Replacing DefaultTrust

[DannyHamilton]

Also, some people who I consider very trustworthy . . . didn't make the list simply because they don't spam up every thread with their unsolicited opinion like I do

I'm guessing someone already said this and I'm going to look like a silly newb for not reading the entire thread before commenting on it.  However, I'm pressed for time at the moment, so I'm going to risk it in case it hasn't been mentioned yet:

The important thing that MANY people seem not to realize is that the "Trust List" should NOT be a list of trusted individuals.  If your trust list is a list of individuals that you trust, then you are DOING IT WRONG.

Your "Trust List" SHOULD BE a list of individuals whose OPINIONS YOU VALUE.  By adding someone to your "Trust List" you are effectively saying: "If this person has expressed an opinion about another individual, I value that opinion far more than I value the opinions of the rest of the users on bitcointalk.

You can value the opinions that someone expresses about others even if you wouldn't trust them to hold on to a single satoshi for you.  You can also trust someone to hold on to 10,000 BTC, and still not value the things they have to say about other users.

[1715477576]

1715477576

[1715477576]

1715477576

[1715477576]

1715477576

[Stratobitz]

Personally I see no problems with the current trust system. It allows people to set their own depth of how many levels they wish to see at default, and it is simple enough for a user to view all feedback posted prior to doing business with any particular user.

This may have been said; but the bigger issue at hand that I see is that the forum openly allows users to buy and sell accounts.

Many online services, and nearly all of the big tech/social media sites strictly prohibit this-- and for good reason.

Personally I think it is simply too easy to jump into the marketplace; buy a Hero or Senior Account, perhaps even with no Trust Posts, do a small number of micro transactions to gain some posts, and then run any number of scams to steal peoples money or information.

I know theymos has more than enough on his plate right now, especially with the recent outage and disk issues- but personally I think instituting a simple ban on buying and selling accounts would provide greater security and be of greater benefit to the community than completely revising and restructuring the entire Trust System. The later also being, from what I would imagine, a whole lot of work.

Strato

[hilariousandco]

Personally I think it is simply too easy to jump into the marketplace; buy a Hero or Senior Account, perhaps even with no Trust Posts, do a small number of micro transactions to gain some posts, and then run any number of scams to steal peoples money or information.

I know theymos has more than enough on his plate right now, especially with the recent outage and disk issues- but personally I think instituting a simple ban on buying and selling accounts would provide greater security and be of greater benefit to the community than completely revising and restructuring the entire Trust System. The later also being, from what I would imagine, a whole lot of work.

Strato

It wouldn't. Banning the sale of accounts won't stop it from happening; it'll just be pushed off site and give users a false sense of security that it now doesn't happen. Besides, most people don't buy accounts to scam but when they do they're usually busted by the community before they even get the chance to so you've got more chance of wasting your money than actually scamming it from someone else.

[Stratobitz]

Personally I think it is simply too easy to jump into the marketplace; buy a Hero or Senior Account, perhaps even with no Trust Posts, do a small number of micro transactions to gain some posts, and then run any number of scams to steal peoples money or information.

I know theymos has more than enough on his plate right now, especially with the recent outage and disk issues- but personally I think instituting a simple ban on buying and selling accounts would provide greater security and be of greater benefit to the community than completely revising and restructuring the entire Trust System. The later also being, from what I would imagine, a whole lot of work.

Strato

It wouldn't. Banning the sale of accounts won't stop it from happening; it'll just be pushed off site and give users a false sense of security that it now doesn't happen. Besides, most people don't buy accounts to scam but when they do they're usually busted by the community before they even get the chance to so you've got more chance of wasting your money than actually scamming it from someone else.

I'll give you that, that it would in fact simply push the bartering of accounts into other forums such as reddit, irc, etc.  I guess my point was simply that most major social services forbid this activity with good reason. You can't sell Twitter accounts; or Facebook accounts; at least not publicly. But it does happen.

Strato

[peligro]

Personally I think it is simply too easy to jump into the marketplace; buy a Hero or Senior Account, perhaps even with no Trust Posts, do a small number of micro transactions to gain some posts, and then run any number of scams to steal peoples money or information.

I know theymos has more than enough on his plate right now, especially with the recent outage and disk issues- but personally I think instituting a simple ban on buying and selling accounts would provide greater security and be of greater benefit to the community than completely revising and restructuring the entire Trust System. The later also being, from what I would imagine, a whole lot of work.

Strato

It wouldn't. Banning the sale of accounts won't stop it from happening; it'll just be pushed off site and give users a false sense of security that it now doesn't happen. Besides, most people don't buy accounts to scam but when they do they're usually busted by the community before they even get the chance to so you've got more chance of wasting your money than actually scamming it from someone else.

Banning would mean buyers would be risking it and that will drastically reduce the market. Putting up a simple warning in trade areas that accounts may have been bought would be an enough warning. That argument is a poor attempt to keep it going.

[Bitcoinexp]

Based on the poll, decision's being split pretty evenly. There are some faults with default trust though, but it's more about the user than the system. Namely, how people are so used to giving negative that they don't bother basing their assumptions on a neutral feedback for lack of proof. Either way, improvement would be nice.

[anonimus]

Yes according to me , the list should be changed.

[WoodCollector]

I was thinking about replacing DefaultTrust in the following way:

When users first try to view a topic in a Trust-enabled section, they will instead see this page and be forced to select some users to trust before being allowed to continue to the topic. In addition to the empty text box currently on the Trust settings page, up to 30 users will be suggested.

Suggested members must meet the following criteria:
- Full member or above
- At least one post in the last 60 days
- At least 10 people listed in their trust list
- At least 20 points (see below)
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. The 60 people with the highest scores are selected, this list is randomly sorted with a higher weight given to people with higher scores, and the top 30 people in the resulting list are suggested.

When the change is made, everyone who currently has only DefaultTrust in their trust list will be redirected to the Set Initial Trust page.

What do you think of this?

Theymos, i think this is almost a must if you expect this forum to continue to have any credibility in the future. Regardless of how many alt accounts are used to vote against it. This is about one of the only ways this place will survive with any credibility.

[dogie]

Theymos, i think this is almost a must if you expect this forum to continue to have any credibility in the future. Regardless of how many alt accounts are used to vote against it. This is about one of the only ways this place will survive with any credibility.

I've said this in another thread, the problem with surveys is people are only willing to accept votes that validate their own opinions as valid - the others are just fakes or shills, right?

[WoodCollector]

Theymos, i think this is almost a must if you expect this forum to continue to have any credibility in the future. Regardless of how many alt accounts are used to vote against it. This is about one of the only ways this place will survive with any credibility.

I've said this in another thread, the problem with surveys is people are only willing to accept votes that validate their own opinions as valid - the others are just fakes or shills, right?

Not at all, in fact its quite the opposite. Myself as an example. I dont care how the system gets fixed, It can be removed, modified, set where the user has to determine their default list, turned upside down, or covered in frosting served with a cherry. The fact is that something needs to change with the current system as it has been proven time and again that it does not work and has turned this forum into an MMORPG where trust rating equals virtual points and a game to be collected. Mabye users dont approve of the method that theymos provided to fix it, that could very well be legitimate and i can see their argument. the fault is that the system should be left alone and that no changes are needed. 90% of people who want to agree to that extent are the ones who benefit from doing business with CITM and who have spent hundreds of hours gaming the system.

Please do not try and twist words and join the communion of unholy trust farmers in doing so. I personally have nothing against you and still consider you a valuable contributor to the real bitcoin community with your setup and trouble shooting threads. They have even helped me get set up in my recent purchase of a small mining farm. It would be a serious shame to see you join the dark side of totalitarian opinionists who think that their semantics are law and spend hundreds of hours gaming the trust system.

If you cant agree that something needs to change with the trust system as it is, no matter if it is what theymos suggested, other solutions, or done away with completely, just that something needs to change than maybe i had you wrong and you are not the intelligent professional that i thought you to be and that would be my own misjudgment. I am only human and i have misjudged people before, but i really would like to think that i am not wrong in this instance.

[ABitNut]

<snip> the fault is that the system should be left alone and that no changes are needed. <snip>

The failed logic is: "The system has issues, therefore it cannot remain!"

Here's some statements for you to dispute:

1) The forum is better off with the current trust system than without.
2) The forum will be worse if the trust system is changed for the worse.
3) The community in general will not refuse a change for the better.

The trust system is the worst form of trust management, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. I challenge you to come up with a system that is a significant improvement over what is in place now. To be judged by the bitcointalk community.

[Inotanewbie]

Theymos, i think this is almost a must if you expect this forum to continue to have any credibility in the future. Regardless of how many alt accounts are used to vote against it. This is about one of the only ways this place will survive with any credibility.

I've said this in another thread, the problem with surveys is people are only willing to accept votes that validate their own opinions as valid - the others are just fakes or shills, right?

Not at all, in fact its quite the opposite. Myself as an example. I dont care how the system gets fixed, It can be removed, modified, set where the user has to determine their default list, turned upside down, or covered in frosting served with a cherry. The fact is that something needs to change with the current system as it has been proven time and again that it does not work and has turned this forum into an MMORPG where trust rating equals virtual points and a game to be collected. Mabye users dont approve of the method that theymos provided to fix it, that could very well be legitimate and i can see their argument. the fault is that the system should be left alone and that no changes are needed. 90% of people who want to agree to that extent are the ones who benefit from doing business with CITM and who have spent hundreds of hours gaming the system.

I hope that you realize that you just said in your above post that was quoted by dogie that the opinions that disagree with you were manipulating the poll while the people who agreed with your opinion were acting honestly.

Please do not try and twist words and join the communion of unholy trust farmers in doing so. I personally have nothing against you and still consider you a valuable contributor to the real bitcoin community with your setup and trouble shooting threads. They have even helped me get set up in my recent purchase of a small mining farm. It would be a serious shame to see you join the dark side of totalitarian opinionists who think that their semantics are law and spend hundreds of hours gaming the trust system.

This sounds a lot like that as long as dogie does not take an opposing view of any debate then he is respected, however the minute he disagrees with your opinion then you lose all respect for him. Am I close?

If you cant agree that something needs to change with the trust system as it is, no matter if it is what theymos suggested, other solutions, or done away with completely, just that something needs to change than maybe i had you wrong and you are not the intelligent professional that i thought you to be and that would be my own misjudgment. I am only human and i have misjudged people before, but i really would like to think that i am not wrong in this instance.

More of the above
Sure the current trust system is not perfect, however it is something that works the vast majority of the time. It is a system that has generally stopped scammers in their tracks once it was discovered they were trying to scam, or were actually scamming. The number of scams that were on the forum have gone significantly down since the current system was implemented.

[Stratobitz]

Here is an idea:

Add a new section for Trust called Transaction Verified: And Relegate all other trust to collapsed sections elsewhere. 

Transaction Verified Trust would require both parties to accept a single instance trust transaction.

Example: 

- Stratobitz wants to buy a GPU Card from MemberBitCoin.

- In order for the transaction to be logged as "Verified" and count toward 'Meaninful' Trust: The Seller Must first Send the Buyer a Transaction Request which states the price, terms, etc.

- The Buyer must then Accept this in order for 'Verified Trust' to be posted from the seller to his account, as well as for him to be able to also post 'Verified Trust' to the seller in return.

- Simply put, they must agree to do business.  Payment amounts could be pre defined and the TXID added afterward as an optional item.

- This would cut down considerably on people who abuse the Trust system.

I am personally on the Default Trust 2 List, which I am thankful for but also understand it comes with responsibilities. Anyone on Level 2 can simply post a bashing comment and its logged as Visible Trusted Feedback.

If you view my trust you will see that I am careful what I post. However I know there are many users, well known active users in fact, that will not hesitate to post a scathing comment to someones account simply out of suspicion. This would be at least hampered by the above concept, where if its simply a "Guy is a scammer Im Angry and don't like the way he types" type of posting, its logged as a non-verified non-transaction Trust Post which is collapsed by default.

Just my Two Cents.

Strato

[Muhammed Zakir]

I don't think that would be a good idea. A user can use his/her sockpuppet account and do the things including posting a TXID. It's not that hard and this would do for successful trades, so there should be an option for failed/defaulted trades.

   -MZ

[Stratobitz]

I don't think that would be a good idea. A user can use his/her sockpuppet account and do the things including posting a TXID. It's not that hard and this would do for successful trades, so there should be an option for failed/defaulted trades.

   -MZ

There will always be those who figure out ways to abuse the system. At least this would cut down on people posting negative trust when when it's not really deserved.

Just one idea - thought I'd throw it out there.

Strato

[Muhammed Zakir]

There will always be those who figure out ways to abuse the system. At least this would cut down on people posting negative trust when when it's not really deserved.

I agree with your first statement. You may have missed about 'how to put a negative trust feedback' or I didn't read correctly.

Just one idea - thought I'd throw it out there.

Strato

You can throw your ideas as long as it is on-topic.

P.S. When putting negative feedback, no scammer would help in 'mutual-agreed-trust-system'. So how can we do that in your idea?

   -MZ

[SpanishSoldier]

Theymos, i think this is almost a must if you expect this forum to continue to have any credibility in the future. Regardless of how many alt accounts are used to vote against it. This is about one of the only ways this place will survive with any credibility.

I've said this in another thread, the problem with surveys is people are only willing to accept votes that validate their own opinions as valid - the others are just fakes or shills, right?

I'm not saying that the poll was rigged. But, can you deny that the poll got very short time span to reflect any substantial opinion ? It started on Januray 5, 2015 and ended on January 10, 2015. Only 5 days to take public opinion about whether DefaultTrust is here to stay or not ? Even the YES was leading initially. NO was leading on the last day and the poll was closed !!! I would request theymos to re-open the poll and keep it running for at least a month.

[Grand_Voyageur]

Theymos, i think this is almost a must if you expect this forum to continue to have any credibility in the future. Regardless of how many alt accounts are used to vote against it. This is about one of the only ways this place will survive with any credibility.

I've said this in another thread, the problem with surveys is people are only willing to accept votes that validate their own opinions as valid - the others are just fakes or shills, right?

I'm not saying that the poll was rigged. But, can you deny that the poll got very short time span to reflect any substantial opinion ? It started on Januray 5, 2015 and ended on January 10, 2015. Only 5 days to take public opinion about whether DefaultTrust is here to stay or not ? Even the YES was leading initially. NO was leading on the last day and the poll was closed !!! I would request theymos to re-open the poll and keep it running for at least a month.

Active people here already expressed their views. If you cannot deal with the fact a majority expressed their preference to keep the actual Trust system instead of expensive and time consuming one which will be no better or at least equal to the actual one, You have no right to cry havoc hinting the admin rigged the pool!

[SpanishSoldier]

Theymos, i think this is almost a must if you expect this forum to continue to have any credibility in the future. Regardless of how many alt accounts are used to vote against it. This is about one of the only ways this place will survive with any credibility.

I've said this in another thread, the problem with surveys is people are only willing to accept votes that validate their own opinions as valid - the others are just fakes or shills, right?

I'm not saying that the poll was rigged. But, can you deny that the poll got very short time span to reflect any substantial opinion ? It started on Januray 5, 2015 and ended on January 10, 2015. Only 5 days to take public opinion about whether DefaultTrust is here to stay or not ? Even the YES was leading initially. NO was leading on the last day and the poll was closed !!! I would request theymos to re-open the poll and keep it running for at least a month.

Active people here already expressed their views. If you cannot deal with the fact a majority expressed their preference to keep the actual Trust system instead of expensive and time consuming one which will be no better or at least equal to the actual one, You have no right to cry havoc hinting the admin rigged the pool!

You are putting a word on my mouth which I never stated. Read my post again. If I remember correctly, YES was leading for 4 days. NO led only for a day and the poll was closed. I just wanted time. Never said it was rigged.

[Grand_Voyageur]

Theymos, i think this is almost a must if you expect this forum to continue to have any credibility in the future. Regardless of how many alt accounts are used to vote against it. This is about one of the only ways this place will survive with any credibility.

I've said this in another thread, the problem with surveys is people are only willing to accept votes that validate their own opinions as valid - the others are just fakes or shills, right?

I'm not saying that the poll was rigged. But, can you deny that the poll got very short time span to reflect any substantial opinion ? It started on Januray 5, 2015 and ended on January 10, 2015. Only 5 days to take public opinion about whether DefaultTrust is here to stay or not ? Even the YES was leading initially. NO was leading on the last day and the poll was closed !!! I would request theymos to re-open the poll and keep it running for at least a month.

Active people here already expressed their views. If you cannot deal with the fact a majority expressed their preference to keep the actual Trust system instead of expensive and time consuming one which will be no better or at least equal to the actual one, You have no right to cry havoc hinting the admin rigged the pool!

You are putting a word on my mouth which I never stated. Read my post again. If I remember correctly, YES was leading for 4 days. NO led only for a day and the poll was closed. I just wanted time. Never said it was rigged.

Time to grow more sockpuppets to alter poll results and force theymos' hand? You seems to have the most to gain from such an outcome and you seems to already have an habit to create accounts for such purposes.