Seeking moderator guidance on trust / feedback

[HabBear]

I'll keep this brief, I'm seeking guidance on trust / feedback.

Overview of the situation:

• I've been seeking opportunity to provide escrow services. I've made mention of this intent on threads where trades are being solicited, escrow has been mentioned as a requirement, but no specific escrow handler has been identified
• When I announce my intent I usually say something along the lines of: I'll offer escrow services for free, in return for positive trust feedback if earned
• I'm not asking for trust without earning it, I'm announcing a value proposition (i.e., free service, just accurate feedback/trust in return) because I have no documented experience on this forum conducting escrow
• Two people (Zepher and Lutpin) have left me neutral trust feedback saying that i was "asking for escrow services in return for positive trust"
• I'm told there's no rule against structuring my escrow offer in the way that I have
• I've been told by Zepher that this is, however, an unwritten rule...it's "bad form"; I appreciate Zepher actually explaining this unwritten rule to me, Lutpin didn't offer the same courtesy

Questions:

(1) Am I truly in the wrong here? My intent has always been to get escrow work and receive trust that aligns with the experience the "customer" experienced (clearly it could also result in negative trust)

(2) Is it fair that Members leave me constructive trust rating for my actions that are not in violation of any stated rule?

Just seeking explanation and guidance here from a Moderator.

Thanks.

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[hilariousandco]

You deserve negative trust for trying to become an escrow this way and you should know by now that only extremely trusted users should even attempt to do so in the first place. Asking for positive trust makes it ten times worse. You seem to have zero feedbacks or trades here so I'm not sure why you think you're qualified to do escrow.

[Zepher]

In this thread, you offered your escrow services in the following way:



This was another example of you offering your services in an unsolicited manner (you have done this several times now, but let's forget that for the moment).

What you did is seen as the equivalent of buying trust, which is heavily frowned upon.

I am not going to repeat everything I said in the PM's I sent you explaining the situation, but you need to go about building your reputation in a different way. Offering unsolicited escrow in multiple threads is not the way to go about things. Trust is earned slowly on this forum, and it literally is that simple that no one (especially in the Collectibles section) will use you for escrow for trades worth thousands of dollars when you have no reputation.

As hilariousandco has stated, what you did is usually worthy of an instant neg rating, however, as I have said in the 2 PM's I have sent you, I have not seen any malicious intent from you - so I left you a neutral instead.

I cannot speak for Lutpin, but I am assuming he left a neutral, and not a negative, for similar reasons. I also told you that I would remove that tag in 30 days as long as you don't do this again.

You are trying to do things the wrong way round here. Start small, and engage in trades with people. Rep is built slowly here.

Good luck.

edit: grammar

[HabBear]

you should know by now that only extremely trusted users should even attempt to do so in the first place.

Can you clarify this comment? Are you saying I know know by now how to approach seeking opportunities for escrow?

Thanks for the honest talk here.

As hilariousandco has stated, what you did is usually worthy of an instant neg rating, however, as I have said in the 2 PM's I have sent you, I have not seen any malicious intent from you - so I left you a neutral instead.

Hi Zepher. I really appreciate you sending me those PMs to explain how it works! And let's be clear, those two PMs were the conversation we had, it's not as if you had to address your concern twice, separately.

I was surprised to get the "warnings", however I understand why. I want to understand better how to contribute more appropriately to the community here. It's hard to do that when there are unwritten rules that carry a heavy penalty if violated. How am I or anyone else to know to operate correctly?

Before Zepher sent the friendly, helpful PMs to me the only responses I received from the community were statements mocking me for even thinking I could offer such a service.

I'll allow you both time to respond if you want to and then I'll lock the thread and move on, with your guidance well taken!

Thank you.

[Tesorex]

So called trusted member can be tempted if a large amount is involved no? @OP first start offering your service with amounts less than your account's worth. have you done it already and received the trust feed back and then tried the big ones?

[SFR10]

I want to understand better how to contribute more appropriately to the community here.

By being helpful and honest in one way or another (in the long run). Be consistent at what you do and everything should fall down naturally.

It's hard to do that when there are unwritten rules that carry a heavy penalty if violated. How am I or anyone else to know to operate correctly?

Here you go: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1333542.0
The issue is, nowadays a lot of users are trying to offer their escrow services for the wrong reasons (that leads to these situations). You openly admitted that you would like to offer a free escrow service in exchange for positive trust which in other terms is directly saying "you want to buy trust" (as Zepher mentioned earlier). Usually those that even give the idea of someone leaving them positive ratings, raise red flags and that's an indirect way (and you did it in a direct way).

[HabBear]

Here you go: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1333542.0

Thanks, SFR10. It's listed clearly in the thread you shared. Given that the thread is a year old, there's no way I would have found it on my own to know that this is something explicitly seen as bad form.

We've discussed this to my satisfaction. I'm going to lock this down.

I just want everyone to know that despite the words I used, I was not trying to buy positive trust. I was only trying to earn trust equal to the experience any person received from me. I recognize now that earning trust here is a bit different than how I originally interpreted. It's not like feedback on eBay.

The Moderators on this forum have to deal with a lot of BS from people engaging in activity that doesn't help the forum. I appreciate your time to answer my questions. Please know that I'm one of the members trying to add to the forum (rather than take from it.) And I'll demonstrate it with my actions and build a reputation to represent that end.

Thanks.