I'm still not sure of the trust system's purpose. At first, I thought it was about trading, and apart from a couple of minor transactions with JackG, I haven't done any trading here. It seems it has now become a measure of reputation, rather than a guide for the evaluation of trust. I'm just pleased that I haven't been hit too badly. CryptoHunter gave me a tilde in his ranking, and I think this indicates the current weakness of the system. I have had no interaction with him, other than playing with some of his posts - hardly a reason for casting aspersions on my honesty.
I form my own opinions about the trustworthiness of members when it comes to trading with members, but I've been here long enough to do this. It must be difficult for a new member to make a similar judgement.
This is something that also confuses me and makes me question the real intent of all of these systems. I see a pattern of wanting to look decentralized while actually a small handful of people control everything from the top with no means of redress of grievances in any uniform way. This inherently breeds contempt for the general "rule of law" of the forum as well as any authority figures within it. People tend to not react well to the "rules for thee and not for me" type justice systems.
You bring up a good point about how convoluted this whole system is. Members who have been here for years still barely know how it works, yet some how we expect new users to understand all of this and that the ratings can mean various things. Instead of teaching these new users to rely on red and green numbers we should be teaching them to use that as a quick reference, and then do due diligence looking into a user before doing any trade. With all these self proclaimed scambusters running around shouting their virtues from the mountain tops, it also gives new users the impression that they will be protected from scams. The status quo is currently creating a lot of issues that are quite counterproductive to the intended purpose of the trust system. Then all the conflict created on top with the rating disputes and infighting is completely eating the community from the inside out. I am warning you all, this is exactly how communities are destroyed...
We need an objective standard of evidence of theft, violation of contractual agreement, or violation of applicable laws for negative ratings.