Topic: Does it really matter if we have weasels, scoundrels, or outright scammers in DT (Read 828 times)

Everyone has their price and there are VERY few people that can't be bought.  Take Og Nasty, he held millions for the forum but he did end up returning them.  Maybe the potential payout wasn't big enough for him since people on this forum had his personal information and could likely track him down.  Now lets say it was a billion dollars or something, he probably would of skipped.

I agree because I did my best to inform the forum that we knew each other.

In my opinion, negative trust rating should be posted only after the end of the accusation case and not at the beginning or even during the case, especially if accusations are granted by a new account, created only for this purpose. Only this should be a red flag for DT members and raise their suspicions. In my case, it was quite the opposite and I couldn't believe how difficult it was to convince some DTs to change their decisions, especially when I was telling the truth all the time and presented a lot of evidence for my defense.

Of course, DT with a lot of experience, Lauda for example, needed only a fraction of the time and my explanations to remove the red paint from my account. I was even happy to see Lauda in my accusation thread because I knew I can count on an honest judgment from this member. Despite all the drama around Lauda, I still think that was one of the best DT members ever. For so many years everything was fine, it was enough to replace DT from time to time, to give them the rest or add more of them, when problems started and not enough DT members could not handle it.

And then what? Do you think a flag would stand if there is no evidence or if the evidence is manufactured?

I'm having a hard time following the rest of your post, looks like a bale of straw as I can't relate it to any actual events or possibility thereof but maybe you can expand on that.

What about when there is a popularity contest stacked on top of a similar situation, and those making accusations don't care to hear any defenses because it provides them an opportunity to punish people for calling out their own behavior? This is why I have been persistently advocating a standard of evidence of theft, contractual violation, or violation of applicable laws, because literally anyone can be picked out of a hat and have their activities scrutinized in such a leading way as to create "evidence" of some nefarious activity when there is none.

There also seems to be a very troubling "hive mind" type mentality going on among the default trust. People should be making choices based on the information they have personally reviewed, not what their buddies are doing and saying. This is cultivating a dual tier system of rules, one of a standard of general suspicion for the general user base, and one of overwhelming preponderance of evidence for those who are on and play to the desires of the default trust.

This environment of arbitrary suspicion and punishment is caustic to this community and needs to end. This was part of the goal of the most recent trust system changes, but unfortunately a small group of people believe they have a right to dictate their own set of arbitrary standards upon the overall community.

I want to make clear that using the proper pronoun is important. Anyone not referring to suchmoon as 'ze/zir' will have serious consequences. (the 'ze' replaces 'he/she' and 'zir' replaces 'him/her')

If there is a scammer, or someone mischievous on DT, the flag voting system will make this not a huge deal because many people can vote and overrule this person. This remains true as long as the majority of people on DT are honest (and are willing to do their own research and take a stand on issues).  

Leave it to my best buddies CH and QS to go into off topic tangents and to ignore the only local rule I have LOL.

So if I may steer you back on topic - does it really matter if a scammer like suchmoon is in DT, or not? I mean what is it exactly that he (or she) will be able to achieve with this dreadful abuse that you're alleging? Is the system able to stop him (or her) or should we run for the hills?

Your situation is a good example of when people do not vet accusations sufficiently throughly, and who lack the critical thinking ability to try to disprove the accusation, and to rule out possible defenses.

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The current implementation of the trust system allows for some bad apples because of the flag voting system. If it is clear someone has scammed someone they have traded with (such as was the case with livecoin), it is not a huge deal when a few people vote against a flag because many others will see the evidence and vote accordingly.

Handing out fake positive trust ratings for non-existent deals is more of a concern, but so is handing out trust amongst a group of friends, regardless of the actual existent of a trade.

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The biggest problem with the trust system is the what amounts to, or is very similar to McCarthyism engaged by suchmoon against those who do not 'toe the party line' exactly. This behavior should be condemned by everyone. Even though suchmoon has lied about not collecting and maintaining a database of all the forum posts in the past, it is now more clear that she is in fact doing that.

The above is in addition to the drama that suchmoon likes to get involved in, and when there isn't enough, she will try to instigate drama.

Of course, and that's why I added that we never scammed anyone either, not even one bounty campaign.

I already forgot about this and moved forward but when somebody accuses me to play a victim card, I will defend myself because I did nothing wrong.


Of course, I am grateful to all members of the community who commented in my accusation thread and granted a credit of trust or simply believed me.

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I bit my tongue and did not comment on this in the first reply to CryptopreneurBrainboss but I have my thoughts about his biting comment.

Is it not because we talked about your participation in the Livecoin campaign two days ago and expressed dissatisfaction and surprise because you previously supported the flag, commented negatively and even gave them red trust?

You explained yourself and you got out of the pickle. Not pleasant but not the end of the world. And the reason for suspicions was quite obvious - the two accounts had very clear symptoms of being alts and sent merits and trust ratings to each other.

Forum rules have nothing to with the trust system, I'm sure you know that. And this being a Bitcoin forum I'm sure you can understand why users here think that private keys are private and sharing an address or a wallet is a big red flag.

But why do I have to explain myself if I didn't break any forum rules or scammed anybody?

In our trust was added 2 years ago that we know each other and are closely related because I knew it has to be clear to other members. Talked about this openly multiple times on the forum also.

This is something I don't understand and don't be surprised, because in my situation many would feel the same. I did it little against myself and it was quite difficult and time consuming. Of course, it happened during the bubble, and immediately after, when prices fell and the bear season started, I regretted very quickly that I helped someone to start and invest in cryptocurrencies, despite the fact that I advised caution and warned that it can be already too late. In addition, later I was accused of alts, which completely filled the cup of bitterness.

Yes, actually that shows that the system worked properly in your case. You were able to talk yourself out of this even though there is no feasible way to prove that user A is not an alt of user B so DT members basically decided to give you a break and to trust that you were telling the truth and/or that the suspected offense was of the forgivable type. I don't think there is anything wrong with that or with the vigilance that raised those suspicions in the first place.

Consider this: using the same address is often enough proof to get someone banned for ban evasion (if e.g. Crypto Mania was caught plagiarising).

We are not talking here about good reputable DT members, with a lot of trust from the community (about these members I am not worrying) only weasels, scoundrels, or outright scammers.


Only because my close friend or relative (Crypto Mania) registered an account and I helped him a little, we used the same ETH address or some social media accounts and informed the forum about this fact multiple times, during these two years, we both were mistrusted and until today have a neutral rating.

WE HAVE NEVER BREAK ANY FORUM RULES OR SCAMMED ANYBODY

Still, I was mistrusted, had to explain myself (expose private information) and almost lost the account, Crypto Mania left the forum and we have still a neutral rating for exchanging merits and possible alt accounts. You will tell me this is ok?

There should be no paint for merits abuse, we did nothing and still got a neutral rating.

Of course, I have to tell now for members who don't know the story that I have awarded Crypto Mania with the first merit 3 months after his registration and never awarded more as 1 merit only to his best posts and asked him to not send any merits to me.  In 1,5 year I awarded something like 60 merits to Crypto Mania. Everything proved in accusation thread, link in my trust.

All these happen only because somebody targeted me, opened a new account, only to open accusation thread in which he used misrepresented facts to start the drama. Only because scammers use the same cryptocurrencies addresses it doesn't mean that relatives or close friends can't, especially if there was no accusation of any scam or abuse in the bounty. That is why I am so afraid of red paint and single accusation which can kill your account. I was there, I know that and wait for the moment when the threat will be finally resolved.


Good to know.

If you don't give them a clear reason to, they won't. Clearly you got away with a stunt most users won't get away with on the forum. Be thankful and go enjoy your stay on the forum instead of trying to play the victim card here. If you get a false feedbacks from a DT (1/2) member which isn't accurate and lacking evidence, you bring the matter to the public, if the DT member can't defend his/her feedback (that's to gives a clear and understandable explanation behind the feedback) then he/she gets voted out of the privilege of been a DT member for abusing the privilege that's if the user reject the first solution involving the removal of the false negative feedback. It's as simple as that.

Similar incident happened few weeks back, from the tagged on the topic titled, the issue got resolved: Abuser gave me a negative feedback.

I am not talking about my account in particular, only about red paint as a whole.

Thought it will be dismissed or something and the flags will take the place, but paint is still there and TBH nothing changed about paint.

I was sure this will be the end of the red paint threat, that someday an angry DT member will paint me and ruin my account because he doesn't like me or has nothing better to do.

I don't see much for "weasels, scoundrels, or outright scammers in DT".. Maybe a few have gotten there but they are easily quickly banished..
Their are some less than perfectly upstanding honest users on DT but I guess that's where the standards are..

Getting on DT2 isn't much of an advantage anymore either..

You can not satisfy everyone with everything. The previous trust system was not perfect and the same with this new one too. Every system has it's own pros and cons.

There will be a class who will always fear the change.
Merit system introduced - they screamed
DT system changed - they screamed
New flag system introduced - they screamed

They will always scream.

I have default trust settings and there is no red paint on your account.
Point those accounts in reputation or in "default-trust" thread in meta and if it is wrongly placed it should be resolved.

I don't really see anyone satisfied with the new trust system here. At the beginning, I thought that it will take some time and everything will work out, but unfortunately with the time passing, like others, I noticed serious shortcomings. Even started to write a thread about this subject to share my thoughts with you but I was afraid that it is too controversial to be published. So I started to read the meta section (not a big fan of) and found that there are many threads about the problems and threats in the new trust system, like this one for example.

I was happy that finally there will be no way that one red paint will ruin somebody account, especially after I was mistrusted and almost lost my account two times.
To my surprise red paint is still here, still counts and now is even much easier to get it, because there are hundreds of DT members, which trust ratings counts as a valid once and give us nice red -1 in the account trust summary.

Sometimes I see red painted DT members and ask myself: "what is going on?", "how to trust such DT?". We all see that something has to be changed with paint and trust annotations, to take the power away from a single person. Just leave it as simple feedback and not a trust measure. There are so many negative annotations left, only because of personal wars and finally, we find ourselves in a situation, when a DT member has a hundred feedbacks of all kinds (bad and good) and there is no way to judge him based on this. I think flags are a nice feature and can be valuable. Of course first, something has to be done with all these problems.

To me personally I just want to see a member play it out with his DT status until he gets caught red handed on what scam he is trying to do, then there is really no questions asked if he or she should be trusted at all. What I don't like with the system is other members react suddenly when a person they have a bad past with or a beef with becomes a DT member. The bad thing about this is you are offsetting the people who have put him to their trust list even though they put him to their trust list because they have successful transactions with him in the past. With our trust system anyone who you don't like being a DT member can be remove if you just complain it to the Meta section or the reputation section and get some following to support your decision to put him in their distrust list.

Elaborate.

Phishing.
No. I won't give them ideas and solutions. I will just add something:
I remember one situation when someone was selling coins and someone else suggested them to use exchange. User was tagged because of that and person who tagged them was excluded from DT because they didn't want to remove negative. Hm..can't remember who was it. Yeah, I also miss old times. This situation would have never happened in old days, no one sane would have knowingly included scammer in trust list. And, today, we have discussions like "why do you think he is scammer if he stole someone's work? Whats your point? I trust him, go fuck yourself"...

So much this.

I see someone who has artificially boosted their trust score from 0 to 13 by adding every account which has ever left them a positive feedback to their trust list (even if it's the only feedback that account has ever left, even if the account is legitimately red trusted, even if the account is banned) get voted in to DT1. Several of the votes he is receiving are from people he has left positive feedback to, and so it is in their own interests to vote him on to DT1 as then they became green trusted. I decide I disagree with this behavior (obviously, because which sane user wouldn't) and I have no interest in seeing these ratings. I exclude this user. In return I get retaliatory exclusions and this user and his trust list calling me xenophobic and racist. Similarly, I have on occasion questioned users inflating their own trust score or excluding accounts from DT2 which have been added solely for this reason. Again, I am usually met with abuse and/or exclusions. My experience in these cases is by no means unique. It is tiresome to say the least.

Well, then we're fucked since retaliation is supposed to keep us straight:


Seriously though, we've seen trust system retaliation play out both ways over the last few months and I'm not convinced it's working. Honest non-drama individuals don't want to deal with this nonsense even if "retaliatory rating should not last long" and some leave DT altogether so we potentially lose good members who could call out scams; and shitbirds don't really care much about "credible threat of retaliation" so they keep misusing the system for questionable purposes.

IOW shitbirds appear to have thicker skin and can win by attrition.

I was thinking the other day after I saw Vod & TECSHARE arguing that I need to go through the current DT list & see who needs to be ~

I think there are probably a lot of non deserving DT Members atm due to it now being much easier to get in. I’m going to spend a few hours updating my custom trust list on Friday.

I suggest that you all do the same. Oh & great post suchmoon.

1) The perception of being a trusted individual gives them a slight advantage, ie. in a currency exchange or buying/selling physical goods they could convince the other party to send first.

2) That depends on the situation, a would be scammer can be selective about who and when he scams, waiting for that one big score.

3) Again, situational.  With the appearance of "trust" a member could lure many into his scam scheme.

4) Another situational answer.  The user could target only newbies, and nobody listens to the complaints of newbies.  If that's the case, a user could abuse his position for months before being called out.

5) If the user in question has been careful to remain anonymous, he'll lose the trust of the community, or at most the account.  But that's about it.  If the account has exposed his true identity, then more is at stake and that could largely depend on the amount scammed.

6) I see this as "so far so good."  I think (or would like to believe) that there are plenty of good people here looking out for one another.  I think we have a pretty good group on DT1 for the most part, and as the system gets more exposure and we all gain experience I think it'll get better.

7) I think it will all balance its self out, as long as nobody fears retaliation.  If you think someone with a high rank is being shitbird, call him out on it.  If you're right any retaliation will be mitigated in due time.

I did not forget, I had the thread created with self-mod at first and then deleted and recreated without it so that users could feel free to comment.

There is only one local rule so please stick to it and of course stay on topic. This is not about your grievances against individuals - other Reputation threads can serve that purpose.

Reputation of the person who will trade should be high. or she should not insist on staying anonymous.
When I have a negative event, when I get hurt, who am I going to get?
That's what I want to say.

LOL what levels of proof do you need. We are ready to discuss this with you in public and you can explain clearly why tman is not an auction scammer and lauda is not a scammer too.

You do realize you can not just use a different " definition" of scammer as it suits you.

Love this new angle. Does it even matter if we have scoundrels and outright scammers on DT ?

Brilliant. Now it is undeniable since the evidence is here.  https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/poll-the-official-dirty-turds-poll-which-dt-needs-flushing-first-5170789

We will swap to the angle that it probably does not matter that they are no DT.

Perhaps its a positive thing? meta board will certainly go for that. Also why is this thread not on meta. I mean of course cowards run to rep to self moderate but suchmoon must have forgotten to click SM this time.

Good for us and the board that some truth and observable instances can be brought to this party.

We already know who the nasty elements arrived on DT suchmoon  https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/poll-the-official-dirty-turds-poll-which-dt-needs-flushing-first-5170789

You and your friends put them there.

Can you highlight these other nasty scammers you seem to be referring too so we can compare their actions against your includes. Or are you talking about the same people but pretending you have not included them?

This is really a meta board matter. Let's bring it over there. Nobody reads rep really. You and your DT includes should be compared against these "OTHER" scoundrels and outright scammers under theymos nose. So he can compare himself. If your includes and those of people like pharmacist and tman are super clean in contrast to these "nasty" others then theymos should go on your side and blacklist them for sure. However if your includes and those of your friends (including them) are equally as bad or worse he should blacklist the lot of you and go with people that have zero instances of financially motivated wrong doing?

Are you open to this challenge you weasel and scoundrel and supporter of outright scammers and extortionists, trust abusers and other vile scum bags?  Or run away again?

A couple of months ago I would have been reasonably certain that if e.g. a well-known sockpuppeting scammer would try to push some of their accounts into DT, they would be immediately found and excluded. Today I'm not so sure. The vast majority of DT1 members seem to be drama-averse (not a bad thing in itself) and those "questionable" users know how stir up drama to make it seem like there is a doubt of their wrongdoing. So I can now see a couple of ways how we can end up with some really nasty elements in DT if they put some effort into it.

If there's a true scammer on DT, that's a huge problem, and I think the consequences of this happening are pretty obvious.  Remember the Master-P incident?  If I remember the situation correctly, he leveraged his DT position in order to pull off a huge scam--and nobody expected that to happen because of his DT status and extensive history of not pulling off scams.  And in Master-P's case, there wasn't any warning that he was going to do what he did.

If we know for certain there's a scammer on DT, that scammer needs to be voted off via exclusions.  I'm not talking about a member who holds controversial views or is an abrasive personality, but one who is an actual dishonest member of bitcointalk.  I don't know how a scammer could end up on the list, but I'm sure it could happen--and it's the responsibility of other DT members to take action.

This one is probably always going to be an issue, as there's usually a lot of debate about these issues before anything is done.  On the other hand, I have seen DT members act quickly to exclude members.  I understand the concern, but I tend to believe that there is a core group of DTs that keep a close eye on their fellow DTers and would blow the whistle at the first sign of potential shenanigans.  I'm being optimistic there, but my gut tells me it's the truth.

A dishonest DT member can take advantage of the system through this means; Personal attacks, retaliatory feedbacks, giving wrong judgement via feedback and flag support. Some individuals, could be out of ignorance or intentionally, they misinterpret the flag system. A dishonest dt user abusing the flag/trust system takes away the credibility of the system.


We have direct monetary benefit which has to do with them exchanging their feedback or support/oppose "power" on flags for money. And the indirect benefits, comes from them exchanging trust feedbacks between themselves to increase their reputation on the forum which make them favorites for Job/services opportunities and open slots via signature campaigns, etc.


Permit me to use an example to explain this; for instance, if I was to get a negative feedback from a dishonest user that made his way into the dt list stating; "Don't trust this user, he's a scammer", it automatically puts a questionable "trusted" feedback on my profile which can cost me a job offer on the forum and also put my reputation to question from inexperience users. I also become less favorite for some business opportunities like Signature Management etc.


We have to give them some credit because, they're performing above average, hardly before a new dishonest user make it into the list without getting caught although the few users already on the list are getting away with positive trust farming unnoticed and most of this users are products of the local boards.

I don't think being on DT matters much for any of those. Someone could (1) inflate their own Trust score by being a Trust selfscratcher, but I don't expect this to be easily abused by creating, including and exchanging feedback with alt-accounts without getting caught.

I call them out sometimes by just posting the evidence and leaving it up to the community. I don't like to take rush-decisions for those things, so I don't instantly exclude them by myself.

In crypto, I haven't traded with anyone (except for people I know IRL) who isn't completely anonymous to me.

[1] Criminals kidnapped the owner of the Paribu exchange because of his BTCs in Turkey. Why should I reveal my identity? Stay anonymous, be safe.

I am not questioning you but you need to remember that you are in a anonymous forum and most of the users in here is not going to give you their identity before making a financial deal with you. Also, Bitcoin inspires anonymity.

Why is that?

This is a remarkable subject. Thanks.

The important thing is that the reputation of the person you shop for should be worth more than the money you give him. I care about it when I trade. When that person hurts me, he actually only hurts himself.

Even if you are a DT member in this forum, the only thing you lose is your member account.

My other rule: I don't trade with someone trying to stay anonymous.

I see only one thing that the scammer that would be in DT would do: he would abuse the trust system through retaliation

People don't have a lot of time to research if someone is from DT or not, they trade based on reputation and using Escrow.

If each person has the right to add who they want to their trust list, then that means that each person trusts the person they want, it may be that someone says that X is scammer and another person say that X is not scammer. and the other day someone else add X to your trust list and X becomes DT. this is the democratic world. Now if anyone thinks X doesn't deserve to be in DT, then exclude that person from your trust list.

There is a option on current system for exclusion, so usually we would use that option when we don't like to see someone on DT network. If a obvious scammer in my custom list then I will not mind if you ask me by PM and inform me about that person history. Perhaps I am fully not aware about that person previous history although I should not add someone on my custom list if I don't know his history. If I am not agree to remove a abuser from my trust list then there is simple solution, exclude that person and me. I don't think we should attack someone personally since there is good solution. Also open a thread will be appropriate if I deny to remove a abuser from my custom trust list. I am pretty much discourage to attack someone personally.

Every system has pros and cons. In my opinion, the current system has lesser cons than the previous DT system. Previous DT system was too much centralized, picked by one hand but in this current system, we have the power to eliminate someone who does not suit in the DT network.

Syndicating privately is not good. This is a public forum and keep everything in public.

It appears that it's kinda up to us since theymos hasn't really shown much enforcement, aside from some generic guidelines (no punishment for opinions, forgive and forget, etc) and some... uhm... lobbying via PM.

Plenty of forum users shared their concerns with Theymos regarding the new system. This is what happens so I guess it's up to Theymos (and other staff) to decide if this is what they had in mind.

It really doesn't matter that much to me personally since I've been using a custom trust for a long time and had most of the miscreants excluded well before the trust system overhaul made them eligible for DT.

But how much does it actually matter for the forum as a whole? For example, if a dishonest person gets into DT:

1) What are the potential attack vectors they could use to take advantage of their position?
2) How much benefit (monetary or otherwise) could they extract from it?
3) How much damage (monetary or otherwise) could they cause to others?
4) What are the chances of them getting caught?
5) What do they stand to lose if they get caught?
6) How vigilant are the other members of DT going to be towards unacceptable behavior?
7) Would it all magically balance itself out? (the "fear of retaliation" idea)

I think I'm mostly concerned about #6. It does appear the DT is mellowing and becoming more tolerant to behaviors that would have been unacceptable in the past. Or maybe it's just me and my nostalgia for "good old times".

Please keep in mind that no system is ever perfect, there is always going to be someone running a super-long con, etc etc. But in the current expanded DT  - do we need to fight tooth-and-nail to exclude anyone we think is unsuitable, or do we just need to accept the fact that some will sweet-talk themselves into DT and all we can do is just wait for them to scam and then deal with the consequences.

Any thoughts are welcome but please refrain from personal attacks, there's plenty of other threads for that.