Viewing TRUST when not logged in

[SaltySpitoon]

It really just seems like a personal problem to me. Would you trust someone on Reddit because they have good Karma, which is also a good thing? I kind of just live by the philosophy not to send money to strangers online, maybe I'm crazy.

The trust ratings already exist, it's just a matter of showing them and more information is better in this context.

It almost sounds negligent to have potentially important information and keep it hidden.

Its potentially important for members of the site, I agree. Say I wanted to use the name SaltySpitoon as an artists pseudonym as well as my handle here, and I was an active scam buster, and I was painted with all kinds of negative feedback from people I had picked fights with, I wouldn't want it viewable by anyone who didn't have a complete picture as a member here. If you don't have a complete picture of how the trust system works, I don't think you should have access to it one way or another.

On another note, aren't false positives just as likely as false negatives? If you aren't a member here, I could argue that you might not be aware of the practice of sock puppets leaving fake feedback. What if a new member sees positive trust from all of the scammers aliases?  

My main point is that having it not visible at all, is less harmful than having it visible and misleading.

*edit* Points to your own trust, Sandy, would you be fine with your relatives or potential employer reading the negative troll feedback left on your account if they did a google search for you? If they don't have any context about the Bitcoin forum, its probably far more negative from their perspective than the people who know to ignore it here.

[JusticeForYou]

I personally think most of the people who don't have an account here would come across bitcointalk through a simple google search and if the person comes through some real-life reference he is sure to create an account here and learn how the forum works. There is not much advantage in letting the non-logged users know what the trust rating of the person is, as they would just firstly not understand how it works or which are relevant feedbacks and which are not.

We can see multiple cases of trust abuse even if the trust is not shown as default it comes under untrusted feedback and any account could have a high number of fake or irrelevant untrusted feedbacks which would surely miss-lead any new user with no account if it's visible.

If a person is willing to trade on bitcointalk and would like to deal safely here should first create an account and understand how the trust works otherwise just a simple warning could work "Before trading with anyone please create a Bitcointalk account and check the feedbacks first" would be a good warning to all the users surfing without creating account.

[suchmoon]

Its potentially important for members of the site, I agree. Say I wanted to use the name SaltySpitoon as an artists pseudonym as well as my handle here, and I was an active scam buster, and I was painted with all kinds of negative feedback from people I had picked fights with, I wouldn't want it viewable by anyone who didn't have a complete picture as a member here. If you don't have a complete picture of how the trust system works, I don't think you should have access to it one way or another.

On another note, aren't false positives just as likely as false negatives? If you aren't a member here, I could argue that you might not be aware of the practice of sock puppets leaving fake feedback. What if a new member sees positive trust from all of the scammers aliases?  

My main point is that having it not visible at all, is less harmful than having it visible and misleading.

But does merely creating an account make one an expert in all of those intricacies of the trust system? Yet we're showing the trust ratings to total newbies AND we're imposing the DefaultTrust scoring on them. In fact even if newbie wanted to learn more about trust and DT - that info is not easy to find. That's also something that should be addressed both for registered users and for guests I think.

The Google issue can be mitigated to some extent by making the feedback pages non-indexable. So if someone merely googles your nick they won't see the derogatory info pop up directly in search results. They could still click through and see it but even today they could create an account and see it. Bigger fatter warning next to untrusted feedback could help. Perhaps don't show untrusted feedback to guests at all.

At any rate, since anybody can post any post or thread about you and it's unlikely to be deleted, Google can already pick up all sorts of negative stuff so I would disagree that making trust ratings public would be much of a difference. However I would like to have an option of a short rebuttal in the trust system, at least an ability to add a URL. So if someone accuses me of scamming I could say "Here is what really happened: <link>".

[Lauda]

Its potentially important for members of the site, I agree. Say I wanted to use the name SaltySpitoon as an artists pseudonym as well as my handle here, and I was an active scam buster, and I was painted with all kinds of negative feedback from people I had picked fights with, I wouldn't want it viewable by anyone who didn't have a complete picture as a member here. If you don't have a complete picture of how the trust system works, I don't think you should have access to it one way or another.

On another note, aren't false positives just as likely as false negatives? If you aren't a member here, I could argue that you might not be aware of the practice of sock puppets leaving fake feedback. What if a new member sees positive trust from all of the scammers aliases?  

My main point is that having it not visible at all, is less harmful than having it visible and misleading.

-snip-
The Google issue can be mitigated to some extent by making the feedback pages non-indexable. So if someone merely googles your nick they won't see the derogatory info pop up directly in search results. They could still click through and see it but even today they could create an account and see it. Bigger fatter warning next to untrusted feedback could help. Perhaps don't show untrusted feedback to guests at all.
-snip-

I don't see how this would be necessarily worse than fake accusation threads such as "<Username> is a pedo / pill abuser / etc". Those are already indexed by search engines and tend to show up first.

[EcuaMobi]

If people want the privilege of viewing trust, all they have to do is sign up for a free account.  Seems reasonable.

It is reasonable. But if the forum can show trust and avoid a few scams then it definitely should, especially considering guests don't even know they can have that privilege.

if someone is, we'll say gullible, to the point where they are willing to trade with someone here before signing up and learning how things work. Is there really anything you can do for them?

People don't need to be extremely gullible. They may not know bitcoin is not reversible or they could think Selly has some basic buyer's protection and can reverse the payment (like PayPal) if they're used to eBay for example. They do need to be naive but not stupid. If the forum can help those naive people then it should. Showing known scammers' profiles as red would certainly help them.

And, whatever the reason, this happens and users are being scammed by known scammers.
See some posts here for example. Users have been scammed and wished they knew about the trust system sooner:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3035620.msg48843643#msg48843643

Points to your own trust, Sandy, would you be fine with your relatives or potential employer reading the negative troll feedback left on your account if they did a google search for you? If they don't have any context about the Bitcoin forum, its probably far more negative from their perspective than the people who know to ignore it here.

It would make sense to show default trust, not every trust left by anyone. The forum could treat guests as newbies who don't have a custom trust list.


Anyway, theymos has already replied to this, as noted by actmyname, so I guess that's decided unless this current trust system fails and he implements the "force-custom-lists solution".

[sandy-is-fine]

--<clip>---

If a person is willing to trade on bitcointalk and would like to deal safely here should first create an account and understand how the trust works otherwise just a simple warning could work "Before trading with anyone please create a Bitcointalk account and check the feedbacks first" would be a good warning to all the users surfing without creating account.

+1 and exactly as I suggested a couple times in this thread.  I'm sure a "seen only by non-registered users rule" banner message could be created and put on as a banner message ESPECIALLY in the areas that involve sales of anything.

[SaltySpitoon]

Fair, I'll concede the point at least partially. If I'm not mistaken, you need to be logged in to view anything from the Reputation section. I don't believe google searches discover posts from the reputation board, but I could be wrong about that. That doesn't help against threads elsewhere though.

-snip-
The Google issue can be mitigated to some extent by making the feedback pages non-indexable. So if someone merely googles your nick they won't see the derogatory info pop up directly in search results. They could still click through and see it but even today they could create an account and see it. Bigger fatter warning next to untrusted feedback could help. Perhaps don't show untrusted feedback to guests at all.
-snip-

I don't see how this would be necessarily worse than fake accusation threads such as "<Username> is a pedo / pill abuser / etc". Those are already indexed by search engines and tend to show up first.

This is kind of what I was talking about. Any user who has been here for a week knows that there are users with feedback about them being pedos/pill abusers/ etc, and I dare to say that 99.9% of that feedback is false. Thats not to say that someone on Bitcointalk couldn't be fired or not hired in the first place because of claims like that. But I suppose if the information is out their regardless, allowing guests a consolidated place to view all claims probably isn't worse than having to scour the board looking for them.

[MadZ]

I don't know why, but I was under the impression that the decision to disallow guests from viewing feedback had something to do with cases where an employer or something is doing a google search on a potential employee, and ends up here, "Biggest Shitboi on forum, Skemmd my Grandmum for 5,000 BTC", "Guy sucks, l0l" etc feedback.

Again, I don't know if thats correct but something is telling me that was a consideration, though I don't have a source. The obvious hole that sticks out in my mind, is that there are only a handful of people here who used their real names, or have published their real names. I can't shake the suspicion that trust was only meant to be a factor in sections where it might possibly matter, and between members who are at risk of doing some sort of trade, at least partially for that reason. I don't think that conducting business with guest users was a consideration. How would you exchange PMs arranging a trade without an account?

Why not make it just show users' overall trust scores under their name in threads/posts, but keep individual profile pages the same as they are now. A guest would be able to see whether a seller has green trust, neutral trust, or red trust, but wouldn't be able to see each individual feedback until they make an account themselves.

[owlcatz]

This guy just got scammed $45 dollars because you can't see trust without being logged in.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5101897.msg49408123;topicseen#msg49408123

If people want the privilege of viewing trust, all they have to do is sign up for a free account.  Seems reasonable.

It is reasonable. But if the forum can show trust and avoid a few scams then it definitely should, especially considering guests don't even know they can have that privilege.

Yes, this here ^^^^^^^^^^

[tranthidung]

Lots of promising benefits. There are crypto investors, who simply visit the forum to get news/ updates/ information/ reports of projects they interested in. Those guys don't have need to communicate with forum community, projects' communities, and so on. However, they should see the trust points of core team's developers to have clearer and more general on what's going on with those projects.

I agree that viewing trust when not logged in could be beneficial.

[kingpin4321]

In the first place it would be wrong to be a guest and do deal with a user of the forum. If you are one that is security conscious you would join the forum first and even take time to understand it before any transcation

[mikeywith]

In the first place it would be wrong to be a guest and do deal with a user of the forum. If you are one that is security conscious you would join the forum first and even take time to understand it before any transcation

why all the hustle for buying a 10$ or 20$ digital item?

check this out > https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4835324.0

now log-out and check it again.

when a search engine sends you to such a topic and you find an autobuy link , and whats worse is that in self-moderated threads, these scammers self vouch to themselves with a dozen of positive comments, delete all legit comments  , and without being able to see that red paint, everything seems 100% legit.

simply because guests do not know what self-moderated thread is, they see a topic that has been there for a year, only positive comments, everyone and their grandmother will trust that scammer.

[SaltySpitoon]

In the first place it would be wrong to be a guest and do deal with a user of the forum. If you are one that is security conscious you would join the forum first and even take time to understand it before any transcation

why all the hustle for buying a 10$ or 20$ digital item?

check this out > https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4835324.0

now log-out and check it again.

when a search engine sends you to such a topic and you find an autobuy link , and whats worse is the in self-moderated threads, these scammers self vouch to themselves with a dozen of positive comments, delete all legit comments  , and without be able to see that red paint, everything seems 100% legit.

simply because guests do not know what self-moderated thread is, they see a topic that has been there for a year, only positive comments, everyone and their grandmother will trust that scammer.

I agree that guests should not do business with people on this site. If they choose to, its on them. I find it weird to be requesting features to benefit people who aren't members of this site. If you can't put in the effort to make an account, you take the risk of being scammed. Ah, I don't have an Ebay account, so I'll just contact the seller by email and try to take it off site. Also, I'll pay with Western Union, it'll be fine.

A half baked understanding of the feedback system is more harmful than no understanding of the feedback system. Its a tool that I believe could be more easily misunderstood than used properly if you don't have any prior knowledge about Bitcointalk or the ecosystem around here.

[o_e_l_e_o]

-snip-

I see where you are coming from, and I do agree with your points to an extent.

On the other hand, the forum obviously has a reputation as a good place to post these kind of scams, which is why we see so god damn many of them constantly popping up. I agree guests shouldn't be doing trades, but they fact is they are and we can't stop them unless we make more boards private, which I doubt very much is a route theymos would want to take. Making such a small change as showing Default Trust to guests would save some from being scammed, and if these were people who weren't going to make an account anyway, then I don't think their understanding of the trust system is really revelant beyond being able to read "Trade with extreme caution". In your eBay example, you can still see users' feedback ratings and read their individual feedbacks without an account.

None of this prevents them from making an account and learning more if they are interested/motivated to do so.

[mikeywith]

I agree that guests should not do business with people on this site. If they choose to, its on them.

same goes to member on the forum then, if they chose to conduct any business here, it's on them, so why bother tag scammers? let everybody try for themselves and take full responsibility of their actions.

unless you think it's okay for other people who are not members of the forum to get scammed then i do not see a reason why the feedback shouldn't be showing to everyone.

the feedback on the market place are pretty accurate, you can check them out yourself, i am someway active on that board and I know those feedback on most scammers are very-very accurate to say the least, and i see no point why shouldn't guests enjoy the benefit of these accurate feedback.

I do agree with your statement

I agree that guests should not do business with people on this site

 it's 100% right

but it does not mean we should not  protect them, i can understand why someone couldn't be bothered about protecting those people, but i can't seem to understand why would someone  disagree on protecting other people's money from scammers.

[posi]

I have some suggestion which I believe will somehow increase the safety and credibility of this forum user and people who are not. I think it will be nice if guest users can see the trust and reputable of this forum users because a guest user of this forum was scammed acouple of days back. Here is the link to the thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5101897.msg49408386#msg49408386

[SaltySpitoon]

The system where people fend for themselves is in place here. I'd hope that no one fully relies on the numerical scored of the feedback system. Its a tool to help you make your own informed decision, which relies on your own ability to wade through noise, and validate the legitimacy of any positive or negative claims someone makes against another. Seeing a number is not useful in the slightest, and I'd argue incredibly misleading and dangerous to someone who makes any assumptions about the feedback system.

The act of tagging scammers is an act by members to leave notes to other members that a user is potentially untrustworthy. It is then up for the member who originally wished to do business with the alleged scammer to read through any relevant proof and claims, and make their own informed decision whether to trade with that person. If you see a red -1 and don't look any further, you could be missing out on a trade because of a difference of political view between two members, or a petty fight. In reverse, you see someone with a green +1 and immediately they are vetted by the site, and you have no qualms with throwing money at them.

In this case, I feel that showing guests feedback scores is irresponsible and more harmful than not. If they don't want to take the time to register, I hope they get a valuable lesson for the $10 they lose, and hopefully its just that. Everyone born in the last 60 years knows what a shady internet deal is. Leave it to their intuition rather than interfering with that.

[o_e_l_e_o]

In this case, I feel that showing guests feedback scores is irresponsible and more harmful than not.

Fair point. Would you at least concede that we should be allowing guests to see individual trust pages and ratings, even if they don't see a calculated score? Whether those ratings are broken down in to "trusted" and "untrusted" based on DT, or whether they are all just placed under "untrusted", is another argument.

[suchmoon]

In this case, I feel that showing guests feedback scores is irresponsible and more harmful than not. If they don't want to take the time to register, I hope they get a valuable lesson for the $10 they lose, and hopefully its just that. Everyone born in the last 60 years knows what a shady internet deal is. Leave it to their intuition rather than interfering with that.

The problem is that guests who land in scam threads from Google have no idea that trust ratings exist and that you have to register to see them. I disagree that showing scores would be harmful. It would at least give them an indication that something like that exists and they would be able to access more information about the seller. How they use or misuse that information is another story, but that's no different from a freshly-registered newbie so again, I don't see how it's harmful to show the score to guests if we're showing it to newbies.

Let them fend for themselves but let's not force them to do so blindfolded with hands tied behind their backs.

[mikeywith]

I think you are really underestimating the accuracy of the trust system, have a look at this > https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3486346.0

this is a list of confirmed scammers , i am willing to bet a horse on each of them, and am sure most active members on the market place board would be willing to do the same , we as members here, know those guys are scammers, we tag them and we don't deal with them. 99% of those feedback are accurate.

those scammers know for sure that nobody on the forum would send them money first, yet every single day they bump their old threads that have a dozen of fake reviews, and many guests keep falling for them everyday and the reason does not matter ( greed, stupidity , low IQ or even bad luck) the results matter.

and even if you were to argue about my figures,  i still think that protecting a single person  hard-earned 10$ is worth the effort, not everybody is as intelligent as need be.

you can also have a look at this random screenshot of mine.




11 out of 13 topics on the first page of digital goods are scammers, this is almost 90% scam . i am willing to be held responsible for my claims, every topic on this screenshot is made by a confirmed scammer except for pinned topic and the last 2 topics (neutral)

and this 1st page doesn't look much different at any given time.

I am not trying to force my logic here, but i am pretty sure there is a major point which you don't seem to understand, while i agree with you that many ratings are B.S based on nothing related to trading ( which is why i have always opposed giving such ratting that are not directly related to trade based stuff) The main point that you need to realize that the trust system on the market place is tremendously accurate, it's the result of members including myself who have been observing those scammers for YEARS and all the ratings are based on trading facts and not some meaningless feedback which is based on political b.s or trolling, while there may be a few members who participate there being tagged for a silly reason, i am pretty sure that the majority of tagged frequent users there (over 99%) are scammers.


these are FACTS , if you wish , you can deny them, but if you think that they can be even a little accurate then i see no reason why wouldn't you want them to be shared with other poor souls who get scammed on a daily bases by those scammers.