Topic: TheButterZone Removed From Default Trust - page 6. (Read 6870 times)

Yeah that works great in fantasy land. In reality trolls don't give a crap about logical arguments, and regardless it doesn't stop the damage done. Also I love the misquoting of the actual words I used about the mods "punishing" me for the trust I left, and attributing it to me as if I claimed I want to "punish" others. Quite disingenuous.

 You want a fair trading environment but also want to let people operate on this forum as if it were 4chan. I am not claiming the thread itself is my property, I am claiming it SHOULD be, at least within the confines of the marketplace section. Even if every single marketplace posting was self moderated it would not stop others from calling out fraud or abuse elsewhere in the forum. Additionally it costs you nothing to allow people to harass me, therefore you have no interest in protecting me to begin with, and neither do the mods.

However there is plenty of incentive for people to drift from thread to thread and pretend like they are righting wrongs so they can look like social justice warriors and also entertain themselves with trolling in the process. People can cause harm with their words and by invading and hijacking otherwise productive threads. These people thrive off of destroying the work of others and due so under a guise of pointing out a wrong to put their victims on the defensive from the beginning of their perpetration of this harassment. This will continue to be exploited by disingenuous people until the moderators and staff correct their failed attempts at moderating trust in any way. As long as you comply to it, they will keep harassing then demanding the staff correct it for them. Neutral trust isn't going to fix anything, because the problem isn't the trust system, it is your attempts at moderating it. Staff/moderators your strategy is a failing one. Unfortunately you decided to punish me and others instead of accepting that fact.

My reputation has already been damaged by the libel; do you think I need to end up on death row, in prison or under legal defense bills typically exceeding commonly scammed amounts (>$100k vs <$10k) as the end result of the libel, for this to cross your moral line, MilesJohan?


As if you psychically knew that I would be able to delete the "joke" before anyone else but me could see it. Ex post facto BS! Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

If I can't trust you to not indefensibly "joke" about me being a murderer, then why would I trust you with anything less?

For me to become a murder suspect by the community, and your apparent attempts to induce PTSD in me too (1- first time "the people he murders" 2- double down "you act like a murderer" 3- "borderline sociopath and has narcissistic personality disorder"), those are no "joke".

First of all, it was just a joke and it was posted in your moderated thread so I knew it was going to be deleted by you and it wasn't intended to hurt your reputation because I think everyone on the forum knows your not a murderer. Secondly, reading the negative rep you left me you're doing the exact thing you're accusing me of doing except you're not joking about it and you're using your forum status to your personal advantage and not for the well being of the site. "I wouldn't trust this user with a single grain of rice or anything more valuable." is what you left on my profile. I don't think things like this are benefiting the site at all especially since I haven't done anything besides make a joke. Negative repping someone is only suppose to be used for people who are scammers and show suspicions of scamming, and you can't use it for anything else or you're breaking the rules. I don't think this displays enough responsibility to have that kind of power. I've been here for almost two years and I've contributed a lot to the site and for my account to be ruined over something like this is ridiculous. I think if the "Trusted Feedback" were only able to be used for people who've proven they can use it responsibly it would solve a lot of the problems around the forum. My account is branded with negative rep for something that doesn't have anything to do with trading and I believe it will hurt my business around the forums and I don't think that's fair for a member who hasn't scammed or broken any of the rules.

I agree that murder is much worse then theft, however "trying" to damage one's reputation by claiming they have killed someone is not worse then actually stealing from someone. There are plenty of people who have gone on to be successful after being found not guilty of murder (and after being accused of murder by the government).

I would say that some "double negative" trust rating would be appropriate for people who have killed before, for example, altoid/ross/DPR

TECSHARE: /nods


Well, as I cannot afford to bring a libel suit, my use of the word "libel" is only for OED (non-lawyers' common understanding) purposes, not Black's Law/statutes/case law.

If someone is willing to damage someone's reputation by lying about their commission of the ultimate individual crime of violence (second overall only to mass murder), that's far worse IMO than simply committing property crimes, aka scamming. Perhaps there should be a double negative rating that covers accusations and defenses of heinous violent crimes.

To make it absolutely clear...
Murder>Theft

Unless you own the property that someone is making speaking on, then you do not have any right to "punish" them for what they say. You do not own the thread in which you are selling your goods, and therefore you do not have any right to punish anyone who says anything in your thread (provided they are not attempting to scam).

It is a valid question to ask why you are charging a certain price when others are charging a lower price. If you feel your price is appropriate then you should respond to then why they are appropriate and any potential customer can see both of your arguments in a transparent way.

The first two was from my understanding of the libel laws in the US and the standard of proof that must be presented in order for someone to be 'liable' for libel.

The third bullet is my interpretation of US supreme court rulings on first amendment issues regarding satire of 'famous' people and libel.

I really cannot argue the moral issue of "joking" that someone is a murderer as this is not the appropriate venue for that and I do not have a strong enough of an opinion.  

I would say that if you truly think there is a connection between his two comments and his ability to be trusted then the negative trust is appropriate. If you cannot make a strong logical connection between someone making this empty claim and their ability to be trusted then the negative trust is not appropriate. Remember that negative trust should be given if "you were scammed or if you strongly believe this person is a scammer"

Butterzone, I think where we agree is that not all critical posts in the marketplace or other areas where people are engaged in professional activities here are accurate or warranted. People who engage in such activity should not be free to do so without repercussion. Being critical of a user for engaging in actual fraudulent or dishonest activity is one thing, and users are free to bring light to anyone engaged in these acts pretty much on the entire forum. For the rest of the dedicated users operating here professionally and obeying posting guidelines, allowing this kind of activity or furthermore punishing users for acting against it is a slap in the face. Letting some one control their own marketplace thread does not some how silence critics because they have the ENTIRE FORUM to be critical of users. Not letting some one take a crap all over your storefront is not equivalent to silencing free speech.

I think that 3-prong test varies by jurisdiction/legal system. I was just going by the OED; libel: a published false statement that is damaging to a person's reputation; a written defamation.

If that accusation came from someone with much less than a ~2 year history on BCT, it might not override. But, it didn't.

IMO, it's never acceptable/excusable to "joke" about someone being a murderer unless you have probable cause to suspect them of being a murderer or everyone can see public records they have been convicted of same.

Even if you have...

If I saw that you had left me a neutral feedback I wouldn't have joked around about it after I posted my last post on it. I had only made a post to your self-moderated thread and a post to J.Socal's thread jokingly not knowing it would be taken seriously which is why I feel this way. Being on your ignore list I had to create another account to message you so that's why I did that, and yes you can go ahead and post the message. I didn't intend to come off as an asshole but if I did I apologize which is the reason I sent you a message and the reason I posted this thread because I didn't receive a response.

To be clear this isn't meant as an attack on you Butterzone but rather a prime example of how this behavior is accepted around here, is common, and is selectively enforced. I think users should be free to choose why they leave feedback, because there is no reliable or fair way to moderate it. I argue that people who abuse the trust system will simply not hold as much weight with users because it is clear trust is left flippantly by that user. Trying to moderate trust is a disaster and opens up avenues for all types of abuse.

In order for something to be considered libel, it needs to be

• untrue
• cause you actual harm
• said/written in a way that others would reasonably believe it to be true

I don't know you, and really don't know one way or another if you actually have killed someone before, but I think it is fair to say that you have not (at least for purposes of this discussion). You could probably argue that you have never been convicted of killing someone before nor have you been suspected of killing someone (both of which I assume to be true).

I am not sure about the other two issues. Do you seriously think that an empty accusation of being a murder without any evidence would override the trust that you have within the community? I personally would doubt so.

I do think that the OP's actions may warrant a temporary ban if he has shown a true pattern of this kind of behavior (making empty accusations without evidence - however once evidence is presented the accusation is no longer 'empty') as what he is doing could be considered to be trolling; however the pattern would most likely need to be a lot longer then just two posts

When the neutral trust option bubble was added a few days ago, I downgraded almost all my negs to neutrals as appropriate. I think all the negs I've left are now for the "I am a victim of this person, so nemo me impune lacessit" circumstances.

Posting that I am "ripping off" people for selling an item AT COST, and posting insults repeatedly on the ONLY SPACE I am allowed to retail is not "honest questions", in fact it wasn't even a question, it was just him attempting to hijack my marketplace threads for no reason. If his only goal was to bring to light some supposed abuse, what were the repeated insulting posts for? You like everyone else just skimmed over that whole thread and just assumed because he is crying like he had been wronged that I did what I did for no reason. He had every opportunity to have it removed but instead chose to try to dictate to me what he wanted done after he began the whole thing. As a result he is now stuck with my trust rating permanently, when I offered to remove it if he would simply remove his multiple slanderous posts in about 5 different market place OPs of mine.

If people want to criticize me or anyone else they have the ENTIRE FORUM to do it in. You know where I get to trade things here? In a single OP. He comes into the only place I am allowed to trade and starts slandering me and claiming I am ripping off people because he could find it for less somewhere else. You could do that for about 90% of all the posts in the marketplace. Furthermore retailing for a profit is not immoral, a ripoff, or unfair. People have the free will to decide who they trade with and for what price. All Armis was doing was using the shell of a social warrior so he could vindicate his harassment. Pretending like he is bringing social justice to an individual trading at very small scales as if I was the establishment itself bringing down oppression on the people by asking for what I paid for in return for an item.

It is a rather transparent troll game, one I have seen here a lot on these forums. As long as you get your stolen gift cards below cost from unknown traders of COURSE any legitimate retailer will appear to be overpriced for selling AT COST. Of course why would anyone care if people like Armis makes it really hard for traders to trade here, he isn't harassing you. It is a far more popular decision to attack me for defending the very small space I am able to trade in here rather than the person who actual perpetrated these events to begin with and escalated this at every step of the way, because after all he said I lied about him, so it must be true. Democracy in action here - mob rule. Everyone wants some one they can trust to trade with but no one is willing to even allow me to defend myself from harassment. Meanwhile people like butterzone go around every day leaving trust for people who don't even have any direct involvement with them, but my use of trust to defend myself from harassment was wrong.  

This thread is a perfect example of how this happens ALL THE TIME on thee forums and the mods and staff pick and choose who they want to coerce and harass and who they want to excuse, therefore dictating the content and context of trust to their liking.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/staff-hypocrisy-and-selective-enforcement-of-rules-853522

I initially left a neutral on Wardrick, but his/her persistence in "joking" that I was a murderer (libel) left me no choice but to escalate it to a negative trust. To say that distrusting a libeler, "a plain asshole" in other words, is "an overreaction"... /shakeshead This topic is just more evidence against him, and has been saved as PDF.

Wardrick seems to want us to believe simultaneously that he/she doesn't have a pattern of "joking" (libeling) about people other than me being criminals (when others could just be self-moderating or reporting to mods his/her libel away), but also that this isn't just laser-focused aggression against me (I guess I can give him a partial pass on J.Socal after discovering some previous trades they did).

Then, I received a PM from Graven, claiming to be Wardrick. Something was alleged in there, that if I were a medical professional, would be prohibited by HIPAA from disclosing. However, despite only having medical stuff as a hobby, I added Graven to my PM ignore list because it sounded like BS. Graven, will you allow me to quote the PM you sent me in this topic, for peer review?



Self-moderation does not prevent people from asking honest questions. There is no "pending approval" stage like you'd see on a Wordpress or Disqus comment section. Self-moderation does however allow people to interfere with business by libeling the OP, spamming, etc... until such time as the OP chooses to delete the abusive replies viewable by the public until then.

PS: I either forgot or was unaware I was on default trust. Not that there absolutely has to be a crosslinking, but theymos didn't rate me on http://bitcoin-otc.com/viewratingdetail.php?nick=TheButterZone&sign=ANY&type=RECV - if it will stop Wardrick's libelous posting pattern, I have no attachment to being on DT.

I understand that and it was meant to be as a joke and I messaged him apologizing if I offended him and that I'd watch what I posted in the marketplace in the future but never received a response after waiting two days. I think he's overreacted given that he's misusing the trust system to ruin my standing by saying not to trust me (That I'm a criminal) and using the negative rep that's only supposed to be used for "Negative - You were scammed or you strongly believe that this person is a scammer.". I've seen TBZ in OTC and read his posts on the forum and I wouldn't be saying this if I didn't strongly suspect it. Not only with TBZ but like you said with TECHSHARE, people will use their opinions to ruin other legitimate members reputation's for nothing at all and I don't think that helps the site. Obviously I thought I was joking and I didn't think anyone would take offense to my post or else I wouldn't of posted it because I have nothing against TBZ or J.Socal. I don't think it displays good judgment to ruin my reputation over something so small and then retaliate by editing his original post when I negative repped him for misusing the trust system. I think in order to have your account show up as negative you have to scam someone, show strong tendencies to scam, or just be a plain asshole around the forums like El Cabron. I think there should be a handful of people that carry that weight on the forum and you'd have to go through them and they will decide if it's warranted or not, because with all these people it's impossible to tell if it's warranted or not. I don't think allowing people to post to have their negative feedback removed is a good idea because it'd require a lot of work but I think if my account is going to show up as -6/-1 , I should have to do something a lot worse.

Unless you have some kind of actual evidence of someone being a criminal then you should not post as such. I do think that it is an overreaction for him to give you negative trust over two posts (this is much less of a threshold then what TECSHARE) had when giving negative trust to armis).

I do think that his many self moderated threads are very sketchy as they prevent people from asking honest questions about what he is selling. 

I think TheButterZone needs to be taken off the default trust list because I think he's a borderline sociopath and has narcissistic personality disorder. I've seen he enjoys having control over other people and is easily angered and wants to make people look stupid to make himself look smarter and I don't think that's someone who's opinion should carry as much weight as it does on the forum. I don't think it's fair that my forum reputation is ruined from a joke I made in a post after I've been a dedicated member for almost two years.  I sent him a message to work it out and never received a response because I think he enjoys being in a higher position than someone to make them look lesser. Theymos implemented the trust system shortly after I messaged him awhile back about the benefits it could have but I don't think giving a non staff member the ability to ruin someone's account because of their personal opinion is very beneficial for the site. I would agree on a few people who truly care about the site like Tomatocage and DannyHamilton and a handful of others, but for other people it allows them to ruin other people's reputations because of their opinions in which I doubt the motives to very often.


More information on the default trust settings on page two:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.9557990