we've already established that self-styled scam busters have voted each other into DT positions, by virtue of the fact that hardly anybody customizes their trust lists.
You forgot to attach "some form of documentation" to your accusation.
As usual, you are working overtime to confuse these legitimate arguments to serve your own goals. He is not making a negative rating over this now is he? Good job pretending as if you don't understand the argument though. Gold star.
People who aren't doing this basic level of due diligence are just on borrowed time until they are robbed and no amount of shitting out tags is going to stop them from getting stolen from.
I disagree. We can't expect every newbie to crypto to instantly be able to tell what is a scam and what isn't. Maybe in the early days when the majority of people involved in bitcoin were technically minded, but if bitcoin is going to grow and appeal to a global audience then it has to start attracting less technically literate people. I don't think it's fair to just say "Do your own research/do your due diligence" and then refuse to arm them with the tools to do so, such as warnings in the form of trust ratings. Sure, red tags won't protect everyone, and sure, there are some who will ignore them and be scammed anyway, but I don't agree with the implication that pre-emptively negative rating scammers doesn't achieve anything.
I should clarify here I am talking solely about pre-emptive ratings on obvious scammers, like the examples I gave in my previous post. In terms of the reference you make to ratings being spammed to punish people for opinions or disagreements, I am in agreement that they are entirely inappropriate.
Signal noise actual con artists can manipulate to cover their tracks and punish their detractors.
You've made this or similar statements several times. Genuine question - I'd be interested if you could point to some cases where scams were able to be pulled off because of "signal noise" in the trust system.
The idea that you are protecting these people is an illusion. Also you will notice you didn't actually address my point, and instead opted to argue a totally different point. My point is that people acting so recklessly they don't take simple precautions and do minimal amounts of research, such as reading neutral ratings, will eventually be robbed. No amount of spamming tags is going to prevent this. There is no reason that neutral ratings can't be used for warnings that don't meet the standard of evidence. This insistence that negative ratings are needed is more of a compulsive need to serve the one rating so they feel like they had an impact than serving the user base by giving a warning. You are attempting to treat the symptoms, not the cause.
You, instead of addressing this point, make some lame straw man argument that we can't expect all newbies to be able to tell what is and is not a scam, therefore, you conclude, we must maintain the status quo. Your preferred status quo doesn't give them any tools either, it just makes them dependent on being told who they shouldn't trade with, giving them a false sense of security, and enabling blind trust in false accusations.
As I already explained several times, and a point you seem to be willfully ignoring at this point, is it is not a question if it works some times. It is a question of, is the minuscule benefit it might result in, worth the very obvious abuse and conflict that results from preserving such ambiguous standards? Clearly the answer is no, but I am sure you will think of another straw man to argue.