Re: How long does this warning stay on the account profile?
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.
I mean, I can't fault you for that. 
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.
To be clear: I'm not in the habit of telling people to fuck off (or even thinking it), especially when they're just asking questions (even irritating/uncomfortable/exhausting ones). But, what gets me to see red pretty quickly is when I realize that I'm not being asked questions from a completely innocent and harmlessly-inquisitive place. (Honestly, when I consider users like Vod, my thinking is: besides interrogatees being on the wrong end of an often unjustifiable and unfair power gradient, I don't see how some people on DT don't routinely find themselves being impolitely told to go and take a long walk off a short pier. That is, before they've done their damage, I mean: obviously, they're used to getting an earful after they've painted an account.)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.
Yup, that's (very much) my feeling, too...I guess what I'm trying to do is think of some way to accommodate both perspectives (pro-police vs. no-police), but, if I turn off maximum-tolerance mode (as in, I abandon the philosophy that “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”), then I wouldn't even mess around with any of this "split" user base stuff: I'd just scrap the whole trust system on the basis that it's causing (in my view) more total harm than total good. Failing that, I'd just scrap the most damaging part of it: DefaultTrust.
(Hmm... I noticed that Friday was my first-ever selection into DT1. Just thinking out loud here, guys, but, maybe the trust system should be left as-is. I mean, it is actually pretty nifty, after all.)
The below thoughts (an excerpt from a draft of a PM meant for theymos that was never sent) are a little out-of-phase with my current thinking, because they're ~3 months old, but I do still agree with most of it:
Quote from: PowerGlove
I'm not convinced that the whole DT idea/thing actually carries its own weight value-wise. The trust system without DT is a nice tool, IMO.
I mean, I get the instinct to protect new members that have empty trust lists, but, I don't know... I don't think my decision-making as a forum user has even once been affected by trust feedback or trust flags. I tend to look at people's rank, merit, post history, etc. when deciding if someone is risky to deal with. So, personally, I have a hard time imagining that a lot of users would have fallen for scams, etc. if not for DefaultTrust. It seems to me that a combination of a good welcome message, a few well-placed warnings, and some well-timed account reminders to curate your trust list, would do just as much (if not more) to protect users, and without the substantial additional (and often very negative) complexity that gets added to the forum's dynamics by way of DefaultTrust.
One really nice thing about scrapping DefaultTrust would be that a lot of what confuses people about how the trust system works would immediately disappear (voting, DT status/levels, etc.) and what remains would be much easier for most people to get their heads around. Without voting, there'd also be no transparency-wise need for trust lists to be publicly visible (via data dumps), which would make a ton of drama simply evaporate. I think people would curate far more honest and ultimately more helpful (to them) lists if they could do so in private.
Also, the whole idea of outsourcing trust is antithetical to Bitcoin. I think it's better to remind people that, in this brave new world, they need to get used to the idea of taking personal responsibility for their financial decisions, and that besides always being really careful, they also need to learn to either do things in a trust-minimizing way or to exercise extremely good judgment, and that, in the limit, nothing and nobody but themselves can protect them from making bad decisions.
I mean, I get the instinct to protect new members that have empty trust lists, but, I don't know... I don't think my decision-making as a forum user has even once been affected by trust feedback or trust flags. I tend to look at people's rank, merit, post history, etc. when deciding if someone is risky to deal with. So, personally, I have a hard time imagining that a lot of users would have fallen for scams, etc. if not for DefaultTrust. It seems to me that a combination of a good welcome message, a few well-placed warnings, and some well-timed account reminders to curate your trust list, would do just as much (if not more) to protect users, and without the substantial additional (and often very negative) complexity that gets added to the forum's dynamics by way of DefaultTrust.
One really nice thing about scrapping DefaultTrust would be that a lot of what confuses people about how the trust system works would immediately disappear (voting, DT status/levels, etc.) and what remains would be much easier for most people to get their heads around. Without voting, there'd also be no transparency-wise need for trust lists to be publicly visible (via data dumps), which would make a ton of drama simply evaporate. I think people would curate far more honest and ultimately more helpful (to them) lists if they could do so in private.
Also, the whole idea of outsourcing trust is antithetical to Bitcoin. I think it's better to remind people that, in this brave new world, they need to get used to the idea of taking personal responsibility for their financial decisions, and that besides always being really careful, they also need to learn to either do things in a trust-minimizing way or to exercise extremely good judgment, and that, in the limit, nothing and nobody but themselves can protect them from making bad decisions.
Like the units of evil: would you have paid to post here?
I wouldn't have. In fact, it's unlikely that I even would have applied to be whitelisted if I hadn't by that point read some of your posts and thought: "Okay, now here's a dude that speaks my language!". 
This reminds me there was another reason for a short response:
Haha, yeah. (Feel free to send me your reply, if any, by PM.)Probably this is getting (way) too off-topic here
Sorry @logfiles: Sorry for messing up your topic.
