DefaultTrust changes

[TECSHARE]

I'm still "letting it be". 

You sure convinced me.

[1713560430]

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[1713560430]

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[Quickseller]

Also the fact that people who have repeatedly trusted me with large sums some how don't feel I am worth an inclusion, or even outright exclude my self as well as other vocal critics with very solid reputations with no explanation. Of course if this was the case no one would admit to it...

You are implying that some people are being pressured/intimidated into either excluding you from their trust lists, or not including you at all.

When I read your post, I though of this situation in which Hhampuz appears to have possibly excluded Rmcdermott927 solely because Rmcdermott927 has OgNasty in his trust list. The issue seems to have gotten resolved in about a day, and now appears to be resolved.

I checked loyce.club/trust to see if I could find instances in which OgNasty either lost an inclusion, or gained an exclusion, and the in/exclusions of that person before/after the change, however I was unable to find anything (I am operating under the presumption that "removed" and "new" will show up in all the weeks). It is possible these types of things were all resolved in-between when each weeks' trust lists are published. I know that OgN has been on and off DT1 (while consistently being on DT1-voting), and I need to look into this more.
I do think you should remove your negative rating against "Armis" (and against me, but my point is primarily about Armis), and agree to only give negative ratings for the reasons you have been advocating for. IIRC, he was harassing you in your various sales threads, and this is not him stealing anything, breaking any kind of agreement, nor breaking any kind of law, nor trying to do any of the above. Also, he was last active almost 5 years ago, and I would find it very unlikely he will ever return.

If you would do the above, you would be very well suited to be on my trust list, and I think others would do the same.

[LoyceV]

I checked loyce.club/trust to see if I could find instances in which OgNasty either lost an inclusion, or gained an exclusion, and the in/exclusions of that person before/after the change, however I was unable to find anything (I am operating under the presumption that "removed" and "new" will show up in all the weeks).

Your presumption is incorrect, I started highlighting changes in week 4:

especially with some of the latest and greatest of trust list jockeying that seems to be going on.

This got me thinking of another improvement: I now highlights weekly changes:
NEW
Removed

[cryptodevil]

If I changed my list today adding every single user that gave me positive rating i.e. started trust farming/abusing my position, I'd be swiftly removed as well.

To be fair, I think it is pretty clearly a case that Willi, like many other forum members have done at some point in their history here, mistook the purpose of the trust list and conflated it with the function of feedback trust.

As we saw, a quick heads-up remedies that, otherwise, yes, it would be tantamount to trust farming.

[TECSHARE]

You are implying that some people are being pressured/intimidated into either excluding you from their trust lists, or not including you at all.

When I read your post, I though of this situation in which Hhampuz appears to have possibly excluded Rmcdermott927 solely because Rmcdermott927 has OgNasty in his trust list. The issue seems to have gotten resolved in about a day, and now appears to be resolved.

I checked loyce.club/trust to see if I could find instances in which OgNasty either lost an inclusion, or gained an exclusion, and the in/exclusions of that person before/after the change, however I was unable to find anything (I am operating under the presumption that "removed" and "new" will show up in all the weeks). It is possible these types of things were all resolved in-between when each weeks' trust lists are published. I know that OgN has been on and off DT1 (while consistently being on DT1-voting), and I need to look into this more.
I do think you should remove your negative rating against "Armis" (and against me, but my point is primarily about Armis), and agree to only give negative ratings for the reasons you have been advocating for. IIRC, he was harassing you in your various sales threads, and this is not him stealing anything, breaking any kind of agreement, nor breaking any kind of law, nor trying to do any of the above. Also, he was last active almost 5 years ago, and I would find it very unlikely he will ever return.

If you would do the above, you would be very well suited to be on my trust list, and I think others would do the same.

Not just myself, but other vocal critics of the status quo around here. Hhampuz essentially confirmed this fact for him at least with his last statement. You picking a single instance out of a hat is not representative of the overall pattern of behavior regarding the trust system.

We all know you don't really give a shit about the rating I left for Armis, this is just you making a pathetic effort to try to again dig up and leverage ancient history to attempt to shame me into removing my rating for you, which is why I will never do it because of exactly this type of manipulative behavior. Your approval means nothing to me, either logistically or personally, and that is a result of your own duplicitous behavior.

This is again indicative of the pattern of condemnation over a single incident blown totally out of proportion that was not repeated, being a permanent albatross around my neck because I refused to submit to the hypocritical double standards and unwritten rules of this forum. Because of this I was punitively punished in a multitude of ways, including being the VERY FIRST exclusion on this forum ever, the staff making sure I could not be on the DT regardless of having enough users who trusted me to be on it. Of course the creation of exclusions directly after this act of principled defiance was totally a coincidence I am sure.

Users on the default trust are expected to uphold certain standards, yet these standards are not objective, and not published anywhere. This is equivalent to expecting one to uphold a contract which you are never allowed to read, you don't consent to, and the terms of which can change at any time. How is this logical? How do you conform to standards if they are not objective, available for review, nor affirmatively consented to? This is asinine. This has been the problem I have been pointing out for YEARS, but no one really gives a shit because it is only a direct problem for the minority.

Unfortunately the indirect result is the erosion of the culture of the forum, and the creation of an avenue for unscrupulous actors to leverage the years of effort to build a good trust history against the most honest users of the forum. Of course once it happens to them they suddenly become very sympathetic, and it costs very little to pile on the condemnation as opposed to supporting otherwise valuable contributors who add to the common good of the forum at the personal cost of their own reputations. This system breeds paranoia, distrust, duplicity, mob behavior, and is destructive to the cohesiveness of the forum community in general.

[Vod]

If I changed my list today adding every single user that gave me positive rating i.e. started trust farming/abusing my position, I'd be swiftly removed as well.

Blazed did it for years...  :/

[Lauda]

If I changed my list today adding every single user that gave me positive rating i.e. started trust farming/abusing my position, I'd be swiftly removed as well.

Blazed did it for years...  :/

He did not, no.

[Quickseller]

Not just myself, but other vocal critics of the status quo around here. Hhampuz essentially confirmed this fact for him at least with his last statement.

I do not doubt people are being intimidated into excluding and/or removing inclusions of certain people, however it is difficult to push for changes because of something like this without providing evidence. Like I said, there may not be documented evidence if the intimidation is started and is successful between when the times the trust network is snapshotted. I am looking for evidence. 

We all know you don't really give a shit about the rating I left for Armis, this is just you making a pathetic effort to try to again dig up and leverage ancient history to attempt to shame me into removing my rating for you, which is why I will never do it because of exactly this type of manipulative behavior.

You are wrong, that is not what I am doing. When you opened this thread, multiple people were pointing out that you do not follow your own guidelines for leaving trust. It is ridiculous to say you don't have to follow the rules you are advocating for. If you were you follow the rules you are advocating for, it would be much more difficult for theymos to ignore your suggestion.

This is again indicative of the pattern of condemnation over a single incident blown totally out of proportion that was not repeated, being a permanent albatross around my neck because I refused to submit to the hypocritical double standards and unwritten rules of this forum.

The incident was not repeated, however you have not corrected the underlying issue. A number of established people said in 2014 that the rating should be removed, and those familiar with the situation probably still agree. I don't think it is appropriate for anyone on DT to have any inappropriate ratings, (no matter what else they contribute) that remain up after a discussion of the rating.

You may argue your rating against Armis violated an "unwritten rule" of the forum, however it also violates the rule you want to be written.

It is okay to occasionally be in the wrong provided you correct mistakes, and that should not be a reason to exclude someone from DT, however the mistake does need to be corrected.

Users on the default trust are expected to uphold certain standards, yet these standards are not objective, and not published anywhere. This is equivalent to expecting one to uphold a contract which you are never allowed to read, you don't consent to, and the terms of which can change at any time. How is this logical? How do you conform to standards if they are not objective, available for review, nor affirmatively consented to? This is asinine.

I do not disagree with this stance, however you should also acknowledge that opinions on certain behaviors can change, and when standards change, if anything happened in the past that violate these standards, there should be corrective action taken, when possible.

[TECSHARE]

more duplicitous weaseling

Evidence, you mean like a very well respected member of the default trust list testifying to the fact kind of evidence?

Nah, this is exactly what you are doing, this is your modus operandi to a T.

So your argument is unless I retroactively change this one whole rating from like 5 years ago against some one who is inactive and was running a fake charity, I am a hypocrite and should stop speaking out about people shotgunning dozens of negative ratings a day like it is a game they are trying to rank up in? Give me a break, no one that used this as an excuse to demonize me ever gave a fuck about Armis or my rating, it was simply a convenient way to penalize me for speaking up because they felt it made them look bad because I dared to question dear leader and was exposing their own double standards. This was always about coercing my submission, not about standards.

Except you aren't changing your behavior, you are engaging in the same disingenuous manipulative bullshit you always have, just at a lower volume.

[OgNasty]

I think the trust system does way more harm to the community than good, it should be removed IMO. The amount of people I get direct messaging me on Twitter complaining how they stopped using this forum because of issues around trust is noticeable, or ranting about Lauda. I don't think these people are necessarily scammers either.

Better to just remove it. I'm sure the overall happiness of the community would go way up. Let people figure out for themselves if someone or a business is trustworthy, as they do on the rest of the internet. It's a noble idea but it just builds resentment among members which might actually lead to more shady and dubious behavior. Mobs going around bullying members with trust scores is shady activity. Feels like more people complain about getting their trust fucked with and characters like Lauda than they do about scams here.

Trust scores are mostly meaningless, it's closer to a popularity contest than a true measure of someone's trustworthiness. Just by using this site, all of you are implicitly trusting me, but that isn't reflected at all in my trust score, in fact I probably seem less trustworthy on first observation than some actual shady people on here. There's so much angst with the whole system, maybe there's a way to make it work better, and tweaking it could eventually lead to that, but for now it just looks like something that's dividing the community.

This was such a great post that hit the nail on the head.  The current trust system does more harm than good.  It can easily be manipulated by a few users, and actually leads to more centralization in the trust network.  In my opinion, the only way to move forward with this current trust model is to completely remove negative trust, so that a handful of greedy users can't join together and destroy the trust ratings of some of the most trusted users on this forum.  It might also show those like Lauda just how worthless their efforts have been as scams won't become more prevalent, and give them an opportunity to focus on helping to build the Bitcointalk community, instead of playing gatekeeper to who can participate.

[The-One-Above-All]

I think the trust system does way more harm to the community than good, it should be removed IMO. The amount of people I get direct messaging me on Twitter complaining how they stopped using this forum because of issues around trust is noticeable, or ranting about Lauda. I don't think these people are necessarily scammers either.

Better to just remove it. I'm sure the overall happiness of the community would go way up. Let people figure out for themselves if someone or a business is trustworthy, as they do on the rest of the internet. It's a noble idea but it just builds resentment among members which might actually lead to more shady and dubious behavior. Mobs going around bullying members with trust scores is shady activity. Feels like more people complain about getting their trust fucked with and characters like Lauda than they do about scams here.

Trust scores are mostly meaningless, it's closer to a popularity contest than a true measure of someone's trustworthiness. Just by using this site, all of you are implicitly trusting me, but that isn't reflected at all in my trust score, in fact I probably seem less trustworthy on first observation than some actual shady people on here. There's so much angst with the whole system, maybe there's a way to make it work better, and tweaking it could eventually lead to that, but for now it just looks like something that's dividing the community.

This was such a great post that hit the nail on the head.  The current trust system does more harm than good.  It can easily be manipulated by a few users, and actually leads to more centralization in the trust network.  In my opinion, the only way to move forward with this current trust model is to completely remove negative trust, so that a handful of greedy users can't join together and destroy the trust ratings of some of the most trusted users on this forum.  It might also show those like Lauda just how worthless their efforts have been as scams won't become more prevalent, and give them an opportunity to focus on helping to build the Bitcointalk community, instead of playing gatekeeper to who can participate.

After several months of reading on this forum and investigating the full history behind the gripes of many rep and meta threads, I have noticed a significant uptick in friction on the board around the time the new selection process was introduced. I also note that it is entirely truthful that persons of ill repute are installed within Default Trust. The systems that enabled their installment and encourage group think are very damaging long term. Any serious damage done by those installed into DT of whom admin had prior knowledge were dirty is going to reflect very poorly on the entire community. Questions of why those types of individuals were allowed to remain in DT are going to be asked. I don't know if saying: because a handful of their supporters wanted them there, is going to be enough. I think admin and the board owner will still be held accountable.

In light of this, why does the board owner 'Cobra?' or theymos? simply not decide to scrap these systems before more lasting damage is done? Experimenting with trial and error is acceptable with a testnet, but this forum is live and the damage is in real time and irreversible. I presume he would have okay'd them before allowing the admins to  push them live. Now that we see they are causing multiple issues, surely we can just switch them off?

The board environment is quite hostile. I have only made 3 posts, and I have already attracted the unwanted attentions of some of the recently installed DT1 brigade. It seems that unsubstantiated accusations, false allegations and generally telling members to shut up and close their threads are seen as acceptable behavior from those that are the pinnacle of trust here.

[asche]

JanEmil - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=1118969
is now in DT.

He has helft 44 Pos. feedbacks and 1 Neutral - 0 Neg.

What caught my eye was his positive feedback to this account : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=2463733;dt

Cointorox is an account for the service with the same name, which looks pretty shady in my opinion.

I don't like the fact people could mistake this positive feedback resulting from a payment to the actual reputation of the service itself.

Putting JanEmil in ~ for now.

[LoyceV]

I think the trust system does way more harm to the community than good, it should be removed IMO.
~snip~

~In my opinion, the only way to move forward with this current trust model is to completely remove negative trust~

The suggestion that only traders should be on DT had me thinking: why not create different levels of DefaultTrust, and force users to choose one (or more!) of those?
The way things are going, I don't think more than a few percent of active users will ever set a custom Trust list, and the majority wouldn't know what to choose anyway.
DefaultTrust could be expanded by for instance the following levels:
DefaultTrust0: back to the way things were before January 09: theymos hand-picks DT1 members.
DefaultTrust1: the current system.
DefaultTrust2: only experienced traders on DT1 (how to select them would be up for discussion).
DefaultTrust3: only Admins, Global Moderators and >2 years Staff Members.
DefaultTrust4: only active scambusters.
DefaultTrust5: any user that can sign a message from an address >1000 Bitcoin, signature valid 12 months.
DefaultTrust6: ...........

Details can of course be changed (I just made most of this up), but I'm hoping this can be a system that satisfies the majority of users, while allowing new users to make an informed decision.
It can be implemented like theymos' April Fools' Day KYC: a big warning above all pages, and it only disappears once the user has made a choice. On top of this, every user can still st their own Trust list.

If this seems like a good idea, I'll create a dedicated topic for it. Until then, discuss away here

See: Suggestion: Create different levels of DefaultTrust

[Hhampuz]

~~

If this seems like a good idea, I'll create a dedicated topic for it. Until then, discuss away here

There is a lot of merit to your post, even though I could only afford to give you 1.

I can get behind your suggestion with the only issue being that theymos probably didn't want to pick DT members? Otherwise I'm fine with this, please do make the dedicated topic .

[LoyceV]

I can get behind your suggestion with the only issue being that theymos probably didn't want to pick DT members? Otherwise I'm fine with this, please do make the dedicated topic .

Done:

See: Suggestion: Create different levels of DefaultTrust

[Jet Cash]

Maybe trust and reputation should be different categories. In real life, some of the most obnoxious and badly behaved people I've dealt with have been the most trustworthy. It's the smarmy do-gooders that I treat with caution, especially if they gain reputation with the trappings of wealth.

[JanEmil]

JanEmil - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=1118969
is now in DT.

He has helft 44 Pos. feedbacks and 1 Neutral - 0 Neg.

What caught my eye was his positive feedback to this account : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=2463733;dt

Cointorox is an account for the service with the same name, which looks pretty shady in my opinion.

I don't like the fact people could mistake this positive feedback resulting from a payment to the actual reputation of the service itself.

Putting JanEmil in ~ for now.

I actually trust the project because they have paid me many times. But have removed the feedback so I follow the general "rules".

Thank you for the add even if I don't know fully what it mean yet.

[asche]

JanEmil - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=1118969
is now in DT.

He has helft 44 Pos. feedbacks and 1 Neutral - 0 Neg.

What caught my eye was his positive feedback to this account : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=2463733;dt

Cointorox is an account for the service with the same name, which looks pretty shady in my opinion.

I don't like the fact people could mistake this positive feedback resulting from a payment to the actual reputation of the service itself.

Putting JanEmil in ~ for now.

I actually trust the project because they have paid me many times. But have removed the feedback so I follow the general "rules".

Thank you for the add even if I don't know fully what it mean yet.

The fact that you don't know how the system works is one reason more to put you on the distrust list.

[JanEmil]

The fact that you don't know how the system works is one reason more to put you on the distrust list.

Trust don't come from a system but your actions every day.

[JayJuanGee]

The fact that you don't know how the system works is one reason more to put you on the distrust list.

Trust don't come from a system but your actions every day.

I hear these kinds of dumb arguments very frequently spouted out in various threads on this forum... mostly related to the practices of merit and trust.

Of course, you may be a superstar and the greatest person in real life, but merits and trust are not measuring real life.  It is measuring your forum related experiences (at least as perceived through others).  Of course, merits and trust measure different things, and trust does attempt to come a little bit closer to judging your real life character, but it is not measured on anything that cannot be determined by other forum members (such as if you happened to have been a real nice person in your grade school years, and whether grandma never had to yell at you nor spank you and you always ate all your cookies, drank all your milk while keeping the basement clean and organized).