My suggestion is to have a standard of evidence of theft, violation of contractual agreement, or violation of applicable laws before leaving a negative rating. This solves the primary issue of there being no limiting factor to false or frivolous negative ratings with minimal effort, creates a simpler system, and less counter productive side effects.
Forgive me if you've already answered this, but should this be implemented what would make people follow these rules? Would someone have to sift through every negative rating left and verify that each one is valid according to them?
I have, several times. I will however explain again. Just as currently with any normal scam accusation a thread is posted. It is considered a general requirement to have some kind of substantiation when these claims are presented. What I am advocating for is that we follow this model and require AT LEAST a base standard of presenting SOME tangible evidence of theft, violation of contractual agreement, or violation of applicable laws. As is the standard now for scam accusations, the evidence would be submitted for public review. After the prerequisite of evidence of theft, violation of contractual agreement, or violation of applicable laws has been met, a general consensus would be reached much as it is now during public discussion whether negative ratings would be merited, and users would be free to make that decision individually.
Really it is very similar to the way it works now, only the standard of evidence of the objectively predefined offenses would serve not only as a limiting factor for issuing false ratings, it would again mandate accountability on those rating to substantiate their claims using objective standards of evidence. Anyone refusing to follow the standard of presenting evidence under objective standards would then find their own reputation suffering. This would, depending on the system in use result in exclusions, or negative ratings. If Theymos were to mandate this standard of evidence, it would then be a form a "terms of use" agreement, and those violating those terms would then be subject to negative ratings themselves. He nor the staff actually has to enforce anything, the simple act of setting the standard for the terms of use of the trust system would be sufficient, then the rest would be a matter of public review in the appropriate subforums.