I talked to him about this in the beginning of June and his response was something along the lines of that he wants a record of the transaction.
I would not personally give positive trust this liberally as it makes it easy for people to farm trust which ultimately leads to bad things.
I did not say anything of a record, that makes no sense. I told you that i think the trust rating should show that someone is trustworthy to deal with. Might be some people use it for rating their friends or so but for me it shows that deals went well.
And yes, we spoke about that. And i agreed that i should be more strict. Thats why i only do neutral rating for values lower than $50.
By the way... you remember why i contacted you? Because i needed to hear your opinion regarding someone trying to gain illegitimate trust.
I believe that you said said (among other things - I think this is the most relevant and important of what you said):
It shows that the person did trade successfully without problems before. Thats what i think is the positive trust for.
Yes. I believe the trust ratings should show that the member traded on bitcointalk successfully before without problems arising. Its not for my personal record keeping, though maybe i understood your sentence wrong. Its a record of trades on the forum that can show a person viewing it what this account did. The more info the better the image a viewer can get about that person. Of course, when a rating says that an escrow was involved then the risk was not much. But still i would want to read about past trades rather than having a blank trust page.
You had contacted me because you were afraid that you were being targeted by trust farmers, and wanted advise as to how to proceed.
Thats correct. The case was a person with multiple accounts, not even small ones. At least staff knows all details and they observe them.
I would say that your overall sent trust ratings has improved greatly since we spoke. As of now, I would not support your removal from Default Trust, and would probably oppose any push to have you removed.
Thanks. And im open to how trust rating should be handled.
I do like the fact that you have a minimum trade value that you will give trust on, although I think there is a good chance you are still being targeted by trust farmers. Tomatocage had told me that his minimum trade size to leave a positive trust rating is 1BTC, although even this may be too low. I personally like the policy that OgNasty follows (at least the one that others have posted that he has), that is something along the lines of that he won't leave trust unless he has done a number of trades with you.
A number of trades would only slow it down when someone really is clever. What would happen would be that a trustfarmer would use escrows that dont do it the same. In case all escrows handle it the same way he would simply adapt and do a couple of trades.
Saying that... i dont give green trust when i think it might be strange somehow anymore since i got cautious.
I would also point out that I recently received a PM (I assume that he does not want his identity revealed because he specifically asked his identity be kept secret when he messaged me regarding other DT issues/threads in meta) saying that he passed on using you as escrow on a 20+BTC deal because you give out so many trust ratings saying "I escrowed one of his deals and all went fine... "
Must be a combined escrow with many trades then since i did no trade in that high since many months. And i would only give one green trust in that case.
in my experience, very few people ask me for trust after I escrow a trade for them, and even when they do and I decline to give them trust, they still seem very happy that I was able to help them with their trade and still generally would leave a very positive review for my services.
Yes, i think thats correct. Though i think the trust system should be used for showing that trades happened successfully. I would rather suggest to give trust so that other members can inform about the past trades of a person. It is simply a difference to see an empty trust or a trust that shows that some trades happened. If these trust ratings need to be green or neutral might be another question.
I think that PistolPete brings up a good point about a flaw in the trust system. It is not difficult to farm trust by using various escrow services. You are not the only person who often gives out trust after acting as escrow, and there is an argument to leave positive trust after you act as escrow. A large percentage of the escrow agents are also on DefaultTrust, as there is a relationship between a person's trustworthiness and the chances they are on DT (as someone is more trustworthy, there is a greater chance that they will be trusted with others' money).
Yes. Its somewhat standard. I know though that not all escrows are do it that way.
Maybe account buyers should add a new question. Green trust from escrows only?
Another point is the fact that almost all deals involve only one person risking any amount of bitcoin, and there is the question of when it is appropriate to leave positive trust when nothing is risked. This question also makes it complicated to say when exactly it is appropriate to trust someone with your money.
Exactly...