This forum is infested with scammers

[Raoul Duke]

Downside is ratings can easily be faked or bought, I'm sure someone will mention Pirate had a perfect(?) otc score, but he also didn't have a scammer tag either (and technically wasn't one at the time).

Indeed. His score was great when everything started and I'm sure his #otc ratings were a reason for people to trust him. In the end it has turned out to be pretty useless though. I mean, someone still gave him a rating of +10 in November; long after BST was dead and the cat out of the bag.
Given a number of sockpuppets any rating system can be abused to create false ratings. Not only can a scammer upvote himself, but also downvote others. Still, scammer tags do serve a purpose, especially for those with high post numbers. A newbie can be honest, but most would consider someone with an old account and lots of posts to be better.
A tag makes that account worthless. Just look at paybtc: he's ignoring everything, acts like nothing ever happened and doesn't even attempt to be helpful. He even changed his name a few times; I assume to get rid of the negative aura his old name has. Yet, he has no tag.

I was one of the persons who gave Pirate a +10 rating, along with a sarcastic comment, after the scheme collapsed. Just to show how useless the system was. Because the ratings were the main reason I trusted in him... ...the ratings and how everybody around here touted the BTC-otc ratings as something to be taken into account when dealing with other users.

[malevolent]

Another good solution would be to force everyone to agree on an arbitrator with their trading partner before trading. Then whenever someone claims that they were scammed, the arbitrator would decide who gets a scammer tag. I'm not sure if I could easily force everyone to do this, though, since transactions are almost always finalized via PMs.

So sort of... obligatory escrow? Or would the arbitrator only decide about the scammer tag? It would be interesting if the trusted arbitrator also escrowed the deals, I'm sure a hell of a lot less people would get scammed/ With so many deals going on on the forum how many arbitrators would there need to be? What compensation would they get? How would they be chosen?
I think the idead is interesting but worth discussing first.

Biggest problem I foresee I... trust.
We had quite a few legitimately reputable members turn scammers, how could we trust arbitrators?

[theymos]

would the arbitrator only decide about the scammer tag?

That's what I was thinking, though they could also escrow.

We had quite a few legitimately reputable members turn scammers, how could we trust arbitrators?

"We" wouldn't need to. The traders themselves would decide who to trust.

[Humanxlemming]

That or make it so that you need to hit a post count (200 should be good) or donate an amount of bitcoins before you are even aloud to post in lending never mind make a thread but it would have to be a high amount to put of scammers.

[theymos]

I don't want to use any post count limits because they'll incentivize people to post garbage.

[Humanxlemming]

I don't want to use any post count limits because they'll incentivize people to post garbage.

If they are posting garbage though you will know they will be a high risk of being a scammer.

[repentance]

Another good solution would be to force everyone to agree on an arbitrator with their trading partner before trading. Then whenever someone claims that they were scammed, the arbitrator would decide who gets a scammer tag. I'm not sure if I could easily force everyone to do this, though, since transactions are almost always finalized via PMs.

I'm not entirely against that idea, but the point of arbitration in the real world is that it's legally binding.  A lot of scams here are for relatively trivial amounts and arbitration seems like an absurd amount of effort for the mere awarding of a tag (which most scammers don't care about anyway).  It seems like an unnecessary layer of complexity and expense for transactions which aren't high value.

I'm also somewhat against this forum being the policeman for the entire Bitcoin economy.  We've recently seen a thread in the scam forum regarding a BTCJam transaction and I'm not sure that this forum should consider awarding tags on the basis of activity which hasn't taken place here.

If the scammer tag process is too laborious, it's not much use - it warns people after the horse has well and truly bolted.  But I also think a trend is developing where people make little effort to actually resolve issues before posting scammer accusation threads and expect to have the tag apllied on the basis of little or no evidence.

If we're going to make any changes to the way we deal with scammers in this forum, I think we need to review the whole thing and decide whether the forum should play any active role in policing scammers and to what extent. 

It's been suggested before, and maybe it's time to revisit the idea of splitting Marketplace off from the forums proper.

[Herodes]

I was one of the persons who gave Pirate a +10 rating, along with a sarcastic comment, after the scheme collapsed. Just to show how useless the system was. Because the ratings were the main reason I trusted in him... ...the ratings and how everybody around here touted the BTC-otc ratings as something to be taken into account when dealing with other users.

Pirate had a large mouth, so did a lot of other scammers. They brag, boast, and flap their feather wings, because of their big egos. This is a very large big red sign. Everybody should learn that. Not saying that the attention-seeking loud talkers are all scammers, but it seems like they very frequently is. At the same time, a lot of people get duped by all that hoopla. I hope it serves as an education for those who got fooled, and that they're more careful in the future.

The bitcoin-otc system is not foolproof, and I would not trust it blindly, I would do my own investigations before dealing with somebody, and I have turned down trades with users that have good ratings, simply because they could not provide some reasonable amount of information that I was asking for. I don't care whether they think I was just too paranoid, or whether they were scammers and were afraid of getting caught with their pants down. Either way, the end result was that I wasn't scammed.

No matter how much of a great trust rating Pirate had, I would've never done any deals with him, because I do not trust people that are jumping up and down, and handwaiving with excitement constantly.

Flamboyant egomaniacs are to be avoided at all costs.

[Herodes]

Another good solution would be to force everyone to agree on an arbitrator with their trading partner before trading. Then whenever someone claims that they were scammed, the arbitrator would decide who gets a scammer tag. I'm not sure if I could easily force everyone to do this, though, since transactions are almost always finalized via PMs.

So sort of... obligatory escrow? Or would the arbitrator only decide about the scammer tag? It would be interesting if the trusted arbitrator also escrowed the deals, I'm sure a hell of a lot less people would get scammed/ With so many deals going on on the forum how many arbitrators would there need to be? What compensation would they get? How would they be chosen?
I think the idead is interesting but worth discussing first.

Biggest problem I foresee I... trust.
We had quite a few legitimately reputable members turn scammers, how could we trust arbitrators?

Just put in the inbox of everyone that has less than 200 posts a big large sign with red letters that says: "Assume that everybody that wants to trade with you is a scammer wanting to steal your money, and be very careful. If in doubt, post in the forum and have the opinion of more experienced users."

But again - not sure to what extent we should protect newcomers ?

[Herodes]

It's been suggested before, and maybe it's time to revisit the idea of splitting Marketplace off from the forums proper.

Hehe, should it be severed off and be put on bitcoinsesspit.org ?

[repentance]

It's been suggested before, and maybe it's time to revisit the idea of splitting Marketplace off from the forums proper.

Hehe, should it be severed off and be put on bitcoinsesspit.org ?

Bitcoindrama is already registered - perhaps we should send it there.  BTCJam should probably be renamed BTCesspit, though.

[paraipan]

OTC is kind of useless, look with what I've been living with from the times of bitcoinica...

http://bitcoin-otc.com/viewratingdetail.php?nick=paraipan

Never traded with them but still got the neg votes. Can't even talk on bitcoin-otc for this reason :/

[Raoul Duke]

OTC is kind of useless, look with what I've been living with from the times of bitcoinica...

http://bitcoin-otc.com/viewratingdetail.php?nick=paraipan

Never traded with them but still got the neg votes. Can't even talk on bitcoin-otc for this reason :/

Why? They removed your voice because of the negative votes?
I still see an overall positive rating.

[paraipan]

OTC is kind of useless, look with what I've been living with from the times of bitcoinica...

http://bitcoin-otc.com/viewratingdetail.php?nick=paraipan

Never traded with them but still got the neg votes. Can't even talk on bitcoin-otc for this reason :/

Why? They removed your voice because of the negative votes?
I still see an overall positive rating.

From what I got, from nanotube himself, the channel bot doesn't give voice to people who have a negative rating on a direct path to its "master", nanotube, so "pigeons" or "vragnaroda" have direct ratings with him. Also he said he can't remove the votes not to tamper the rating system, and no positive vote from him either, so I'm effectively muted on the OTC.

This happened only for speaking out loud on Bitcoinica and warning people 1 month before they went down.

[repentance]

From what I got, from nanotube himself, the channel bot doesn't give voice to people who have a negative rating on a direct path to its "master", nanotube, so "pigeons" or "vragnaroda" have direct ratings with him. Also he said he can't remove the votes not to tamper the rating system, and no positive vote from him either, so I'm effectively muted on the OTC.

This happened only for speaking out loud on Bitcoinica and warning people 1 month before they went down.

How many people associated with GLBSE also have positive OTC ratings?

[paraipan]

From what I got, from nanotube himself, the channel bot doesn't give voice to people who have a negative rating on a direct path to its "master", nanotube, so "pigeons" or "vragnaroda" have direct ratings with him. Also he said he can't remove the votes not to tamper the rating system, and no positive vote from him either, so I'm effectively muted on the OTC.

This happened only for speaking out loud on Bitcoinica and warning people 1 month before they went down.

How many people associated with GLBSE also have positive OTC ratings?

Pits me, none I hope.

[dust]

[instaBoost]

Please raise the bar for posting in Lending/Goods/Currency Exchange.

Maybe even prohibit exchange deals in Newbies.

I thought this was already the case?

[Bitsky]

I was one of the persons who gave Pirate a +10 rating, along with a sarcastic comment, after the scheme collapsed. Just to show how useless the system was. Because the ratings were the main reason I trusted in him... ...the ratings and how everybody around here touted the BTC-otc ratings as something to be taken into account when dealing with other users.

Pirate had a large mouth, so did a lot of other scammers. They brag, boast, and flap their feather wings, because of their big egos. This is a very large big red sign. Everybody should learn that. Not saying that the attention-seeking loud talkers are all scammers, but it seems like they very frequently is. At the same time, a lot of people get duped by all that hoopla. I hope it serves as an education for those who got fooled, and that they're more careful in the future.

The bitcoin-otc system is not foolproof, and I would not trust it blindly, I would do my own investigations before dealing with somebody, and I have turned down trades with users that have good ratings, simply because they could not provide some reasonable amount of information that I was asking for. I don't care whether they think I was just too paranoid, or whether they were scammers and were afraid of getting caught with their pants down. Either way, the end result was that I wasn't scammed.

No matter how much of a great trust rating Pirate had, I would've never done any deals with him, because I do not trust people that are jumping up and down, and handwaiving with excitement constantly.

Flamboyant egomaniacs are to be avoided at all costs.

I stayed away from Pirate for a long time, but at some point I decided to jump on too. Why? Mainly because of his #otc ratings and how this was supposed to help to protect one from scammers. Then many reported that they got paid, so whatever he did appeared to work to some degree. Of course there were warnings that it was probably a scam, but most of those ran similar projects so it wasn't easy to determine if those warnings were just part of a mud-fight. Also don't forget that Pirate met with a few of his investors face to face. Also I'm not sure if I was scammed by Pirate or paybtc.
Some might say that the promises were too good to be true; but look at the btc price development: from less than cents to around $45 now in 2+ years. People laughed at bitcoin at the beginning and said it's just a scam; but look at it right now.

[BadBear]

I was one of the persons who gave Pirate a +10 rating, along with a sarcastic comment, after the scheme collapsed. Just to show how useless the system was. Because the ratings were the main reason I trusted in him... ...the ratings and how everybody around here touted the BTC-otc ratings as something to be taken into account when dealing with other users.

Pirate had a large mouth, so did a lot of other scammers. They brag, boast, and flap their feather wings, because of their big egos. This is a very large big red sign. Everybody should learn that. Not saying that the attention-seeking loud talkers are all scammers, but it seems like they very frequently is. At the same time, a lot of people get duped by all that hoopla. I hope it serves as an education for those who got fooled, and that they're more careful in the future.

The bitcoin-otc system is not foolproof, and I would not trust it blindly, I would do my own investigations before dealing with somebody, and I have turned down trades with users that have good ratings, simply because they could not provide some reasonable amount of information that I was asking for. I don't care whether they think I was just too paranoid, or whether they were scammers and were afraid of getting caught with their pants down. Either way, the end result was that I wasn't scammed.

No matter how much of a great trust rating Pirate had, I would've never done any deals with him, because I do not trust people that are jumping up and down, and handwaiving with excitement constantly.

Flamboyant egomaniacs are to be avoided at all costs.

I stayed away from Pirate for a long time, but at some point I decided to jump on too. Why? Mainly because of his #otc ratings and how this was supposed to help to protect one from scammers. Then many reported that they got paid, so whatever he did appeared to work to some degree. Of course there were warnings that it was probably a scam, but most of those ran similar projects so it wasn't easy to determine if those warnings were just part of a mud-fight. Also don't forget that Pirate met with a few of his investors face to face. Also I'm not sure if I was scammed by Pirate or paybtc.
Some might say that the promises were too good to be true; but look at the btc price development: from less than cents to around $45 now in 2+ years. People laughed at bitcoin at the beginning and said it's just a scam; but look at it right now.

The current scammer tag doesn't protect against long cons either. I think a WoT system is still better in the end. There may be fake ratings, but there are still signs usually pointing to that. A bunch of ratings on a new account from new accounts isn't gonna mean much, and they will have to use new accounts since accounts that rate a lot of people who turn out to be scammers won't be as trusted as others.