DefaultTrust is BAD. Very bad.

[Lohoris]

DefaultTrust completely defeats the purpose of having trust handled by the users themselves.
Most users will keep their DefaultTrust setting, hence people who happen to sit in the DefaultTrust list have way too much power.

i.e. I can't leave a negative feedback to someone in that list, because if he'll reitaliate (and he'd likely do, if he deserved the negative feedback in the first place) I'll be labeled as untrustworthy for most users, who likely don't know or care how to setup trust properly.

If the reason why you put in the DefaultTrust is to give some extra protection to the lazy users, there's, for instance, a much better solution: no DefaultTrust, and a big red warning message "You have to setup your trust if you want to be safe" on every page.
That's just a random idea, but even just having no DefaultTrust would be much better than having it instead.

Please remove it, or people on it will be free to ill-behave at will.

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[jackjack]

Here's my +1
You'll likely receive others

Nothing will change

[Raize]

Most users will keep their DefaultTrust setting, hence people who happen to sit in the DefaultTrust list have way too much power.

It really is a good newbie trust list. That said, the very first thing I did was remove DefaultTrust and only put in trust levels for folks that I've actually done business with. It didn't some as a surprise to me that my trust list now pretty much looks like DefaultTrust. There's a reason why these folks are trusted, and it's because they are willing to do trades and use the trust system. If you don't like it, start trading and get enough trust going so that you can affect the system.

[Shallow]

What kind of abuses are being committed exactly?

[Lohoris]

It really is a good newbie trust list. That said, the very first thing I did was remove DefaultTrust and only put in trust levels for folks that I've actually done business with. It didn't some as a surprise to me that my trust list now pretty much looks like DefaultTrust. There's a reason why these folks are trusted, and it's because they are willing to do trades and use the trust system. If you don't like it, start trading and get enough trust going so that you can affect the system.

I don't get your point.

My point is that with a DefaultTrust you can't leave a negative feedback on someone who is in DefaultTrust.

You point is?

[elasticband]

the trust system is a failure and abused by several members

[r3wt]

the trust system is a failure and abused by mostseveral members

[jackjack]

Tysat even became red and 'trade with extreme caution' a couple of days ago...

[tysat]

Tysat even became red and 'trade with extreme caution' a couple of days ago...

lol, I did?  Must have been someone who wasn't on my trust list.

[Raize]

I don't get your point.

My point is that with a DefaultTrust you can't leave a negative feedback on someone who is in DefaultTrust.

You point is?

Glad you asked.

My point is, if DefaultTrust gets filled with people who do too much negative ratings spuriously, then a legitimate competitor will emerge. Encourage people to drop DefaultTrust and build your own Trust list. Make a post that highlights all the frivolous ratings by individuals in DefaultTrust and why they are abusing the system. Do it in the newbie thread or here if you want. Bump it daily, encourage others to participate in a "no-coin trust rating system" and eventually you'll have a competitor to DefaultTrust that anyone can use since the default one is so flawed.

You might think there is nothing you can do, but there isn't. You'd be surprised how many people might switch to your list if you could make a good comprehensive argument instead of turning to despair. If you've got examples of people abusing their sitting in Default Trust, make a post highlighting it, or do so via a negative rating and then, when retaliated against, make a thread about it. PM the individuals in DefaultTrust that have those folks in their Trust and ask them why they are giving "power" to someone who is rating spuriously.

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if, in the course of the next year, two or three other trust networks develop as reasonable alternatives to DefaultTrust. I also think you seriously underestimate the power of a PM to whoever is including the abusive "reviewer" in their trust list. If you have even a shred of evidence to show someone is being a bully with their trust ratings, then it would be a strong incentive for their trust to be altered.

The onus is on you to prove you are a more reliable source than anyone else. Right now, based on your sent ratings and lack of evidence of even a single BTC worth of trading on the forums, I have to question whether or not you have ever even participated in any legitimate Bitcoin trades.

TLDR;I think the problem you actually have is that you're upset that someone who is great at catching scammers is catching scammers. Prove that assumption wrong, because that's what anyone immediately thinks when they see someone who doesn't have any stake in the game or any proof of participating in legitimate Bitcoin trade complaining about the current system.

(If there's anything you could easily make an argument for, after reviewing your trust, references and etc., is a new auction forum where PM bids are to be ignored except on consequences of the community. I've tried to sell in an auction before twice and regretted accepting the PM bids I was getting in the first one so much that I later did a second one whereby I refused to accept PM bids and told people if they wanted to bid anonymously to just make a new account and I'd try to get their account cleared for bidding. IMHO, there's no "safe" way to do PM-based bidding, someone always gets hurt in the end.)

[SaltySpitoon]

I don't really think the red numbers mean that much. I find the trust system to be more like a personal feedback/suggestion system. If you see someone has negative trusted someone else, you go to the reference, and if its BS you disregard it. That or if someone has been neg'd by Sock9001 I tend to not pay that much attention to that rating either. I'm not sure if the system was meant to work this way, but I believe its evolved into a system where people just leave their thoughts/opinions, and a few times real scam accusations, and whoever is going to make a deal with them is in charge of judging the validity of their trust rating themselves. Even John K has a few negative feedback ratings, and the guy does dare I say tens of thousands of BTC in escrows. The people named NewAccount90210 that say that JohnK scammed them out of 1 BTC tend not to get me to believe it. Just like everything else in this community, you get to judge the validity of peoples claims.

[Lohoris]

TLDR;I think the problem you actually have is that you're upset that someone who is great at catching scammers is catching scammers.

The rest of your post is interesting and reasonable, and I guess I'll answer it properly tomorroy.

This part however just eludes me. I'm absolutely clueless on why you think such a thing, could you elaborate, please? (either here or in private).

[Lohoris]

I don't really think the red numbers mean that much. I find the trust system to be more like a personal feedback/suggestion system.

You don't think they matter, but the average user likely does.
Furthermore, I agree it's personal, and exactly because it's personal it shouldn't have a default.

[Raize]

The rest of your post is interesting and reasonable, and I guess I'll answer it properly tomorroy.

This was in your first post...

I can't leave a negative feedback to someone in that list, because if he'll reitaliate (and he'd likely do, if he deserved the negative feedback in the first place) I'll be labeled as untrustworthy for most users, who likely don't know or care how to setup trust properly.

I am saying to stop and consider this objectionably, first. Is it possible this fictional *he* may not retaliate at all?

The part regarding scammers kind of implies that without any actual transactions, we cannot rule out that you, yourself wouldn't scam. Don't take offense, but it's important to put actually BTC values on trades, even if folks won't reciprocate. For example, look at my sent feedback. I've done hundreds of BTC in transactions with folks, even if they won't confirm such trades happened. Any one of them is open to dispute the fact that I have, or just ignore it (which they are doing ).

I think I do sort of agree that Default trust should never extend beyond folks that have never had actual BTC transactions. In other words, if someone in DefaultTrust cannot prove they lost money or had a good trade, that rating should not be reciprocated or reflected on default trust screens, but the fact of the matter is that theymos took so much crap for so long about not having *any* way to flag these folks, so having something is better than nothing.

[Maged]

i.e. I can't leave a negative feedback to someone in that list, because if he'll reitaliate (and he'd likely do, if he deserved the negative feedback in the first place) I'll be labeled as untrustworthy for most users, who likely don't know or care how to setup trust properly.

If that happened, that person would not remain on the DefaultTrust list for very long. People who are on DefaultTrust have to be very careful with the ratings they give, because a single bad rating could result in them being dropped from the list. Theymos has dropped people from the list on several occasions for much less than what you are describing.

[tysat]

Is it even possible to remove DefaultTrust? When I tried removing it on https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust it appears again.

I hate to see people with +100 trust that I don't trust at all.

Yes, but you can't have a blank trust list.  Put someone else there in place of DefaultTrust and it should stick.

[Lohoris]

Well, I meant to put a negative feedback on TradeFortress, I guess I'll have no problem now :O

Thanks to this faulty DefaultTrust system, I feared putting it there before now, see how well it worked.

[zulover]

ive just been hit with this trust thing recently, it hurts especially when the giver is unreasonable and being an arse!!

any way how can i get someone ofe my default trust list so i can rid myself of the red writing? also does and positive feedback and trust impact the negative like on ebay, wipe it away after a while?

[SaltySpitoon]

Guys dont worry tradefortress who stole 4000 btc is on the default trust list!

Right. The Trust system isn't really designed to deal with "long con" situations, but it was performing particularly badly in this case. I changed the algorithm to more severely limit the maximum number of positive trust points you can get per month.

(I'm not saying that TradeFortress is or is not a scammer at this point, but someone with more than 30% negative trust ratings should have a negative trust score.)

I also removed TradeFortress from DefaultTrust (early yesterday), so his entire branch of the trust network is now untrusted by default.

[Damnsammit]

Guys dont worry tradefortress who stole 4000 btc is on the default trust list!

but he said he was hacked!  we should definitely believe him because he is such an outstanding member of the community... blah blah puke...

I think the real question that needs to be answered is how many other members of this forum benefited from the scam?  How much BTC did he pay to gain DefaultTrust?