Topic: Viewing TRUST when not logged in - page 4. (Read 1721 times)

It is reasonable. But if the forum can show trust and avoid a few scams then it definitely should, especially considering guests don't even know they can have that privilege.


People don't need to be extremely gullible. They may not know bitcoin is not reversible or they could think Selly has some basic buyer's protection and can reverse the payment (like PayPal) if they're used to eBay for example. They do need to be naive but not stupid. If the forum can help those naive people then it should. Showing known scammers' profiles as red would certainly help them.

And, whatever the reason, this happens and users are being scammed by known scammers.
See some posts here for example. Users have been scammed and wished they knew about the trust system sooner:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.48843643


It would make sense to show default trust, not every trust left by anyone. The forum could treat guests as newbies who don't have a custom trust list.


Anyway, theymos has already replied to this, as noted by actmyname, so I guess that's decided unless this current trust system fails and he implements the "force-custom-lists solution".

I don't see how this would be necessarily worse than fake accusation threads such as " is a pedo / pill abuser / etc". Those are already indexed by search engines and tend to show up first.

But does merely creating an account make one an expert in all of those intricacies of the trust system? Yet we're showing the trust ratings to total newbies AND we're imposing the DefaultTrust scoring on them. In fact even if newbie wanted to learn more about trust and DT - that info is not easy to find. That's also something that should be addressed both for registered users and for guests I think.

The Google issue can be mitigated to some extent by making the feedback pages non-indexable. So if someone merely googles your nick they won't see the derogatory info pop up directly in search results. They could still click through and see it but even today they could create an account and see it. Bigger fatter warning next to untrusted feedback could help. Perhaps don't show untrusted feedback to guests at all.

At any rate, since anybody can post any post or thread about you and it's unlikely to be deleted, Google can already pick up all sorts of negative stuff so I would disagree that making trust ratings public would be much of a difference. However I would like to have an option of a short rebuttal in the trust system, at least an ability to add a URL. So if someone accuses me of scamming I could say "Here is what really happened: ".

I personally think most of the people who don't have an account here would come across bitcointalk through a simple google search and if the person comes through some real-life reference he is sure to create an account here and learn how the forum works. There is not much advantage in letting the non-logged users know what the trust rating of the person is, as they would just firstly not understand how it works or which are relevant feedbacks and which are not.

We can see multiple cases of trust abuse even if the trust is not shown as default it comes under untrusted feedback and any account could have a high number of fake or irrelevant untrusted feedbacks which would surely miss-lead any new user with no account if it's visible.

If a person is willing to trade on bitcointalk and would like to deal safely here should first create an account and understand how the trust works otherwise just a simple warning could work "Before trading with anyone please create a Bitcointalk account and check the feedbacks first" would be a good warning to all the users surfing without creating account.

It really just seems like a personal problem to me. Would you trust someone on Reddit because they have good Karma, which is also a good thing? I kind of just live by the philosophy not to send money to strangers online, maybe I'm crazy.


Its potentially important for members of the site, I agree. Say I wanted to use the name SaltySpitoon as an artists pseudonym as well as my handle here, and I was an active scam buster, and I was painted with all kinds of negative feedback from people I had picked fights with, I wouldn't want it viewable by anyone who didn't have a complete picture as a member here. If you don't have a complete picture of how the trust system works, I don't think you should have access to it one way or another.

On another note, aren't false positives just as likely as false negatives? If you aren't a member here, I could argue that you might not be aware of the practice of sock puppets leaving fake feedback. What if a new member sees positive trust from all of the scammers aliases?  

My main point is that having it not visible at all, is less harmful than having it visible and misleading.

*edit* Points to your own trust, Sandy, would you be fine with your relatives or potential employer reading the negative troll feedback left on your account if they did a google search for you? If they don't have any context about the Bitcoin forum, its probably far more negative from their perspective than the people who know to ignore it here.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^  WHAT S/HE SAID!  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Exactly what I have been trying to say but in many less words! 

On your first question, I firmly believe the answer is absolutely NO.  People starting out in the BTC world are often in a totally strange new world but are way above the gullibility of the Nigerian email scam folks.

On your next comment I mostly agree but I have always believed that if it isn't a major undertaking some effort could be made to offer some modicum of protection to those who fall into this place. 

Generally speaking, many forums actually tag scammers as scammers and delete their threads while it isn't 100% effective it is better than ignoring them and becoming the "go to" place to run a scam in some cases for months or years without any kind of sanction.

The trust ratings already exist, it's just a matter of showing them and more information is better in this context.

It almost sounds negligent to have potentially important information and keep it hidden.

My point is seeing the word "MERIT" which is generally defined and understood by the vast majority of people as being "good" (see def below) when showing on a scammers name as shown above without the bad trust makes one think the person is worthy of TRUST (not forum trust but personal trust) when they are not.  When not logged in a scammer can be made to look like they are good by seemingly been given "merit" by someone or some thing on the forum.  My point was either both or none should be visible to anyone not logged in.

The definition of MERIT is:
The quality of being particularly good or worthy, especially so as to deserve praise or reward.
Deserve or be worthy of (something, especially reward, punishment, or attention).
synonyms: excellence, goodness, standard, quality, level, grade, high quality, caliber, worth, good, credit, eminence, worthiness, value, virtue, distinction, account, deservingness, meritoriousness,
deserve, earn, be deserving of, warrant, rate, justify, be worthy of, be worth, be entitled to, have a right to, have a claim to/on, be qualified for

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-ab&q=define+merit

@sandy-is-fine

So thats your Alt Account https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/skeptical-one-696473  ?

Are the people who find an unfamiliar site, and then buy things using a non refundable payment method from a stranger not also the same people who would already be broke due to Nigerian prince email scams?

I'm sort of neutral on the subject matter so I don't have a strong opinion one way or another, but it seems like if someone is, we'll say gullible, to the point where they are willing to trade with someone here before signing up and learning how things work. Is there really anything you can do for them? I'm totally not against putting in safety nets for people who may be able to benefit from using them, but at a certain extent, I argue that its not worth putting in the effort, because its either going to be the Hot Russian Model that needs a plane ticket to come visit you, or the sketchy guy with autobuy links.

Merit is the same for everyone. Trust isn’t due to trust lists. That’s why one is shown and the othet isn’t. If a user doesn’t know how trust works (he is just someone passing by the forum and doesn’t have an account), he surely doesn’t know what merit is. So, it doens’t matter.

LOL  I'm trying to be part of the SOLUTION and not the problem.   What's even stranger is that I just noticed MERIT does appear when NOT logged in but TRUST (or lack of same) DOES NOT.  So when you get a user like this that has purchased (or hacked) an account the appearance is really wrong.  At least don't show BOTH MERIT AND TRUST!   (Redactions to not really protect the not very innocent)

If we are dealing with the lower end of the intelligence scale, a warning should be of consequence, not of proper procedure.

How about:
"DO NOT EXPRESS GULLIBILITY (SUCH AS RELIGION) OR YOU WILL BE TARGETED BY SCAMMERS AND LOSE YOUR COINS"

I agree but the thing is new users who end up here from for ex. Google searches don't know that is the case so maybe a banner that ONLY SHOWS to unregistered forum viewers that says something like:


"SIGN UP FOR A FREE ACCOUNT IN ORDER TO BE ABLE TO SEE USERS TRUST RATINGS.  BE SAFE AND DON'T SEND ANYONE BTC WITHOUT THIS FREE BENEFIT"

That would avoid having to show the trust ratings plus maybe get more registered users.  

It seems to me that you could still display everyone's DT score on their posts without actually allowing access to each individual's trust page.

I agree that viewing trust when not logged in could be beneficial.  I see the other side of the coin also.  Users should be discouraged from using multiple accounts any way possible in my opinion.  This means annoying captchas and losing benefits when not logged in. 

Viewing bitcointalk.org trust is a privilege, not a right (currently).  If people want the privilege of viewing trust, all they have to do is sign up for a free account.  Seems reasonable.

Yeah but I doubt new people who comes to the forums is going to have that extension installed to see scammers in the marketplace section

You can install this free chrome extension that will show you everyone's default trust score.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bpiporg-chrome-extension/gnpadhillpjighiahdbjbjgihpilakda

while this may be a good thing to fight scammers, the sad part for the story is that many if not most  outside users do not know what the trust system here mean, i have no solid based statistics but this is human physiology, people seem to be more interested in reading the comments on the post, which is scammer's strongest weapon, self-moderated / locked topic, bunch of fake reviews, that's all what it take to scam poor souls.