Well, you may be right about the cost-benefit analysis of QS neg-repping to increase account prices. But I don't believe that the conflict of interest has to be the sole motivation for someone in order for that conflict of interest to be valid. COI's are black and white, people may or may not act on them but keeping black-and-white COIs out of default trust seems like it would be important (to me).
Just a thought, but applying the same argument (COI) to you would lead to the conclusion that discussing whether or not QS should be on DT should not be a viable thing. You have a conflict of interest because you directly benefit from their removal from DT. I dont actually think that its a valid point, but I had to put it out there.
I dont think anything is black and white. *resist 50 shades of grey joke*. I think someone can be gradually conflicted in their interest. The person in question might also not be aware of their bias. A healthy discussion whether or not someone is biased and their ratings are affected is important IMHO. Whether this leads to a conclusion or not is something else.
I agree, but sometimes the evidence isn't even there at all. In my own case, QS's "evidence" was merely the fact that a known scammer accused me years ago. In any case, I wonder if you'd be feeling any differently if you had to wear a large WARNING on your account (which I know you've had for years because you and I started on this forum around the same time) just because someone got angry at you.
Well, yes the conclusion is very shaky IMHO. Thats what I wrote in your thread as well. For me there is not enough to label you as a scammer. I know that I would be angry about a person leaving injust feedback. I had (and still have) that issue with TradeFortress. Your situation is certainly different though, because QS does not have a trust score of -6000, but just because I understand your motivation or situation does not mean that I agree with your conclusion. When I look at your rating I will be reminded that was an argument in the past and you may or may not have used to bot to gain an advantage. This would barely influence my behaviour when doing business with you. In case of a loan your account has certainly less value, same as if you wanted to sell it. I understand that signature campaign managers are very picky about these things and I honestly dont understand it most of the time. Its either laziness or they are afraid of the imagine problem it might cause if someone "bad" advertises for them.
E.g. if you dont care about Microsofts ToS, Vods ratings might not be valueable to you and you can thus discard them. If you agree that violating a companies ToS might lead to problems in the future, the rating is valueable. Even if you are indifferent about the issue, the rating is still valueable because it gives you a point of view you might not have considered yourself.
The other side of the coin is that there are many users who seem unable to look beyond the flashy red WARNING!. I would argue though that those that are unable to understand a rating might not be someone to trade with. In the end, we are talking about nothing more but a warning, an opinion. Different opinions are valueable especially if you disagree with them.
I mostly agree with you, but in fact, as someone who participates in signature-ad campaigns, you know that many campaigns will now allow advertizers with a warning from someone on default trust. So in fact there's a very direct connection between the presence of the warning and the economic value of an account. Before QS began his smear campaign against me based on the fact that I had disagreed with him and called him out for being a hothead, I basically felt the way you do, that these warnings are obviously meant to be taken with a grain of salt. And, FWIW, I removed Vod from my trust list some time ago for just the reason you said, I don't find microsoft IP matters interesting or relevant to my world so I don't care to worry about his warnings. I started a thread in meta about how to tone down the warning text so that it more accurately reflects what it means (ie, instead of "WARNING...EXTREME CAUTION" change it to "This user has received negative feedback from someone on your trust list"). Hillariously, QS actually neg-repped me for merely having that opinion using one of his alts (ACCTSeller).
Neg-repping for arguments sake is certainly wrong. I already mentioned signature campaigns above and yes I see their very strict "no neg rep" rules and I dont understand them from a DT perspective. From a marketing perspective it certainly makes sense, because you are afraid to look bad. This is actually a valid point I have not considered in that regard before. Your negative rating by Quickseller is now prohibiting you earning from your posts. Who is to blame though? Should those on DT keep the possible signature earning is mind when leaving a rating? I dont think thats a good idea. Should we force certain practices regarding the signature campaigns? Sounds like a bad idea.
Having a higher standard on what is evidence might be a solution though. I dont think its unreasonable to ask for higher quality in terms of evidence. After all being on DT is giving your ratings more influence. On the other hand many ratings are merely hunches, esp towards newbies.
I just read your rating again and it seems Vod (as well as r3wt) gave you one to somewhat counter the rating by QS. This is getting very specific though, IIRC the discussion ought to be about trading trust.