Topic: Viewing TRUST when not logged in - page 2. (Read 1721 times)

ok maybe i should have explained my concern a bit more.


1- a scammer starts a locked thread selling gift cards.
2- uses a sockpuppet to comment saying he sells the same gift cards maybe at cheaper rate and posts his email/telegram contact.
3- another sockpuppet to vouch for the previous sockpuppet.
4- another sockpuppet to confirm the scam warning about OP and vouch for the first sockpuppet.

This is just one of many other scenarios, i am all about optimism but i can't ignore the fact this move alone won't help newbie visitors the way we expect.


you know scammers don't rest, it's pretty obvious that this will be their next strategy, so in order for us to keep fighting them, surfing topics alone will not be enough, we now have to dig into every reply.

@sandy has got a lot of work to do now since this was her idea  

That could happen but it's a much less serious problem. The main problem is when the scammers themselves create self-moderated and/or locked threads so nobody can post any warnings. This is practically solved with the announced change.
If a scammer posts on someone else's thread then the creator of that thread or anybody else can post a warning.

I too would prefer to see a warning next to every post made by a known scammer but I don't think it's a considerable issue.

It might be a good idea to translate this to the local language when this is displayed in one of the local subs.

edit: it appears there are many marketplace subs in the local sections that do not have trust displayed.

FINALLY ! although i was "hoping" to see something similar to what a logged in user would see, simply because scammers can still advertise their scam b.s in other people's topics, in fact if such behavior is increased - then it will be harder to spot them now than before.

but i can't complain much, that is a good start.



 

I'm positive this new measure will finally prevent many newbies from getting scammed. I'll know for sure if I'll start getting less PMs from Newbies who got conned before registering here, but it's a warning which is hard to miss so should be enough.

Here's what it looks like:

Logged-out users will now see a warning in trust-enabled sections if more DT members neg-trust the topic starter than positive-trust him.

This increases the responsibility of DT members not to give negative trust for stupid reasons, but only for things that cause you to believe that the person is a scammer.

That's not true since MOST of the scam sales are done off-site via Telegram, Selly and all the rest.  These folks have no reason to create an account UNTIL THEY GET SCAMMED.

Look at this OP:  "text me"  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5131277.0
Or this: "go to my scam website"  : https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/d-5133271
or this "go to my selly site" : https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/cheapest-giftcards-for-sale-egifts-walmart-crates-target-pillars-amazon-5129582
or "shoppy" site"  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5118213.0
or "telegram"  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5112116.0

ALL require no need to sign up and be able to see any "trust"   and there are hundreds like it just over the last 3 or 4 days.  This place is known to allow (NOT moderate) scammers and it draws them like flies to shit.  While seeing rep isn't the full answer it certainly will help a little especially for thos who find these scammers via Google.

It's logical. If new users are browsing only, then whether or not a user is trusted on the forum isn't important. Guest users should use some common sense - not be influenced by an already skewed system of "reputation". If a guest users wants to deal with someone, they will very likely have to make an account, and will then see the trust score of that person.

If the new function that allows guests to view Trust without requirements to log in, I think the forum should have a same new function which allows guests to view merit history without requirements to log in.
I agree that guests sometimes don't care about merit, merit system, and merit history. They even don't know what is merit, what is merit system, and their roles in our forum. However, for real users in the forum, sometimes we are in beds, or out of connections to laptops or desktop computers, and we hesitate to log in accounts via mobile devices due to security reasons. In such cases, having rights to view merit history to read and learn from merited topics/ posts   have lots of meanings and be very helpful.

New/un-registered users are most likely to be unaware of the different types of scams, taking away trust ratings from un-registered users is illogical. Bump

Especially, investors who don't have intention to write here, even don't create account.
They simply visit the forum, ANN topics, read and move to other places, like Github, Discord, Telegram, Website to get more details or get help.
So, the feature to be able to view trust or even merit transaction are good.
If they won't be integrated here, they should be integrated in the coming Epochtalk.

Exactly, I have replied there about it. This isn't just single case, I have seen many more same case. Due trust visibility guests are getting scam. Or sometimes people's lazy to login. That's why I think its reasonable to view trust rating even we are not login. Perhaps lot of newbies or guest would save their money from scammers. Also this suggestion made by multiple users. Hope admin will implement trust view for all users including guest.

Sucks to be him. I agree that it should be made visible to guests. For most newbies, why register when the contact details are right then and there, without realizing the Trust system is in place for a good reason.

here is a real life example of how showing trust to guest could have saved a poor soul > https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5121760.new#new

So, again, your only (or at least main) argument against this idea is that you don't want green trust to be seen by guests. You seem to have missed most of my previous post.
We can then shown only negative trust left by DT.

A lot of scammers have been identified. The issue here is we don't give that information to guests, so those known scammers keep scamming. I only want to stop that, I just want make things as difficult as possible for known scammers. I don't care if positive trust is shown.

Yes. I tried to do something at least. And it has helped. That's actually proof something must be done as that little bit has helped.
Now, a lot of users just search something on Google, are redirected to a scammer's posts and from there to an auto-buy site, where they are scammed.

Seeing that scammer with red trust would help a lot, much more than my sticky post which is not seen by a lot of people before being scammed.
That's why there are a lot of "I wish I read this thread sooner" posts on that very same thread you linked.

It will depend on whose profile I choose and, especially, trust left by whom. If I choose every trust then probably most are useless. If I choose feedback left by DT then most (but obviously not everything) will be helpful. If I choose trust based on my own list then even more is helpful for me, but guests and brand new users don't have that option. So we can use the second best option for them: DT.

Guests can see Reputation too. Investigations (dox) board is off-limits but it's also not available to Newbies so no difference here.


We probably are, sorry if I mixed it up here. I'm with o_e_l_e_o on this. It should all be available to guests just like it is available to newbies. If we want to add some extra verbiage to green scores to help guests/newbies/etc understand that dealing with "green" (or "non-red") users is not a guarantee of success - I'm fine with that.

Our main difference in opinion is our perceived amount of signal to noise. You believe the marketplace section provides the majority of feedback, it is accurate, and based on trades. I however believe that the majority of feedback is related to non trade related matters. Thats not to say that someone who gets a negative for being a jerk isn't less trustworthy in a trade because of their behavior and how that could relate to dealing with another person during a transaction, but I believe that factors other than, This guy and I traded and he came through, need additional information to be properly weighted.

I have no issue with us having a difference of opinion. At the end of the day we don't need to convince each other, what matters is that both of our opinions are aired to aid others to come to their own decisions.


I absolutely agree with you there, but as a registered member you have access to the reputation board and can actually read 50% of the links left in valid feedback. I'm not sure if we are crossing two issues currently. The first issue in this thread was whether all trust information should be displayed. The issue that I believe we are on now, is whether or not just the number score should be displayed.



I can go through my PMs from the past year (12 months) and easily point out 30-50 people who wanted to do minuscule trades with me, most likely in order to get + green feedback. Their purposes for establishing a trade history could certainly be honest, but it isn't that uncommon of an issue. I got dragged into trust farming complaints where people on DT had left feedback for people over microtransactions, and it was debated whether it was OK to give them feedback over a 30 cent transaction, when it meant giving them a +5 green number on their feedback. The general consensus was that its fine, because the numbers are meaningless, and you should always read the individual transaction details rather than relying on numbers. If you make that +5 no longer meaningless by displaying it to guests, it becomes a problem.

Trust farming isn't a worthwhile endeavor at the moment, but it could easily be made into one. Its not done, because its not profitable as members here can weigh the value of feedback. You don't trust someone with $100 because they handled $1 in the past. But, show only the +1 from a trade and not the rest, and that is no longer the case.



On a side note, since we seem to be talking about the digital goods section where this is the greatest issue, there is a warning stickied post from our very own EcuaMobi. So the excuse of not knowing better when coming here as a guest kind of goes flying out the window.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/avoid-auto-buy-links-mainly-locked-or-self-moderated-register-before-dealing-3035620


As an exercise, be honest with yourself and pick a few people. View their trusted/untrusted feedback, and see how much of it you'd value personally if deciding to trade with that person. There is plenty of helpful info in there, but you have to be able to sort it.

I've been thinking on SaltySpitoon's point of not giving guests half the required tools, and of them not fully understanding the trust system, and the more I think about it, the more I think it would be a worse idea to show guests only trust ratings without a trust score.

The reason these scammers don't have loads of positive feedback is because there is no reason for them to - their target audience isn't people who can see their trust, but the guests who can't. If we start displaying trust ratings to guests, I would bet a large proportion of my bitcoin holdings that these scammers' trust pages would quickly fill up with rating upon rating from alt accounts and sock puppets. As SaltySpitoon points out, guests don't understand the trust system - they don't understand the difference between trusted and untrusted feedback, and they certainly don't know who is a "reputable" user and who isn't. If they see an account with 1 negative trust but 20 positive trust, they are going to have a favorable view of that account. They won't understand that 1 negative rating from hilariousandco (for example) is probably more accurate than 20 ratings from newbie accounts. They will need some kind of system to help guide them in assessing feedback, and trusted/untrusted and the resulting score is the way to do that.

I can however understand SS's arguments for not showing guests trust at all, and so I think this should be an all or nothing thing. I would still favor the "all" option. Showing them bits of the trust system will do more harm than good.

That's not the argument I'm making. I'm simply saying that there the difference between a guest and a freshly-registered newbie is so negligible in terms of how much they know about the inner workings of the forum that it doesn't make sense to show the ratings to one but not to the other. Should we hide ratings from lower-ranked accounts as well? Until they're deemed sufficiently knowledgeable about the trust system? Perhaps all scores should be replaced with a simple link to trust feedback, unless you have a custom list in which case you can see the score the way it is displayed now.

I'm ok with tweaks to make the system more useful for everyone, including guests. I still don't see a good reason to hide potentially helpful trust ratings that already exist, and expect guests to figure out that they need to register to access them. If we're expecting them to be Craigslist-savvy then surely they can separate wheat from chaff in those ratings.