This is what I love about Theymos. Once he establishes the rules, he abides by them. He's like the guy who brings the football to the street game but doesn't insist on being the team captain; he plays just like everyone else. I still remember his "clash" with Lauda and how they both utilized the exact same tools to battle each other -- lobbying and persuading other DT members to exclude the other person (anyone who was a DT member at that time probably still has those PMs).

Theymos could have easily wiped Lauda's forum history in 5 seconds, but he chose to use only the tools Lauda had access to as well. Can you find a better or fairer administrator? Probably not.

The issue here, however, is this:


I disagree, however, that the system is working as intended. It's evident that he expected too much from the community -- a system where the majority of members would participate, and thus the end result of the DT status would reflect what the majority of people want. However, after all these years, it seems like only 1% of the forum members participated in the system. This resulted in a small minority of people obtaining the DT status, turning it into more of a privilege than a responsibility. It's the "cool guys club." Eventually, some people started abusing it, and because only that small minority of people engage in the voting, it became close to impossible to stop anyone from abusing the system. Hence, we have all these complaints. Of course, I wouldn't say it's completely useless, the trust system itself is a great tool. I just think the DT list shouldn't be there, and everyone must create their own list.

Obviously, Theymos doesn't think that the current level of abuse is significant enough for him to change the rules. But eventually, as more people start complaining about the unjust use of the trust system, he will likely come up with a different plan, or at least, that's what he usually does, fix things.