Replacing DefaultTrust

[qwk]

How about a much more straightforward approach?

Get rid of the trust list, just treat each and every feedback the same, but weighted by the rank of the person who gave the feedback.
E.g.:
Newbie: x0
Jr.: x0
Full.: x0
Sr.: x1
Hero: x2
Legendary: x4
Staff: x8
(or whatever)

Give users the option to change these settings, i.e. one might chose to ignore ratings from anything below Hero and set Hero to x100, Legendary x1000 and Staff x0 (if they don't like staff) ;-)

That way, it'll be difficult to gather a lot of "fake" feedback, and it will be easy to counter by a small number of more experienced users.

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[shorena]

How about a much more straightforward approach?

Get rid of the trust list, just treat each and every feedback the same, but weighted by the rank of the person who gave the feedback.
E.g.:
Newbie: x0
Jr.: x0
Full.: x0
Sr.: x1
Hero: x2
Legendary: x4
Staff: x8
(or whatever)

Give users the option to change these settings, i.e. one might chose to ignore ratings from anything below Hero and set Hero to x100, Legendary x1000 and Staff x0 (if they don't like staff) ;-)

That way, it'll be difficult to gather a lot of "fake" feedback, and it will be easy to counter by a small number of more experienced users.

Thats a bit broad isnt it? I dont trust all Sr. Members alike. In fact the rank has very little to do with the amount of trust a person deserves in my opinion. The rank just says: has been here long, posts a lot. Thats not what makes someone trustworthy, at least not in my book. It could also be gamed / bought. It would certainly raise the price of Sr. and higher ranks which might make this infeasible.

[qwk]

Thats a bit broad isnt it? I dont trust all Sr. Members alike. In fact the rank has very little to do with the amount of trust a person deserves in my opinion. The rank just says: has been here long, posts a lot. Thats not what makes someone trustworthy, at least not in my book. It could also be gamed / bought. It would certainly raise the price of Sr. and higher ranks which might make this infeasible.

Why would you need the trust system?
So why would it matter if someone you don't necessarily trust showed up "green" in this system?

I've said it before: the trust system should not be for those of us who are old/experienced enough to know what we're doing.
It should raise the awareness of new users and warn them to be cautious when someone offers them a seemingly great deal.

The system I propose would probably do the trick with a low level of abuse. If somebody really gamed the system, "we" would notice and should leave him negative feedback, which would easily counter his efforts.

[TECSHARE]

How about a much more straightforward approach?

Get rid of the trust list, just treat each and every feedback the same, but weighted by the rank of the person who gave the feedback.
E.g.:
Newbie: x0
Jr.: x0
Full.: x0
Sr.: x1
Hero: x2
Legendary: x4
Staff: x8
(or whatever)

Give users the option to change these settings, i.e. one might chose to ignore ratings from anything below Hero and set Hero to x100, Legendary x1000 and Staff x0 (if they don't like staff) ;-)

That way, it'll be difficult to gather a lot of "fake" feedback, and it will be easy to counter by a small number of more experienced users.

I think this might be an effective metric when used with a mutually agreed upon transaction process in order to make sure people can not leave feedback without the other user agreeing to trade first. While just because an account is older it does not make them more trustworthy, by the virtue of being around so long and not being accused of any wrongdoing there is a less chance of the user being up to anything unsavory without it being noted. Under this system people may buy accounts and use them to farm trust for new accounts to scam with, but if there was for example a way to measure the "taint", or ie the resulting negative trusts put upon people that the originating user trusts, this could be used to indicate who is farming out new accounts for the purpose of scamming, and potentially even be used in their own trust ranking. This would also make people more careful of who they leave trust for as a result. Furthermore if people don't put the user on their trust list ever as a result of their poor conduct, no one will see their ratings counted anyway.

Additionally I think trust exclusions should be modified so that it is a simple way to personally remove someone from your own trust, and regardless of your own trust system ranking, it would only remove the user from your personal trust. So if user A has user C excluded from their trust, and user B has their trust set to 2 levels, and they also trust user D who has user C on their trust list, user B would still trust user C unless they specifically added them to their exclusion list.

The exclusion system as it is currently used simply makes all users lower in the trust tree exclude who they exclude, and if the user who makes the exclusion is ranked high enough, no other users on that same trust branch will ever see them as trusted. This seems like an excessive centralization of power that will be heavily abused, probably even more so than the default trust, because the source of the exclusions are hidden. It is in function little more than a backdoor default trust for nuking other lower level users trust listings.

[shorena]

Why would you need the trust system?

I wasnt refering to me personally, but since you are asking: to help me remember. What I tried to say is: why should a newbie trust me or any other Sr.+?

So why would it matter if someone you don't necessarily trust showed up "green" in this system?

Because in your system feedback by ScammerHero[1] would count as x2 regardless of his trustworthyness. Either that or there is more to it you did not explain, because you also say:

If somebody really gamed the system, "we" would notice and should leave him negative feedback, which would easily counter his efforts.

which would not change the weigth of the scammers rating if I understood your proposal correctly. If our ScammerHero now runs around and leaves negative feedback because "reasons", what could "we" do about it?


[1] This is meant to be a generic well known scammer with the rank of a Hero Member.  Any resemblance to real persons is purely coincidental.

[qwk]

I think this might be an effective metric when used with a mutually agreed upon transaction process in order to make sure people can not leave feedback without the other user agreeing to trade first.

Which I would find unfortunate.
As it is, the trust system is not used too much, it's used too little.
People should be encouraged to leave trust whenever they feel like it, not only after they've completed a deal with someone.

We all remember at least one occasion where any trust system based solely upon earlier trades would have utterly failed: pirateat40.
That's what we should avoid by all means.
If any user does not trust any other user, the trust system should give him the means to express this mistrust, no matter what.
In an open system, this will also mean retaliation ratings.
As we can clearly see from users like Tomatocage, retaliation does not necessarily pose a problem.

1. Most scams are performed by low-level users, or by "suspicious" high-level users.
2. Most scams are detected early on by high-level users.
3. Scam warnings are needed the most by low-level users.

Any trust system should reflect this.

[redsn0w]

I think this might be an effective metric when used with a mutually agreed upon transaction process in order to make sure people can not leave feedback without the other user agreeing to trade first.

Which I would find unfortunate.
As it is, the trust system is not used too much, it's used too little.
People should be encouraged to leave trust whenever they feel like it, not only after they've completed a deal with someone.

We all remember at least one occasion where any trust system based solely upon earlier trades would have utterly failed: pirateat40.
That's what we should avoid by all means.
If any user does not trust any other user, the trust system should give him the means to express this mistrust, no matter what.
In an open system, this will also mean retaliation ratings.
As we can clearly see from users like Tomatocage, retaliation does not necessarily pose a problem.

1. Most scams are performed by low-level users, or by "suspicious" high-level users.
2. Most scams are detected early on by high-level users.
3. Scam warnings are needed the most by low-level users.

Any trust system should reflect this.

So as you told , for example : Can I leave a negative feedback to another user "only" because I don't trust him  ?  I think if someone will try to do this , he will be surely "obligated" to remove/change  the feedback or bad  removed from the defaultTrust list.

[qwk]

Why would you need the trust system?

I wasnt refering to me personally, but since you are asking: to help me remember. What I tried to say is: why should a newbie trust me or any other Sr.+?

To help you remember: take ginseng
Why should a newbie trust you or me?
Because he would be better of if he trusted the majority of experienced users more than the advice of a random selection of users.
If you or me are scammers, that won't matter as long as the majority of us "veterans" are not.

So why would it matter if someone you don't necessarily trust showed up "green" in this system?

Because in your system feedback by ScammerHero[1] would count as x2 regardless of his trustworthyness.

Sure, but scammers don't profit from leaving feedback.
They profit from not having negative feedback.

If somebody really gamed the system, "we" would notice and should leave him negative feedback, which would easily counter his efforts.

which would not change the weigth of the scammers rating if I understood your proposal correctly. If our ScammerHero now runs around and leaves negative feedback because "reasons", what could "we" do about it?

Leave positive feedback wherever he "hit" and wherever we like.
But even if not, would it matter? Let pirateat40 leave negative feedback. So what?
That's only a problem as long as there's very little feedback at all, which is the one thing we should really change.
Encourage people to leave feedback more often.

[shorena]

To help you remember: take ginseng

blll

Why should a newbie trust you or me?
Because he would be better of if he trusted the majority of experienced users more than the advice of a random selection of users.
If you or me are scammers, that won't matter as long as the majority of us "veterans" are not.

Sure, but scammers don't profit from leaving feedback.
They profit from not having negative feedback.

Fair enough. I think I start to see the point behind your suggestion.

Leave positive feedback wherever he "hit" and wherever we like.
But even if not, would it matter? Let pirateat40 leave negative feedback. So what?
That's only a problem as long as there's very little feedback at all, which is the one thing we should really change.
Encourage people to leave feedback more often.

While I like the notion of leaving more feedback, I think it should also be backed by a reason. I usually give very little about ratings without a reference.

[qwk]

So as you told , for example : Can I leave a negative feedback to another user "only" because I don't trust him?

That's what separates a trust system from a court.
You should leave negative feedback to another user you don't trust.
No presumption of innocence.

Again, the pirateat40 example clearly shows that any system based on real "trust" would have led to an early end for his scam. Most people just "knew" that this was a ponzi scheme and wanted to warn others from "investing" with him.
Based solely on personal trading experience, though, any feedback for pirateat40 would have been glowing positive green up to the point of no return when his scheme went belly up.

I think if someone will try to do this , he will be surely "obligated" to remove/change  the feedback or bad  removed from the defaultTrust list.

I don't trust person X.
That's a statement, an opinion.
No one will force me to remove or change this statement against my will.
There is no obligation and there should be no obligation to remove a trust rating.

[TECSHARE]

I think this might be an effective metric when used with a mutually agreed upon transaction process in order to make sure people can not leave feedback without the other user agreeing to trade first.

Which I would find unfortunate.
As it is, the trust system is not used too much, it's used too little.
People should be encouraged to leave trust whenever they feel like it, not only after they've completed a deal with someone.

We all remember at least one occasion where any trust system based solely upon earlier trades would have utterly failed: pirateat40.
That's what we should avoid by all means.
If any user does not trust any other user, the trust system should give him the means to express this mistrust, no matter what.
In an open system, this will also mean retaliation ratings.
As we can clearly see from users like Tomatocage, retaliation does not necessarily pose a problem.

1. Most scams are performed by low-level users, or by "suspicious" high-level users.
2. Most scams are detected early on by high-level users.
3. Scam warnings are needed the most by low-level users.

Any trust system should reflect this.

Having a neutral trust rating that anyone could leave that does not effect the users trust rating would solve the problem of untrustworthy users. Furthermore they could simply be excluded from their trust (using a modified trust exclusion system hopefully).

[dogie]

How about a much more straightforward approach?

Get rid of the trust list, just treat each and every feedback the same, but weighted by the rank of the person who gave the feedback.
E.g.:
Newbie: x0
Jr.: x0
Full.: x0
Sr.: x1
Hero: x2
Legendary: x4
Staff: x8
(or whatever)

Give users the option to change these settings, i.e. one might chose to ignore ratings from anything below Hero and set Hero to x100, Legendary x1000 and Staff x0 (if they don't like staff) ;-)

That way, it'll be difficult to gather a lot of "fake" feedback, and it will be easy to counter by a small number of more experienced users.

I'd end up on about -200 on that system.

[qwk]

Get rid of the trust list, just treat each and every feedback the same, but weighted by the rank of the person who gave the feedback.

I'd end up on about -200 on that system.

Obviously, multiple feedback from the same person should not be taken into account in this system.
Things don't look too grim for you then, do they?

[DiamondCardz]

If I'm honest, when I think about it...I prefer DefaultTrust as it is right now to all of these suggestions. DefaultTrust definitely isn't perfect but these don't seem to be all that good either.

[Gleb Gamow]

Is the trust aspect being worked on now, for I no longer see trust thingies under users' accounts? TBC, I haven't changed any of my settings of late.

[Blazr]

Is the trust aspect being worked on now, for I no longer see trust thingies under users' accounts? TBC, I haven't changed any of my settings of late.

Trust thingies only show up in the marketplace section.

[Magic8Ball]

Is the trust aspect being worked on now, for I no longer see trust thingies under users' accounts? TBC, I haven't changed any of my settings of late.

Trust is not displayed in some sections like this which is not trading section. It is not there in Beginners either which I feel is an incorrect decision.
I liked the old scammertags with all the crosses. I assume it was to much effort and put the liability on the mods and admins.

[MrTeal]

Is the trust aspect being worked on now, for I no longer see trust thingies under users' accounts? TBC, I haven't changed any of my settings of late.

It's subforum dependent. You won't see it in Meta, but you will in others like Hardware or Marketplace.

Get rid of the trust list, just treat each and every feedback the same, but weighted by the rank of the person who gave the feedback.

I'd end up on about -200 on that system.

Obviously, multiple feedback from the same person should not be taken into account in this system.
Things don't look too grim for you then, do they?

Let people have multiple feedbacks, but make the stakes continually rise. I suggest for N additional feedbacks someone wants to give, they need to have completed 2^N plays through of the BCT hosted Oregon Trail game, without anyone dying of typhoid fever. If anyone does, you must start over again.

[qwk]

Let people have multiple feedbacks, but make the stakes continually rise. I suggest for N additional feedbacks someone wants to give, they need to have completed 2^N plays through of the BCT hosted Oregon Trail game, without anyone dying of typhoid fever. If anyone does, you must start over again.

Joking (Oregon Trail game) aside, something like "diminishing returns" for multiple feedback might be appropriate.

[takagari]

Regardless of which change, I'd like to see rules in place.
it should be used for scamming and deals. Scam attempts etc.

Not used for hurt feeling reports. Or as a means of payback. And a way to report abuse of the system.