While I do agree there are flaws in the current DefaultTrust system, and that improvements need to be made, I don't think the changes to the logic as to who is on DT1 are a step in the right direction. Below are my concerns:
Using Merit for a metric:
I am generally against the merit system, for a number of reasons such as I think it creates groupthink, suppresses descent/unpopular opinions, many who have sMerit tend to receive a lot of merit, and the overwhelming majority of forum users do not participate in the merit system do to having no merit. I think a good alternative to the merit system would be adding a financial component to achieve each rank (exceptional users could rank up for free).
I would note that I am one of the most merited users on the forum, and as such, I have shown that I can "earn" merit as I wish, and if I wanted, I could create a new account and earn a lot of merit on that account. As such, I am a benefactor of the merit system.
If the merit system is here to stay, requiring a small number of merit to be eligible for DT1 is probably not all that bad, as long as the requirement is low. The 10 merit requirement is probably low enough.
The DefaultTrust system is something intended to gauge one's ability to be trusted in the marketplace, however the merit system is intended to gauge one's ability to make "good" posts. I don't think making a lot of "good" posts should give someone the right to have influence on the trust system via who is on their trust lists. Granted, one person with nefarious intentions will have difficulty
personally get someone untrustworthy added to DT1, however a group of nefarious people (acting in concert or otherwise) may be able to get less desirable people added to DT1.
Lack of Accountability of those on DT1:This is an ongoing problem with the DefaultTrust system, however I believe the new DT1 logic makes this worse.
As it stands
nowyesterday, if someone on DT1 has one (or more) people on their trust list who have no business being in the DefaultTrust network, they are more or less not held accountable, and will remain on DT1. Today, if someone is in DT who should not be, other DT1 members will need to be lobbied to get this person excluded (on a technical level, the DT1 member that added this person can also remove this inappropriate person, however this rarely happens in practice).
If there were major concerns with a DT1 member's trust list (and/or ratings), these concerns could be escalated to theymos, and theymos can remove them as he deems appropriate.
The above is still possible under the new system, however I suspect in many cases the response will be
he meets the criteria and
there is no manipulation to meet the criteria, so he will stay. Once someone "meets the criteria" it will be difficult to get this to not be the case, as those on DT1 tend to receive additional trust inclusions over time, and over time, people will become inactive, and as such will not respond to (or see) requests to remove controversial people from their trust lists. theymos would have the power to blacklist certain people, however I suspect there will be a high threshold for this.
Trust inclusions and trust ratings are entirely separate:One stated goal of this new system is:
allow retaliatory distrusts and ratings to actually have some chance of mattering so that contentious ratings have an actual cost
Previously, there were a group of people on DT2 who rarely traded, but would frequently give trust ratings to others (frequently negative, and frequently controversial). Many of these people are now on DT1. Many of these people earn incomes on the forum via signature campaigns that will not necessarily be sensitive to a rating that says "this person gave a controversial rating but did not [try to, nor plan on] steal money". Some do not try to earn any money on the forum. It is also not terribly difficult to explain to a trading partner that you are standing your ground on a controversial rating verses having to explain a rating that explicitly says they are a scammer. If someone gives a retaliatory negative rating that is a frivolous scam accusation (as often happens), they will not maintain credibility for very long, nor will they remain on many trust lists (and rightfully so).
As a result of the above, I don't think there is any real consequences to giving out controversial ratings for many who previously have given out these types of ratings.
Conversely, if someone who is solidly on DT1 (or in some cases DT2) will be well protected against being called out on scammy behavior that is not "vanilla" scamming. There are people on DT1 today who have ignored calls to explain six figure (USD) discrepancies in money they held in escrow, who have been involved in explicit illegal behavior, including extortion without any serious pushback.
There are a number of people who are now excluded from DT2 who previously gave ratings to powerful scammers
the new DT1 contains much overlap and many "communities" are unrepresentedRoughly a third of new DT1 members are in the same "clique" / "trading circle" and another 15% closely associate with this group. This group just so happens to collectively give out many controversial ratings, reducing accountability for such ratings when they support eachother (the support is not necessarily universal among the group).
Most local communities do not appear to be represented in DT1.
This quote:Unlike the previous policy, I will not generally be trying to cultivate a good list
This should be fairly self explanatory, and is only asking for problems.
I have some other concerns, and I think I might have some possible solutions, however it is very late now.