People with multiple accounts would then have greater weight. With your proposed system, you just make 100 accounts, age them, and then become very trusted, and start scamming, or ruin/build up other's trust. That would also give people a free pass to scam newbies and jr.members because they couldn't voice their opinions. As it is now, the trust system is not moderated. Allowing staff to alter trust in any way would leave it completely useless. Staff members could then be influenced to do shady things for others or themselves.
As it is now, the people on the default trust list have a vested interest in the forum. First Theymos, those he picked, and from there those that the 2nd layer has picked, etc. If someone does something wrong with the trust system while on the default trust list, it effects the person above them, discouraging abuse, and encouraging those in a position to add others to the trustlist to think carefully about who they add, and act quickly to fix any situation that comes about. If you don't like the default trust system, individuals can remove the Default Trust list from their own account preferences, and replace it with people they personally trust.
I see your point. You actually touched another vital one - multiple accounts, which IMO shouldn't be allowed. People with multiple accounts are already using them to push their opinions, scam signature campaigns and so on. Not allowing newbies and juniors to leave trust ratings wouldn't be a problem, because it would discourage the most obvious spammers, those too lazy to even write a couple of posts.
You're right that it could be abused by people with multiple accounts, but allowing 1 rating per user should be fairly easy. It would only require the software to block multiple ratings by the same user. You should really consider this, even if you're not planning to change the default trust in any way.
As for the people on default trust, I'm not completely sure if people are responsible with their ratings. Just take Mr. CanaryInTheMine. He gave positive trust to a lot of people, who participated in his group buy, so in a way by buying something from him they also bought trust. The trust list is also rarely moderated. Mark Karpeles was on the list for months after his exchange imploded.
I can't speak for others, but Canary added me to his trust list and I've never participated in one of his group buys. I'd suspect the majority of the people there are in a similar situation. There's no reason for Canary to add random group buy participants, as he doesn't have to trust them at all to take their money and send it to Fried cat. They need to trust him.
If you look at his trusted trust you will see that he has many people that have left him positive feedback that have not themselves received any feedback from anyone. These people are on his trust list (meaning they are on default trust because of him). You should be able to reasonably conclude that he has put many people on his trust list because he has done business with him (and he unlikely risked anything because he has his customers send funds to him prior to him sending his product)
I don't claim he hasn't done business with them. I'm merely saying I wasn't part of his group buy and don't imagine all the others are either. He obviously didn't put everyone on his trust list from the group buys, he'd have hundreds if that was the case.
He does have hundreds on his trust list, more specifically he has over 200 (201 as per an above post). I agree that he probably doesn't have everyone that has participated in a group buy on his trust list, but looking at the number of untrusted trust reports verses the number of trusted trust reports I would say that he puts most people who have participated in a group buy on his trust list.
Having multiple accounts is something we can't enforce, so it would be irresponsible to say that its disallowed. The number next to someone's name is pretty irrelevant, if anyone is using the trust system solely by the green or red number, thats their fault. Its like Ebay feedback, before you buy a yacht from someone with 100 positive feedback for purchases, you should probably check and see what that feedback is for. Allowing people to leave more than one rating really isn't a big deal. I haven't seen any issue with people spamming feedback. Giving someone positive feedback does not mean that they are on the default trust list, I have done many deals with people, but if you check my sent feedback it accurately describes the transaction so that people can gauge what my feedback means for themselves. I have added four people to the default trustlist and left probably 50 different positive feedbacks. Mr. CanaryInTheMine gave positive feedback to people he had a positive transaction with, not a problem. That goes back to the point of reading what someone has gained feedback for and the Ebay example. If someone has 50 positive trust for buying things from group buys, that doesnt mean they are trustworthy to sell you something. The feedback system is a tool, there is no preventing it from people that use it wrong. The default trust system just means that someone in the line trusts that they will give others accurate feedback. If not, changes are made.
You are right, it is not possible not even try to come close to enforcing only allowing people to have one account, plus there are legit reasons for someone to post from another account (for example to post something controversial they do not want associated with their "real" account or to post an anon scam report with 'leaked' information).
I very much agree that CanaryInTheMine should give positive feedback to people he has a positive experience trading with (this is really how most/all trades should result in) however he seems to also make a habit of adding them to his
trust list which happens to also put them on default trust. Now once someone is on default trust they can leave fake feedback to their alternate accounts saying that they purchased something from these alternate accounts and that they risked large amounts of
BTC. Going back to reading the feedback that someone has received, the alternate account now has the potential to scam someone who is looking to buy a certain product because a potential buyer would read the alternate account's
trusted feedback and see several successful trades when the other party risked money so they might be willing to risk similar amounts of money. The person on default trust would have plausible deniability as they would claim that actual trades did in fact take place from the trust feedbacks given.