Re: The most IMPORTANT post you will read this week. Let's get off this path now...
sorry i can't reply to everything, but i do not understand what do you mean by other people being afraid to speak up? afraid of what? being tagged by DT members? i assume that non of the DT members is stupid to enough to abuse that system in such an obvious way that everyone and their grandmother can see, if 10 people commented on your topic now and said the same things you are saying about the "gang" who will have the balls to abuse the system to that extent by tagging everyone who says anything about them?
one negative trust and you started a whole topic and the DT member had no choice but to take it away, imagine he gives 10 negatives and the whole Meta board turns to a serial of topics against him. i bet the horse he will be in deep in shit.
now the only thing anyone can do including the "gang" is to try and fight you back without using the "power" at their disposal. by maybe finding a plagiarism or a scam accusation against you, and that is their legal right to defend themselves and all the tools at their disposal are nothing special, you will get the same sort of a fight-back from anyone or any "gang" regardless of their rank or merit for that matter. unless they start giving you negatives, or accusing you for being a scam or something, then i see nothing wrong with anyone trying to defend themselves. and to be honest I think they are not that much into each other, but by fighting them all together at the same time , they might turn into a real "gang" this time for real
.Neutral is neutral. I use it as a post-it note to mark exceptional users such as merit-beggars and others who don't deserve a "+" or a "-" but I need to remember whom I dealing with when I encounter them later on. If anybody else finds it useful - great, but that's not the main purpose.
It's not about trust or distrust (otherwise it would be "+" or "-"), does not affect the trust score, so as long as the message itself clearly indicates what it's for I don't see how it could be a problem.
we can debate all night on this topic, but really neutral does not mean tagging someone thet you don't like. an example of trust feedback is:
1- positive > you had a successful trade/trades with this guy, you send them money first, they kept their end of the deal and sent the goods > trustful.
2- negative > this person scammed you , by either not sending you the money/goods he promised to, or they arrived in bad shape > can't be trusted
3- neutral > they sent you the money first , you sent them the goods > ( they had no chance to scam you ) but this does not mean they are "trustful" thus a neutral represent that the person has done a successful trade without being in a position of gaining trust hence " ability to scam".
I am sure Theymos can confirm that this is the initial propose of the trust system. you see people with negative trust " Warning: Trade with extreme caution! ". it does not say "Warning: Interact with extreme caution!
if the trust system was meant to be the way the you think, then why theymos doesn't have it show across all parts of the forum? it is a pretty plain simple answer.
however,since people started to use the trust system as another way of measuring other members it started to sound normal for something tagging someone else for their ugly avatar.
as long as there are no clear rules on how MUST the trust system be used for, then everybody will have their own "way" of using it.
Yes you do post what would seem to be a very good point...I would expect exactly the same as you.
The problem is some people do not stick up for themselves. Some people just accept authority even if their decisions are not fair.
However most people do not get any attention for a red trust because they are confined to reputation forum for their threads.
If you visit the reputation forum you will notice a lot of people have been upset at getting red trust
Even in my thread if you read through it you will see some legends complaining at other legends for red trust although some now have managed to get their trust back to 0 via other means.
Red trust should need criteria to be placed and it must be strict and enforced else the DT member is removed.
Merit is a a more widespread threat to me than trust though.
The fact even Legends are scared to speak out when they want to then that tells me there is a big problem because their fear did not come from admin level actions. Mods act on clear mandates and by criteria that can be appealed against. Red trust you can get for saying you did not like LEMONS?? I mean that comes from a DT member that is actually a nice enough person and not a gang member.
I think you honestly seek the truth so I would say please read everything I have written on this thread over and over and then please answer those points that I numbered. Those points if tackled 1 by 1 will honestly allow you to see the damage merit (i think is worse than trust sytem to point) and DT lists (without criteria or comeback for abuse of that criteria ) does. It really is not something that can be denied. I would honestly rather have total anarchy than i would a system of control that silences free speech that can be proven to be true or highly probable if you are talking long term.
Also check out my suggested improvements and tell me what you think about those.
I don't actually understand the resistance by many to improve things and removing/improving systems that are already stopping free speech here.