I remember I had a thread with absolute posting rules posted in the OP, clearly stating that if anyone goes off-topic that their post will be deleted by a mod. Mods did this regularly, but then got bored apparently. When I asked Theymos directly, he said "Start your own self-moderated thread". This sent the message to me that moderators don't want to moderate. Once I found out they're being paid to moderate, that is no longer acceptable.
Two things with this:
1) This was before the upgrade to the report system. It was hard to keep track of what had and hadn't been handled.
2) This was also before we started being paid.
Matthew, I always cleaned your threads when I was online and I was made aware of an issue. In fact, we make more money if we handle these issues, so if I saw that now I would scope that up in a heartbeat.
Just as with Bitcoin Magazine, BFL or any other project that has come under scrutiny, criticisms of the presentation and operations do not equate to criticisms of each and every involved participant. I have never doubted your interest or honesty, in fact, you were kind of protecting me from theymos and error's over-the-top abusive attitudes from day one. What bothers me is (and always has been) the hypocrisy.
Theymos wants to manage reputations by calling some members 'scammers', effectively ruining their business chances in the community, but doesn't want to provide them with the tools to defend themselves (rebuttals for spam feedback, petition for removal, etc).
Theymos wants to use the community for their good intentions in supporting what they believe to be a good cause, while claiming that cause is for development. We later learn, a year later in fact, that it has gone no where and now the funds are being spent to pay people he thinks deserve money (could be anyone by that rationale).
Theymos wants everyone to trust his judgement by making him the default trusted person in a trust network, but he doesn't want to admit his mistakes, wants to support ponzis, isn't transparent (2 years ago I called him out for switching hosting over to MtGox without announcing it to the forum community and he's still doing things like this on a regular basis).
Theymos wants to defend the forums basis of "free speech", but reserve the right to delete whatever he doesn't agree with, give scammer tags to whom he personally thinks are scammers, etc.
Theymos wants to call others scammers (Nefario of GLBSE:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/nefario-115669) while telling others that a bet that happened on betsofbitcoin is not related to the forum and thus not forum business (read: no scammer tag). Is GLBSE directly related to the forum?
Do I hate Theymos? No. I think he is lacking a personality, but that's typical of most nerds. Do I want Theymos to step down? No. Unlike the pitchfork wielding mobs on this forum, I understand the value of keeping someone around who is flawed in certain ways, because they make up for it in others.
So what do I want?
- Transparency - Announce what is going to happen, before it happens, especially when those actions bring the integrity of the leadership into question. Give people a chance to leave if they want, not buy advertising if they disagree with the way those funds are used, etc.
- Fairness - Do not pretend to manage reputations (scammer tags, etc) without providing a way for honest victims to place public rebuttals against spammed bad feedback. Force feedback to be attached to a transaction, and thus have evidence to support claims. Stop promoting a trust-based reputation system that is apparently only designed as a tool for libel
- No more hypocrisy - That one is obvious. Theymos currently has "TradeFortress" on his default trust list, someone who buys advertisements on the forum to spread anti-Ripple propaganda and pays other users for them to post his personal opinions. What exactly are we "trusting"? That he has integrity? Or that he just won't steal your coins? The reputation system is not defined, it's general when it comes to positive issues, and fierce and exact when dealing with negative issues. There is no benefit, only negative effects.