Viewing TRUST when not logged in

[SaltySpitoon]

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.

I would agree with that. I've been critical of the calculated "trustworthiness" score since the beginning, but because there was plenty of information about it posted, people here were free to interpret it as they liked, so it didn't hit my radar to the same extent as showing this score to people who are blind going into it.

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.

As a newbie, if you see a green number that was earned because you had someones back in a fight in Meta, does that not have the same weight as a green number earned from a valid trade of a related item? Or how about a green number earned from a 0.005 BTC sale, and now you are doing a 0.1 BTC trade? Your first instinct as a person who has been around on the internet during the era of Craigslist scams and all sorts of others, is to not trade someone unless you have that gut feeling that tells you that you will be safe.

By forum community consensus, it is fine to give someone negative feedback for account selling. Thats fine, as a member of this forum, I understand and accept the rationale, but does that apply to someone who is not a member of the forum? People give each other positive feedback for being helpful at scambusting, again in the context of the forums thats fine, but at least to me, that doesn't register as anything noteworthy when deciding if someone is trustworthy with money I'm about to send them. The best most trustworthy account seller, someone that a guest user might be here looking for, might have far more negative trust than the guy who hasn't been caught yet. Outside of the contexts of the forum feedback system rules, a lot of things are at the very best misleading. By not giving people the crutch of misleading numbers, they trade with people using the same rules they learned to avoid internet scams. If you give people a number that says, yeah this guy is safe to trade with, its like giving them a stick with notches in it and no further explanation. Why do I trust a guy who is always friendly and answered my mining questions with my BTC?

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

I have zero faith in the trust system if you have no other information available. I've been active in the marketplace here since 2012, and involved in the trust system since its creation. I'm not being a jerk about it because I have something against the systems in place, I just don't think its the right tool for the job. We are trying to drive a nail with a wrench. The number of people's feedback that I'd trust here at face value I could count with one hand. Thats not to say I don't value a lot of member's opinions, its just that I'd have to read why trust is given and what support is given before considering it.

i still think that protecting a single person  hard-earned 10$ is worth the effort, not everybody is as intelligent as need be.

A $10 life lesson isn't a very expensive one. I hate to say that people deserve to be scammed, but sometimes a small mistake like that is worth far more than you'd think when a similar situation comes up with higher stakes.

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 why are those threads not moderated and removed? One reason is because the most dangerous thing is telling people that scams don't happen, and then they get scammed when they let their guards down by the ones that slip through the cracks. Give guest users a half functional tool, and there is more potential for damage. See a green +1, and maybe the $10 that they are willing to gamble with despite alarm bells going off becomes $100.

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.

Again, I disagree, as long as feedback that isn't solely related to trading its value as a trading tool is not definitive, you need to read each case and judge for yourself.

[1714145324]

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[1714145324]

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[mikeywith]

you need to read each case and judge for yourself.

Exactly, then allow guests to read and judge for themselves.

[SaltySpitoon]

you need to read each case and judge for yourself.

Exactly, then allow guests to read and judge for themselves.

That isn't what we are talking about here. We are talking about whether they see someones +1, +10, -5 trade with caution, or nothing at all. A +1 for "helping me with my homework" is worth less than a +1 for "completed successful deal for 1 BTC" but when going in blind, they are the same.

my whimsical example:

A fella walks into your hardware store and says, I've never done any sort of work in fabrication, and can't handle any tools, but I've decided to build a house. What tool would you recommend? You hand him a saw. He may be able to cut the timbers and pound nails in with the handle, it might keep him out of the rain for a bit, but when the house falls down, it'd sure be better to be in the rain than under a collapsed house.

I'm not against helping guests, I am however not for making it worse by giving them half of the required tools to help or hurt themselves with. I'd rather they hurt themselves all on their own and learn from it if they are so determined to do so, or realize that they don't have a full set of tools, so do some research into what they need.

To evaluate feedback left, you need to be a member here. Without evaluating feedback, its useless and potentially harmful. The solution is to become a member here. If you don't want to become a member here, my argument is that you are better off without potentially misleading information, and we begin around the circle again.


If we really must come to some solution, as I said, I'd be in support of a custom trust list with no separation between Trusted and Untrusted feedback, no Red/Green or numbers involved. Just a list of feedback that would still require someone to investigate reference links, determine credibility of sources, etc.

[mikeywith]

A fella walks into your hardware store and says, I've never done any sort of work in fabrication, and can't handle any tools, but I've decided to build a house. What tool would you recommend? You hand him a saw. He may be able to cut the timbers and pound nails in with the handle, it might keep him out of the rain for a bit, but when the house falls down, it'd sure be better to be in the rain than under a collapsed house.

what we asking for is more like selling him a grow tent rather than asking to him to stay under the rain until he learns how to build a house.

this whole argument goes down to the accuracy of the feedback on the most active members and scammers on the market place,  as i mentioned earlier, the feedback on the market place is very accurate and mainly only based on trade related matters and the results and experience of other members, yet you want guests to reinvent the wheel rather than making use of data that has been worked on for years.

anyhow, this is like beating a dead horse, let's just agree to disagree and call it a day.

[EcuaMobi]

you need to read each case and judge for yourself.

Exactly, then allow guests to read and judge for themselves.

That isn't what we are talking about here. We are talking about whether they see someones +1, +10, -5 trade with caution, or nothing at all. A +1 for "helping me with my homework" is worth less than a +1 for "completed successful deal for 1 BTC" but when going in blind, they are the same.

my whimsical example:

A fella walks into your hardware store and says, I've never done any sort of work in fabrication, and can't handle any tools, but I've decided to build a house. What tool would you recommend? You hand him a saw. He may be able to cut the timbers and pound nails in with the handle, it might keep him out of the rain for a bit, but when the house falls down, it'd sure be better to be in the rain than under a collapsed house.

So you're afraid users with positive trust will start scamming guests because those guests see them as green and therefore trusted?
How many times do you think that can happen? 1? 2? After that there will be a scam accusation and they will be red. Every guest will see them as red and it will be nearly impossible for that ex-green member to scam again with that account.

Now, if we don't show anything. How many times can a known scammer scam? At least tens of times. So what's the better option?

There's also a third option: shown only negative trust to guests and not the positive. That would be enough to stop most known scammers.

To evaluate feedback left, you need to be a member here. Without evaluating feedback, its useless and potentially harmful. The solution is to become a member here. If you don't want to become a member here, my argument is that you are better off without potentially misleading information, and we begin around the circle again.

Why do you think the simple act of registering makes a newbie able to understand the trust system, something he didn't understand at all a minute before when he was a guest?
Why do you want to show trust to brand new users and not guests?

If we really must come to some solution, as I said, I'd be in support of a custom trust list with no separation between Trusted and Untrusted feedback, no Red/Green or numbers involved. Just a list of feedback that would still require someone to investigate reference links, determine credibility of sources, etc.

So a known scammer creates several other accounts that leave positive trust to themselves and negative trust to every "scam hunter"?
Then guests would have no idea whom to trust and no good would be made. You can't shown trust left by scammers to users who don't understand the trust system.


If your main argument against this idea is you don't want guests to see as green/trusted any users then let's just show to them negative trust left by DT.

[suchmoon]

As a newbie, if you see a green number that was earned because you had someones back in a fight in Meta, does that not have the same weight as a green number earned from a valid trade of a related item?

That's not the argument I'm making. I'm simply saying that there the difference between a guest and a freshly-registered newbie is so negligible in terms of how much they know about the inner workings of the forum that it doesn't make sense to show the ratings to one but not to the other. Should we hide ratings from lower-ranked accounts as well? Until they're deemed sufficiently knowledgeable about the trust system? Perhaps all scores should be replaced with a simple link to trust feedback, unless you have a custom list in which case you can see the score the way it is displayed now.

I'm ok with tweaks to make the system more useful for everyone, including guests. I still don't see a good reason to hide potentially helpful trust ratings that already exist, and expect guests to figure out that they need to register to access them. If we're expecting them to be Craigslist-savvy then surely they can separate wheat from chaff in those ratings.

[o_e_l_e_o]

I've been thinking on SaltySpitoon's point of not giving guests half the required tools, and of them not fully understanding the trust system, and the more I think about it, the more I think it would be a worse idea to show guests only trust ratings without a trust score.

The reason these scammers don't have loads of positive feedback is because there is no reason for them to - their target audience isn't people who can see their trust, but the guests who can't. If we start displaying trust ratings to guests, I would bet a large proportion of my bitcoin holdings that these scammers' trust pages would quickly fill up with rating upon rating from alt accounts and sock puppets. As SaltySpitoon points out, guests don't understand the trust system - they don't understand the difference between trusted and untrusted feedback, and they certainly don't know who is a "reputable" user and who isn't. If they see an account with 1 negative trust but 20 positive trust, they are going to have a favorable view of that account. They won't understand that 1 negative rating from hilariousandco (for example) is probably more accurate than 20 ratings from newbie accounts. They will need some kind of system to help guide them in assessing feedback, and trusted/untrusted and the resulting score is the way to do that.

I can however understand SS's arguments for not showing guests trust at all, and so I think this should be an all or nothing thing. I would still favor the "all" option. Showing them bits of the trust system will do more harm than good.

[SaltySpitoon]

A fella walks into your hardware store and says, I've never done any sort of work in fabrication, and can't handle any tools, but I've decided to build a house. What tool would you recommend? You hand him a saw. He may be able to cut the timbers and pound nails in with the handle, it might keep him out of the rain for a bit, but when the house falls down, it'd sure be better to be in the rain than under a collapsed house.

what we asking for is more like selling him a grow tent rather than asking to him to stay under the rain until he learns how to build a house.

this whole argument goes down to the accuracy of the feedback on the most active members and scammers on the market place,  as i mentioned earlier, the feedback on the market place is very accurate and mainly only based on trade related matters and the results and experience of other members, yet you want guests to reinvent the wheel rather than making use of data that has been worked on for years.

anyhow, this is like beating a dead horse, let's just agree to disagree and call it a day.

Our main difference in opinion is our perceived amount of signal to noise. You believe the marketplace section provides the majority of feedback, it is accurate, and based on trades. I however believe that the majority of feedback is related to non trade related matters. Thats not to say that someone who gets a negative for being a jerk isn't less trustworthy in a trade because of their behavior and how that could relate to dealing with another person during a transaction, but I believe that factors other than, This guy and I traded and he came through, need additional information to be properly weighted.

I have no issue with us having a difference of opinion. At the end of the day we don't need to convince each other, what matters is that both of our opinions are aired to aid others to come to their own decisions.

I'm simply saying that there the difference between a guest and a freshly-registered newbie is so negligible in terms of how much they know about the inner workings of the forum that it doesn't make sense to show the ratings to one but not to the other.

I absolutely agree with you there, but as a registered member you have access to the reputation board and can actually read 50% of the links left in valid feedback. I'm not sure if we are crossing two issues currently. The first issue in this thread was whether all trust information should be displayed. The issue that I believe we are on now, is whether or not just the number score should be displayed.

So you're afraid users with positive trust will start scamming guests because those guests see them as green and therefore trusted?
How many times do you think that can happen? 1? 2? After that there will be a scam accusation and they will be red. Every guest will see them as red and it will be nearly impossible for that ex-green member to scam again with that account.

Now, if we don't show anything. How many times can a known scammer scam? At least tens of times. So what's the better option?

There's also a third option: shown only negative trust to guests and not the positive. That would be enough to stop most known scammers.

I can go through my PMs from the past year (12 months) and easily point out 30-50 people who wanted to do minuscule trades with me, most likely in order to get + green feedback. Their purposes for establishing a trade history could certainly be honest, but it isn't that uncommon of an issue. I got dragged into trust farming complaints where people on DT had left feedback for people over microtransactions, and it was debated whether it was OK to give them feedback over a 30 cent transaction, when it meant giving them a +5 green number on their feedback. The general consensus was that its fine, because the numbers are meaningless, and you should always read the individual transaction details rather than relying on numbers. If you make that +5 no longer meaningless by displaying it to guests, it becomes a problem.

Trust farming isn't a worthwhile endeavor at the moment, but it could easily be made into one. Its not done, because its not profitable as members here can weigh the value of feedback. You don't trust someone with $100 because they handled $1 in the past. But, show only the +1 from a trade and not the rest, and that is no longer the case.



On a side note, since we seem to be talking about the digital goods section where this is the greatest issue, there is a warning stickied post from our very own EcuaMobi. So the excuse of not knowing better when coming here as a guest kind of goes flying out the window.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3035620.0


As an exercise, be honest with yourself and pick a few people. View their trusted/untrusted feedback, and see how much of it you'd value personally if deciding to trade with that person. There is plenty of helpful info in there, but you have to be able to sort it.

[suchmoon]

I'm simply saying that there the difference between a guest and a freshly-registered newbie is so negligible in terms of how much they know about the inner workings of the forum that it doesn't make sense to show the ratings to one but not to the other.

I absolutely agree with you there, but as a registered member you have access to the reputation board and can actually read 50% of the links left in valid feedback.

Guests can see Reputation too. Investigations (dox) board is off-limits but it's also not available to Newbies so no difference here.

I'm not sure if we are crossing two issues currently. The first issue in this thread was whether all trust information should be displayed. The issue that I believe we are on now, is whether or not just the number score should be displayed.

We probably are, sorry if I mixed it up here. I'm with o_e_l_e_o on this. It should all be available to guests just like it is available to newbies. If we want to add some extra verbiage to green scores to help guests/newbies/etc understand that dealing with "green" (or "non-red") users is not a guarantee of success - I'm fine with that.

[EcuaMobi]

I can go through my PMs from the past year (12 months) and easily point out 30-50 people who wanted to do minuscule trades with me, most likely in order to get + green feedback. Their purposes for establishing a trade history could certainly be honest, but it isn't that uncommon of an issue. I got dragged into trust farming complaints where people on DT had left feedback for people over microtransactions, and it was debated whether it was OK to give them feedback over a 30 cent transaction, when it meant giving them a +5 green number on their feedback. The general consensus was that its fine, because the numbers are meaningless, and you should always read the individual transaction details rather than relying on numbers. If you make that +5 no longer meaningless by displaying it to guests, it becomes a problem.

Trust farming isn't a worthwhile endeavor at the moment, but it could easily be made into one. Its not done, because its not profitable as members here can weigh the value of feedback. You don't trust someone with $100 because they handled $1 in the past. But, show only the +1 from a trade and not the rest, and that is no longer the case.

So, again, your only (or at least main) argument against this idea is that you don't want green trust to be seen by guests. You seem to have missed most of my previous post.
We can then shown only negative trust left by DT.

A lot of scammers have been identified. The issue here is we don't give that information to guests, so those known scammers keep scamming. I only want to stop that, I just want make things as difficult as possible for known scammers. I don't care if positive trust is shown.

On a side note, since we seem to be talking about the digital goods section where this is the greatest issue, there is a warning stickied post from our very own EcuaMobi. So the excuse of not knowing better when coming here as a guest kind of goes flying out the window.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3035620.0

Yes. I tried to do something at least. And it has helped. That's actually proof something must be done as that little bit has helped.
Now, a lot of users just search something on Google, are redirected to a scammer's posts and from there to an auto-buy site, where they are scammed.

Seeing that scammer with red trust would help a lot, much more than my sticky post which is not seen by a lot of people before being scammed.
That's why there are a lot of "I wish I read this thread sooner" posts on that very same thread you linked.

As an exercise, be honest with yourself and pick a few people. View their trusted/untrusted feedback, and see how much of it you'd value personally if deciding to trade with that person. There is plenty of helpful info in there, but you have to be able to sort it.

It will depend on whose profile I choose and, especially, trust left by whom. If I choose every trust then probably most are useless. If I choose feedback left by DT then most (but obviously not everything) will be helpful. If I choose trust based on my own list then even more is helpful for me, but guests and brand new users don't have that option. So we can use the second best option for them: DT.

[mikeywith]

here is a real life example of how showing trust to guest could have saved a poor soul > https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5121760.new#new

[UserU]

here is a real life example of how showing trust to guest could have saved a poor soul > https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5121760.new#new

Sucks to be him. I agree that it should be made visible to guests. For most newbies, why register when the contact details are right then and there, without realizing the Trust system is in place for a good reason.

[The Cryptovator]

here is a real life example of how showing trust to guest could have saved a poor soul > https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5121760.new#new

Exactly, I have replied there about it. This isn't just single case, I have seen many more same case. Due trust visibility guests are getting scam. Or sometimes people's lazy to login. That's why I think its reasonable to view trust rating even we are not login. Perhaps lot of newbies or guest would save their money from scammers. Also this suggestion made by multiple users. Hope admin will implement trust view for all users including guest.

[tbct_mt2]

Exactly, I have replied there about it. This isn't just single case, I have seen many more same case. Due trust visibility guests are getting scam. Or sometimes people's lazy to login. That's why I think its reasonable to view trust rating even we are not login. Perhaps lot of newbies or guest would save their money from scammers. Also this suggestion made by multiple users. Hope admin will implement trust view for all users including guest.

Especially, investors who don't have intention to write here, even don't create account.
They simply visit the forum, ANN topics, read and move to other places, like Github, Discord, Telegram, Website to get more details or get help.
So, the feature to be able to view trust or even merit transaction are good.
If they won't be integrated here, they should be integrated in the coming Epochtalk.

[petahasher]

New/un-registered users are most likely to be unaware of the different types of scams, taking away trust ratings from un-registered users is illogical. Bump

[digitalasset21cent]

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

If the new function that allows guests to view Trust without requirements to log in, I think the forum should have a same new function which allows guests to view merit history without requirements to log in.
I agree that guests sometimes don't care about merit, merit system, and merit history. They even don't know what is merit, what is merit system, and their roles in our forum. However, for real users in the forum, sometimes we are in beds, or out of connections to laptops or desktop computers, and we hesitate to log in accounts via mobile devices due to security reasons. In such cases, having rights to view merit history to read and learn from merited topics/ posts   have lots of meanings and be very helpful.

[marcotheminer]

New/un-registered users are most likely to be unaware of the different types of scams, taking away trust ratings from un-registered users is illogical. Bump

It's logical. If new users are browsing only, then whether or not a user is trusted on the forum isn't important. Guest users should use some common sense - not be influenced by an already skewed system of "reputation". If a guest users wants to deal with someone, they will very likely have to make an account, and will then see the trust score of that person.

[sandy-is-fine]

New/un-registered users are most likely to be unaware of the different types of scams, taking away trust ratings from un-registered users is illogical. Bump

If a guest users wants to deal with someone, they will very likely have to make an account, and will then see the trust score of that person.

That's not true since MOST of the scam sales are done off-site via Telegram, Selly and all the rest.  These folks have no reason to create an account UNTIL THEY GET SCAMMED.

Look at this OP:  "text me"  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5131277.0
Or this: "go to my scam website"  : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5133271.0
or this "go to my selly site" : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5129582.0
or "shoppy" site"  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5118213.0
or "telegram"  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5112116.0

ALL require no need to sign up and be able to see any "trust"   and there are hundreds like it just over the last 3 or 4 days.  This place is known to allow (NOT moderate) scammers and it draws them like flies to shit.  While seeing rep isn't the full answer it certainly will help a little especially for thos who find these scammers via Google.

[theymos]

Logged-out users will now see a warning in trust-enabled sections if more DT members neg-trust the topic starter than positive-trust him.

This increases the responsibility of DT members not to give negative trust for stupid reasons, but only for things that cause you to believe that the person is a scammer.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Here's what it looks like: