It is quite possible that I don't see the entire picture here. But from what I can tell, the forum moderators are wanting to grrow some sort of organic network of trust where they don't have to moderate it, it basically self regulates based on participation of many people and their activities.
If this were true, why would Theymos add a feature such as exclusions allowing him and the highest ranking members in trust ratings to negate anyone adding some one to the default trust list whom he unilaterally chooses? They like to say they don't moderate trust and and don't get involved, but they clearly chose to over and over to get involved again in a very selectively applied way. Then they claim they are acting in an individuals capacity and not as a staff or vice-versa to absolve themselves of interference they claim doesn't happen.
The trust system was supposedly meant to rate ones trading behavior to demonstrate who trades honestly. Over time it degraded into a weird political/popularity contest, then into mob rule. Does a trust system designed to bring honest traders to the top of the trust rankings need to have yet another way to give those at the top even more ability to exclude people to settle petty vendettas? They claim there is not enough people participating, but they make the standards so inclusive and nepotistical that only a select few are able to have any effect on the system. I have been trading here for over 3 years and have been trusted with thousands of dollars and have always fulfill my agreements with hundreds of traders, many of which I personally introduced to this forum. Yet according to Theymo's standards his system that supposedly ranks honest traders, I should not have a say. Theymos doesn't want a decentralized system, he wants to sit on top of the list and rule by decree.
Saying again, this forum and trust system is centralized not decentralized.
Trust system is designed to help others. People shouldn't judge people by looking trust rating but by looking trust feedback and reference. Trust feedback is necessary to know who to trust and who not to. Your saying tells you want to get into default trust list. I don't know why though. You still are trusted and can do trades. Just 1 trusted negative feedback doesn't make you scammer. People still trust you but somehow, your goal is to make Vod remove from default trust list like you stated in your thread or perhaps, to get rid of this system.
What Xian01 says is more or less exactly what I argue for in the OP. I know that MZ thinks that default trust is saving the world, one noobie at a time, and this is almost certainly how the trust-rangers our there feel about themselves, but I'm not so convinced. First, if someone is willing to give all their money away without looking into who/why/where etc don't they simply deserve to learn that lesson so that they can be safer in the future? Isn't it the case that any protection they gain from the trust rangers is just temporary and delusional---ie, sooner or later they're going to have to start figuring out the world for themselves, right? I mean just because people are noobies to bitcointalk doesn't mean they aren't rational, self-controlling adults with the sense to decide who and who to not give money to. The idea that noobies are somehow incapable in a way that the rest of us aren't seems spurious to me.
Many noobs to Bitcointalk made many mistakes. Everytime, we may next noob won't do this but they do. You have been much longer than me and I am pretty sure you have seen these. Most of the persons in this forum doesn't have an answer to "who". They only have a username, which is not enough to trust a person. If they want to decied who to trust and who not to, there should be feedback about the person. They need some support. They will sooner or later studies this and will have the ability which they didn't have with which they can trade. Experience is way superior than knowledge. That's the difference here.
I agree. The default trust list just creates a false sense of security and a feeling that they don't need to research their trading partner because there are red and green numbers. In reality all it does is create a protected class within this illusion of scam prevention.
Nope. We will have to make our own judgement, anyways. Trust system plays a role in judging.