Quote from: Hhampuz on January 13, 2019, 08:37:40 PM

Quote from: TECSHARE on January 13, 2019, 08:30:59 PM

The trust system is constantly abused for political as well as likely organized criminal purposes. It provides cover for these people to abuse honest contributing members of the forum with impunity. The question is not if they help, it is at what cost? The cost is consistently driving away MANY new users who simply didn't understand the unwritten mob rules enforced here. The thief simply spends a few bucks on a new account and is back in minutes. Legitimate users burned this way don't come back, perpetually putting us in a feedback loop of driving away the decent user base while providing cover for the cons.

Blindly following the trust is a HUGE issue. There is no way to even know if the same person is truly in control of the account any more at the end of the day, and purporting otherwise is disingenuous and only harms the people it was designed to protect most, the newer users. It is at its best little more than a notification system for people to warn others of suspect behavior, and at worst a system of protecting organized crime and mobbing cliques.

"The only people you see complain are mostly the ones that have actually been caught with doing something bad.."

That sounds like something dirty cops say when some one tries to get the cop to follow the law too... the rules are for thee and not for me.

Could you give me a few examples?

There are rules set for this forum, as well as guidelines. If they are not followed and a new member gets negative trust for something that was against that, is it not deserved? I'm not really sure that it affects as many people as you paint it out to be.

I'd also like to request an example of organized crime that is being protected by the current trust system as that sounds like a conspiracy theory at best.

The funny thing is merely giving examples was the only thing it took to start a years long flame war with one of these people resulting in exactly this type of harassment. It doesn't have to be some kind of mafia, but that doesn't mean it isn't. It can be as simple as an organic clique of users actively suppressing those going against their plans, or even publicly questioning them.

Please now, lets not act like people doing shady backhanded things to each other here is an uncommon occurrence. You need to call it a conspiracy theory to try to make my claim look fantastical and unrealistic when it is pretty obvious how it can be abused.

A bad actor gets control of 1 or more highly ranked accounts, does their conning, if anyone tries to point it out they can simply make them look like a scam artist themselves or just mob them and mass report them until they get banned. I have personally experienced it MULTIPLE times, and I KNOW I am not the only one. The problem is if you have no ratings well you are just a scammer, and if you do have good ratings, well now you have something they can leverage against you.