Neutral trust with a warning the account "may be" changed hands is enough.
The only problem with Neutral trust is if a person has a zero trust rating, many people don't even bother to check the trust comments.
That is the issue. The trust system is supposed to be a simple guide for noobs right?
At least that's my interpretation of the trust system.
I personally will deal with people with a negative trust rating, for example.
The trust system is a warning to noobs:
Be cautious, the person you're dealing with is considered likelier to rip you off than the mean by other, more experienced users.Unfortunately though no system is free from exploitation.
Fortunate for us that the trust system itself has a built-in mechanism to cope with abuse: the trust list.
A person abusing trust is likelier than the mean to be excluded from trust lists with "~".
Of course, it's not a perfect system, but I personally feel that blatant abuse will not go unnoticed / unsanctioned.
We should be encouraging users to use the green and red numbers as a QUICK REFERENCE, then to do their own due diligence before trading.
Absolutely.
We should also encourage them to build their own trust lists.
The net is too wide so you catch too many innocents
True, but not really important.
Since we're not dealing with accusations of a crime in front of a court, I've always stood for "shoot first, ask questions later".
"Innocent until proven guilty" is not the way to go with a
trust system, IMHO.
The only harm done to an "innocent negged user" is a loss of reputation and maybe some income from (what I consider) SPAM.
There's no absolute right for a user on an online forum to generate income from the forum, and there's no right to being liked.
Ergo, no rights are infringed.
As for people who feel mistreated, I feel with you, but that doesn't change my attitude.
I mean, come on, we're all basically nerds here, we all know how it feels not to be loved, right?
It hurts, but you'll get over it and hopefully come out stronger.
We need a standard of theft, violation of contractual agreement, or violation of applicable laws for leaving a negative rating
And who would watch over compliance to this standard?
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
I am sorry but this whole thing that has arisen here is what we call a clusterfuck and it needs to stop.
Clusterfuck, that's what it is. I blame Lauda.
No, seriously, the people bitching about their "unjust" trust ratings are the clusterfuckers here, if you ask me.
Just get over it, guys, you're not gonna change it anyway.
Complain as you might, the trust system in its current state is most likely to stay for a while.
I seriously doubt that theymos will rework it anytime soon.