Quote from: Cøbra on February 09, 2019, 08:17:13 PM

I think the trust system does way more harm to the community than good, it should be removed IMO.

The trust system does more good than harm in terms of detecting scammers, look at the market place specially the digital goods, there are tons of confirmed scammers, members have a lead on them by seeing their trust score, there is a good part of harm indeed, but it's NOT bad enough to take over the good part.

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The amount of people I get direct messaging me on Twitter complaining how they stopped using this forum because of issues around trust is noticeable, or ranting about Lauda. I don't think these people are necessarily scammers either.

most of those people are very likely the scammers who don't like to be tagged for obvious reasons.

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Better to just remove it. I'm sure the overall happiness of the community would go way up. Let people figure out for themselves if someone or a business is trustworthy, as they do on the rest of the internet.

almost everywhere on the internet where there is any type of trading, there is a trust system , they call it review and feedback, some different terms and some technical differences do exist here , but overall it's all the same concept, the only advantage / disadvantage the forum has over most other places - is that they give much more weight to DT feedback than everybody else, it's a great feature to prevent trust farming , but when used in the wrong manner, it creates the mess we have now.

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Feels like more people complain about getting their trust fucked with and characters like Lauda than they do about scams here.

this is simply because the trust system is being misused sometimes, some members base their feedback on personal b.s or self-interest. this can be solved by enforcing some rules on DT members to maintain the trust system and keep it on track ,whereby only scammers should be tagged.

it makes sense that the majority of complains come from non scammers, because scammers don't really complain, they just move on and create a new account, this again all comes down to how do some DT members use the trust system terribly.

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Trust scores are mostly meaningless, it's closer to a popularity contest than a true measure of someone's trustworthiness. Just by using this site, all of you are implicitly trusting me, but that isn't reflected at all in my trust score

Pierre Omidyar Founder of ebay probably has 0 positive feedback or no account at all on ebay, this does not mean people don't trust him, he chooses not to sell/buy stuff on ebay, the same choice you made by not really participating in the forum. if someone neg tag you then your theory is valid, other wise it really doesn't make sense.

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maybe there's a way to make it work better, and tweaking it could eventually lead to that, but for now it just looks like something that's dividing the community.

exactly, tweaking is important, in fact simple tweaks will do the trick, a single rule that states "any DT member who tag anyone for non-scam related subject and without a proper evidence will be unlisted from DT" -This will stop 90% of complains, the scoring will be more accurate.

i understand your concern about wanting to make everybody happy on the forum, but i rather be sad than scammed, i really think theymos should postpone the "hands-off" approach and involve a bit more in the DT, i am pretty sure there are many things he doesn't like about the trust system, and for a while he is being saying this but leaving it all up to DT members who never follow what theymos want the trust system to be and look like, therefore i think it's about time he get's a bit bossy and stand up for the wrong doings and put a clear guideline on how should DT members use the trust system.

there are many other things that can be done, but totally removing / disabling the trust system is the worst thing ever, i am pretty sure scammers are getting a lot of relief reading such a suggestion from someone like you.