I agree that Vod is sometimes a little aggressive when dealing with people. I wouldn't say that he is entirely to blame as the people he is generally aggressive with tend to attempt a campaign (or in this case campaigns) against Vod. I do however consider him to be fair with his ratings most of the time (as in 99.9%+).
I think a lot of the "Vod drama" would go stop if he were to simply "walk away" once the person he is dealing with starts things like personal attacks and trolling him.
Vod should not be removed from Default trust list as he has way too many people negative rated as scammers and he puts in a lot of time and effort into preventing scams. There are few other, reputable people on here that are willing to put in this much effort into protecting the community.
See the problem I have with this, is that people ASSUME he helps with the trolls. In reality all he does it force them to change names, and in the mean time people who are trying to operate honestly have their hard earned trust burned! Which one are we inhibiting more, the scammer or the honest innocent user caught up in "scambusting" bullshit with little or no evidence? I don't beleive he is providing a service any longer because his standards are so low and he enjoys tormenting people far too much. IMO VOD and other "scambusters" are the main source of mailcontent over the trust system.
If by "assume he helps with the trolls" you mean he helps with the scammers, then yes a lot of people do assume that. It is too bad that you cannot see more stats about the user when you look at trust reports on someone's trust page (you can only see the username, trust rating/score, amount risked, reference link and comment). It would be helpful if you could see things like rank, number of posts and date registered. I am fairly certain that if this information was more easily available then you would see that most of Vod's sent feedback is to brand new users and users at junior member or lower. The exceptions to this rule is for people who have defaulted on loans and who have a scam accusation against them.
It is possible to recover from a negative trust rating from Vod (or anyone else on default trust list), however it will just take time. It would be inaccurate to say it is impossible to continue to do business when you have a negative rating (just look at TF - he has a horrible rating but is still able to do a small amount of business).
edit: yes it is more difficult to do business with a negative rating but it is still possible.
I did mean scammers, yes. Simple question though. Which is the bigger barrier? The one VOD puts up for scammers via shotgunning negative ratings everywhere with little or no evidence, or the honest users that have all of their time money and effort wasted who at THE VERY LEAST have to wait months to even discuss having it removed. IMO this is just leading to innocent users being falsely accused and either driving them away or driving them into the ranks of trolls and scammers.
I repeat - A scammer can just get a new name or buy a new account. An HONEST USER loses all the time, money, and effort they invested into their username (often years of work) over accusations that VOD does not even bother to verify most of the time. Several of his ratings are simply for "annoying" him or "lying". Last time I checked that is not an acceptable use of the trust system. VODs practices are FAR MORE DESTRUCTIVE to this community than the good he may or may not do "stopping" scammers (who return minutes later).
This is a well known subversion tactic. Get the enemy playing whack-a-mole so much that thy start catching up honest people, then as more and more honest people are burned sentiment turns against the authority handing these dictates down. It is a recipe for this community's destruction.