Do type 2/3 flags apply when the damage is not monetary/financial/material?

[suchmoon]

"This user violated a casual or implied agreement with me, resulting in damages."

"This user violated a written contract with me, resulting in damages."

What the title says - do the above statements in flag descriptions mean only monetary/financial/material damage? I have a faint feeling this has already been discussed somewhere but I can't recall. Getting old is not fun.

I scanned the Trust Flags thread for "damage". It seems that quite a few people add "financial" to the word "damage" as if that's a fact but there is no clear definition of this. I'd prefer more precision in the flag text but absent that - what do we think the scope should be?

Hypothetical discussion only. Any specific cases are off topic. Alice and Bob and possibly Carol only. Thanks.

[actmyname]

You have entered an implied agreement with me by sharing the same plane of existence as my avatar, subsequently resulting in competitive spatial occupancy and molecular transformation. This has resulted in damages to my apex of potentiality and you have shifted the probability matrix of the incoming temporal paths.

Shame on you.I think there is a certain limit to how far you can equivocate semantics.

Not sure how legislature works in your scrag of the thicket, but we draw arbitrariness to a close by thinking about the intent of the law.

[suchmoon]

You have entered an implied agreement with me by sharing the same plane of existence as my avatar, subsequently resulting in competitive spatial occupancy and molecular transformation. This has resulted in damages to my apex of potentiality and you have shifted the probability matrix of the incoming temporal paths.

Shame on you.I think there is a certain limit to how far you can equivocate semantics.

I said no specific cases

So what's the limit then? Let's say someone damaged someone's privacy? Not flaggable? Even if it was spelled out in writing that Bob agrees to keep Alice's knismolagnia confidential?

[actmyname]

So what's the limit then? Let's say someone damaged someone's privacy? Not flaggable? Even if it was spelled out in writing that Bob agrees to keep Alice's knismolagnia confidential?

How about this? A user would have to prove causality apropos to the damages and that they had any significance, whatever type they were. That should handle the 'Alexander flagged Bob for making him cry' and other inane damages.

And recall what theymos wrote in the thread:

I think that several of the problems with Trust were because three different goals were being jammed into one system:
 1. Getting a general idea of someone's trade history and trustworthiness in one convenient location, sort of like reviews on sites like EBay.
 2. Warning newbies/guests who don't know how to research properly about high-risk people.
 3. Deterring scams by creating a cost to scamming (ie. you'll "lose" a veteran account).
[...]
Use-cases 2 and 3 will be handled by a new system of flags. You can create a flag using a link on a person's trust page.

The intent of flags then #2 and #3. Thus, one should only be flagging if the user in question is high-risk. Being offensive is not high-risk, nor is chronic tear-oppression. Or having an opinion.

[suchmoon]

So what's the limit then? Let's say someone damaged someone's privacy? Not flaggable? Even if it was spelled out in writing that Bob agrees to keep Alice's knismolagnia confidential?

How about this? A user would have to prove causality apropos to the damages and that they had any significance, whatever type they were. That should handle the 'Alexander flagged Bob for making him cry' and other inane damages.

They have a written contract. Alice requires to keep certain information confidential as part of a broader deal and Bob agrees. Are you saying that if Bob breaks the confidentiality clause then Alice would need to further damage her privacy (disclose why she wanted the information to be confidential to begin with) in order to flag Bob? Sounds a bit asymmetrical, doesn't it?

It may be more moot with implied contracts but let me try another example. Bob sells Carol a trinket. Carol gives Bob her shipping address and phone number. Bob posts it publicly. In a trade there is a reasonable expectation that such information would be private. Can Bob be flagged?

[BIT-BENDER]

I think the word TRUST -is more of an action- example
+You trust someone with something
+You trust someone take/knowledge/word about something.
+ You trust you are safe with this person.

From the trust flag thread by @theymos
Type 2 flag

2. Warning newbies/guests who don't know how to research properly about high-risk people.

the word High risk, in this type to its -to newbies and others- it's a resounding warning, of the risk, the risk can be -material- which can be off many kind/types, there is a risk of losing.

Type 3
 

3. Deterring scams by creating a cost to scamming (ie. you'll "lose" a veteran account).

This is a repercussion/backlash for scammers so they know.

Trust goes wrong/fails -something is likely to be lost/stolen-

[suchmoon]

From the trust flag thread by @theymos
Type 2 flag
[...]

I don't think those numbers in his post correspond to the flag types as we typically refer to them. Both type 2 and 3 (implied contract and written contract) flags would apply to bullet point #3 in theymos post. Type 1 flag (newbie warning) would be point #2 and red trust would be #1.

Here are the flag types (note that they're not numbered, we just refer to them as type 1/2/3 for brevity):

Choose the type of flag. If one of these cases does not apply, then a flag is not warranted.
   Due to various concrete red flags, I believe that anyone dealing with this user has a high risk of losing money. (This flag will only be shown to guests/newbies.)
   This user violated a casual or implied agreement with me, resulting in damages.
   This user violated a written contract with me, resulting in damages.

Yes, it can be made more confusing in case anyone is wondering.

[Upgrade00]

They have a written contract. Alice requires to keep certain information confidential as part of a broader deal and Bob agrees. Are you saying that if Bob breaks the confidentiality clause then Alice would need to further damage her privacy (disclose why she wanted the information to be confidential to begin with) in order to flag Bob? Sounds a bit asymmetrical, doesn't it?

It may not be necessary to disclose why she wanted it confidential, proving that you entered an agreement to keep it that way and such agreement was broken would show a likely desired outcome has been compromised due to the actions of Bob, and this could potentially lead to loses. There's also the possibility the information was sold by Bob to competitors implying financial motivation and making it a scam.
The why she wanted it confidential shouldn't have to be proven, as far as they both consented to such conditions and confidentiality was broken, leading to damages.

It may be more moot with implied contracts but let me try another example. Bob sells Carol a trinket. Carol gives Bob her shipping address and phone number. Bob posts it publicly. In a trade there is a reasonable expectation that such information would be private. Can Bob be flagged?

Yes, imo, there is obvious damage to her privacy and Bob could have potentially sold her personal information to the dark web, so there is a possible financial motivation which puts such case beyond the feedback system.

In the old feedback system, there was an option to include "risked BTC" IIRC, this option was removed after the launch of trust flags as feedbacks no longer mediated scams.
I think, risked BTC was meant to equate general damages, didn't explicitly have to be in Bitcoin. If you risked USD, you can equate it's BTC value at the time, if you risked a private trade deal information which was leaked, you could equate the value of potential profits lost, due to such leak.
If there's damage to you and a sort of financial motivation for the suspected culprit (even though not always quantifiable) a flag should be appropriate.

[BIT-BENDER]

Bob sells Carol a trinket. Carol gives Bob her shipping address and phone number. Bob posts it publicly. In a trade there is a reasonable expectation that such information would be private. Can Bob be flagged?

Bob's action was irrational/unreasonable to my knowledge the privacy of a client/customer should be protected. Bob can be flagged so other know privacy can be compromised by MR Bob. But if I use what I do which is tell whoever am running a deal with -like Bob- to keep my identity safe, most people rendering services uses some deals to advertise their services.
 So someone like Carol even have a better case -bridge of agreement- because an agreement was made -if Bob accepts to keep to privacy-.

[DdmrDdmr]

I like to consider the Trust System and Flag addition as a system aimed at evaluating and protecting fraud on commerce (/scam) related aspects. As such, this kind of falls in line with the bolded part here:

<…> As I mentioned in the flags topic, there are three very separate scopes for trust which need to be kept separate. For scammer flags, the point is to damage the person's forum existence in order to deter future scamming. This is a very serious action which should have a very high bar. Because it's so serious, I only want actual agreements considered here. In legal systems, there's additionally such a thing as tort law and statutory law, but the forum is very far from having the kind of cohesive legal system which could handle such things in a halfway-reasonable way. The only thing that approaches clear-cut scamming is violation of an agreement. If non-contractual offenses are allowed in the scammer-flag space, then we're going to get factions of forum users constantly fighting each other, which is exactly what I'm trying to stop. I'm sick and tired of big escalations and never-ending feuds over highly-subjective and/or relatively minor things.<…>

The bolded text was bolded in the original quoted post, but shows a line of intent, and has scamming as its centrepiece.

Normally scamming would be related to money:

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/scam

an illegal plan for making money, especially one that involves tricking people:

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/scam

A scam is an illegal trick, usually with the purpose of getting money from people or avoiding paying tax.

I would therefore relate contract flags to financial loses.

[suchmoon]

~

According to another dictionary it's not necessarily about money:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/scam

scam noun
a fraudulent or deceptive act or operation

scam verb
1: to deceive and defraud (someone)
2: to obtain (something, such as money) by a scam

And it would be quite slippery if it was only about money - for example if Alice and Bob barter services and Bob fails to deliver I'd say it's still a scam even if money is not involved. Now if Alice provides a service and wants confidentiality in return (get your mind out of the gutter) then confidentiality must have value for Alice, and the service must have value for Bob, but it wouldn't be a scam if Bob didn't hold up his end of the deal?

[o_e_l_e_o]

If someone had sold items or made trades on the forum, and delivered those items promptly and without issue or completed the trades promptly and without issue, but had also revealed private information about the other party while doing so, I would definitely want to know about it and I would absolutely want to avoid trading with that person.

I know it varies between people, but personally I would class a breach of my privacy to be far more damaging than a loss of a significant amount of bitcoin.

[DdmrDdmr]

One thing does not lesser the other, nor are they necessarily disjoint set. The way I see it, the Trust system had a commercial spirit in it’s origin, but since has been used for all sorts of reasons that differ from the conceptual idea behind it. The flag system seemed complementary element to the Trust system, but rather more specific and compelling on it’s aim, and with some inbuilt minimal rules to allow for the cases to be supported or detracted by others.

Being on a hypothetical terrain, as stated in the OP, a breach in confidentiality may lead to grave consequences for at least one of the parties. If could equate to an NDA being broken by unveiling patent, trade or corporate strategy, which could obviously lead to a potential financial loss. On the other hand, my housemaid (were I to have one) revealing the size on my underwear does not. So once again, it depends on the derivable consequences and their nature.

I often think there should be a Trust System for commerce, and a (completely different) whatchamacallit type of system for everything else, although the fineprint for the aim and scope for each system should be very clear.

[GazetaBitcoin]

"This user violated a casual or implied agreement with me, resulting in damages."

"This user violated a written contract with me, resulting in damages."

What the title says - do the above statements in flag descriptions mean only monetary/financial/material damage? I have a faint feeling this has already been discussed somewhere but I can't recall.

I believe this is the thread you were looking for: theymos could you sticky your intent on the reputation board.

And this is theymos' opinion:

LoyceV's guide seems reasonable.

The system is for handling trade risk, not for flagging people for good/bad posts/personalities/ideas.

In part, the idea of the system is to organically build up & enforce a community consensus on appropriate trading behavior. However, those parts of the consensus which have less agreement should be more difficult to apply than those parts which have widespread agreement, and also subject to change. Everyone agrees that if Alice promises Bob 1 BTC for $8000 and doesn't pay it, that warrants flags & ratings, and it should be very easy to create these flags and ratings. If Alice promotes something without disclosing that she was paid to do so, and the thing later turns out to be a scam, then 65% of the community will call this highly shady behavior, and 35% will call it not a contractual violation and therefore more-or-less fine; it may be possible to make flags and/or ratings stick, but the people doing so should feel as though they are on less solid ground, and maybe the community consensus on this will shift against them (depending on the exact facts of the case, politicking by interested parties, etc.). I refuse to set down a single "correct" philosophy on ethical behavior, since this would permanently divide & diminish the community, and I am not such a wise philosopher that I feel the moral authority to do so.

For ratings and type-1 flags, proactive scam-hunting is good! But as explained above, if you're acting near the edge of community consensus, it should be more difficult. If the community is not overwhelmingly behind you on your scam hunting, then it's probably going to end up creating more drama, division, paranoia, and tribalism than the possible scam-avoidance benefit is worth.

Ratings

 - Leave positive ratings if you actively think that trading with this person is safer than with a random person.
 - Leave negative ratings if you actively think that trading with the person is less safe than with a random person.
 - Unstable behavior could very occasionally be an acceptable reason for leaving negative trust, but if it looks like you're leaving negative trust due to personal disagreements, then that's inappropriate. Ratings are not for popularity contests, virtue signalling, punishing people for your idea of wrongthink, etc.
 - Post-flags, ratings have less impact. It's only an orange number. Some amount of "leave ratings first, ask questions later" may be OK. For example, if you thought that YoBit was a serious ongoing scam, the promotion of which was extremely problematic, then it'd be a sane use of the system to immediately leave negative trust for everyone wearing a YoBit signature. (I don't necessarily endorse this viewpoint or this action: various parts of the issue are highly subjective. But while I wouldn't blame people for excluding someone who did this, I wouldn't call it an abuse of the system.)
 - Exercise a lot of forgiveness. People shouldn't be "permanently branded" as a result of small mistakes from which we've all moved past. Oftentimes, people get a rating due to unknowingly acting a bit outside of the community's consensus on appropriate behavior, and such ratings may indeed be appropriate. But if they correct the problem and don't seem likely to do it again, remove the rating or replace it with a neutral. Even if someone refuses to agree with the community consensus (ie. they refuse to back down philosophically), if they're willing to refrain from the behavior, their philosophical difference should not be used to justify a rating. For example, in the YoBit mass-ratings example above, ratings should be immediately removed after the person removes the signature, even if they maintain and continue to argue that they didn't do anything wrong. If someone agrees to "follow 'the law' without agreeing to it", that should be enough.
 
Flags

 - Use flags only for very serious and clear-cut things. They're an expression of ostracizing someone from the community due to serious, provable misconduct or really obvious red flags.
 - Use type-1 flags when the message which will be shown to newbies/guests is appropriate: "the creator of this topic displays some red flags which make them high-risk. [...] you should proceed with extreme caution."
 - Use type-2 and type-3 flags only if the person is absolutely guilty of contractual violations. Imagine a legal system in which there is no law but contract law, and consider if this person would owe damages.

Trust lists

 - If you find someone who has sent accurate trust actions and has no inaccurate/inappropriate trust actions, add them to your trust list. Inclusion in trust lists is a more a mark of useful contributions than your trust in them, though at least a little trust is necessary.
 - If you think that someone is not using the trust system appropriately, or if you disagree with some of their subjective determinations, exclude them from your trust list. If bad outcomes happen in DT, this is partly the fault/responsibility of: the bad actors themselves; DT1 who include the bad-actors; DT1 who don't exclude the bad-actors; DT1 who include or don't exclude failing DT1; anyone else who includes failing DT1. While it's best to spend some time trying to fix things at the lower levels before escalating it, it's reasonable to complain to any of those people, as I did regarding Lauda that one time, for example. (Of course, the system itself is probably also imperfect, and that's on me.)

Is this what you needed?

[TECSHARE]

There needs to be a firm line between documented theft, fraud, and illegal actions, and everything else or else not only is the penalty meaningless, the penalty itself becomes a liability and a security threat. This is why documentation of theft, violation of a contractual agreement, or violation of applicable laws need to be a requirement.

That said, in order for a contract to be valid there needs to be an exchange of value. If there is no financial loss, then there was never any exchange of value, and therefore no contract.

Exchange of value could be as simple as I will help you build your website for a discount as long as you don't tell anyone. The exchange of value is your time, and the damages are in reputation and ability to charge a higher amount to customers. This is all material while also being based completely upon words and labor. The important part is the claims of damages are documented and demonstrable. Entertaining using this special reserved penalty for the harshest of violations HAS to be reserved for documented offenses, otherwise the punishment itself becomes a vector to perpetrate and facilitate fraud via false, mistaken, or frivolous accusations.

[suchmoon]

Is this what you needed?

I had seen it but unfortunately it doesn't directly address the financial vs non-financial damage in the context of flags.


I would think that most of us here value privacy so... if we don't need to prove that bitcoins stolen in a scam have value and are not merely numbers in the internet, the similarly we shouldn't need to prove that a breach of privacy is damaging. But I'm not entirely certain we're there yet. I have a feeling that if a type 2 or 3 flag is raised for privacy/confidentiality/NDA issues it would be very contentious.

[Rizzrack]

What the title says - do the above statements in flag descriptions mean only monetary/financial/material damage?

Yes.
As theymos said flags are used for trades. Something you can attach a monetary value.
The fact that Alice breaks Bob's trust exposing sensitive info, secret details ... these have a very subjective financial value. "My info is priceless to me". Others may think that info is worthless.

Emotional damage doesn't count online IMO.

So to share my two cents if Alice damages Bob's privacy then Bob should just add Alice to his ignore list and maybe leave a trust feedback and rant in a few threads in reputation...
Be careful who you trust Bobby (who ever you are)