I've never contacted admins with a bullshit request or made a thread about something like this that isn't fully justified, and I rarely talk to staff. I don't think it's just me that thinks it's unfair but a lot of people, you even said yourself the system is unfair with the way it can be used. People who have a higher feedback weight need to use it responsibly or they shouldn't have it because it's not helping th site in any way. I don't know what happened in your situation and I'm on my phone right now but I think the staff would of responded to it if it was justified. TheButterZone has already been removed from the default trust list of a staff member. I don't think staff won't act on matters like this if it seems reasonable to them.
What bullshit requests? You might feel that this is fully justified, and unfair, but my point stands. The feedback system will be "abused" NO MATTER WHAT. There will ALWAYS be some one claiming left trust was unjust and demanding its removal. What defines "abuse" is open to interpretation and is yet another facet of the trust system that can be abused.
Instead of letting users define who is trusted in a decentralized fashion, Theymos has opted to moderate other peoples trust via deciding himself and dictating to others who can and can not be in "his" trust tree. I argue all that is happening is that Theymos is protecting the integrity of the default trust as a way to solidify his own influence over the supposedly decentralized and unmoderated system. If Theymos is dictating to people who are on his trust tree, then its not a trust network, it is a list of Theymos's buddies. Additionally bowing to the demands of individuals who instigate issues, then complain to the staff/mods once they have repercussions for their actions sets an extremely dangerous precedent of policy around here that I GUARANTEE will result in a flood of such harassment, baiting, and following accusations. The end result, in effect trolls have designed a way to make the staff/mods tear the community apart for them, and they refuse to admit they are enforcing a failed policy.
Basically what I am trying to get across to you is, regardless of it being right or wrong, demanding some central authority fix your problems for you is the downfall of every supposedly decentralized system. The fact that they obliged now demonstrates that it is in fact a completely centralized system where one man chooses who is and is not allowed to have "influence".
An authority figure on this forum are the only people who are able to fix the problem unless everyone stops misusing the trust system. The people carrying heavier feedback weight should display better judgment than to misuse their powers because of trolls. I'm sure most of the people on the forum could care less if they get unwarranted feedback from someone and it doesn't show up as "Trusted Feedback" for them, but the fact it comes up as trusted and shows -6/-1 and the problem here is so minimal that it shows that some of the people with that power don't have the correct judgment to hold it. IDK why you keep trying to get a point across to me because I've told you about 10 times that I'm not looking for a moderated system or for staff to take time to moderate the trust system. I'm asking for TBZ's default trust to be removed as well as anybody else who's misused it (Which will take about 10 minutes) and stop them from having the power to carry the -6/-1 feedback weight. The people who demonstrated that they're not responsible for holding that status should be removed and members feedback should carry an equal weight except for a handful of members and the trustworthiness of someone's feedback will come naturally like DarkMule just said.
Until a better idea comes out or the trust system is removed all together, this is the best thing to do. What exactly would your plan of action be for handling the trust system? Because from your previous posts you didn't agree with the removal of the trust system and you're not agreeing to keep the trust system so it's hard to determine your stance on this situation.
People who demonstrate long term trustworthiness should be able to have a higher feedback weight
Yes, and this should occur naturally, because such people naturally obtain good feedback of their own. This gets weighted into how their own feedback is rated by a trust system.
Without saying anything derogatory about anyone in charge of DefaultTrust, it is absolutely impossible for any person to make decisions other people should trust about things like this, when they clearly have their own conflicting interests, but DefaultTrust is basically rammed down everyone's throat. Many people don't even realize it should be turned off.
The history of people who have been on that DefaultTrust list who shouldn't have been is so long and familiar to anyone here who has paid any attention that I need not recount it. Its history speaks for itself.
It benefits nobody except the people on it.
I agree on most of this although I'm not sure how default trust was set up or how you get the -6/-1 feedback weight. I think it was originally intended for their to be community moderators that weren't necessarily staff that helped the site, but when it started being misused nothing was done about it. On eBay I would get the same feedback from someone with 160000 positive feedback or someone with 5 and this is how I think the trust system here should work. I don't think having the trust system automatically weigh people's trust would help because I think there'd be a lot of ways around it and in a lot of situations a member as active as another member but with less trades feedback should equal the same thing. If there was a way that you could only post negative feedback if there was a button to initiate a trade with the user I think that would really help, but then negative feedback couldn't be given to people who are running Ponzi schemes or are trying to scam people. There's still the scam accusation sub forum though.