...,

[turtlehurricane]

....

[Vod]

If I had to pick the best concept of bitcoin - it would be of it's irreversible nature - not it's privacy.

Demanding privacy on an irreversible transaction is just a warning sign to me.   I did the majority of my bitcoin commerce with people and entities that were known.  Very rarely did I enter into any agreements with people who demanded they stay anonymous.

The solution is clear and in the spirit of cryptocurrency: de-centralize it. The reputation system would work just the same if de-centralized, anyone can leave a reputation comment and it will be seen by those trading with that user. The difference is there will be no default trust, so a single user's comments won't be held in higher regard than anyone else.

How would you battle against the fraud of making multiple (few, dozens, hundreds) of multiple accounts?  The forum would be quickly overrun with fraud since the honest people would have the one account and fighting against the scammer with many.  So, no, the reputation system would not work just the same.

[hilariousandco]

This is a privately owned centralised forum. If you want a decentralised one you should make one or wait for one to be made. I don't think it'll work as well as people imagine though much like your suggestion for the trust system. You can also create your own trust lists and remove and add anyone you wish so I guess you can argue it is decentralised.

[Quickseller]

How would you battle against the fraud of making multiple (few, dozens, hundreds) of multiple accounts?  The forum would be quickly overrun with fraud since the honest people would have the one account and fighting against the scammer with many.  So, no, the reputation system would not work just the same.

This is exactly why the reputation system needs to stay somewhat centralized. If it were to become decentralized in a similar way that the Bitcoin network is decentralized then the scammers would appear trustworthy and the people who will act honestly will look like scammers. This will result in almost all trades resulting in some kind of scam, or scam attempt which will make people not want to use bitcoin.

A prime example of this is the sheer number of websites out there that are scams that accept bitcoin but appear trustworthy to the average person.

[tspacepilot]

How would you battle against the fraud of making multiple (few, dozens, hundreds) of multiple accounts?  The forum would be quickly overrun with fraud since the honest people would have the one account and fighting against the scammer with many.  So, no, the reputation system would not work just the same.

You would battle it by building your own trust list, one person at a time.  A decentralized network wouldn't need to mean that all feedback is equally values, it would simply mean that each user chooses which feedback to value.  If default trust were removed tomorrow, I imagine that a huge number of people would immediately add badbear, tomatocage, vod, dooglus, etc, etc to their trust lists.  The difference between that and what we have today is that everyone who did that would suddently know who they were trusting and what their reasons were for doing so, rather than being handed a crutch to lean on which is probably going to fail them if they start leaning too hard.

I would imagine that in such a scenario, over time, several tightly knit trust sub-networks might develop, and who knows, people might start choosing which trust network to "buy" into based on individual motivations and perceptions about those networks.  But the crucial thing is that these networks would develop organically based on actual experineces of the forum users,  rather than being imposed by a central, overworked authority which is subject to manipulation.

A case in point for this kind of reasoning is that even bringing up such ideas will get you shouted at (often by people on default trust).  I was told in no uncertain terms by someone on default trust list that arguing for a different sort of trust system is tantamount to promoting scams an fraud---and that's not the worst of it, but I wont' go on further on that now.

There's another important point here, you don't have to go whole-hog. You could start with some small changes which would encourage users to interact with and build their own trust lists.  A simple first step would be to change the overblown "warning: trade with extreme caution" to "this user has received negative feedback from someone in your trust list".  That kind of change would encourage users to try to figure out what their trust list is, and how they can use it.

You can also create your own trust lists and remove and add anyone you wish so I guess you can argue it is decentralised.

You're right, hilarious, in principle.  But in implementation, it's a bit of a fail.  Everyone is invited to create their own trust list and to set the depth they wish to see in that list.  But in practice, almost no one does this, so, because trust depth default is 2, unless you're in the depth 1, it doesn't matter to anyone who you've put in your trust list, and changing your trust list just amounts to not seeing what everyone else sees.  

dserrano5 said here that default trust wasn't supposed to last, but was added as a bootstrap mechanism so that the trust network wasn't terribly empty and sparse before people had a chance to create their own lists.  The current system is a far-cry from that scenario, I think there are reasonably and concrete ways to improve the system.  I hope that they'll be more seriously considered given all the abuses we've seen of the trust system by an (admittedly small) number of folks associated with it.

EDIT: for reference, a similar topic was discused here some months previously: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1031791.0

[Muhammed Zakir]

-snip-
I think there are reasonably and concrete ways to improve the system.
 -snip-

Could you point out some?

[Blazed]

There are plenty of users with clean trust/feedback here. If you just stick to trading legitimate things you never have an issue. It is rare that people get negative trusted when they are 100% legit here. You allegedly sent back a $1300 item with no proof of tracking...how could people not be skeptical? I think the trust system is not perfect, but it does work. 

[tspacepilot]

-snip-
I think there are reasonably and concrete ways to improve the system.
 -snip-

Could you point out some?

Um, yes.  You can't just ignore a 5 paragraph response and quote the summary sentence at the bottom and pretend that nothing else was written.

See especially paragraph #3 of your [snip]. 
See the OP of this thread. 
See the reference thread I linked to in the bottom of the post.

[SebastianJu]

I think the idea of turtlehurricane is exploitable because scammer simply would have to build a lot of accounts and spam all negative ratings away. Or give positives all the way from the start.

I escrowed a lot accounts and i got the feeling that some people on here hold a lot of accounts. Account farmers and traders and obviously scammers that create accounts very often. They would get an enourmous power with these accounts.

We know that nearly no user is bothering with changing something on the trust list so i wonder if tspacepilot's idea will work. In fact i like his idea of adding those people to default trust that you trust. Then you can trust their reviews.

In practice that woul no work because people wouldn't bother to add someone in 98% of all cases. And next thing is that you never could add as much users as are on default trust. Which means you will miss a lot scam alerts. Since you surely don't want to add those users that add their negative rating to everyone who appears in scam accusations. Because that often enough are accounts that are levelled up to make a scam at one point in time.

[tspacepilot]

I think the idea of turtlehurricane is exploitable because scammer simply would have to build a lot of accounts and spam all negative ratings away. Or give positives all the way from the start.

If it was done right it wouldn't matter because people wouldn't care about untrusted feedbacks any more than they do today.  The difference would be that the trusted feedbacks that appear on a trust page would be ones that you actually chose as trusted, and not ones handed to you by someone you might or might not agree with.

We know that nearly no user is bothering with changing something on the trust list so i wonder if tspacepilot's idea will work. In fact i like his idea of adding those people to default trust that you trust. Then you can trust their reviews.

Indeed, but you don't mean adding them to default trust, you mean adding them to your trust list.

In practice that woul no work because people wouldn't bother to add someone in 98% of all cases.

But this is a failure of the default settings.  If the default settings were blank, the first thing people would ask is "what am I supposed to do with these trust settings?"  Who knows, maybe a sticky thread would get created which basically said, if you don't know what to do with your trust settings, add "badbear" and "quickseller".  In any case, I think that educating people about the decentralized potential of the trust system would be a wonderful step forward from the problematic top-down system that exists currently.

And next thing is that you never could add as much users as are on default trust. Which means you will miss a lot scam alerts. Since you surely don't want to add those users that add their negative rating to everyone who appears in scam accusations. Because that often enough are accounts that are levelled up to make a scam at one point in time.

But surely anyone who wants to see the "scam alerts" can subscribe to the scam accusations subforum and add all the users they like from that section into their trust list.

[SebastianJu]

I think the idea of turtlehurricane is exploitable because scammer simply would have to build a lot of accounts and spam all negative ratings away. Or give positives all the way from the start.

If it was done right it wouldn't matter because people wouldn't care about untrusted feedbacks any more than they do today.  The difference would be that the trusted feedbacks that appear on a trust page would be ones that you actually chose as trusted, and not ones handed to you by someone you might or might not agree with.

We know that nearly no user is bothering with changing something on the trust list so i wonder if tspacepilot's idea will work. In fact i like his idea of adding those people to default trust that you trust. Then you can trust their reviews.

Indeed, but you don't mean adding them to default trust, you mean adding them to your trust list.

In practice that woul no work because people wouldn't bother to add someone in 98% of all cases.

But this is a failure of the default settings.  If the default settings were blank, the first thing people would ask is "what am I supposed to do with these trust settings?"  Who knows, maybe a sticky thread would get created which basically said, if you don't know what to do with your trust settings, add "badbear" and "quickseller".  In any case, I think that educating people about the decentralized potential of the trust system would be a wonderful step forward from the problematic top-down system that exists currently.

And next thing is that you never could add as much users as are on default trust. Which means you will miss a lot scam alerts. Since you surely don't want to add those users that add their negative rating to everyone who appears in scam accusations. Because that often enough are accounts that are levelled up to make a scam at one point in time.

But surely anyone who wants to see the "scam alerts" can subscribe to the scam accusations subforum and add all the users they like from that section into their trust list.

I know what you mean and i would find that being a better trust system. Only i think it would not work because i'm very sure that 95% of the users would not bother with these settings. I mean until some weeks ago i never bothered with the trust levels too. The user would simply use their accounts without trusted users. I mean why spending all the time when you only want to take part on the forum? That would not work.

Of course you could make this mandatory. Every new user would be forced to chose at least 10 trusted persons. Maybe showing a list with the most trusted users so that they can chose from. But they would not know most of them. Trusting them would mean being lucky. And that list could be exploited by having account farmers trust one of their account.

On top you would have never as many users in your trust list than users are in default trust nowadays.

I really don't see how this can be made to work. As a result it would mean way more scams happening, making it easier for scammers on the way. And it would not solve the issue with wrong rating. For example if you don't trust quicksellers ratings then you would drop them. But many would take him which means for the negatively rated user it would not make a difference because he would still be read for most users.

[Blazr]

Is there any user here whom the majority of the community consider trustworthy?

I think thats the real problem with the trust system, there is a lack of trustworthy users on bitcointalk. I guess message boards aren't a good way to trade. Even anonymous marketplaces like Silk Road don't have as many scammers because of the escrow system.

[Blazed]

Is there any user here whom the majority of the community consider trustworthy?

I think thats the real problem with the trust system, there is a lack of trustworthy users on bitcointalk. I guess message boards aren't a good way to trade. Even anonymous marketplaces like Silk Road don't have as many scammers because of the escrow system.

There are plenty of trusted users here, but the amount of scammers really sucks. I think a big issue we have is sold accounts these days. I have seen a lot of positive trusted accounts being sold which makes trusting people even harder. I could list out at least 20 people I would feel comfortable sending coins to upfront.

I rarely see issues overall with the current system - no matter what any system will have flaws. Just use escrow and your chances of getting burned are very low.

[hilariousandco]

Is there any user here whom the majority of the community consider trustworthy?

I think thats the real problem with the trust system, there is a lack of trustworthy users on bitcointalk. I guess message boards aren't a good way to trade. Even anonymous marketplaces like Silk Road don't have as many scammers because of the escrow system.

Well the point is the default trust system is meant to consist of trustworthy people. If people used trusted escrows here there would be a hell of a lot less scams, but escrows, especially the one on Silk Road, can always be abused by scammers too. I'm sure dealers had a lot of problems with people claiming their stuff never arrived. I'm sure the opposite happened too (dealers not sending things out). Who you gonna complain to when you don't receive your drugs?

[tspacepilot]

In the scam accusation thread, turtle had claimed that the AGC did load onto his Amazon account, that his account reversed the card off of his account (more then one time?), somehow got his account to reflect the gift card balance to be back on his account, then the coins shipped....

@Quickseller, please stop derailing this thead.  This is the thread you're looking for: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1163098.0

Is there any user here whom the majority of the community consider trustworthy?

I think thats the real problem with the trust system, there is a lack of trustworthy users on bitcointalk. I guess message boards aren't a good way to trade. Even anonymous marketplaces like Silk Road don't have as many scammers because of the escrow system.

Well the point is the default trust system is meant to consist of trustworthy people.

This is the centralized, top-down version of the trust system which the de-facto one.  However, given this thread and this reply among others, it doesn't seem like the centralized view was intended.  It seems like it was an implementation error.  So, default trust has become equivalent to standard trust has become equivalent to "the trust system".  But I don't think it has to be that way and it seems that many others agree.

If people used trusted escrows here there would be a hell of a lot less scams,...

You're absolultely right about this.  But it's not clear to me that enshrining a select few people special "green lights" does anything at all to educate people or encourage them to be smart.  It seems to do quite the opposite, leaving people with a false sense of security based on the idea that "the trust system" will take care of them.

[AgentVenom]

I find it kind of odd that some user's trust ratings count more than others, that their feedback is displayed by default. I would rather that they all be displayed on the trust page in a person's profile. Separate, but still. Gotta say, I agree with Vod, the problem is that there are people with several accounts, people with several accounts out to scam people... so we gotta keep it in mind.

[gentlemand]

Forum funds should be used to pay for an airship that endlessly roams the Earth. Inside is a room where transactions take place that is lined with tasers and machine guns. Once everyone is happy they're released. If there's a problem then it gets messy. That's the only way to guarantee trust via the forum. The rest is all potentially corruptible.

[tspacepilot]

I find it kind of odd that some user's trust ratings count more than others, that their feedback is displayed by default.

It is odd.  The idea of the trust settings was that people should decide for themselves who's feedback to value, unfortunately, an implementation error has led to a special few who are encharged with 'looking out for the rest of us'.  Some of them dont' really seem to want this responsibility, others have fought like wolverines to try to get it.  I have sympathy for the former group and distrust for the latter.
 

Gotta say, I agree with Vod, the problem is that there are people with several accounts, people with several accounts out to scam people... so we gotta keep it in mind.

Some of those people are using many account to game the "standard trust" list itself.  Hopefully, we'll see a change sometime soon.

Forum funds should be used to pay for an airship that endlessly roams the Earth. Inside is a room where transactions take place that is lined with tasers and machine guns. Once everyone is happy they're released. If there's a problem then it gets messy. That's the only way to guarantee trust via the forum. The rest is all potentially corruptible.

Not that I don't appreciate satire, but that sort of non-sequitur sorta just killed the discussion.  Thanks.  Clearly there are earthly options which improve on the status-quo.  Hopefully we can try out some of them soon.

[ColderThanIce]

I find it kind of odd that some user's trust ratings count more than others, that their feedback is displayed by default.

It is odd.  The idea of the trust settings was that people should decide for themselves who's feedback to value, unfortunately, an implementation error has led to a special few who are encharged with 'looking out for the rest of us'.  Some of them dont' really seem to want this responsibility, others have fought like wolverines to try to get it.  I have sympathy for the former group and distrust for the latter.

The problem with having all trust ratings equal would be trust spamming. Although a user may be very reputable, if all trust ratings from all accounts were worth the same amount, someone could ruin their reputation with just a few, brand new accounts. Having all trust ratings equal doesn't make sense to me, I think the system works fairly well right now but obviously there will always be some problems with whatever trust system is implemented.

[tspacepilot]

The problem with having all trust ratings equal would be trust spamming. Although a user may be very reputable, if all trust ratings from all accounts were worth the same amount, someone could ruin their reputation with just a few, brand new accounts. Having all trust ratings equal doesn't make sense to me, I think the system works fairly well right now but obviously there will always be some problems with whatever trust system is implemented.

This has been offered up before, but it's just a red-herring.  Getting rid of default trust <-> standard trust doesn't mean that all ratings are equal, it means that each user decides who to trust and who not to trust.  If you make 100 accounts and trust spam with them, how are you going to get those 100s of accounts onto anyone's trust list?

The idea isn't that every feedback has equal weight for everyone across the board, the idea is that each individual decides how to weigh the feedback from each person they encounter.

Note: this was already answered upthread, if we have to keep rehashing the same failed arguments, the conversation just doesn't go anywhere...

^^click link to go upthread to the quote