings has improved greatly since we spoke. As of now, I would not support your removal from Default Trust, and would probably oppose any push to have you removed.

Thanks. And im open to how trust rating should be handled.

I do like the fact that you have a minimum trade value that you will give trust on, although I think there is a good chance you are still being targeted by trust farmers. Tomatocage had told me that his minimum trade size to leave a positive trust rating is 1BTC, although even this may be too low. I personally like the policy that OgNasty follows (at least the one that others have posted that he has), that is something along the lines of that he won't leave trust unless he has done a number of trades with you.

A number of trades would only slow it down when someone really is clever. What would happen would be that a trustfarmer would use escrows that dont do it the same. In case all escrows handle it the same way he would simply adapt and do a couple of trades.

Saying that... i dont give green trust when i think it might be strange somehow anymore since i got cautious.

I would also point out that I recently received a PM (I assume that he does not want his identity revealed because he specifically asked his identity be kept secret when he messaged me regarding other DT issues/threads in meta) saying that he passed on using you as escrow on a 20+BTC deal because you give out so many trust ratings saying "I escrowed one of his deals and all went fine... "

Must be a combined escrow with many trades then since i did no trade in that high since many months. And i would only give one green trust in that case.

in my experience, very few people ask me for trust after I escrow a trade for them, and even when they do and I decline to give them trust, they still seem very happy that I was able to help them with their trade and still generally would leave a very positive review for my services. 

Yes, i think thats correct. Though i think the trust system should be used for showing that trades happened successfully. I would rather suggest to give trust so that other members can inform about the past trades of a person. It is simply a difference to see an empty trust or a trust that shows that some trades happened. If these trust ratings need to be green or neutral might be another question.

I think that PistolPete brings up a good point about a flaw in the trust system. It is not difficult to farm trust by using various escrow services. You are not the only person who often gives out trust after acting as escrow, and there is an argument to leave positive trust after you act as escrow. A large percentage of the escrow agents are also on DefaultTrust, as there is a relationship between a person's trustworthiness and the chances they are on DT (as someone is more trustworthy, there is a greater chance that they will be trusted with others' money).

Yes. Its somewhat standard. I know though that not all escrows are do it that way.

Maybe account buyers should add a new question. Green trust from escrows only?

Another point is the fact that almost all deals involve only one person risking any amount of bitcoin, and there is the question of when it is appropriate to leave positive trust when nothing is risked. This question also makes it complicated to say when exactly it is appropriate to trust someone with your money.

Exactly...

[SebastianJu]

to be honest i do not think that it is a good idea to give trust as a escrow.

the partys using the escrow should give the escrow positive or negative trust.

the trust system here has quite a broad definition and i think the best way to give positive trust is if you risked x amount of money to someone and dont get scammed by that person.

the trust of someone who has nothing to lose is quite worthless in my opinion especially here where you can trade accounts and trust.

But with that definition you could never give trust when you use an escrow. The risk with an escrow is very low, so in theory no party should get a trust rating, except the escrow maybe, because he was a "risk" at some level. You trust him with coins. That would mean that no trust would be given for trades that happened with escrows involved. Which would render the trust system relatively useless since the only way to risk for buyer and seller is when they dont use an escrow. And i dont think thats something that should be supported since i had to learn that on the forum are really scammers that would scam for less than $10...

[SebastianJu]

I don't have anything against Sebastian, I still believe he is one of the most trustworthy users and escrow providers here on bitcointalk considering the amount of funds he has handled in the past without a hitch.But I do agree that he should be less liberal with the amount of positive trust he gives out. I mostly only give out positive ratings if I had to specifically "trust" the other user with any value. There are definitely instances where I have also given out positive ratings when I did not have to trust the user with any value but I would usually leave the "Risked BTC amount" at 0 to help illustrate this.

Though the risked amount is no value that is flowing into the calculation of trust. So putting an amount into that field would be purely informational and together with the rating text it would become clear what the value is about.

Ever since being put on the default trust list (this was before I started my public escrow service) I've been very careful of when and who I give positive trust to. There are few instances where users would ask me to leave positive trust for a transaction I escrowed for but this is usually just something I end up ignoring (no offense to these people), simply because I don't believe that's how the trust system should work. It's not a "feedback" system like ebay where both parties leave a rating at the end of the deal.

There has definitely been some very obvious trust farmers who have contacted me but this just gives me another reason to be more conservative when leaving trust. I don't want people to use my escrow service only to gain a trust rating because then I'd rather not help escrow at all.

I don't see any other escrow provider to be "competition" because I don't do escrow as a business. This is not my way of making a living, this is just me volunteering my spare time on these forums to help make trading safer.

Yes, thats very true. Sometimes i think people think being an escrow is some form of earning money. I would suggest doing signature campaigns instead since being an escrow is really no way to earn a living.

I do it because i think the community is haunted with scammers and a solution needs to be there. I spend a lot of time of these things and the reward is mostly seeing the people being happy at the end. Sometimes donations happen of course. That makes me happy of course since it shows that people are happy with what i did. And as far as i was in contact with you i think its similar with you.
But its not something to do as a business. Maybe services like escrow.ms are different when they do it in masses? Dont know.

So again, just wanted to make clear that I don't have anything personal against SebastianJu or his escrow service. He is very active and I am sure many of us can appreciate that. I have personally had to use his escrow service before at least once.

Not sure where I'm going with this anymore, the bottom line is I think Sebastian should definitely be more conservative in giving out positive trust ratings. Especially with the updated trust system where it's actually quite easy to get "green" trust with just one or two ratings. There are other/better ways to help keep a record of your transactions imo. In the end everyone has the right to leave positive/negative trust to anyone for whatever reason but being too liberal while on DefaultTrust can lead to trust farming/abuse.

[criptix]

to be honest i do not think that it is a good idea to give trust as a escrow.

the partys using the escrow should give the escrow positive or negative trust.

the trust system here has quite a broad definition and i think the best way to give positive trust is if you risked x amount of money to someone and dont get scammed by that person.

the trust of someone who has nothing to lose is quite worthless in my opinion especially here where you can trade accounts and trust.

But with that definition you could never give trust when you use an escrow. The risk with an escrow is very low, so in theory no party should get a trust rating, except the escrow maybe, because he was a "risk" at some level. You trust him with coins. That would mean that no trust would be given for trades that happened with escrows involved. Which would render the trust system relatively useless since the only way to risk for buyer and seller is when they dont use an escrow. And i dont think thats something that should be supported since i had to learn that on the forum are really scammers that would scam for less than $10...

uhm thats my point, only seller/buyer should rate the escrow.
the escrow should not rate them besides a neutral because they were friendly or whatever.

the trust system is to help people not getting scammed and i dont think this will change something.
people that trade directly with each other can still give each other trust or just use a trusted escrow - which would be a good think because it will help a lot against scams.

but i gotta say i can uderstand your point there must be some balance around it :/

but i hope you can understand that someone who could have scammed you but didnt is much more trustworthy then someone who could not steal anything anyway

[SebastianJu]

Ok guys... i see many see it differently but it seems there is no opinion that is valid for everyone.

I can handle it differently from now. For example only giving neutral trust generally.

Though i really would like to have a policy established so that all forum members can use the same rules. I know the trust system is free to use but at the same time forum members can decide on rules if they want.

So i think something like a poll should happen in where forum members can say what the rules should be for giving neutral, red and green trust, when to fill the amount, special rules for escrows and so on.

At the end all forum users should use these rules then. If someone is not handling it that way then he can get informed and other members can act if needed.

Well... when i write this then it sounds like a surveillance society.

Anyway. For now i think the points are valid but i would like to have equal rules for all. The topic came on the table now so maybe its time to negotiate rules.

I think a normal poll on the forum wouldnt be very usefull since it doesnt say if the users were newbies. And trustfarmers would most probably be account sellers. They voting with tens of accounts would not make sense.

Like i said, im open to discussion. For the moment i will only give neutral trust for escrows i did. That would not change the trust rating and still would inform other users of trades that happened. I think the amount would be an important information so that i think its better to include it. It would have purely informative character.

If the majority of established members say i should delete my past green ratings as an escrow and replace it with neutral ones then i would like to do that. Of course some users might still get a green trust when i traded with them alot and or have the impression that they are very honest persons.

Give me your opinions and i act on the consensus. It doesnt make sense to me when some persons removed me from their trust list because they dont agree with the way i give trust.

But again... i believe a common rule should be found so that escrow generally can follow it. At the moment there is no rule and it seems thats not the best way because it brings controversy.

[SebastianJu]

to be honest i do not think that it is a good idea to give trust as a escrow.

the partys using the escrow should give the escrow positive or negative trust.

the trust system here has quite a broad definition and i think the best way to give positive trust is if you risked x amount of money to someone and dont get scammed by that person.

the trust of someone who has nothing to lose is quite worthless in my opinion especially here where you can trade accounts and trust.

But with that definition you could never give trust when you use an escrow. The risk with an escrow is very low, so in theory no party should get a trust rating, except the escrow maybe, because he was a "risk" at some level. You trust him with coins. That would mean that no trust would be given for trades that happened with escrows involved. Which would render the trust system relatively useless since the only way to risk for buyer and seller is when they dont use an escrow. And i dont think thats something that should be supported since i had to learn that on the forum are really scammers that would scam for less than $10...

uhm thats my point, only seller/buyer should rate the escrow.
the escrow should not rate them besides a neutral because they were friendly or whatever.

the trust system is to help people not getting scammed and i dont think this will change something.
people that trade directly with each other can still give each other trust or just use a trusted escrow - which would be a good think because it will help a lot against scams.

but i gotta say i can uderstand your point there must be some balace around it :/

but i hope you can understand that someone who could have scammed you but didnt is much more trustworthy then someone who could not steal anything anyway

Of course i see your point with "someone who could have scammed you but didnt". I only wonder if the chance for that should exist. I mean how many trades on here happen without escrow? And how many trades that happen without escrow end in being scammed? So either there would be practically no green trust happen anymore, because no one would want to risk something, or members take risks and be rewarded by having a high chance of getting scammed.

I only say that i dont see much place for the trust system anymore in that scenario.

Anyway... my post above this post is important i think.

[TECSHARE]

For now i think the points are valid but i would like to have equal rules for all. The topic came on the table now so maybe its time to negotiate rules.... i believe a common rule should be found so that escrow generally can follow it. At the moment there is no rule and it seems thats not the best way because it brings controversy.

The entire reason there are no rules is so those in control of the trust system can pick and choose who they enforce these unwritten rules upon, giving those closest to them the best trading advantage possible via selective enforcement. There is a direct monetary incentive to do this as there is a direct incentive for people to trade with those on default trust so they can get a bump in their trust rating visible on default trust. Its like a funnel of money aimed at the default trust. The ones that wash balls get supported no matter what, the ones who do their own thing are swarmed with people vying to please their overlords. Welcome to the club.

[SebastianJu]

For now i think the points are valid but i would like to have equal rules for all. The topic came on the table now so maybe its time to negotiate rules.... i believe a common rule should be found so that escrow generally can follow it. At the moment there is no rule and it seems thats not the best way because it brings controversy.

The entire reason there are no rules is so those in control of the trust system can pick and choose who they enforce these unwritten rules upon, giving those closest to them the best trading advantage possible via selective enforcement. There is a direct monetary incentive to do this as there is a direct incentive for people to trade with those on default trust so they can get a bump in their trust rating visible on default trust. Its like a funnel of money aimed at the default trust. The ones that wash balls get supported no matter what, the ones who do their own thing are swarmed with people vying to please their overlords. Welcome to the club.

I agree. The trust system is not fair. And i agree that i should not give green trust to any trader above >$50 trades. In the future i will only give neutral trust as this would be purely informative about what this user did in the past. That is better then having an empty trust page. You can see what happened and when you trade with him using an escrow then you can be relatively sure that a trade, by using an escrow, will end well again.

Saying that... im not so sure if the default trust is a way to riches. I think those on default trust are often enough on the list because they are early adopters and thats the reason they mostly have money. Of course only when inept businessmans and scammers didnt make the burden of lifting all these coins a lot lighter... or even worse. And me being on default trust did not let me get into a secret society of whale bitcoiners. So no riches from that.

Though trust is no one way ticket. I remember disagreeing with Quicksilver on the red rating for _Whorhipper. Though i wasnt the only one and at the end it was expensive for him. I think that shows that the crowd could disagree and act as a crowd. So if the community could agree to terms how the trust ratings should be handled then im sure the crowd could enforce it. Sorry Quicksilver for taking you as example. (By the way i asked the only one who could get to 20 bitcoins in trades totally and he didnt say such thing. I wonder who told you i escrow a 20 coin deal for him. The last time i escrowed something in that height was start of november 2014.)

[SebastianJu]

By the way OP, why did you pick me and did not mention the other escrows. Its broadly done the way i did till now. At the end i would like the same rules for all. And these rules should rules the community agreed on.

[dexX7]

Is there any evidence that people blindly start trusting each other, only because there is some green text?

I'd assume one would carefully read the actual trust ratings and follow the references first, before trading with a stranger.

[Quickseller]

By the way OP, why did you pick me and did not mention the other escrows. Its broadly done the way i did till now. At the end i would like the same rules for all. And these rules should rules the community agreed on.

He told me via PM that it was because an account that you left positive trust for was sold yesterday.

feryjhie got sold in an auction today.

[SebastianJu]

By the way OP, why did you pick me and did not mention the other escrows. Its broadly done the way i did till now. At the end i would like the same rules for all. And these rules should rules the community agreed on.

He told me via PM that it was because an account that you left positive trust for was sold yesterday.

feryjhie got sold in an auction today.

So he only found out now about how the trust system was used since practically the beginning of the forum. I mean establishing trust had to be done somehow in the beginning of the forum and successfull trades were the way to handle it from the start. Seems the perception of the trust system changed over time. I have no problem with that, i can adapt. At the end the system is from members for members and it should serve the best results possible..

[koshgel]

Is there any evidence that people blindly start trusting each other, only because there is some green text?

I'd assume one would carefully read the actual trust ratings and follow the references first, before trading with a stranger.

You, as a legendary member, might be savvy in that department but the newbies see "trustful green" and will probably send first.

[dogie]

Is there any evidence that people blindly start trusting each other, only because there is some green text?

I'd assume one would carefully read the actual trust ratings and follow the references first, before trading with a stranger.

You, as a legendary member, might be savvy in that department but the newbies see "trustful green" and will probably send first.

It must mean something. No one has asked me to use escrow in years.

[feryjhie]

By the way I've found interesting thing , our dear and trusted member PistolPete is an alt of Dabs , you can convince yourself by putting  his bitcoin address(which is 1food14NCLas1FssyKnf2MgGZcwUFRKXE) in the search bar .Looking at his sent feedback you can see that he gave green trust to his friends .
Conclusion : Look at your self before judging others!

[Quickseller]

By the way I've found interesting thing , our dear and trusted member PistolPete is an alt of Dabs , you can convince yourself by putting  his bitcoin address(which is 1food14NCLas1FssyKnf2MgGZcwUFRKXE) in the search bar .Looking at his sent feedback you can see that he gave green trust to his friends .
Conclusion : Look at your self before judging others!

PistolPete is an alt of a very trusted person, however that person is not dabs. The address in Pete's profile is the address to donate to dabs's "feed the children" program where he converts the Bitcoin he receives at that address to his local currency and then uses that money to buy meals for needy children. (I bet you feel like an asshole now )

[feryjhie]

By the way I've found interesting thing , our dear and trusted member PistolPete is an alt of Dabs , you can convince yourself by putting  his bitcoin address(which is 1food14NCLas1FssyKnf2MgGZcwUFRKXE) in the search bar .Looking at his sent feedback you can see that he gave green trust to his friends .
Conclusion : Look at your self before judging others!

The address in Pete's profile is the address to donate to dabs's "feed the children" program where he converts the Bitcoin he receives at that address to his local currency and then uses that money to buy meals for needy children. (I bet you feel like an asshole now )

Yes I know that's why I said hes an alt of dabs and there is no need to insult me miss quickseller 

[Quickseller]

By the way I've found interesting thing , our dear and trusted member PistolPete is an alt of Dabs , you can convince yourself by putting  his bitcoin address(which is 1food14NCLas1FssyKnf2MgGZcwUFRKXE) in the search bar .Looking at his sent feedback you can see that he gave green trust to his friends .
Conclusion : Look at your self before judging others!

The address in Pete's profile is the address to donate to dabs's "feed the children" program where he converts the Bitcoin he receives at that address to his local currency and then uses that money to buy meals for needy children. (I bet you feel like an asshole now )

Yes I know that's why I said hes an alt of dabs and there is no need to insult me miss quickseller 

Well I just discredited the evidence that you presented that the OP is dabs, so why don't you post whatever additional evidence you have of this?

Not that it matters anyway because PistolPete is not breaking any rules, and I don't think anyone (reputable at least) is going to think what Pete does is in any way unethical or against what is accepted throughout the community. I am fairly certain that Pete is using that account because he does not want his "main" account to be associated with this kind of criticism.

[feryjhie]

Well I just discredited the evidence that you presented that the OP is dabs, so why don't you post whatever additional evidence you have of this?

Not that it matters anyway because PistolPete is not breaking any rules, and I don't think anyone (reputable at least) is going to think what Pete does is in any way unethical or against what is accepted throughout the community. I am fairly certain that Pete is using that account because he does not want his "main" account to be associated with this kind of criticism.

I will stay on my own opinion because PistolPete's wallet is linked to dabs's thread and I have nothing against number of his accounts ,only against his sent feedbacks.

He stated that Sebastian is tricked by trust farmers pointing at ME , but he DOESN't have any proof.My above post https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1142193.msg12049209#msg12049209 shows that he is wrong and i'm the new owner of this account so you guys have no reason to judge Sebastian and me.

[criptix]

Well I just discredited the evidence that you presented that the OP is dabs, so why don't you post whatever additional evidence you have of this?

Not that it matters anyway because PistolPete is not breaking any rules, and I don't think anyone (reputable at least) is going to think what Pete does is in any way unethical or against what is accepted throughout the community. I am fairly certain that Pete is using that account because he does not want his "main" account to be associated with this kind of criticism.

I will stay on my own opinion because PistolPete's wallet is linked to dabs's thread and I have nothing against number of his accounts ,only against his sent feedbacks.

He stated that Sebastian is tricked by trust farmers pointing at ME , but he DOESN't have any proof.My above post https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1142193.msg12049209#msg12049209 shows that he is wrong and i'm the new owner of this account so you guys have no reason to judge Sebastian and me.

i doubt it is about judging you guys personally - atleast for me - it is more about finding a general consensus in the community.
it is fact that default trust is special and thus people on it should behave according to a higher standard

[redsn0w]

Is there any evidence that people blindly start trusting each other, only because there is some green text?

I'd assume one would carefully read the actual trust ratings and follow the references first, before trading with a stranger.

Exactly, this is how it should work .. but the users will only see the green trust score and not the 'trust' or comments (in the users trust page).

[Dogedigital]

I don't like the idea of positive trust for escrow transactions at all. Personally, I dismiss any trust I see relating to escrow and add DefaultTrust members that dish it out frequently to the exempt list of my trust. As has been proven by OP, it is easy to farm escrow trades from members.

If you want to keep record of a transaction, use neutral trust.

Edit: The same can be said about microloans -

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=329895

positive trust for .02 loans  

I've just seen this now.  I gave him a positive trust for the transaction that took place in which he did in fact pay me back for a loan.  

I'm not on default trust and this wouldn't instantly make him a trustworthy person to deal with, but for possible lenders in the future, they now have a reference to see before deciding on whether or not they think the person will repay.

I believe that successful transactions should be recorded so that anybody who wishes to deal with a user in the future can make a more informed decision. 

Just because someone has a green number does not make them instantly trustworthy.  All it shows is that there is a reason (maybe several) why this person may or may not hold up to their word in their dealings. 

Some of the people who have the highest trust ratings are users who deal out fraudulent codes or gift cards.  Yeah... they might have a huge rating, but I wouldn't trust most of these people with anything over $20.

Final thoughts: If a transaction is successful and a trust issue was overcome, I say it deserves a positive rating but does not mean that you completely trust them.

[SebastianJu]

I believe that successful transactions should be recorded so that anybody who wishes to deal with a user in the future can make a more informed decision.

That is correct generally. I mean how should trust be established on a forum if not by trades? The trust system has been used for trust coming from trades since the beginning and when you check the "positive" trust option then you will see that it explicitly states "successful trades".

[SebastianJu]

Ok guys. I really hope you can value that. I sat down for 3 hours fixing my trust ratings. I deleted all trust ratings i gave out related to account trades. Reason is that i cant tell if the accounts that are sold will be used by the new owner or if he simply will sell it. So i cant tell if i should give trust to the account bought or the buyers account. I cant know if the seller will sell his account shortly.

Next thing is i deleted all trust ratings where i escrowed a total of less than $50. Its simply not worth mentioning.

I had to check all past escrows of each person i gave trust in order to do this.

Anyway. I have a new policy now:

* No trust rating to account sellers, buyers or the account traded. Because i cant tell if the buyer is using the bought account from now on or if he will sell it shortly after. And i cant tell if a seller is selling the seller account shortly after too.
* No trust rating at all to escrowed amounts worth <$50.
* Deals where i was escrow should not get green trust since there is no risk involved to buyer and seller. So i can give a neutral trust (see trust options, neutral is a comment only and doesnt affect the rating) to them when rule 2 does not apply. I will state the escrowed amount as risked btc and mention that it is the escrowed amount.
* Exceptions of the above rules are possible if i trust a person really. Have the impression that he showed he is a honest guy or something like that.
* I will only give one trust rating and try to put all ratings in one rating.

I hope my effort and new policy leads to more trust in my ratings with those members that took me off their trust list again.

If anyone doubts that the trust system is for trades too then please read the comment on the positive checkbox again. The trust system has been driven by trades from the beginning of the forum. And its logical, how should trust happen when not by trades?

While changing all the ratings i found 6 escrows on default trust that, it looks like, handled trust the same way i did, to some extent. My way of handling trust was not very uncommons since like i said, it was used for showing successfull trades since the beginning of the forum. I will send them a pm so they might check their policy to prevent hard feelings.

I hope you appreciate.

[shitaifan2013]

Ok guys. I really hope you can value that. I sat down for 3 hours fixing my trust ratings. I deleted all trust ratings i gave out related to account trades. Reason is that i cant tell if the accounts that are sold will be used by the new owner or if he simply will sell it. So i cant tell if i should give trust to the account bought or the buyers account. I cant know if the seller will sell his account shortly.

Next thing is i deleted all trust ratings where i escrowed a total of less than $50. Its simply not worth mentioning.

I had to check all past escrows of each person i gave trust in order to do this.

Anyway. I have a new policy now:

* No trust rating to account sellers, buyers or the account traded. Because i cant tell if the buyer is using the bought account from now on or if he will sell it shortly after. And i cant tell if a seller is selling the seller account shortly after too.
* No trust rating at all to escrowed amounts worth <$50.
* Deals where i was escrow should not get green trust since there is no risk involved to buyer and seller. So i can give a neutral trust (see trust options, neutral is a comment only and doesnt affect the rating) to them when rule 2 does not apply. I will state the escrowed amount as risked btc and mention that it is the escrowed amount.
* Exceptions of the above rules are possible if i trust a person really. Have the impression that he showed he is a honest guy or something like that.
* I will only give one trust rating and try to put all ratings in one rating.

I hope my effort and new policy leads to more trust in my ratings with those members that took me off their trust list again.

If anyone doubts that the trust system is for trades too then please read the comment on the positive checkbox again. The trust system has been driven by trades from the beginning of the forum. And its logical, how should trust happen when not by trades?

While changing all the ratings i found 6 escrows on default trust that, it looks like, handled trust the same way i did, to some extent. My way of handling trust was not very uncommons since like i said, it was used for showing successfull trades since the beginning of the forum. I will send them a pm so they might check their policy to prevent hard feelings.

I hope you appreciate.

really good and reasonable changes, should be copied/applied by other escrow providers too imo and/or made sticky somewhere

[koshgel]

Ok guys. I really hope you can value that. I sat down for 3 hours fixing my trust ratings. I deleted all trust ratings i gave out related to account trades. Reason is that i cant tell if the accounts that are sold will be used by the new owner or if he simply will sell it. So i cant tell if i should give trust to the account bought or the buyers account. I cant know if the seller will sell his account shortly.

Next thing is i deleted all trust ratings where i escrowed a total of less than $50. Its simply not worth mentioning.

I had to check all past escrows of each person i gave trust in order to do this.

Anyway. I have a new policy now:

* No trust rating to account sellers, buyers or the account traded. Because i cant tell if the buyer is using the bought account from now on or if he will sell it shortly after. And i cant tell if a seller is selling the seller account shortly after too.
* No trust rating at all to escrowed amounts worth <$50.
* Deals where i was escrow should not get green trust since there is no risk involved to buyer and seller. So i can give a neutral trust (see trust options, neutral is a comment only and doesnt affect the rating) to them when rule 2 does not apply. I will state the escrowed amount as risked btc and mention that it is the escrowed amount.
* Exceptions of the above rules are possible if i trust a person really. Have the impression that he showed he is a honest guy or something like that.
* I will only give one trust rating and try to put all ratings in one rating.

I hope my effort and new policy leads to more trust in my ratings with those members that took me off their trust list again.

If anyone doubts that the trust system is for trades too then please read the comment on the positive checkbox again. The trust system has been driven by trades from the beginning of the forum. And its logical, how should trust happen when not by trades?

While changing all the ratings i found 6 escrows on default trust that, it looks like, handled trust the same way i did, to some extent. My way of handling trust was not very uncommons since like i said, it was used for showing successfull trades since the beginning of the forum. I will send them a pm so they might check their policy to prevent hard feelings.

I hope you appreciate.

Thank you for taking the time to do this. Other DT escrowers and microloaners should consider the same.

[dogie]

* I will only give one trust rating and try to put all ratings in one rating.

I wouldn't bother with that, more than one rating doesn't affect anything.

[SebastianJu]

Thank you for the positive review on my new rating policy.

* I will only give one trust rating and try to put all ratings in one rating.

I wouldn't bother with that, more than one rating doesn't affect anything.

I implemented this because A) many forum members consider multiple trust ratings from the same person as trust farming, even though it should be without effect getting more than one rating from the same member. And B) because it simply is cleaner to read. Checking out that someone traded a certain amount in total is enough for knowing what happened. I state when it were multiple trades now.