So you feel that all users should be treated equal. I'm not convinced that I should treat Supa the same as Badbear. I would not trade with the former, but would with the latter. And on that same train of thought why should I not value the (trust) opinion of certain members over that of others?
What you're suggesting sounds silly to me. I do not trust those who have proven to be fraudulent and I don't value their trust feedback either. I trust those who have good track records on here more (though I will still do my due diligence) and I value their trust more. Now I pick those members myself, but I did base some decisions of the Default Trust list. It seems like a reasonable default to me.
As said before ratings are given based on the behavior of the user who's suspected of scamming and the experience of the user giving the feedback. Those on the receiving end can defend themselves. Can you provide an example where
1) someone was suspected of scamming
2) they provided information to show they were legit
3) the negative feedback did not get removed and
4) the person that left the negative feedback is (still) in the Default Trust list?
I guess I have argued enough on this topic and have had my say. I may sound silly and so I think about these Virtual Police Inspectors. For me, I'm educated and I don't care if anyone thinks anything about me.
@bold: That's what I as well do but I even chose not to deal with them if I find their behavior suspicious or find them rude. That should be chosen by me instead of making others forcing me to deal with these trusted members and use them as escrow. There are only 1-2 members whom I trust here and if I want to deal with them, I will. Badbear is the admin so I said that except admins,
there shouldn't be any default trust members that I should trust by default but that's me.
I don't know if this user is on the default trust list but he is a legendary member who has left negative trust "Luke-Jr 0: -0 / +0(0) 2014-08-31 0.00000000 Reference "Too good to be true", or at least teaches people to be scammer victims (see link)" on Bipolar's profile. I noticed that Bipolar isn't a fraud but still many people thought he is suspicious and left negative trust feedback which they removed later but not all who removed it. Now someone will argue that one negative trust doesn't matter. I would only say "Continue your argument."
Personally I couldn't agree more with the bolded statement. People should make a conscious decision on who they trust. The trust feedback provided is merely a tool that can help in determining who you trust or not. However, for those who do not (for whatever reason) make conscious decisions the Default Trust list is provided... Which is not perfect, but fair enough.
As said before ratings are given based on the behavior of the user who's suspected of scamming and the experience of the user giving the feedback. Those on the receiving end can defend themselves. Can you provide an example where
1) someone was suspected of scamming
2) they provided information to show they were legit
3) the negative feedback did not get removed and
4) the person that left the negative feedback is (still) in the Default Trust list?
To be completely honest, I cannot provide you with exactly the scenario you request. But this comes in part from the subjectivity of many of these qualities.
1) "Scamming": one person's "scam" is another person's business. Vod considers anyone selling MSCorp stuff to be scamming, but many people consider that an honest day's work (I'm personally ambivalent on this one, I just use it as an example of the interpretive nature of "scamming").
2) "providing evidence": why should one have to prove one's innocence in the face of subjective accusations. For example, upthread ACCTSeller decided that since I'm suggesting that the trust system be "weakened" I must be an alt of a "scammer" or in some way be up to no good and he therefore neg-reps me (btw, no problem, he's not on default trust, no one will see his trolling feedback). If he were on default trust, why would I have to "prove" or "provide evidence" that my criticisms of the trust system aren't "a scam". And how could I ever do so, given the subjective nature of "scam".
So, I don't have (3) or (4) since, as I said above, I don't have a perfect example to feed you.
In general, in this thread, I see people saying "yes, the default-trusters are a kinda unregulated police" and others saying "nah, they are helpful". I think that I want to acknowledge some truth in both sides, yet I still think the forum could be a better, more drama-free place if we could do something to reign in things a bit. As I said earlier, even changing the text from a big red "WARNING...CAUTION" to a yellow "This person has received negative feedback from someone on your trust list" would be a big improvement, I think. Especially because using the phrase "your trust list" would hopefully invite people to ask themselves "my trust list? I have a trust list?" and then go ahead and figure out how to use the trust list properly for themselves, if default trust is going to continue to be an opt-out system.
That is because the trust is supposed to work in a (small?) community. If x is on default trust and starts leaving fake trust then y will remove x from their trust list. Default trusters are not police; they have 0 power to stop someone. They can just use words to warn. And if the community values their opinion it will be shown prominently.
I do like any suggestion that triggers people to learn about the trust system though. So if the wording of the warning is changed to encourage that (or a tooltip is added or something) I am all for it.