Forget about DefaultTrust! Adopt the Merit System now!

Quote from: actisstupidname on February 14, 2018, 03:48:53 PM

Quote from: theymos on February 14, 2018, 09:51:05 AM

I don't have an opinion on this particular issue (Lauda has many good ratings, but also several that seem too trigger-happy), but I have been getting very annoyed about how centralized the trust system is. The reason that I made it a complicated trust network instead of a centralized list/database is so that it'd be decentralized and subjective.

I've been seriously thinking about reopening the idea of enforcing user-defined trust lists via suggestions, etc., deprecating DefaultTrust.

Thank you Theymos for listening. I agree decentralizing the trust system in this forum is the best in the spirit of Bitcoin. You can't trust human overlords to make decisions for you. The next best thing would be the judgement of the whole community. And then maybe making harder to make new accounts by verifying identities by phone (like Telegram) or by BTC holds (proving you hold enough BTC) would ensure less alt accounts.

The following quote is a first impression of this forum from a newbie:

Quote from: Lovecove on February 14, 2018, 11:45:53 AM

I've seen many weird trust ratings while bored waiting for the post timer to conclude when I want to post something right after having posted something a second ago.

Some people have negative trust, but the amount of BTC involved is literally 0. And the negative trust message is somewhat odd, something like: "POTENTIAL SCAMMER! ASKS FOR NO COLLATERAL LOAN"

This is odd to me. If he never scammed anyone yet, then why does he get negative trust that reflects oh so poorly on his main profile when posting? That's unfair to the maximum.

I've seen another weird one, where someone is selling subscription services to crypto investment groups. The negative trust given is merely a speculation on why the price is so low: "Warning scammer trying to sell subscription services for half the price of regular." <-- again, no BTC involved. It's just people ranting.

It's almost like leaving a restaurant review without actually eating at the restaurant.

But then again, the environment of crypto where no transactions can be reversed... I'd say these negative trust messages are natural. Have to prevent a scam before it happens, right?

But giving someone negative trust for their political/religious opinions is just fucked. That has nothing to do with business. Trust is about business. Being a radical Christian has nothing to do with scamming someone.

Frankly, this cleaning up of the DT members or deprecating DefaultTrust would help the merit system since it's the next best thing for a community vote.