Anyway... im open to suggestions. I believe the trust rating should show that trades went well. So if the established members think i should handle it differently then let me know.
I like that $50 policy. The problem I see is that when you receive the payment first (as you always do when acting as escrow) the actual amount you're risking is always zero, regardless of the amount of the trade. Therefore by your logic you should always leave a neutral rating when you're escrowing.
Risked BTC amount is money that the person could have stolen or did steal. For example, if you do a currency trade where the other person sends first, your feedback for them would have 0 risked BTC and their feedback for you would have risked BTC equal to the BTC value of the trade.
It's my understanding that the field '
Risked BTC amount' for positive ratings somehow says what amount we can trust a user won't scam for because he's already had the chance to scam for that much and didn't. For example if I make some work for
BTC1 I usually get 50% beforehand. I receive
BTC0.50, I do the job and then I receive the other
BTC0.50. The person I dealt with could have scammed me for
BTC0.50 after receiving the work, but he didn't therefore I leave a positive trust with a risked amount of
BTC0.50.
If someone pays 100% beforehand then the amount I risked is 0. He couldn't scam me in this case even if he wanted to, therefore I don't know whether he's trustworthy for
BTC1,
BTC0.5 or any amount.
If you escrow a deal then both parties send you the good or payment first to you. In that case you're not risking anything. You don't have any way to know whether they would have scammed if they could. Again, the amount you risked to them is zero.