Who to believe in trust system.

[uchegod-21]

I saw someone's trust rating and I became confused about it. I will not mention the name of the person but I believe with the image I will share you can still know the person. I don't think I am doing the wrong thing or intruding the person's privacy because if you visit the person's profile, the information is available there for anyone to see.

A global moderator hilariousandco does not trust this person and he gave him a negative tag. And dropped a comment.

Looks like he's done a runner with a couple of users funds. Hopefully he returns at one point and reimburses people but not looking good

A staff Welsh trusted him and has this to say

Sold PS4 to Maidak. Good communication and great trader

The user has +9 and -7. Is like this person is confusing the community, he will do good things and also do bad things and put confusion among the DTs and the rest of the people.
Who to believe in this case, the moderator or the staff.

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[RapTarX]

Don't believe anyone; believe yourself.

Build up your own custom trust list.

Based on the given example, investigate the issue & find out the truth. Include people in your trust list who you think have sent the right feedback, exclude who you think have sent the wrong.

Even better if you can move on.

[DdmrDdmr]

<…>

It doesn’t really boil down to whom to believe, but rather to get a composition of the profile on your own, based, if you wish, on the provided trust ratings, and following through to reading the references that substantiate those trust ratings.

All in all, all entries could be true (or false), and the chronological order may be an indicative of a change of attitude or even of the person behind the account. It’s up to you to assess the situation, and to use that overall composition to interact or refrain doing so with that account.

[mocacinno]

I agree with the above posters, but also wanted to add a keyword: timestamps.... (eventough that's more or less what DdmrDdmr is saying in his answer)

It's perfectly possible for a user to have an impeccable reputation for many, many years,... but then proceed to do an (exit) scam cashing out said reputation.
In this case, you might see loads and loads of positive ratings (from DT members) being added for many years, and then suddenly negative ratings begin piling up. It's not that more recent ratings carry more weight per se, but usually for me they do. It's not because you did something nice for somebody else in 2014 i can still trust you today, but if you have loads of +ve from DT members in the last couple of months, odds are you're still a good guy/girl (and the odds of the account having changed hands are lower aswell).

But yeah, reading reference links, forming your own opinion, have a custom trust list, using the ignore button, looking at timestamps,... it all helps... It's not foolproof tough.

[suchmoon]

Who to believe in this case, the moderator or the staff.

Believe the calendar. If you look at the dates it's quite obvious that the user in question had some good trades and then scammed. There is no indication that the user came back and repaid the victims, so you should assume that the red ratings are still correct. Not that complicated.

Also provide links, makes it much easier for everyone to follow your question: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=35312

"Moderator" and "Staff" doesn't mean anything in this context.

Edit: LOL mocacinno beat me to it...

[Welsh]

I've added a neutral trust rating for the moment. I'll need to sit down, and have a look more throughly when I can. However, as for my trust rating, it was back in 2014, it appears up until that point, and a short time after Maidak was completing successful trades without any issues. Only after a certain amount of time after, did Maidak seem to start having issues with several users on the forum.

Unfortunately, a quick glance at the thread doesn't provide me with anything concrete, since the images, and the details have become a little blurred on exactly what happened. So, I've put a neutral tag on him for now.

Again, to echo what others have said, being a staff user should have zero weight when it comes to trust ratings left. Also, I'm not exactly the most active in terms of trading, and I don't actively use the trust system much. It would probably be a good idea if more users left me off their custom trust lists.

However, if there's any issues in the future with any of my ratings or you seek clarification on what my opinion is as of today, then just send a personal message, and I should be able to weigh in.

[BITCOIN4X]

When you don't know anyone online then you should do a good analysis before trusting them with money. A trust rating is something that can help you make a decision to trust it or not, but you should still verify everything before trusting it even if you find the user trustworthy because of the good trading lists he has had in the past. It's not proven to be 100% secure until you actually verify that the user can be trusted.

A good thing you can do is ask the user to sign message and prove himself before you trust him with money. You also can't trust DT with ve+10 for your 100 bitcoin safely, so don't trust anyone easily.

[Stalker22]

~
Is like this person is confusing the community, he will do good things and also do bad things and put confusion among the DTs and the rest of the people.

Well yeah, nothing is black or white, especially when it comes to human relations. It is all a spectrum and a very fine line.  

Who to believe in this case, the moderator or the staff.

No one. Trust yourself, and form your own opinion based on the evidence presented. Remember, you're allowed to think for yourself.

[uchegod-21]

Also provide links, makes it much easier for everyone to follow your question: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=35312

I did not provide link let it not be that I am calling out the person. I just use it to understand how trust work. But now Welsh has changed his rating to neutral. Hope I did not make someone unfortunate.

It's perfectly possible for a user to have an impeccable reputation for many, many years,... but then proceed to do an (exit) scam cashing out said reputation.
In this case, you might see loads and loads of positive ratings (from DT members) being added for many years, and then suddenly negative ratings begin piling up. It's not that more recent ratings carry more weight per se, but usually for me they do. It's not because you did something nice for somebody else in 2014 i can still trust you today, but if you have loads of +ve from DT members in the last couple of months, odds are you're still a good guy/girl (and the odds of the account having changed hands are lower aswell).

The quote above explained everything for me. That it is important to look at the date of the rating and also the reference if included. People changes with time. That someone is trustworthy 2017 does not mean he will remain trust worthy 2022.

[skarais]

The quote above explained everything for me. That it is important to look at the date of the rating and also the reference if included. People changes with time. That someone is trustworthy 2017 does not mean he will remain trust worthy 2022.

Right, and it's good that you now understand what the problem is. So I think you can lock the thread now that you have the answer to your question so I can assume the problem is solved.

I just suggest that you just need to be careful when making transactions even with those that seem trustworthy. Many users cannot be trusted with a lot of money because usually money can change the behavior of good people to become untrustworthy easily (not all of them).

[Welsh]

I did not provide link let it not be that I am calling out the person. I just use it to understand how trust work. But now Welsh has changed his rating to neutral. Hope I did not make someone unfortunate.

I haven't changed it per say, I've just added another rating which is neutral for the time being. I'll take a look at it in more depth when I've got time. I'll likely leave the old rating there, or change that to neutral depending on further investigation, since that was a legitimate trade at the time.  I at least appreciate the heads up, since I probably wouldn't have revisited it myself.

A good thing you can do is ask the user to sign message and prove himself before you trust him with money. You also can't trust DT with ve+10 for your 100 bitcoin safely, so don't trust anyone easily.

This wouldn't really prove anything, since if it's the original account owner that scammed, signing a message wouldn't prove they're innocent at all.

[PrimeNumber7]

I've added a neutral trust rating for the moment. I'll need to sit down, and have a look more throughly when I can. However, as for my trust rating, it was back in 2014, it appears up until that point, and a short time after Maidak was completing successful trades without any issues. Only after a certain amount of time after, did Maidak seem to start having issues with several users on the forum.

With respect to Maidak specifically, it appears that he was a successful trader for a number of years, then in mid-2014, it appears Maidak owed money to a number of people that he did not pay. There was a thread opened that alleges that Maidak defaulted on his obligations.

One of his victims, FFrankie (at the time killyou72) alleged he was owed some money, and in 2017, FFrankie confirmed that he was made whole. There is a post with a quote in which Maidak admitted that the owed some forum members money (the post itself has since been edited). It is unclear if everyone has been made whole, as Maidak said "They would be shvbd refuses to change his feedback....

If all of Maidak's victims were eventually made whole, IMO it would be appropriate to remove the negative ratings.

Years later, in 2021, Maidak created a thread that tried to sell his "account", that was later changed to him selling his twitter account.

Regarding the specific question in the OP: you need to use your good judgment when deciding if you should trust someone or not. You can review the text of what is writing on someone's trust wall, and any references to any feedback. In the case of Maidak specifically, it is always possible that someone was a successful trader one day and the next is not. So if there are a number of positive feedbacks and a number of subsequent negative feedbacks, assuming you believe the negative feedbacks, chances are it is not a good idea to trade with the person. If there is no clear chronological relationship between the positive and negative feedbacks, you will have to use your judgment to decide if the person is safe to trade with or not.

[Fivestar4everMVP]

People change, that's a fact, once a great and trusted person yesterday can become a rogue today.
Many people start out well but do not end well, this might clearly be the case here, and sometimes also, it's the other way round, some start out really bad and end up doing really well at last.

Probably this user started out very well, hence the positive trusts at first, but later on, he fell off balance, went rogue, and the negative trusts started rolling in, to confirm this, take a look at the shot below, take note the dates, he was good from November 2013 up until February 2015, from June 2015, he got he's first negative trust and he's been getting negative trust since then.

[Maidak]

I've added a neutral trust rating for the moment. I'll need to sit down, and have a look more throughly when I can. However, as for my trust rating, it was back in 2014, it appears up until that point, and a short time after Maidak was completing successful trades without any issues. Only after a certain amount of time after, did Maidak seem to start having issues with several users on the forum.

With respect to Maidak specifically, it appears that he was a successful trader for a number of years, then in mid-2014, it appears Maidak owed money to a number of people that he did not pay. There was a thread opened that alleges that Maidak defaulted on his obligations.

One of his victims, FFrankie (at the time killyou72) alleged he was owed some money, and in 2017, FFrankie confirmed that he was made whole. There is a post with a quote in which Maidak admitted that the owed some forum members money (the post itself has since been edited). It is unclear if everyone has been made whole, as Maidak said "They would be shvbd refuses to change his feedback....

If all of Maidak's victims were eventually made whole, IMO it would be appropriate to remove the negative ratings.

Years later, in 2021, Maidak created a thread that tried to sell his "account", that was later changed to him selling his twitter account.

Regarding the specific question in the OP: you need to use your good judgment when deciding if you should trust someone or not. You can review the text of what is writing on someone's trust wall, and any references to any feedback. In the case of Maidak specifically, it is always possible that someone was a successful trader one day and the next is not. So if there are a number of positive feedbacks and a number of subsequent negative feedbacks, assuming you believe the negative feedbacks, chances are it is not a good idea to trade with the person. If there is no clear chronological relationship between the positive and negative feedbacks, you will have to use your judgment to decide if the person is safe to trade with or not.

Thank you for your support, Yahh I paid back everyone,
Though I didn't scam anyone, I was just a victim of a bad group-buy trap, but I paid back everyone by doing an offline job and cutting off my salary.

I can't beg people to remove their tags throughout the year, I've my own business. But I've PM'd everyone with respect to give me at least a neutral trust by referring that I paid back the money. unfortunately, everyone refused.

[uchegod-21]

So I think you can lock the thread now that you have the answer to your question so I can assume the problem is solved.

I thank my goodness that I didn't lock the thread earlier. Assuming I did it would have deprived Maidak from saying his side of the story. It is good he has showed up and made a statement. It will now be fair to lock the thread any moment from now.

[nioctib2015]

I am neutral and do not side with anyone.
also with freedom of speech then i want to say..
  .. Maidak was once trusted (at a certain period) ,, also there is no harm in giving a second chance to change at this moment (anyone and not only Maidak)
not sure who spoke, but i remember the quote ''if not sure then neutral is the right choice''

[Maidak]

Now it seems a new drama is knocking at my door, 

[uchegod-21]

Now it seems a new drama is knocking at my door, 

I have seen the drama about to play, but I will not allow it. A brand new making his/her first post here.