Topic: Consensus of Community Opinion of Reputation Loans (Read 1017 times)

Well you can't vote on polls unless you are a junior member, so they can't be that new of accounts.

I am quite disappointed that no one is defending reputation loans, yet there is not a peep out of anyone when one is made by someone on level 1 DT

Most of the "Nothing" voters are probably either trolling, scammers, or new accounts solely created to vote for that option, so it wouldn't really do anything.

Hmmm, well it seems that a good number of people are very against reputation loans, with everyone posting being against them (no one publicly defending them), and the majority of people voting against them in one way or another.

What would it take to get the identities of who voted to be made public?

I am very interested to see the ratio of people who are voting for "nothing it is a free market" to the number of people who are publicly voicing their opinions supporting this option and giving some kind of reasoning for their opinion

There is only ~1 additional day until voting will close. 

You did a pretty nice list of criteria of reputation loans in your previous post:


The biggest callout, however, (excluding explicit statements from the borrower that it was a reputation loan) would be if the loan money was untouched in the wallet.

This is not what this thread about directly, for the curious that loan was a reputation loan, the money never left Just-Dice, and screenshots were taken both of the loan being received and the loan being repaid. This level of documentation is a clear indication of plans to "prove" the loan to support the reputation from the loan provided.

Kind Regards
Panthers52

What evidence would you need to see if he was trying to build trust verses some personal use (in that specific case). That particular case did involve the building of trust, and I cannot think of a legitimate reason why he would need that loan other then to build trust. This is not what this thread is about however.

Not the old CoCOoRL again.  

You cannot (usually) tell when a reputation loan has taken place. Sometimes a borrower will outright say that s/he is trying to build his reputation. Sometimes it will be clear that he did not actually need such a loan (he has much more money then was received and never touched such money while the loan was outstanding). Sometimes a borrower will quickly repay such a loan after receiving it. Sometimes the borrower will place the borrower in a situation that would make it impossible to not repay such a loan.

I voted for "Those who give reputation loans should be viewed as untrustworthy". However, it's difficult to prove that a certain loan is strictly a loan for reputation unless the borrower explicitly states so.

Like Blazed said, it's literally buying trust from whoever gives the loan. If we as a community don't trust trust farmers, then we should definitely not trust people who do reputation loans.

You might be directing this to the tsp/dooglus loan. If so, I disagree with that loan if tsp got the loan because he wanted to build trust. However, if tsp needed those CLAMs for his personal use for a temporary time, then I'm perfectly fine with it.

How would you inconclusively prove that a reputation loan has taken place? You would need to know the intent of the borrower, and the last time I checked reading people's minds was not a science.

I agree completely. I believe that the sale of trust is extremely harmful to the community as a whole because there was not real purpose to the trade/loan other then to increase the trust score of one of the parties.

I would assume that you agree that someone who gives out loans to someone that does not need such a loan should not be on default trust? Is this correct?

I think they are a bad thing in general. You basically are buying trust in my opinion.

Reputation loans are a great way to earn a little bit of money in a short time period. They also could allow users to appear to be more trusted then might be appropriate. I believe that many reputation loans often would turn into progressively larger loans based on this trust that ends up in default, leaving the last lender holding the bag.

My question is, what is the overall consensus of the community regarding reputation loans? What appropriate action should be taken when such loans are discovered to be taken/be given?

If the person giving such loans knowingly does so, should they receive negative trust ratings for enabling what often turns out to be a scam?

If the person giving such loans knowingly does so, should their trust ratings be excluded because the primary reason for engaging in a particular deal was to give trust ratings?

If a person is discovered to have taken out a reputation loan, should they receive a negative trust rating for engaging in behavior that almost always results in a scam?

Should nothing happen to either those who give or receive such loans because it is a free market and people should learn to conduct their own due diligence?

Something other then the above?

(I am personally against reputation loans, but I will try to remain as neutral as possible in crafting this thread).

The poll will last for 5 days. I have no way to cause the selection of each users vote, however I would not be against such disclosure by the admins.

Kind Regards
Panthers52

You can make up to 3 selections while voting