Default Trust List: Time to Ban Groups With Ulterior Motives and Agendas ?

[JollyGood]

After a brief look at the DT list, a lot can be said about the patterns that emerge: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;dtview

The point I noted however was it was near enough always a political move by certain members of a certain language board that always grouped together to add to a trust or distrust list. On occasion they have a helper or two from the global board but usually the same gang with their ulterior motives have tried one way or another to manipulate the system that this forum provides.

Recently the group of users that tried (and some managed) to cheat their way to DT1 by participating in merit abuse and fake trust circles were tagged heavily by DT users after they were exposed. Two aims of theirs were exposed, firstly they wanted to participate in a particular signature campaign which in their own words was lucrative (make of that what you will) and second they wanted to present themselves as the champions of their local board users - again with an agenda where they end up sitting as some sort of power players on top of the pile in their local board. Though their plans have been thwarted the issue remains a serious one.

My question is when people include or exclude users based on broad political affiliations keeping their own aims and agendas in mind with regards to getting some sort of status or power rather than including/excluding users on merit alone and doing it in a way which is the closest way to apply the rules as they were set up to used, should those users be allowed back as DT regardless of whether they are again part of a merit abuse or fake trust circle? Or should there be some sort of period they cannot become DT again regardless of how much they try to get other users from a local board or a couple of global board members to play along with them?

I would advocate a minimum mandatory a period of 18-24 months of exclusion from DT if a user has been exposed as being part of a merit abuse or fake trust circle. Those that can be seen alongside them sharing the same trust and exclusions (in what can be deemed as being probably planned to manipulate the system) should be banned from being DT too. What would be your views?

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[Foxpup]

At least one such group has already been permanently blacklisted from DT, though that case was a lot more clear cut since they weren't even trying to hide their ulterior motives.

[TECSHARE]

I suspect you have ulterior motives. As a result all of your arguments are void and you should be shot in to space. Anyone who agrees with me is above reproach, and anyone who disagrees with me is participating in a conspiracy to manipulate the trust system. It is known, and so it shall be done. As The Grand Poobah gate keeper I so decree.

[suchmoon]

certain members of a certain language board

Racist LOL

What would be your views?

Let it go. Some recent moves by the Turkish DT1 members and the bottom part of Russian DT1 members (there, I named the groups, no need to beat around the bush) have been very questionable but I don't think you can prove it, at least not to the point where you can ask theymos to blacklist them.

OTOH, it would be nice if the largely dormant majority of DT1 members could spare a few minutes to look at it and make some exclusions if necessary but I've learned to not hold my breath in these cases - not good for my health.

[Timelord2067]

They're not "groups" of people, rather, they are "gangs" - very much in the organised crime syndicate context of the word.  There are various threads concerning these gangs and their proliferation here on BitCoinTalk.  It's clear theymos is reluctant to do anything about them as they are too entrenched in the administration of the forum.  Naturally, these gangs have a mob mentality and will resort to all kinds of threats and intimidation to silence opposition - look to how quickly they come here to ridicule your thread.

[Lauda]

This is long overdue I am afraid, or the very least we need to raise the voting requirement for DT 1.

Those that can be seen alongside them sharing the same trust and exclusions (in what can be deemed as being probably planned to manipulate the system) should be banned from being DT too. What would be your views?

Try sending an inquiry to one of the local forum DT groups in case you have a rating you disagree with, you have been rated by them or you have been excluded. You are unlikely to receive a response unless you position high i.e. present a danger to them - this indicates behind the scenes collusion.

[PrimeNumber7]

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Two aims of theirs were exposed, firstly they wanted to participate in a particular signature campaign which in their own words was lucrative (make of that what you will) and second they wanted to present themselves as the champions of their local board users - again with an agenda where they end up sitting as some sort of power players on top of the pile in their local board.

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Neither of these issues are of particular concern to me. If a group of people want to pretend to more trustworthy than they actually are, I am not bothered with them stroking their egos. This does not mean that I condone this (I don't), nor that I would take seriously anyone who it is pointed out has done this (I wouldn't take them seriously). Where I draw the line is when a group of people tries to harm others by stealing money they have no legitimate claim to. This may be their long term goal, but I have not seen evidence they have tried this, and it would be speculation without basis that this is their goal, among recent groups.

I do think the risk of a group manipulating the system with the long term goal of harming others by stealing money is real.

I don't think the solution is to exclude people who are manipulating the system is the answer. My reading of the current requirements is that DT selection is intended on being partially political. Over time those who wish to manipulate the system will get better at evading detection. There are some people (I will not name, privately, nor publicly) who I have noticed over the last few months that my personal intuition says are up to no good. There are also enough people that have (probably) legitimately earned a lot of merit and/or positive trust quickly that those who want to tinker with the trust system can study and emulate to eventually manipulate the trust system.

I believe the problem is at the protocol level. The current system is intended to be nearly 100% 'hands off' and reflect something close to a pure liberation system. The problem with this is that most people may 'play by the rules' but certain people may not 'play fairly' and take advantage of everyone else.

I am not sure what the solution is. I will think about what might improve the protocol and come back if I can think of a good suggestion.

[JollyGood]

Thank you for the link Foxy.

I read that thread in detail, it was going back some time beyond the time frame I was referring to but I understand the point that theymos made and how he took action. A whole host of users were blacklisted but what was also interesting were the links that trusted members were posting about what else was going on. Account farming and DT manipulations have been going on a very long time. As long as actions will be taken and names of conspirators posted publicly would make a great deterrent for others.

Recently when a newbie copper member (Exchange Support https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2757830) came along and posted regarding how great (the scam) coinsbit exchange was, he was defending something that could not rationally be defended. He never once posted in the coinsbit thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5185065.0) which is pumped to the maximum by sock-puppets but instead chose "to defend the honour of his favourite exchange" for some reason. He created a thread in the hope to turn public opinion against me but that did not happen. The title does make me chuckle somewhat "JollyGood undeservedly post me red trust": https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5226808.0

Since the user in question paid for membership it means they are losing out financially when they get tagged and the account is no longer able to function in the way it was intended (to spread propaganda or to create other forms of mischief), it means that user will now have to create other accounts in an attempt to continue the process of deception. I am not suggesting all new users should be paying to become members but when scammers are hit in the pocket no matter how small/big the loss - it must hurt them and that is a good way to get them to re-think their strategy/scam.

At least one such group has already been permanently blacklisted from DT, though that case was a lot more clear cut since they weren't even trying to hide their ulterior motives.

[truth or dare]

This is long overdue I am afraid, or the very least we need to raise the voting requirement for DT 1.

Those that can be seen alongside them sharing the same trust and exclusions (in what can be deemed as being probably planned to manipulate the system) should be banned from being DT too. What would be your views?

Try sending an inquiry to one of the local forum DT groups in case you have a rating you disagree with, you have been rated by them or you have been excluded. You are unlikely to receive a response unless you position high i.e. present a danger to them - this indicates behind the scenes collusion.

Lol DT1 and merit cycling club is one huge collusion. Just look at the merit fans / recipients. The mutual DT Includes excludes. Not to mention you being caught red handed demanding your bitches like lfc remove their friends from DT or else. Or the latest red trust removal bartering episode. Ha, this forum is brilliant entertainment. I think we need to take more advise from scammers, extortionists, and shady escrows. Quick bump up the merit requirements to centralize power to the very most corrupt, dirty and self interested Theymos you have not done enough damage yet.

Please Theymos take your time and figure out how to properly blacklist real colluders and scammers like you pretended you wanted to do, before accidentally not doing it and removing your ~ near their account.

Then focus on removing all the other dangerous untrustworthy self serving scum from positions of trust.

If this " gang" is any worse than meta gang I would be shocked.

[JollyGood]

They would use the race card and call anybody racist whenever they saw something that did not agree with or were upset at being exposed. A handful of members tried to hijack the whole representation of the local language board but failed and shouted racist when they were called out for it.

No beating around the bush...  

... you correctly cited the handful of Turkish language board members but as you said theymos might not blacklist them. On the whole I am happy with the DT1 members that took action to ensure the users that colluded to cheat the system were knocked back down but as time went it seems through a series of other collaborations they are trying to get others from their local board to DT and at the same time they are trying to add to distrust lists all those that helped bring about the downfall of their plans last month. They do not want to mess around with certain DT users because they are deemed prominent and respected and for that reason they fear will not survive the backlash.

I probably will not dwell on this too much, you are right it is probably better to let it go but at least if DTs do take a look at the default trust list and see what political shenanigans are going on there, then they could start countering it by adding exclusions as and when necessary - that is why I highlighted the issue in this thread.

certain members of a certain language board

Racist LOL

What would be your views?

Let it go. Some recent moves by the Turkish DT1 members and the bottom part of Russian DT1 members (there, I named the groups, no need to beat around the bush) have been very questionable but I don't think you can prove it, at least not to the point where you can ask theymos to blacklist them.

OTOH, it would be nice if the largely dormant majority of DT1 members could spare a few minutes to look at it and make some exclusions if necessary but I've learned to not hold my breath in these cases - not good for my health.

[TECSHARE]

There are a lot of people here using the fact that their centralized control over the default trust is being diluted to include more members (by design) as evidence that manipulators are trying to gain control. The manipulators already have control. That was the entire point of increasing the size of the default trust list, so that it makes it that much more difficult for unilateral control of it to be maintained by manipulators. Of course the biggest manipulators want the default trust to be more restrictive. It makes it easier for them to manipulate to maintain control.

[JollyGood]

They should have been dealt with properly a long time ago, sadly this issue has dragged on. There is still a chance the forum administrators might take a look at how these imbeciles are colluding to manipulate the system. if they come down hard on them and start handing bans then this place will have a different outlook.

They're not "groups" of people, rather, they are "gangs" - very much in the organised crime syndicate context of the word.  There are various threads concerning these gangs and their proliferation here on BitCoinTalk.  It's clear theymos is reluctant to do anything about them as they are too entrenched in the administration of the forum.  Naturally, these gangs have a mob mentality and will resort to all kinds of threats and intimidation to silence opposition - look to how quickly they come here to ridicule your thread.

[Timelord2067]

They should have been dealt with properly a long time ago, sadly this issue has dragged on. There is still a chance the forum administrators might take a look at how these imbeciles are colluding to manipulate the system.

You only have to look down the list of flags and see where the clusters of opposition to a flag are and you will see where the gangs are:

Notice the cluster of opposition by one gang that runs between 20 and 30 opponents?

[JollyGood]

Ah yes I see it  

It is good to see some facts that can be checked at a click to see what is going on in the BPIP website regarding flags some of the ones you created against some of the Turkish board DT cheats did not have appropriate substance therefore lots of DTs (who know exactly what those imbeciles did with fake trust circles and merit abuse) ended up opposing some of the flags.

Notice the cluster of opposition by one gang that runs between 20 and 30 opponents?

[Timelord2067]

Ah yes I see it  

It is good to see some facts that can be checked at a click to see what is going on.

Notice the cluster of opposition by one gang that runs between 20 and 30 opponents?

I meant to add to my post that you'll probably find similar occurrences if you look at those who have created a significantly high numbers of flags - (discounting those who have created fake flags such as this guy who has a proven track record of fake flags: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5161689.0 )

Feel free to review my Flags and support or oppose as you see fit.

[JollyGood]

Thank you for the link. I looked at some of the flags and supported where I could. I will try to look at the others later when I have time to go through them.

I meant to add to my post that you'll probably find similar occurrences if you look at those who have created a significantly high numbers of flags - (discounting those who have created fake flags such as this guy who has a proven track record of fake flags: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5161689.0 )

Feel free to review my Flags and support or oppose as you see fit.