How should newbies vote in DT1 selection with empty trust list?

[Pmalek]

You need to know people to add them to your trust list.

You don't need to know anybody to build your trustlist.

Is there anything I'm missing here? Can you both elaborate more please because I feel confused with these two statements.

It's better to word it differently. Instead of saying that you need or don't need to know someone you add to your trust list, it's better to say that you should know the person. If you don't know me, you never talked to me, you have no idea how I feel, think, and act in certain situations, why would you trust me? Don't trust me because of my pretty name, the cute colors in my sig or avatar, the number of merits I have earned, or because I post a lot. None of that necessarily means that I can be trusted. It could mean that but it's not proof of trust.

[Z_MBFM]

For low rank members with empty trust lists, what's the best way to participate in the voting without making mistakes?

If we add random DT1 members to our list, we are just copying vote blindly. Isn't it better to leave it empty then to add random users? Is doing that consider failing to vote?

And what does voting actually look like for a regular member?

I would really like to read a proper guide for building a trust list responsibly. Most of us don't touch trust settings at all. We only care about it when we see it on our profile.

Note: I'm not complaining about any specific rating. I just want to understand how a regular member can participate in DT1 construction the right way instead of leaving it empty.

How will newbies know who is trustworthy in this forum? Only after spending a long time in this forum will a user understand who is trustworthy and who is not. So the votes of newbies have no value. You must be an adult to be a citizen of your country otherwise you will not be able to vote in any election in your country. Remember that in this forum Newbies means they are a minor

- You must have at least 10 people directly trusting you each with an earned merit of at least 10, not including merit you yourself sent. These "votes" are limited.
 - You must have at least 2 people directly trusting you with an earned merit of at least 250, not including merit you yourself sent. These "votes" are limited.

One of the reasons why Newbies are not eligible for DT voting is that if it were counted, there would be a lot of spamming with the DT system because by creating multiple new accounts, someone could vote for one of their accounts and select DT-1. Considering all the aspects, Newbies were not given voting power.

[pawel7777]

(...)
You need to know people to add them to your trust list.

If you are a newbie, you don't know anyone, creating a list makes no sense.

Once you trust some user judgment, add them to your trust list.

Don't rush, add only people you think are honest and  you can trust their judgment.

Most of D1 members have more than 6-7 years in the forum, others more than a decade. You will know people over time.

That's how the system was intended to work, but, in practice, I'm guessing that the vast majority of people would stick to the default list. That's just to have the view aligned with the rest of the forum members.
For most of the forum users who are not engaged in any exchange of goods or services, there's not much of a real value in building your own trust, unless I'm missing something here.

Maybe we could use a poll to see (roughly) what percent of people bothered to build their own trust list.