VIP Member "goat" abusing trust rating system

[Minor Miner]

Hm. I notice that you added that rating immediately after responding to my bet thread highlighting how strongly I believe that current mining hardware prices are overpriced that I'm in fact willing to sell people mining futures, with funds in escrow: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=395243.0
Are you concerned that my views might reduce your ability to offload your own Cointerra units?  If thats whats bothering you, I can add a note that my opinion is related to the April delivery pricing. I wouldn't offer a future like this for January miners.

I am responding to your personal attack, something you never apologized for. Your "bet" has nothing to do with this. Be a man, buck up and not only admit you were wrong but apologize for your harm! Do this and we are even.
You attacked me, not I attacked you. Deal with it, and end it. This is up to you!

Why did you wait two years for the anger to boil over?   This seems strange.   What is the ulterior motive here?

[BadBear]

It was my choice to remove Goat, nobody asked or told me to. I just don't think it's very fair to negative feedback for something that was settled a long time ago, and I felt responsible for it.

No hard feelings on my end, I like Goat once we got to talking and settled our differences.

[Raize]

I, personally, only rate people I can definitively proof to be scammers (even in these cases, it's a negative rating with no coins marked as lost), or have done actual bonafide trades with. I kind of wish others would do the same. :/

Couldn't you both remove your ratings due to the fact that you've never actually incurred any losses and don't have definitive proof that the opposing person is intentionally scamming others?

On Goat's side, I don't find his bounty all that unwarranted. He called for both a bounty on himself and gmaxwell. The intention was to show "I'm just as clean as you".

On gmaxwell's side, it sounds like the rating from Goat was unwarranted, but I can't find any record of it presently as it looks like it's been modified to be reactionary, so either Goat has already rescinded the original or I'm confusing who initiated which.

[gmaxwell]

On Goat's side, I don't find his bounty all that unwarranted. He called for both a bounty on himself and gmaxwell. The intention was to show "I'm just as clean as you".

Well, I wasted a bunch of time creating a simulated drug trafficking picture only to have it rescinded on me (I can show you privately if you don't believe me ) when I made the suggestion.

He's also repeated it again today, in general discussion this time, now restricted the subject matter now and he's now saying that I claim to be involved in it:
(I've ROT13ed the text to avoid further propagating it.)

200 OGP cnvq sbe cebbs bs tznkjryy orvat vaibyirq va puvyq cbea! Nf ur pynvzf.
tznkjryy fgvyy pynvz gb or vaibyirq. 200 ogp sbe uvf vaibyirzrag.

Have you ever personally had someone put a $150,000 bounty out to implicate you in a loathsome activity?

Do you really think that he's not deserving of a negative rating not only from me, but from everyone whos witnessing this behavior? Would you really trade with a person who handles a dispute in this manner?

On gmaxwell's side, it sounds like the rating from Goat was unwarranted, but I can't find any record of it presently as it looks like it's been modified to be reactionary

Yea, he modified it. Originally it claimed that I was spreading lies about him and such. It took me completely by surprise, I've aggressively avoided Goat since that incident two years ago— to the extent of avoiding posting in threads he's participating in, and also have him on ignore (on sole account of that incident). I would have ignored this too, if not for the red WARNING it put next to my name, which kinda had to be responded to... and honestly, I think people ought to know what kind of reactions he has before they choose to deal with him.

[dewdeded]

(In retroperspective: how was payout 115% possible?)

[Xian01]

(In retroperspective: how was payout 115% possible?)

 Something about jumping proportional pools at >43% CDF per round, then mining PPS otherwise, added up to gains over time.

 From Wikipedia:

In probability theory and statistics, the cumulative distribution function (CDF), or just distribution function, describes the probability that a real-valued random variable X with a given probability distribution will be found at a value less than or equal to x. In the case of a continuous distribution, it gives the area under the probability density function from minus infinity to x. Cumulative distribution functions are also used to specify the distribution of multivariate random variables.

[Xian01]

Do you really think that he's not deserving of a negative rating not only from me, but from everyone whos witnessing this behavior?

 I thought the Trust System was designed/intended for business transaction dealings, not for "I just don't like you" reasons ?

[freedomno1]

Do you really think that he's not deserving of a negative rating not only from me, but from everyone whos witnessing this behavior?

 I thought the Trust System was designed/intended for business transaction dealings, not for "I just don't like you" reasons ?

It is to a major extent but the default trust list determines how trust is distributed in the system as these users have a high weight on the overall in the system.

Personally I still treat it like a judgement system but easy enough to confirm if you read through all the trust results.

[jackjack]

Do you really think that he's not deserving of a negative rating not only from me, but from everyone whos witnessing this behavior?

 I thought the Trust System was designed/intended for business transaction dealings, not for "I just don't like you" reasons ?

I think it's more a "this guy will likely scam you" system

[SaltySpitoon]

I thought the Trust System was designed/intended for business transaction dealings, not for "I just don't like you" reasons ?

Sort of. You are welcome to leave "I don't like you" trust, as long as in the reason for your bad feedback rating you write, "I don't like this person" the system is designed so that not someone with 100 trust is automatically trusted, its just a way to log feedback from different sources. Before trading with anyone its highly recommended that you actually read people's feedback and judge for yourself the validity.

For example, I have negative feedback from a scammer I busted, however it doesn't seem to hurt me too much, as people read it and judge its validity for themselves, not to mention the guy actually did use the system correctly more or less. He said there was a 10 BTC loss involved, which is the only part that isn't true, but the other part is.

Trust also isn't an absolute method. If I want to buy something from a known scammer, I don't hesistate to, I just make sure there are the correct safeguards in place.

It is to a major extent but the default trust list determines how trust is distributed in the system as these users have a high weight on the overall in the system.

Personally I still treat it like a judgement system but easy enough to confirm if you read through all the trust results.

This is it exactly. Being on the default trust list doesn't make you completely trustworthy, people should always read ones feedback and judge validity for themselves. There are incredibly few ocassions where anyone should refuse to use escrow, so if you aren't completely convinced by someone's record, an you don't have the highest confidence in them, use escrow.

[sporket]

Do you really think that he's not deserving of a negative rating not only from me, but from everyone whos witnessing this behavior?

 I thought the Trust System was designed/intended for business transaction dealings, not for "I just don't like you" reasons ?

I think it's more a "this guy will likely scam you" system

It's a conceptually flawed system, with a whole plethora of problems.
If the system is moderated, than it becomes the collective opinion of the mods.  Left unmoderated, it is equally useless, since it could be gamed and abused in every way possible.
One of the clever things about bitcoin is its non-reliance on trusted authorities.  This is a huge thing, without which bitcoin would have been stillborn.
The trust system tries to use a shortcut, Default Trust - the turtle on which all the rest of the turtles get to stand.  Default Trust Group seems like the antithesis to everything that is bitcoin.  Add to that duplicate accounts, most users misunderstanding how the trust system works, the impossible to see "show untrusted ratings" option, and you got... this.

[jackjack]

the impossible to see "show untrusted ratings" option

wat

[sporket]

...
Anyone who is on the default trust rating but leaves theymos bad feedback for his involvement in the GLBSE scam (theymos still holds BTC owed to me) for example would be immediately removed by none other than theymos.
...

Could someone other than Goat comment on this?  Who has the authority to amend the default trust list, and was Goat removed from that list for leaving a negative rating to a default trust member?  

[jackjack]

BadBear already commented on this. The reason was kinda convincing by the way.

...
Anyone who is on the default trust rating but leaves theymos bad feedback for his involvement in the GLBSE scam (theymos still holds BTC owed to me) for example would be immediately removed by none other than theymos.
...

Could someone other than Goat comment on this?  Who has the authority to amend the default trust list, and was Goat removed from that list for leaving a negative rating to a default trust member? 

1) Only theymos
2) No, BadBear removed him from his trustlist (thus removing him from the default trust) because he doesn't agree with the rating Goat gives (you can find the source in the recent Meta threads)

[Xian01]

Why was tradefortress trusted by theymos again?

 I was stunned when I saw that happen

 In fact, I think that was the day I removed the Default Trust settings altogether.

 Taking things a step further, I would argue that there should not be a Default Trust list at all - It should be something that each user constructs themselves.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Taking things a step further, I would argue that there should not be a Default Trust list at all - It should be something that each user constructs themselves.

This.  The concept of a trust web is very decentralized and open however the default trust web essentially undermines the entire system as given the "easy way out" most users will simply use the default.  Now one could argue well it doesn't matter what other people do but that is simplistic.   If a super super super majority of users trust the default trust (because they never decided to educate themselves) then for a persons interaction with those users all that matters is what the default trust thinks, nothing more, nothing less.

[sporket]

Taking things a step further, I would argue that there should not be a Default Trust list at all - It should be something that each user constructs themselves.

This.  The concept of a trust web is very decentralized and open however the default trust web essentially undermines the entire system as given the "easy way out" most users will simply use the default.  Now one could argue well it doesn't matter what other people do but that is simplistic.   If a super super super majority of users trust the default trust (because they never decided to educate themselves) then for a persons interaction with those users all that matters is what the default trust thinks, nothing more, nothing less.

Absolutely.

[sporket]

the impossible to see "show untrusted ratings" option

wat

When the trust page opens, only the trusted ratings are shown.  For 99% of the users that happens to be the default trust (wild guess here, but I'd say a safe one).
Like so:

[jackjack]

the impossible to see "show untrusted ratings" option

wat

When the trust page opens, only the trusted ratings are shown.  For 99% of the users that happens to be the default trust (wild guess here, but I'd say a safe one).
Like so:

What happens when you click on "Show ratings." ?

For 99% of the users that happens to be the default trust (wild guess here, but I'd say a safe one).

Just out of curiosity, is the real number public?

[sporket]

...

What happens when you click on "Show ratings." ?
...

Nothing happens wen you don't click it.
But if you got good eyes and are curious enough to click, you'll see the ratings.