What will happen with deceased DT members' feedback?

[TheBeardedBaby]

It's not the most pleasant subject to talk about but still comes as an issue.

After the sad news that we lost one more valuable member of our community, some of the ratings left from a DT2 member can no longer be changed.

Late example is this thread .

Typical case of a hacked account, the real owner signed a message from his old posted address, some DT members tagged the account and now after the new recovery system is working very well, the account was recovered back to the original owner.

After the recovery all of the negative ratings were removed except one, the one from Zepher (rest in peace buddy).
See here :
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=147307

Zepher's trust list > http://loyce.club/trust/2019-04-06_Sat_20.17h/369879.html

I don't think Zepher will ever be able to remove the negative rating. Instead some DT members left a positive ratings to counter the negative one.
Still I don't think this is the best solution. I guess the admins should remove such obvious ratings, as here is no doubt that Zepher would remove it if he could.

What you think people?

[1714016436]

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[1714016436]

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[1714016436]

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[o_e_l_e_o]

It is clear from the link you included to Loyce's site that many users, including many DT1 users, value Zepher's feedback. Just because an account is inactive (for any reason), it does not invalidate all the previous feedback they have left. I think in this case it should simply be a case of an admin deleting that single, no longer accurate feedback.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

I think the best option was the counter positive feedback as this isn't a critical situation that theymos has to step in. Him doing so in such a minor situation might open a reason for more individuals (you know those I'm taking about) to appeal for their negative feedback to be removed too. I think the only time theymos has to step in is when the feedbacks can soiled the users reputation outside forum and it's a false feedback resulting to arrest or government intervention. If a counter positive feedback can do the trick I see no reason why admin has to be involved.

[The Cryptovator]

On this special case theymos can help, but it look like trust moderation. Perhaps more people's will claim to admin for remove feedback's in near future. So counter feedback's is appropriate in my opinions. I don't think admin should involve with this kind of case. After many case will raise up. I believe this kind of case will found very rare, so it's possible to resolved by counter feedback's.

[LoyceV]

I think in this case it should simply be a case of an admin deleting that single, no longer accurate feedback.

Agreed.
Short-term, it would be good if Admin can remove the feedback.
Long-term, and I'm thinking years here, I expect the number of inclusions to drop. Until then, keeping him in their Trust list seems like the least users can do to honour his memory. If Admin can intervene by removing the unwarranted feedback, users can keep him in their Trust lists longer.

[Jet Cash]

I added a positive as well. Perhaps we could have an alert if/when these should be removed.

[suchmoon]

I think the best option was the counter positive feedback as this isn't a critical situation that theymos has to step in. Him doing so in such a minor situation might open a reason for more individuals (you know those I'm taking about) to appeal for their negative feedback to be removed too. I think the only time theymos has to step in is when the feedbacks can soiled the users reputation outside forum and it's a false feedback resulting to arrest or government intervention. If a counter positive feedback can do the trick I see no reason why admin has to be involved.

I wouldn't call it minor nor do I think that someone would be able to take advantage of it.

At any rate, I had doubled-up Zepher's ratings a while ago due to Og excluding him from DT2 so even if someone else would successfully appeal Zepher's neg it wouldn't matter and I'm sure other DT members would evaluate the situation as well. I'd say theymos should remove this one.

[erikalui]

I don't think one-two negative feedback matters so much till some other DT members can give the member a counter positive feedback. It was sad to know one DT member passed away but thinking about his wrong/right feedback doesn't sound good. The admin shouldn't be asked for such small things that don't really make a difference for the user who can trade with the counter feedback freely.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

In general I think if a DT member dies, his trust is still valid and I don't see a reason why it should be deleted.  The only exceptions to this are cases where someone might have successfully appealed the neg.  For example, if I suddenly died and one of the members I'd tagged for account selling had somehow turned into an extremely trusted member, then my feedback should be removed.  That's the kind of case which would have resulted in a successful appeal for me to remove it.

What happens when a DT member dies and no one knows about the death?  If it's a DT1 member, the lack of activity would remove the DT1 weight of the feedback, but he'd still be DT2 if I'm not mistaken.  It's a valid issue since a lot of members here don't really know each other and wouldn't really be aware that someone died.  Zepher was an exceptional case because he was active in a tight community like the collectibles one, but for a typical scam-tagging DT member?  It's not very likely someone would become aware of their passing IMO.

[Jet Cash]

The death of members is quite a serious problem, and not just for DT issues. My partner uses a Chromebook for emails and watching history, health and cooking videos on You Tube, but she has no idea how to recover my Bitcoin in the event of my death. Maybe we could start a trusted members club to help in these situations.

[o_e_l_e_o]

If it's a DT1 member, the lack of activity would remove the DT1 weight of the feedback, but he'd still be DT2 if I'm not mistaken.

This is correct. I can think of many reasons, ranging from everything from physical or mental health to various life events or circumstances, which would make an account suddenly become permanently inactive. As you say, if you or I disappeared from the forum tomorrow, it is highly unlikely that any other user would ever know why.

There are three potential solutions which I can see:
1 - All feedbacks are left as is, and the user has to be excluded from DT or have their ratings countered if not appropriate
2 - The community discuss and petition the admin to remove the inappropriate rating, while leaving all the other accurate ratings, as we are doing here
3 - There is a recent active requirement for you to be added to DT2 - much like you must have been active in the previous 3 days to become DT1, perhaps you have to have been active in the last 6 months to appear on DT2. This would not prevent users from adding the user in question to their own personal trust list, just that their ratings would not show up in DT.

[Quickseller]

In general I think if a DT member dies, his trust is still valid and I don't see a reason why it should be deleted.  The only exceptions to this are cases where someone might have successfully appealed the neg.  For example, if I suddenly died and one of the members I'd tagged for account selling had somehow turned into an extremely trusted member, then my feedback should be removed.  That's the kind of case which would have resulted in a successful appeal for me to remove it.

Your trust ratings are based on your judgement of what is deserving of a tag. Your judgment is subject to change over time as you gain additional insight and experience. You may leave a rating today that you would disagree with in the future. There is no universal criterion for what deserves a rating (this is part of a larger problem with the trust system, but that is another discussion).

The question ultimately is who gets to decide if someone’s appeal to have a rating removed is successful? If you are around, then the answer is you, and this is based on your judgment. If you are not here because you passed away, are retired from the forum, or otherwise, then the decision becomes complicated. If someone else, or a group of people gets to decide then those who have you on their trust lists may not trust the judgment of this group of people. If you are alive but are (temporarily) away from the forum, perhaps unexpectedly, you might not agree with the decision of whoever decides the appeal, and if the rating is removed and you disagree then adding it back on would be controversial.

My suggestion would be to treat this as if someone will not remove a particular rating. If this means you take any particular action, or don’t take any particular actions, I would do the same in this case.

[bones261]

My suggestion would be to treat this as if someone will not remove a particular rating. If this means you take any particular action, or don’t take any particular actions, I would do the same in this case.

In this particular case, Zepher had already made his intentions clear.

Signed messages are valid.


@OP - I have tagged your account with a temporary negative rating until such time as you regain access to it.

Once you do, shoot me a PM from both this account, the hacked account, along with a link to this thread, and I will happily remove the rating.

Cheers

I have already advised the particular member to contact theymos to see if he will remove Zepher's negative rating since the original owner recovered his account. I hope this does come to theymos' attention and the negative trust is removed since Jet Cash's and my counter rating are only patches, and does not help restore the person's account to the trust score that they deserve.

[Harlot]

On cases like this I think its possible for you to call the attention of theymos. On SwingFirst's case I think we can already confirm that it is in the hands of the owner himself and the only thing left is the negative trust given by Zepher. Manually removing the trust might be more challenging compared to removing Zepher's DT status so SwingFirst really need to ask theymos for assistance on this part.

[TECSHARE]

In my opinion changing ratings for inactive accounts is a rabbit hole we do not want to go down and will inevitably create more avenues for manipulation and abuse. I think that if a user is trusted, they should appeal to other users to leave them positive ratings to counteract the negative rating, specifically noting the situation at hand with a referenced thread. This should rectify the situation to a large degree.

[bones261]

In my opinion changing ratings for inactive accounts is a rabbit hole we do not want to go down and will inevitably create more avenues for manipulation and abuse. I think that if a user is trusted, they should appeal to other users to leave them positive ratings to counteract the negative rating, specifically noting the situation at hand with a referenced thread. This should rectify the situation to a large degree.

Unfortunately, the way that the trust score is tabulated, it is not fair to SwingFirst. He has 3 positive comments, followed by Zepher's negative, followed by Jet Cash's and my counter trust. SwingFast's current score is 1 when it should be 30. This is an exception case; however, since we know Zepher is dead and Zepher made it clear what his intentions were in a post when he left the negative rating.
What makes it worse is that each unique positive rating that SwingFirst receives from now on will only add 1 point to his trust score instead of slowly counting up to 10 points toward his trust score.

If you assume that you have no negative ratings then it is easy. Only ratings from people who are in your trust network are taken into consideration. For each person/account that gives you positive trust you get one trust point (the number on the very left) for each month since that account left you the first positive rating with a maximum of 10 trust points from each person.

The second number is the number of people who have given you negative trust.

The third number is the number of people who have given you positive trust.

If the last rating is your first negative rating then the highest score you can have is three question marks. The number of negative ratings you have, to the power of two is the number of trust points that are removed from your trust score (so if you have two negative ratings then 2² trust points are subtracted from your trust score, and if you have four negative trust ratings then you have 2⁴ trust points removed from your trust score). If you have more unique positive trust ratings then the number of negative trust points that your negative trust removes, then your trust score is the number of unique positive trust ratings since your first negative rating minus the number of negative trust ratings.

I believe the above accurately explains it, however the code is below:

Code:

if there are no negative ratings
	score = 0
	for each rating, oldest to newest
		if this rater has already been counted
			continue
		score += min(10, round_up(months since rating))
else
	score = unique_positive - 2^(unique_negative)
	if score >= 0
		start_time = time of first negative
		score = unique_positive since start_time - unique_negative since start_time
		if(score < 0)
			return ??? (orange)
			
move score to range [-9999,9999]
return score

This algorithm is 

[TECSHARE]

In my opinion changing ratings for inactive accounts is a rabbit hole we do not want to go down and will inevitably create more avenues for manipulation and abuse. I think that if a user is trusted, they should appeal to other users to leave them positive ratings to counteract the negative rating, specifically noting the situation at hand with a referenced thread. This should rectify the situation to a large degree.

Unfortunately, the way that the trust score is tabulated, it is not fair to SwingFirst. He has 3 positive comments, followed by Zepher's negative, followed by Jet Cash's and my counter trust. SwingFast's current score is 1 when it should be 30. This is an exception case; however, since we know Zepher is dead and Zepher made it clear what his intentions were in a post when he left the negative rating.
What makes it worse is that each unique positive rating that SwingFirst receives from now on will only add 1 point to his trust score instead of slowly counting up to 10 points toward his trust score.

Not fair according to who? Why is it the entire community now has to suffer a potential exploit because this individual user did not secure their account correctly? Yes it sucks, but if there are not standards then it is a continual never ending slow creep toward abuse. SwingFast made a mistake, they should bear the responsibility for it, not pass it on to the community as a whole.

[Quickseller]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5129811.msg50532002#msg50532002

^^I am not 100% sure that is the most up to date information, although I don’t recall it being any different than what I posted.

The above is why I don’t think it is appropriate to simply add positive ratings to counter the negative. My suggestion is to act as if he will not remove the rating, which technically is true (absent action from theymos).
What specifically should be done when someone leaves up an inaccurate rating is up for debate. However my opinion is they should not be in the DT network and if they have left other good/accurate ratings, then others can review the ratings and echo them if they feel it is appropriate.

This wouldn’t apply in this case, but if they leave additional negative ratings that others deem accurate they can also be echoed.

[TECSHARE]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5129811.msg50532002#msg50532002

However my opinion is they should not be in the DT network and if they have left other good/accurate ratings, then others can review the ratings and echo them if they feel it is appropriate.

This is also a viable solution to this issue without playing the game of moderating trust ratings from the top down.

[bones261]

Not fair according to who? Why is it the entire community now has to suffer a potential exploit because this individual user did not secure their account correctly? Yes it sucks, but if there are not standards then it is a continual never ending slow creep toward abuse. SwingFast made a mistake, they should bear the responsibility for it, not pass it on to the community as a whole.

     If this was a normal case, everyone who had left the negative rating for the account being hacked would have removed the negative rating because it no longer applies. However, Zepher is dead, so that is just not possible at all. Sure SwingFirst's probably made a small mistake, but why should he not be restored to whole while someone else who made similar mistakes gets to get their account made whole. It isn't SwingFirst's fault that Zepher died. SwingFirst's getting restored back to whole as much as possible is the very definition of "fair."
    Personally, I don't have Zepher on my trust list. However, I'm not going to ask 19 DT1 members to remove him either.