Dangerous and inappropriate use of Trust: giving positive Trust for Shitposters

[1miau]

Update: Locking this thread now because all abusers mentioned in our research are now removed from DT2.  


Giving out positive trust just because you like a person is already an issue because it somehow undermines what trust is about: documenting trades and therefore giving an indication if this account is trustworthy and unlikely to scam in a trade.
There are very strict guidelines if you give out positive trust in case no trade occurred: the account needs to be very trustworthy already and have a history of succesful trades. In some cases, positive trust is also justified for accounts making big contributions to the forum for quite a while, like exposing spam and scam and other outstanding contributions.
I’m all for keeping these requirements very high to give out a positive trust because if we lower our standards, positive trust will get a meaningless metric and carelessly distributed positive trust will encourage scams and abuse.
A positive trust should be well considered! If in doubt, give out a neutral trust!  


But giving out positive trust for shitposters is a new level of inapropriate use of trust, happening recently in our German local board.
I’ve tried to solve this case by negotiations via PM but the affected accounts didn’t show any willingness to change it to neutral (my recommendation).
In opposite: there were only cheeky replies to my PM and the abusers didn’t care at all.

Background: We have a few shitposters in our local board and they have no decency, like Unknown01, who was called out earlier by other members and I also added a neutral trust for Unknown01 recently for continued shitposting.
In regards of the new spots for ChipMixer in April 2022, I made a statement about general posting quality in the German discussion thread about signature campaigns. I wrote: "the posting quality should always be high, no matter if someone is in a signature campaign currently or wants to get / stay in one.".
I believe my viewpoint is very resonable because we all know what shitposters want: a quick buck in exchange for effort as low as possible, what often translates to shitposting. Shitposting needs to be discouraged.
I got attacked immediately by shitposter Unknown01 because I triggered him obviously. Instead of backing down and admitting his wrongdoing, he doubled down and spew a bunch of lies and defamations against myself.
He even insisted on posting his pyramid quotes, which are against the rules and there’s a separate thread for it, explaining that pyramid quotes are bad. I replied to him by pointing out to avoid pyramid quotes but he continued his childish behavior and didn’t even show any guilt.
Obviously, he was prouf of his shitposting.

Now, shitpost apologist MinoRaiola sided with Unknown01 and gave out a positive trust to “counter” my neutral trust.
Yes, he really countered a neutral trust with a positive trust on a shitposter account. He wrote (in German and he used no reference link):

"He is advocating for a harmonious community in the German local board. With such an empathetic nature and commitment to other users, my trust belongs to him. Nice to have you here. In a few months Unknown01 is active in the forum for 5 years  and started with a sympathetic posting "I’ve no clue, I want to learn""

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=1280964 (sent feedback).

Positive trust both from MinoRaiola and s0nix at Unknown01 account:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=1041310

This positive trust is a fucking joke. Of course Unknown01 is active for five years and constantly shitposting for a few bucks. If that’s a positive trust, everyone can give out positive trust for every 5 year old shitposter account.
In addition, Unknown01 sent a positive trust back to MinoRaiola for giving him a positive trust and his repeated shitpost apologia. According to them, a harmonious community is a community where shitposting is tolerated or encouraged.

Later, shitpost apologist and off-topic troll-poster s0nix joined their positive trust misuse and also added a positive feedback to Unknown01, which should be technically a neutral trust because it’s not justified to be positive.



s0nix and his friends are only using positive trust to bolster their accounts.  

The discussion happened in our Bounty Signature thread and was merged by mole0815 afterwards into a new topic, so my post about posting quailty is the first comment in this newly created topic by mole0815: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5392188.0

And I even PMed MinoRaiola, reminding him, that his behaviour is inappropriate use of Trust and his rating should be changed to neutral. I liked him the guide of LoyceV but he didn't care. MinoRaiola didn’t back down and instead sent an insulting PM back.


I’m not saying MinoRaiola, Unknown01 and s0nix committed a trust abuse, but it’s clearly not how the trust system should be used because it would get useless (and therefore dangerous) very quickly. It’s inappropriate use of trust and accounts misusing positive trust should be excluded from our trust lists as soon as possible.
In addition, encouraging shitposters by handing them out a positive trust is INSANE!
It’s encouraging spam and scam.
Every shitposter would start to increase their trust-score by farming trust with each other.
If MinoRaiola doesn’t like my neutral trust for Unknown01’s shitposting he should also use a neutral trust. That’s how it works, if he wants to show his support for shitposters but he refused to change it to neutral, when I PMed him.

MinoRaiola has zero understanding of how the trust system works and should stay far away from it. Countering neutral trust with positive Trust on a Shitposter account is dangerous and inappropriate.
MinoRaiola was accused as a shitposter recently, too.  

I'm open to debate wether there should be further punishment like trust entries for bolstering their trustscores to get thier shitposter accounts into better signature campaigns and subvert the trust system.

See also BitcoinArena's research: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5404157.msg60449756#msg60449756

Conclusion:

~MinoRaiola
~Unknown01
~s0nix
~thandie

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[Unknown01]

So I refer here to go back to details on the post here:

I'm glad that the thread was opened, now we can finally put all the facts on the table and hopefully this will also calm down the situation on our German board. Just to be clear, my English isn't the best and as noted I'm from the German area so sorry for any mistakes in english that I write.
.....

I will only briefly comment on this so that the impression is not given that I am leaving his claims about me and thus tacitly accepting them.

As noted, 1miau claims that I´m a Shitposter, which I absolutely cannot understand and other colleagues from the board will also confirm this to you. I already refuted the points he made about why he gave me neutral trust in the previous post, which is quoted above, as lies. I also wonder if he is also questioning his judgment on Hhampuz since I have confirmation from Hhampuz that my posts are very much to his satisfaction.

I've been very active in the forum for many years now, I registered without knowing that there were bounty campaigns at all and I also wrote posts in times without bounty, so I'm not in the forum because of the campaigns. I always try to help colleagues and participate in discussions, talks, etc. If it's shitposting then 99.99% of the people in the entire forum only post such.

I have already made a few trades in the forum and have been able to prove myself to many colleagues as a helpful member, others will also confirm this to you. My technical understanding is not the best, which is why other colleagues often help me out and MinoRaiola has helped me so many times here, although he could certainly have cheated me many times, which didn't happen. So I do think that after years of support and help, a trust entry on my part is well warranted.

Of course, I won't say anything about his trust entry, Mino can take care of that. I´m sure that he too will establish his trust well

Best regards
Unknown


edit: I would also like to point out that I was even a Full member when the merit system was introduced and have earned 561 merits since then, do you think that a shitposter can really get so many merits from so many different people? Above all, 1miau always gave me merits himself before we had different opinions on the Corona thread. Basically, he uses the feedback and trust system to muzzle others who don't agree with him. Before we had disagreements I was worthy of Merits and after that I was suddenly a shitposter for him. Does that make sense to you or does it look more like he's really trying to censor others?

[1miau]

So I refer here to go back to details on the post here:

I'm glad that the thread was opened, now we can finally put all the facts on the table and hopefully this will also calm down the situation on our German board. Just to be clear, my English isn't the best and as noted I'm from the German area so sorry for any mistakes in english that I write.
.....

I will only briefly comment on this so that the impression is not given that I am leaving his claims about me and thus tacitly accepting them.

Nice!
Now, we have your confirmation, that you won't back down, won't remove your inappropriate positive trust from MinoRaiola (and s0nix) from their accounts.
~Unknown01

As noted, 1miau claims that I´m a Shitposter, which I absolutely cannot understand and other colleagues from the board will also confirm this to you. I already refuted the points he made about why he gave me neutral trust in the previous post, which is quoted above, as lies. I also wonder if he is also questioning his judgment on Hhampuz since I have confirmation from Hhampuz that my posts are very much to his satisfaction.

You are contributing close to nothing to the forum, I'm sorry.
Even when asked, you've showed your stubborn behaviour.

I've been very active in the forum for many years now, I registered without knowing that there were bounty campaigns at all and I also wrote posts in times without bounty, so I'm not in the forum because of the campaigns. I always try to help colleagues and participate in discussions, talks, etc. If it's shitposting then 99.99% of the people in the entire forum only post such.

Everyone can look into the campaign spreadsheets where you are active and each week, your post count is barely more than the threshold.
You have cried in the German section multiple times, when one of your shitposts was deleted and you received no payment. 
Because your gambling shitposts are getting deleted frequently.
You should be added here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5403475.0

Of course, I won't say anything about his trust entry, Mino can take care of that. I´m sure that he too will establish his trust well

Both of your circled trust ratings are dangerous and inappropriate use of trust.
You should remove it or you will be removed from DT2 as both accounts, MinoRaiola and Unknown01 were DT2, when the topics was brought up.
Account sending out positive trusts like that should be nowhere DT.

And you should learn the difference between positive trust and neutral trust.

edit: I would also like to point out that I was even a Full member when the merit system was introduced and have earned 561 merits since then, do you think that a shitposter can really get so many merits from so many different people?

Because I made the mistake to give out some Merit far too lenient. I've stopped this since I got to know why you are here (shitposting and writing bullshit). Merit is still given out very leniently in the German section, which is partially a problem because it facilitates shitposting.
Some accounts are like: "Why posting good content when there's still coming in enough Merit to earn some sats per week?"
That's an issue and you are part of it, sorry.

[PaperWallet]

That's a new word I learned today, "shitposters". I call them "professional nonsense talkers". It's actually a good word to describe a lot of people here (from Senior to Legendary to Hero etc).

I got to notice this practice when I got scammed out of 120,000 dollars by one of the gambling platforms that sponsors this forum (mostly via the English accounts). When I came in and spoke up, I got a flag just for opening a scam accusation. A lot of them came in and opposed my flag, started posting small posts, showing clearly they've barely read the scam accusation, know little details, and copy/paste the posts of each other and of their promoted scam casino forum account, without any quality content. And then you see they merit each other and trust each other on some really stupid posts. That's when I started calling them "professional nonsense talkers". But it seems this is a widespread practice not only among scam casino promoters (which is most of the casino promoters here. Some by luck happen to not promote scammers)

[1miau]

There's a very interesting post from Kamix, that I would like to share here.
Seems to be that Unknown01, MinoRaiola, Poly#Crypto thandie, s0nix are involved in extremely fraudulent practices to convert the German section into a sigspam / troll post zone.  

I didn't think my post would make such waves. But this thread perhaps shows all too well how the German-speaking board is doing. First of all, I would like to thank you for all the responses and respond to a few points:

- I am obviously not a fake account, regardless of what Unknown01 and his friends claim in order to damage my reputation. It feels a bit like I've hit a sore spot and he doesn't know how to help himself other than to attack with such false accusations.

I am glad that I will probably not be banned for my opinion and therefore I would like to continue expressing it.

Spam should de reported and removed at sight.
I've seen the threatening of newbies. Afaik it's not in the forum rules, it may be punishable offense. But we need mods' input in this. Cyrus is mod in Reputation, maybe he can help?
Trolling is punishable offense. But trolling may be a bit vague. Still, it's best we can do.

I think for the German-speaking board the moderator mole0815 is responsible, but here could be the real problem. If we go back to the facts, the following things stand out to me:

- We have the user Unknown01 who threatens other users and cheats his way to positive feedbacks using the DT function of the forum and his friends
- We have old accounts that suddenly wake up and try to improve their DT position in the forum via trust farming. These accounts only post in certain boards and posting Russian propaganda
- The accounts seem to possibly belong together, as they all post similar views and back each other up (trusts, positive feedbacks)
- The users seem to know each other in real life and almost all of them are from Austria (you can read that in a thread where they plan to have a meeting together in Austria). The moderator mole0815 is also from Austria.
- All accounts seem to be in a common telegram group and coordinate their steps with each other there, including the board moderator mole0815.

And this is where it gets interesting in terms of moderation of the German language board. Why is the user Unknown01 bragging about having to discuss my punishment with the German board moderator mole0815 and the other colleagues in a private telegram group? Here is the screenshot of a post Unknown01 wrote today.



It basically says: "@Mole: Sorry for off topic, but we can discuss it personally in our group with the other colleagues."

What is interesting is that this post was edited after a few minutes (cutting the part with the private discussion with the moderator mole0515) and even deleted a short time later. Why was it edited and deleted? Clearing up any evidence? Who deleted it? Unknown01 or the moderator mole0815?

If I understand correctly, the moderator of the German language board is in a Telegram group with his friends. Of course, this is not a problem in itself. But a moderator is supposed to ensure a neutral and fair moderation, isn't he?

Now it is no wonder that Unknown01 is so aggressive towards other accounts when he knows that he has no danger to fear from his friend and moderator mole0815. Furthermore, Unknown01 has already posted here in the thread several times that the moderator mole0815 will speak up here in the thread and fully support him.

It all seems very strange to me. What has happened to the Bitcointalk forum when moderation is no longer fair and neutral and aggressive users who abuse the trust system can suppress other accounts through moderation. It can not be that aggressive users who abuse the trust system and threaten other users with a ban also receive support from the official moderator of the forum?

Are there other moderators besides mole0815 who are responsible for the German-speaking board? Or can he rule all by himself? If there are not, that's pretty fucked up.