Replacing DefaultTrust

[Beastlymac]

Probably one of the better solutions that I have seen for this. Although I agree that a potential issue will be faced of having the 30 trusted members increasing and creating a gap.

Edit: just to clarify these 30 users will act as the new default trust and the rest of the trust system will remain the same so these 30 users will be the new level one. Will we keep oldscammertag?

[1713999449]

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[TECSHARE]

 I think it might be better to have the suggested list from the qualifying individuals be randomized for one. I agree that having new users do this might not be the best idea, which is why I think randomizing it might help so lazy people just clicking the first few names in front of them don't pick the same users all the time. At least in this manner users can work to earn a trust level to be included in the randomized default choice pool.

I also don't like the idea of a higher trust ranked member being able to exclude completely the trust of a lower ranked members. This is in effect no different than burning a users account with a negative rating via the default trust for nothing more than a personal choice not to trust a user. The trust system shouldn't be a tool of moderation of trust ratings, individuals should be making these distinctions via ratings and trust settings. If someone is out of line they should be appealing to the public of the forum to take action, not using their superior position of trust to negate the trust of others UNLESS there is sufficient evidence they are engaged in fraudulent trade activity and done so in the form of a negative trust rating. The use of exclusions IMO should be averaged out between the 2 users ratings at least, but not completely negated otherwise all that will happen is those with the highest ranks will use exclusions instead of negatives to take non-trade related retribution upon users.

As far as I know there are no standards for exclusions anywhere, so users could therefore make them for any reason and have a significant negative impact on a lower ranked account regardless of how hard they work or how many successful trades they make, they will never be able to recover from it.

Yes, but my point is that if those are the only 30 displayed they will be the ones getting funneled all of the new user trust (increasing their trust rating) and it will be an endless cycle of more people trusting them producing a huge rift, and basically just reproducing the default trust list in a slightly modified form.

That's why I suggest to show not the 30 best, but 30 among the X best.

This sounds like a more reasonable solution to me. Furthermore making the higher weighted users have more likelihood of being displayed is another feedback mechanism that favors higher ranked users over anyone within the acceptable parameters. I think a randomly generated list selected from the users within the acceptable rating, then explained to the user might be more efficient instead of forcing new users to pick from lists of people they likely don't know. They can always update it to include or exclude users later.

[dserrano5]

On a different direction, taking into account the sent feedback could be useful to personalize the list. E.g. if I've given positive feedback to user BitAddict and he's not currently among my trusted users, he could appear in the list.

[theymos]

I changed it so that the 60 users with the most points are selected (minimum 20 points), and then 30 of these are randomly chosen to be displayed. The random sort is now weighted according to points, though, so people with more points are more likely to appear in the list and to appear higher in the list. Otherwise there'd be a good chance that the list would be filled mostly with people who aren't so widely trusted. 20 points isn't really that many.

[Parazyd]

I changed it so that the 60 users with the most points are selected (minimum 20 points), and then 30 of these are randomly chosen to be displayed. The random sort is now weighted according to points, though, so people with more points are more likely to appear in the list and to appear higher in the list. Otherwise there'd be a good chance that the list would be filled mostly with people who aren't so widely trusted. 20 points isn't really that many.

Are we talking about the same point system? 1 point = 1 positive trust rating you got?

[theymos]

Are we talking about the same point system? 1 point = 1 positive trust rating you got?

No.

Each person gets N points whenever they are trusted by someone, and loses N points whenever they are distrusted by someone, where N = 0 if the rater is less than a full member and N = [rater's activity]/120 if the rater is at least a full member.

"Trust" here means "added to someone's trust list", not "received a positive trust rating".

[Magic8Ball]

Thing is, its impossible to make the perfect system. The current system makes everybody aware that somebody else has set it. In the new system it will feel like the users themselves have set it all the while it will effectively remain set by somebody else.

I will not take time to go through any list. I will find it annoying and try to click as fast as possible to get it out of the way. I am confident 99% of the members will do the same.

[MadZ]

One of the problems I see with this is how liable it is to be manipulated by purchased accounts, given how numerous they are. It appears that it would be quite easy to add or remove someone from the suggested list with 10 or so accounts with decent activity, if someone wished to do so. It seems to be much more exploitable than the current system, since many people will assume that anyone in the suggested list should be trusted. Also, since trust lists are not public, it will be much harder to tell if someone is manipulating the system than it is right now.

[hilariousandco]

I dunno. I commend you for trying to come up with something better but no system is ever going to be perfect and people will always complain whatever happens. This proposal seems much more confusing than the current one and I'm sure it will be much worse for newbs but I'll need to study it a bit more. I think certain people will be biased for and against each. Those currently on the default list will likely want to stay there with the old system and those not or recently removed will likely want this new one. I'd probably need to see it in action to say whether it's better or not, but I think at the moment I'd rather stick with the current version but am open to change my mind or to other completely different systems or suggestions. One suggestion I would make for the current system is to limit the amount of users people can add to their trust list. Maybe 10-20, and I think this will cut down on people adding masses of people just to boost their own rep.

[Blazed]

Personally I think the current system works fine if we keep allowing public disputes like we have seen lately. When bad feedback is given have it posted in Meta and let the community decide if the feedback was bad/warranted. For a new member to join and be presented with a random list would be pretty confusing imo.

[hilariousandco]

Personally I think the current system works fine if we keep allowing public disputes like we have seen lately. When bad feedback is given have it posted in Meta and let the community decide if the feedback was bad/warranted. For a new member to join and be presented with a random list would be pretty confusing imo.

That's how I feel and that's what I like about the current system as it does work well in these situations. If someone has left an unjust or harsh feedback the recipient of it can bring it up and others can comment on it and it'll usually get removed by the person who left it if it is indeed unjust or harsh. As long as we have rational, decent people in the default trust I think it polices itself pretty well. That being said, I am always open to new ideas or system proposals.

[Blazed]

Personally I think the current system works fine if we keep allowing public disputes like we have seen lately. When bad feedback is given have it posted in Meta and let the community decide if the feedback was bad/warranted. For a new member to join and be presented with a random list would be pretty confusing imo.

That's how I feel and that's what I like about the current system as it does work well in these situations. If someone has left an unjust or harsh feedback the recipient of it can bring it up and others can comment on it and it'll usually get removed by the person who left it if it is indeed unjust or harsh. As long as we have rational, decent people in the default trust I think it polices itself pretty well. That being said, I am always open to new ideas or system proposals.

I agree some changes would not hurt...maybe double check who all is in the initial list. I think anyone being in default level 1 should maintain their lists very carefully since they are very powerful on the forums.

[hilariousandco]

Personally I think the current system works fine if we keep allowing public disputes like we have seen lately. When bad feedback is given have it posted in Meta and let the community decide if the feedback was bad/warranted. For a new member to join and be presented with a random list would be pretty confusing imo.

That's how I feel and that's what I like about the current system as it does work well in these situations. If someone has left an unjust or harsh feedback the recipient of it can bring it up and others can comment on it and it'll usually get removed by the person who left it if it is indeed unjust or harsh. As long as we have rational, decent people in the default trust I think it polices itself pretty well. That being said, I am always open to new ideas or system proposals.

I agree some changes would not hurt...maybe double check who all is in the initial list. I think anyone being in default level 1 should maintain their lists very carefully since they are very powerful on the forums.

Yep. I also concur. Should be very difficult to get on the list and very easy to be removed but if you're an active and decent member there should be no problems. I think the number of people you can add should be limited as I mentioned above. Maybe 20 for level 1 members and 10 for level two or something. These people with the massive trust lists full of nobodies and newbs do nothing but dilute it in my opinion and open the list up to abuse. If you don't have very good reason to trust a person and aren't partially willing to stake your rep on them don't add them to your list.

[BadBear]

I've actually been adding more people lately, I think default trust should have more and a wider variety of people, and more people deserve a chance, and it should be more indicative of the community (though still needs to be accurate). I used to add people regularly but it kept falling off the to do list. Issues will arise but they're easy enough to solve.

I do think we need to move away from default trust though. Yeah some will be lazy and just use the suggestions and forget about it, but no getting around that.

[Blazed]

I am guilty of just using the default list..I find it easier when I see what everyone else sees. I rely on looking at peoples feedback and posts to decide if I should deal with them or not.

Edit: I guess I will start assembling my list once again...I had one, but the mismatch of what others see made me remove it.

[hilariousandco]

I've actually been adding more people lately, I think default trust should have more and a wider variety of people, and more people deserve a chance, and it should be more indicative of the community (though still needs to be accurate). I used to add people regularly but it kept falling off the to do list. Issues will arise but they're easy enough to solve.

I'm all for more people, just not 2-post newbs and users only being put on there to seemingly bolster that persons feedback score.

I am guilty of just using the default list..I find it easier when I see what everyone else sees. I rely on looking at peoples feedback and posts to decide if I should deal with them or not.

I stick to it because I like to see what pretty much everyone else sees. Can be misleading when people see vastly different scores, though I tend to trust people on their role in the community more than feedback points anyway, though the trust system is a good additional guide and is useful for newbs to take into consideration.

[hashie]

Add a 31th checkbox with a free style input, to make it clear to the user you can trust people outside of the list.

Most people will not read that 2 paragraphs you have, they will look and click some boxes and completely ignore the advanced section. You will need to express the concept through design, not through text.

-Queen Elsa (also the person on the forum with the lowest trust score as per DefaultTrust) aww

[Blazr]

(also the person on the forum with the lowest trust score as per DefaultTrust)

Inaba/BFL is lower.

[Vortex20000]

TF is lower, right?

Nah, he's around the same.

Dangit, I'm an avid TF hunter. Loud sigh.

I've actually been adding more people lately, I think default trust should have more and a wider variety of people, and more people deserve a chance, and it should be more indicative of the community (though still needs to be accurate). I used to add people regularly but it kept falling off the to do list. Issues will arise but they're easy enough to solve.

I do think we need to move away from default trust though. Yeah some will be lazy and just use the suggestions and forget about it, but no getting around that.

Perhaps remind users regularly until they achieve a certain activity level to double-check their trust list?

[TECSHARE]

Personally I think the current system works fine if we keep allowing public disputes like we have seen lately. When bad feedback is given have it posted in Meta and let the community decide if the feedback was bad/warranted. For a new member to join and be presented with a random list would be pretty confusing imo.

That's how I feel and that's what I like about the current system as it does work well in these situations. If someone has left an unjust or harsh feedback the recipient of it can bring it up and others can comment on it and it'll usually get removed by the person who left it if it is indeed unjust or harsh. As long as we have rational, decent people in the default trust I think it polices itself pretty well. That being said, I am always open to new ideas or system proposals.

I agree some changes would not hurt...maybe double check who all is in the initial list. I think anyone being in default level 1 should maintain their lists very carefully since they are very powerful on the forums.

Yep. I also concur. Should be very difficult to get on the list and very easy to be removed but if you're an active and decent member there should be no problems. I think the number of people you can add should be limited as I mentioned above. Maybe 20 for level 1 members and 10 for level two or something. These people with the massive trust lists full of nobodies and newbs do nothing but dilute it in my opinion and open the list up to abuse. If you don't have very good reason to trust a person and aren't partially willing to stake your rep on them don't add them to your list.

This kind of sums up why I don't think moderators and staff should have the ability to single handedly burn a users reputation just because they have a high trust rating via exclusion or otherwise. It is clear you see anyone that is not in you clique as being not worthy of being able to make their own determinations in trust, and god forbid they build some authority outside your own.

Moderators and staff serve a function here enforcing general rules, and as a result develop a sort of callousness and hostility to anyone who questions their judgement as a result of this daily grind of dealing with scammers/trolls/spammers etc. Furthermore, as admitted they don't have the time to review each case carefully, yet under this proposed system they are given EVEN MORE ability to completely negate the reputations of users simply by outranking them and excluding them. I was hoping that the dropping of the default trust list also meant an end to the staff lead witch hunts, but the way it is sounding to me they still intend to make moderating trust a primary concern of theirs. STAFF SHOULD NOT BE MODERATING TRUST for any reason - period. They are admittedly unable to give the individual cases proper attention, penalties are nearly impossible to recover from, and any system where people have to defend their trust ratings under penalty of losing their own trust will never be able to be fair because a small handful of individuals are STILL DICTATING to lower level users on the trust list under threat of their own destruction.

Also there will still continue to be endless drama over negative trusts left because these trolls/scammers/extortionists now have a very clear path to harass and extract revenge from trusted users via these requests for trust moderation. Individuals should be making their case to the community, and the community should be making these choices. NOT THE STAFF. They already have massive amounts of authority via the regular forum moderator functions. Giving them complete dominion over the trading system as well is a DISASTER. There should not be a policy of official trust moderation FOR ANY REASON. This should be left up to the user making the claim and the community.