Topic: My musings about the trust network - page 2. (Read 642 times)

I gave you a couple of merits because I agree with the general concept in your post. The example of anti-vaxers is relevant. In my opinion, people who promotes forced vaccination are untrustworthy, their opinion indicates that they are not capable of researching such an important topic that affects the welfare of their children, and they just accept the controlled and biased media reports. Because of this , I would treat their judgements with suspicion. They may well be honest ( but misguided ) people, and could be trusted in a trade.

Obviously this is a subjective opinion, and is based on my general observation of society, and I think it indicates the difficulty that arises from having a dual function trust system.

You just said it all. One of the major problem of this forum is the local boards. When it comes to merits, the members just get flooded with merits unnecessary to the extent they could rank up far more easily compared to their peers on the english board. The trick they use is, the meriting doesn't usually occur on the local boards since there isn't much to discuss there, it's a mixture of both english and local board.

Well we're not discussing about merit so let me get back on topic, Trust issue; To my understanding the DT list should consist of users who's feedback should be considered trustworthy but when you observe the users making the list that got there due to the massive support of their local board members, you'll notice immediately they have little or no history in giving trustworthy feedback (in other words no history of policing the forum). So if I may ask how then, do you determine a users judgement to be trustworthy if there isn't any work to should for it? Some might say their posting habbit but that shouldn't be the case, we have merits to take care of everything relating to posting behavior.

Solution: Theymos should manually blackish all users on the DT list (especially DT1) that doesn't have convincing history of policing the forum. DT should be all about policing the forum and nothing more. Any other reason that doesn't involve actions on the forum should be kept aside, you don't based judgement on emotions.  The funny part is, the moment they get those privilege you start seeing funny positive trust farming like"This user is very active and a quality poster in my local board" sent to themselves.

Of course. Because if there's one thing I love lapping up more than the taint sweat of my alleged merit/trust buddies, it's the equally hot and salty pretzels you so lovingly make by twisting other people's words.


Clearly, DireWolf's point is that he will not in fact call Alice to handle his large sum of cash, precisely because of her relationship with Bob. Trust you to read the opposite of the actual meaning because you don't know what a simple word like "unless" means.

I don't think this matches typical expected human behavior. I would expect a person to include Alice in their trust list as a means of supporting her, even if it is known her judgement is flawed. A person may "manually" ignore the trust ratings of Alice's boyfriend and other friend by not considering these ratings when considering the trustworthiness of presumed unrelated third parties, but anyone including you in their trust list will be SOL. I would not expect a person to even exclude Alice's boyfriend or other friend from their own trust list out of loyalty to Alice. 


I believe you are describing various social circles interacting with eachother via the trust system; the social circles happen to be focused around ethnic groups. This may be one example as to why a single "default trust" is inappropriate, despite no good alternative solution. I would expect various social circles to include eachother in their trust lists, and if a dominant social circles feels threatened, they may seek to either exclude the competing social circle, or persuade members of the lessor social circle to develop their trust list in the interest of the dominant social circle. Some people are skilled at playing politics and have shown themselves to be beneficial to multiple social circles, sometimes by showing they can be helpful to social circles that do not even speak the same language.

I do not wish to get involved in trust system politics, but I do not believe the trust system is reliable for the reasons stated above. I believe the trust system could be accurately described as a popularity contest. In probably the majority of cases, those within the 1st level of the trust system demonstrate solid judgment, but this is not true all the time.

Looks like Alice wasn't thrilled about it:

You are just folding as a form of conflict avoidance. This whole thread is a giant dance of conflict avoidance. You cant even say my name or PM me your concerns like a real man, you have to dance around with metaphors and examples. You are just caving to the mob because it is most convenient, that is all there is to it.

EDIT:

"By allowing Alice to remain on DT1 she would enable a suspected embezzler and convicted thief onto DT2."

Please do source the substantiation for these claims in the non-theoretical context if you will.

Let's have a look at your analogy, that falls down almost immediately and tells the discerning reader to pretty much ignore the rest of the retarded ramblings.

SO...


1. YOU have a friend ALICE

2. ALICE has

a/ a boyfriend you suspect is fucked up enough to scam his own granny
b/ a boyfriend that has a friend who is always around that is a known and convicted thief
c/ friends that you say would consider taking and mishandling fire arms and explosives to a party on a boat whilst excessively indulge in alcohol and drugs. (alice invites you)
d/ a propensity to believe anyone that is nice to her she can trust.

and wait for it folks....wait wait.......if you needed a friend to deposit a large sum of cash into my bank account you would call ALICE??? WTF

Hahah let me listen to your advice on things please. hahaha


If it does not get stolen, spent on crack, blown-up, shot, thrown over board, burned, eaten, or freely given away to that lovely man who said he would help alice carry it to a different bank that was run by fluffy tailed squirrels ... Foxpoop get over here please you are going to lap this one up.

I guess when that happens you could start an loan shark scheme up - where you charge massive interest to bobs granny or others less well off than yourself, depends on how much you have left I guess.. lol


You story is fun (in a bad way) but let's be sensible on bitcointalk for a moment and implement something that actually is not full on retarded and gives these HIGH MERIT brain box musers and scammers with brilliant judgement regarding others wrongdoing but terrible judgement with regard their own choices to observably get busted for financially motivated wrong doing.

Can you present your TRUST INCLUSIONS so we can see what your amazing insights have resulted in.

Is the next part of the story where you include BOB (lauda) and Jeff (tman) because although you don't want them taking your money to the bank, they can recognize other scammers like themselves and bust them to make themselves look trustworthy whilst taking granny's cash and stealing and peoples electronics. Then imagine when they get their hands on the guns, explosives and crack. They can get people hooked on the crack( merits) use the guns and explosives to extort and silence other members. This is brilliant. Just when we thought your analogy was totally bogus it goes and describes the current trust system rather well. Oh actually....

That's great we should fill DT with bob's and jeffs and their pals because they can spot people like themselves. Then because they are so honest they won't collude together once in DT power to use their great judgement against OTHERS but NOT EACH OTHER.

Haha this is a brilliant story. I want a trust system like this. Oh wait..

Lap it up lemmings.

How about we get people that are not observable scammers and willing scam facilitators who collude to send merits to each other, include each other on dt and all collude to exclude anyone that they perceive as a threat to their entrenched power to scam and punish anyone else who mentions they have scammed by giving the whistleblowers scam tags. The get themselves on all the best sig campaigns for the highest rates? imagine we scrapped that brilliant design??

Brilliant, give the OP more merits. Certainly original, thought err inspiring (in a bad way) and a bit too long (how did you all struggle through all of those words???)

Here are our musings and common sense approach.

1. Get 20 -30  legends/heros with lots of trading history and NO observable instances of financially motivated wrong doing at all.
2. Make them DT members, when and if they make provably BAD decisions that have negative impact on people financially, then we can decide if we remove them or not and replace them with others that fit with 1.
3. Serious undeniable wrong doing financially then we delete their accounts or reduce them down to newbie with a scam tag on.

How could it be any worse than it is now? do you really think you will EVER have peace on a forum where those that are observably financially high risk (some proven scammers and scam facilitators and their supports and weak ass dregs that dare not stand up to them (AND HAVE SAID SO IN PUBLIC), openly admitting to putting scam tags on their whistleblowers. LOL

Lets not start confusing it more with race, gender, religion. Scamming is scamming, financially dangerous is financially dangerous. No matter from who.

Now let's await dire posters TRUST LIST so we can see the end results of this MUSING.

BoB was booted off - so he won't be there. Although we wonder if Bob was on there before he good manually removed lol

How about jeff? is he on your trust list?

Still good effort (for you). Keep trying and we will keep assisting you.

Recently? How long are you around? The very concept of DefaultTrust in an anonymous forum is fundamentally flawed. Human trust system does not work unless real world identity is at stake. Here, you really dont know whether Alice, Bob, Jeff etc. are all the same person. Most of the people in DT and the people trying to be in DT are doing it for one simple reason - To break trust and gain at some point directly or indirectly. Disagreed? Right?

Tell me how many of our today's great DT members left +ve trust for Friedcat? They were mostly at the top of FC's ponzi. They all gained. But, they are still there. Same for Tradefortress and Pirate@40. These real scumbags were never kicked out of DT.

Now, in the new trust system, this corrupted status quo is being challenged. This is creating a jitter among them. They are trying to circulate as much merit among the old group as possible and scathing to be a merit source to have as much as possible 250 merited alts. Some are even demanding DT to be Legendary only!

The show will go on...

This was well thought out.

So well thought out that I put you on my trust list.
I also  took  the default list off my list.

I also gave you 6 merits.

It is not very often do I read a post of this quality and content in meta. Thank you

suchmoon pointed out this thread after I posted this:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.52398949

And this a link to what I posted back in June:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/do-we-need-1-more-datapoint-for-trust-in-trades-and-only-trades-5154576

DireWolfM14 / o_e_l_e_o you are both 100% correct in what you are saying, and with:

You do paint a good picture. And it's a good idea.

But, I still think we need to separate money from everything else.

I know it makes me look like a horrible human being when I say "I don't care if you are an ass, who is rude to people I only care if I can trust you with BTC"
But, with the system we have we are stuck with it.
Which is why I have been advocating for a separate "trade trust" and "forum trust and feedback" feature.

Because, if you can say "This person is a vile and disgusting human being, who is racist and homophobic and you really want to shower yourself off after dealing with them" is a fair thing to post (if it's true) BUT, in the marketplace / trading sections you should be able to see: "Did 5 trades with them totaling much money, deal was fine every time" then I think this would be a better place. There are people not leaving honest trust because of social political reasons. Having straight trade info, and nothing more would

As a perfect example IRL.
I think anti-vaxers are morons who should be eliminated from the gene pool.
I just sold one of them my old dirt bike. I don't hang out with him, I don't really talk to him, and I think he is an idiot.
But, he showed up on time, brought a friend with a trailer, had the agreed amount of cash, gave it the quick once over and loaded it up and left.
This is real life, we are not in a bubble. There are billions of people on this planet, we are going to have opposing views with a lot of them.
It's nice to know in advance, who has views we disagree with, but we can still trust to do what they say.

I know I have been saying we need trade trust for a long time that is independent of everything else.

I'm not getting much traction, but I will keep saying it.

During that time I will probably do what was suggested and "include users whose ratings I want to see, and exclude those whose ratings I don't"

Thanks for reading my rant (again)

-Dave

Side note:
Just leave early, until the explosives and guns come out it could be quite a party :-P

This behavior in particular strikes me as odd.

I've often seen posts along the lines of "There's nothing stopping me adding all my friends (who have left me positive trust) to my trust list" and "It's not against the rules". Which is, of course, true. Trust and trust lists are not moderated, and so if you want to self-scratch to high heaven or positive rate or add all your friends, then you are free to do so. But if other users don't agree with your ratings, or those of your inclusions, then they are equally free to exclude you. There have been a number of users who claim complete impunity on how they set up their own trust list, and in the next sentence complain at how others set up theirs.

I am starting to gravitate to the method of setting up your trust list as advocated by suchmoon: I include users whose ratings I want to see, and exclude those whose ratings I don't want to see. Any resulting change to the default trust system is a side effect.

The first thing I’d like to do is eliminate any ambiguity that might exist in the terminology.  Frequently the term “trust” is used in a a couple of ways:  The term might be used to refer to feedback left on a user’s review wall, and it might also be used to refer to inclusions or exclusions in one’s trust settings list.  For this article I’ll use the word as it’s defined by most dictionaries when it pertains to people; an assuredness and confidence you have for another individual’s honesty, ethics, and morals.  So what does it mean to trust someone?  No doubt trust means different things for different people.  In order to answer that question from my personal perspective I’ll try to paint a picture of a real life dilemma. 

Let’s say, hypothetically, I have a friend and her name is Alice.  Alice is a wonderful person, she’s generous and helpful.  Alice is always kind and in a pleasant mood.  And I trust Alice to always do the right thing.  If I was sick and needed a friend to deposit a large sum of cash into my bank account, I’d call Alice…  Unless her boyfriend, Bob is around.  Bob is a nice enough guy, but I suspect he’s embezzling money from his elderly grandmother.  Bob’s best friend, Jeff is frequently around as well, and he was convicted for selling stolen electronics.

One thing I’ve noticed about Alice is that she doesn’t have the best judgment in other people’s character.  She’s rather naïve and gullible, and tends to associate with people whom I do not trust.  The other thing about Alice; she doesn’t seem to know there’s a difference between liking an individual and trusting him.  She trusts everyone she likes, which I believe is also a lapse in judgment.

Now, that’s not to say that Alice is always making poor decisions, even when risks are involved.  But sometimes she does.  If she were to invite me to go rock climbing with her and her experienced father, I would accept.  However, if she were to invite me to a party on a house-boat with her friends who’ve been known to excessively indulge in alcohol and drugs, while mishandling firearms and explosives, I’d graciously decline.

If I were to apply the analogy above to the forum’s trust-system: I would give Alice a raving review for her trustworthiness by leaving her positive feedback on her review wall.  But when it comes to my trust-list settings I would not include Alice.  Although I thoroughly trust Alice and consider her a close friend, I have very little confidence in her ability to pick trustworthy people for her trust-list.  Of course Alice has set her trust-list to include her boyfriend, Bob and his friend, Jeff, both of whom I explicitly distrust.  If Alice’s bitcointalk.org account was voted to DT1, I would then exclude her from my trust-list.  By allowing Alice to remain on DT1 she would enable a suspected embezzler and convicted thief onto DT2.

Whether I’m a newbie or a legendary DT1 member, the trust-list settings I apply are going to be a reflection of the way I would handle real life analogous scenarios.  By excluding Alice from my trust-list I would eliminate the influence she and her friends would have on the trust-ratings I see in the trading sections of the forum.  It’s that simple.  I set my custom trust-list to elevate the ratings of those whose judgment I find valuable, and minimize the ratings left by those whose reviews I don’t find valuable.  I could still trust Alice as a trading partner, and value her friendship and contributions.

Recently there have been many dramatic events that stem from the forum’s trust-system.  Some members have levied suspicion that racism or nationalism is an influential factor in voting for DT1 inclusion.  Some local groups have indeed made consorted efforts to include members of their particular ethnic group into their trust-list, and it looks funny to the rest of us.  Some of the included members have some shady history, and legitimate negative reviews, making things look even more suspicious to the rest of the forum.  When other members respond by excluding the DT1 members of that ethnic group, ironically that’s when the allegations of racism and nationalism begin along with retaliatory trust-list exclusions.

I don’t suspect there’s anything malicious that leads one local group to include members of their ethnicity to their trust-list.  I think much of it stems from a misunderstanding of the system itself.  The word “trust” is repeatedly mis-used to describe many facets of somewhat complex system, and the repeated use of the word is compounding the confusion.

The retaliatory reaction from these members is also a bit concerning.  It goes beyond their own review visibility (which is being adversely affected,) but they could jeopardize the balance of the system in other smaller ethic groups or the forum as a whole.