Quote from: Quickseller on June 01, 2019, 10:19:49 PM

Quote from: TECSHARE on June 01, 2019, 10:17:55 AM

While I agree with several of your conclusions here, and you bring up very good points about there being no limiting factor on frivolous negative ratings, I think your solution is lacking and is only adding more complication to an already over complicated system. The system needs to be simplified, not added to. 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.

The end user does not need to understand how the calculations are made. The end user only needs to know they should leave a negative rating if they strongly believe the person to be a "scammer" and a positive rating should be left if you have affirmative reason to believe the person to be trustworthy AND you should not leave a positive rating if there is a good reason to believe the person is a scammer (this is a lower threshold than to leave a negative rating, but will prevent a scammer from completing a small number of trades to erase the 'trade with extreme caution' warning. This particular proposal is designed to ensure there is something semi-resembling consensus for any labeling of someone as a scammer.

I don't think the requirement to present evidence of xxx alone is sufficient to prevent frivolous negative ratings. I am following both your and OgNasty's separate disputes with Vod, following what is being posted, it is clear that Vod is in the wrong, yet he continues to have many trust inclusions despite his lies and deception -- I believe this is because he has sufficient allies that he supports and who in turn support him regardless of either being right or wrong, they all simply refuse to criticize eachother no matter how outrageous they behave. I believe if it is required to publicly post evidence of "xxx" to post a negative rating, unless the administration gets involved in trust disputes, which I know theymos does not want to in ~all cases, those who are currently giving frivolous ratings will continue doing so, and will present troll posts as evidence, and others will continue to support these people out of fear of getting tagged themselves, or getting excluded from the trust network.

I also believe that someone displaying (multiple) red flags of being a scammer should be grounds for being labeled as a scammer. A brand new user asking for a loan without collateral is fairly clearly intending on scamming (even though their scam attempt is so transparent that labeling these people a scammer is probably unnecessary). If someone were to explicitly say they intend on stealing money once given the opportunity, I don't believe they would meet your criteria for receiving negative trust, but I believe others should be warned about this person's intentions. marcotheminer is another good example of someone I believes should be tagged as when he recently returned from a long hiatus, he started taking out loans in escalating sizes, and eventually tried taking out a $xx,000 loan, which is constant with someone trying to engage in an exit scam (he was actually tagged by many before this, which was not appropriate). Someone running what is very clearly a ponzi should also be tagged.

Yes, someone displaying a "red flag" of being a scammer is very subjective. My proposal would address this problem by requiring there to be something resembling consensus for someone to be labeled a scammer. If I label someone as a scammer because they are displaying x red flag, and you disagree this red flag means this person will scam in the future, you can counter my negative rating, and others can chime in via their own ratings, and the system will only display a 'trade with extreme caution' warning if there is consensus, while leaning towards not displaying the warning, constant with the principal of the presumption of innocence.

I never said the end user needs to know how the calculations are made, however this system is already too complicated and opaque to the point that hardly anyone understands it as it is. Adding more parts to a system creates more opportunities for the system to be broken. Furthermore every time one of these little patches are added it just gets worse and worse. We should be simplifying this cluster fuck, not just duct taping over it.

You are correct in pointing out that my proposal would not solve the issue of people including people in their clique regardless of how extreme their behavior is as well as selectively excluding their opponents. Regardless of this though, they would under my proposal still be required to substantiate using evidence any actual negative ratings and that tool of abuse would largely be removed from them as the barrier of entry of manufacturing false evidence is much higher. Furthermore this again returns accountability back upon an accuser that negative rates without substantiation. This mass shitting of negative ratings all over the user base with zero accountability is the primary tool of retribution and abuse used. As a result they can exclude and include away all day, but the ones leaving the negative rating will be required to substantiate their claims, unlike now where they can just say "I believe XYZ and I don't need to explain myself" regardless if they actually have any evidence or actually believe it.

This will build a clear trail of patterns of behavior people can reference that will be created each and every time they attempt to leave an abusive rating, as opposed to now where they just put on their little clown show and hide in the confusion because they have no obligation (accountability) to take any of it seriously. The difference is my metric is inherently objective in subject matter, whereas currently the metric is totally subjective leaving a 4 lane highway of a loophole for abuse. I want to use the objective metric to turn that highway into a narrow dirt road that leaves mud caked all over them when they take the abusive route. They will continue to abuse, yes, but now they will have to lie to the whole forum over and over and over again about objective facts, which is far more difficult.

There may be situations where people may want to label some one is a scammer when it does not fit firmly within the rubric of theft, violation of contractual agreement, or violation of applicable laws, yes. However nothing is preventing people from simply creating a thread in the appropriate subforum and leaving a neutral rating with the thread referenced. If a user is doing due diligence, this is something they will see. If a user is not doing due diligence, no one is going to save them from themselves as a fool and his money will always be parted. We should be training new users to do due diligence and carefully review ratings, not just look at flashy red and green bits next to the avatar. Additionally the lack of due diligence combined with a squad of pretender police gives a false sense of security that scams are moderated, making users more open to cons when they should instead be doing their own due diligence.