[1] Please don't take this the wrong way, because I do enjoy interacting with you, but here's something to think about: I often find your responses to ideas to be more from the strawman side of the spectrum than the steelman side (as in, you often seem, maybe because you don't have time for the alternative, to want to take advantage of the fact that it's easier to break an argument down or to just quickly say one or two "clever" things than it is to carefully look at something under the most flattering light, patch its flaws, and then try to build it up).
I'm just being practical here, I try to accomplish what's wanted with the tools currently available. I've learned a long time ago that's a lot easier than trying to have the system itself changed.The way I understood your proposal is that you want a Wild West mode in which you don't see Trust ratings, but others can't add it to you either. You have a point that I took the road of a short response, but what I was thinking is that it would be interesting to see how that pans out. I can guess, and I can think of different scenarios, but it would be much more interesting to actually try it, and see what's going to happen.
Quote
Using myself as an example, there are a few Bitcoin-related services that I'd probably attempt to build, but not in the current environment... I know myself, and I know that I just don't have the temperament to politely deal with people that figure that they have the right to ask me all kinds of (leading) questions and then tag me when they don't like or agree with the answers I give them: I can't see myself not eventually picking up a bunch of DT-tags and getting frustrated and leaving if I just do what comes naturally to me in those situations and I tell those kinds of people to fuck off.
In my experience, the serious services are usually welcomed here (after some initial concerns). And the services that respond to questions with "fuck off" usually end up scamming. You can see my confusion when I don't expect you to scam anyone, but still want to respond to questions by telling people to fuck off.Quote
So, really what interests me about this kind of bifurcated user base idea, is making this particular ideological battleground less asymmetric: right now, one side can (and routinely does) harm and stifle/frustrate the proceedings of the other. I'm not that interested necessarily in being able to return the favor, I'm more interested in finding an effective way to (globally) nerf the over-strong side...
That's like the holy grail of online trust. From what I've seen, theymos has never been completely satisfied with the feedback system, but nothing better has been proposed. To fight scammers, this asymmetric battleground as you call it seems like a great idea. But when I think about eddie13's post, it makes me think it barely solves anything while it does a lot of damage by scaring away good people. Like the units of evil: would you have paid to post here?Quote
I mean, yeah, and I figured you'd say that, too. 
(Seriously, I considered editing the post after I made it, but there's only so much energy I can muster for framing everything in a way that leaves absolutely no low-hanging fruit to pick.)
Again, not being witty, I was just being practical. I want to keep viewing the current feedback system, but I'd also want to be able to read anything else. Just like I often add ";dt" behind the URL to see a page as viewed from DefaultTrust instead of my own custom Trust list. (Seriously, I considered editing the post after I made it, but there's only so much energy I can muster for framing everything in a way that leaves absolutely no low-hanging fruit to pick.)Quote
That's an unavoidable consequence of freedom-maximization, and you could say essentially the same thing about Bitcoin itself: Scammers love it! 
You could say the same thing about money, or the internet: scammers love it There's a more fundamental problem: many people want to trust people. And that's great in many situations where you meet trustworthy people. But online, especially when it comes to digital currency, being paranoid is often the right move.
I mean, I hate seeing this happen:
Another clueless naive new user bites the dust, the forum loses a new user, and Bitcoin loses a potential user forever.
But it seems inevitable, theymos made a good point:Honestly, I think that someone that naïve can't be protected. Even if every inch of the page had been full of warnings, he still might've fallen for it, since he wasn't even thinking about the possibility of being given evil instructions.
We can't protect everyone. In this case it was a very expensive lesson, which makes me think it would have been much better if he would have learned the same lesson earlier for a much lower amount. People lose their guard when they feel protected, for instance when they rely on browser warning popups blocking them from using websites, instead of thinking for themselves.I've always liked that Bitcointalk offers more freedom than any other site I know. But Bitcointalk's image isn't that good already because scams aren't moderated. If a "Wild West" mode forces more people to think for themselves again, that may be a win
This reminds me there was another reason for a short response:
Probably this is getting (way) too off-topic here
Sorry