None of that means anything when 15 people have sent 20.7% of all merit ever sent.
I
calculated 19.34% as of last Friday.
I had calculated it from the
merit stats page, most generous senders - all time when I wrote that post, and I just recalculated it to ~19.35% from the same page just now (perhaps I made a calculation error when I made my previous post). I don't think the ~1.5% discrepancy changes my point.
This would be less of a concern if the merit system was used
solely to decide who gets to rank up.
I am just pointing out that considering that who is on DT is ultimately based on merit, and that 15 people have given out over 20% of all merit, any trust or merit stat is going to be skewed heavily towards what those 15 people want.
It's not ideal, but it's something. If users without earned Merit could vote, the users with most
sockpuppets would get to decide.
I agree that implementing the current DT system without merit consideration would not be a step in the right direction, but I also think the DT changes implemented early this year was not a step in the right direction either.
The DT system has never been perfect, but I think every change in
how it was implemented has been a step in the wrong direction ever since it was originally implemented.
Some of these people are trustworthy, others, not so much, but none of them have come close to demonstrating it is appropriate to having anywhere near the amount of influence they have.
It is indeed scary how
one post from me changes someone from
DT1 (1) to
DT1 (-5), without excluding him by myself. But that is how the system is supposed to work: voting based on available data.
There is a lot of data available, but that does not mean this is all the consideration people use, and it does not mean people do not use coercion to get people to chance their inputs to the data, so that the underlying data is changed.
You mentioned that someone with a lot of sockpuppets without the consideration of merit, however that is only the most glaring
conflict of interest in which someone can get themselves added to DT. There have been instances in which people have sent trust/merit to close business associates, to people they have traded with many times (and most probably wish to continue trading with), and to their friends, all without anyone batting an eye.
There may be some cases in which it may be appropriate to give merit and/or trust and/or a trust inclusion to people with the above relationships, but if this happens enough, the data does not reflect that a given person has (or doesn't have) judgement valued by many people, or that the person can be reasonably trusted (or cannot be reasonably trusted) with your money -- it is more a reflection of how many of the above types of relationships you have engaged in, particularly with the right people. Further, as you are well aware, many people are confused as to the difference between a trust rating and a trust list, and as such, someone who has traded with many people over time are likely to be reflected as having many trust inclusions.
Also if someone were to
speak truth to power, you may see your various scores be negatively affected.