Topic: VIP Member "goat" abusing trust rating system - page 2. (Read 6216 times)

Could someone other than Goat comment on this?  Who has the authority to amend the default trust list, and was Goat removed from that list for leaving a negative rating to a default trust member?  

wat

It's a conceptually flawed system, with a whole plethora of problems.
If the system is moderated, than it becomes the collective opinion of the mods.  Left unmoderated, it is equally useless, since it could be gamed and abused in every way possible.
One of the clever things about bitcoin is its non-reliance on trusted authorities.  This is a huge thing, without which bitcoin would have been stillborn.
The trust system tries to use a shortcut, Default Trust - the turtle on which all the rest of the turtles get to stand.  Default Trust Group seems like the antithesis to everything that is bitcoin.  Add to that duplicate accounts, most users misunderstanding how the trust system works, the impossible to see "show untrusted ratings" option, and you got... this.

Sort of. You are welcome to leave "I don't like you" trust, as long as in the reason for your bad feedback rating you write, "I don't like this person" the system is designed so that not someone with 100 trust is automatically trusted, its just a way to log feedback from different sources. Before trading with anyone its highly recommended that you actually read people's feedback and judge for yourself the validity.

For example, I have negative feedback from a scammer I busted, however it doesn't seem to hurt me too much, as people read it and judge its validity for themselves, not to mention the guy actually did use the system correctly more or less. He said there was a 10 BTC loss involved, which is the only part that isn't true, but the other part is.

Trust also isn't an absolute method. If I want to buy something from a known scammer, I don't hesistate to, I just make sure there are the correct safeguards in place.



This is it exactly. Being on the default trust list doesn't make you completely trustworthy, people should always read ones feedback and judge validity for themselves. There are incredibly few ocassions where anyone should refuse to use escrow, so if you aren't completely convinced by someone's record, an you don't have the highest confidence in them, use escrow.

I think it's more a "this guy will likely scam you" system

It is to a major extent but the default trust list determines how trust is distributed in the system as these users have a high weight on the overall in the system.

Personally I still treat it like a judgement system but easy enough to confirm if you read through all the trust results.

 I thought the Trust System was designed/intended for business transaction dealings, not for "I just don't like you" reasons ?

 Something about jumping proportional pools at >43% CDF per round, then mining PPS otherwise, added up to gains over time.

 From Wikipedia:

In probability theory and statistics, the cumulative distribution function (CDF), or just distribution function, describes the probability that a real-valued random variable X with a given probability distribution will be found at a value less than or equal to x. In the case of a continuous distribution, it gives the area under the probability density function from minus infinity to x. Cumulative distribution functions are also used to specify the distribution of multivariate random variables.

(In retroperspective: how was payout 115% possible?)

Well, I wasted a bunch of time creating a simulated drug trafficking picture only to have it rescinded on me (I can show you privately if you don't believe me ) when I made the suggestion.

He's also repeated it again today, in general discussion this time, now restricted the subject matter now and he's now saying that I claim to be involved in it:
(I've ROT13ed the text to avoid further propagating it.)
Have you ever personally had someone put a $150,000 bounty out to implicate you in a loathsome activity?

Do you really think that he's not deserving of a negative rating not only from me, but from everyone whos witnessing this behavior? Would you really trade with a person who handles a dispute in this manner?

Yea, he modified it. Originally it claimed that I was spreading lies about him and such. It took me completely by surprise, I've aggressively avoided Goat since that incident two years ago— to the extent of avoiding posting in threads he's participating in, and also have him on ignore (on sole account of that incident). I would have ignored this too, if not for the red WARNING it put next to my name, which kinda had to be responded to... and honestly, I think people ought to know what kind of reactions he has before they choose to deal with him.

I, personally, only rate people I can definitively proof to be scammers (even in these cases, it's a negative rating with no coins marked as lost), or have done actual bonafide trades with. I kind of wish others would do the same. :/

Couldn't you both remove your ratings due to the fact that you've never actually incurred any losses and don't have definitive proof that the opposing person is intentionally scamming others?

On Goat's side, I don't find his bounty all that unwarranted. He called for both a bounty on himself and gmaxwell. The intention was to show "I'm just as clean as you".

On gmaxwell's side, it sounds like the rating from Goat was unwarranted, but I can't find any record of it presently as it looks like it's been modified to be reactionary, so either Goat has already rescinded the original or I'm confusing who initiated which.

It was my choice to remove Goat, nobody asked or told me to. I just don't think it's very fair to negative feedback for something that was settled a long time ago, and I felt responsible for it.

No hard feelings on my end, I like Goat once we got to talking and settled our differences.

Why did you wait two years for the anger to boil over?   This seems strange.   What is the ulterior motive here?

Hm. I notice that you added that rating immediately after responding to my bet thread highlighting how strongly I believe that current mining hardware prices are overpriced that I'm in fact willing to sell people forward contracts on mining, with funds in escrow: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/thinking-about-buying-an-april-cointerra-unit-for-8-btc-take-my-bet-instead-395243

Are you concerned that my views might reduce your ability to offload your own Cointerra units?  If thats whats bothering you, I can add a note that my opinion is related to the April delivery pricing. I wouldn't offer a future like this for January miners.

"Linking"

Here is my complete message:

After you responded with your "bounties" I also replied (in part):

But apparently that wasn't true. You instead just decided to wait two years before going after me again.

I asked the question, thats it. I'd also asked it of you privately without getting an answer.

You didn't disclose what you were doing, I was told by people whos opinions I trust that they believed you were using it to launder money and weren't giving out fresh coins. This was also long after pool hopping was a well known and decreasingly effective thing (or so I believe(d)). I wasn't aware of any plausible lawful scheme that would have returned enough to support 115% PPS. (Jan 2012, I considered pool hooping completely dead months before that)

So  I asked the pointed question in public. Not all miners had considered that they ought to be asking questions like that, or that they might be complicit in some scheme they might not approve of (including pool hopping!). You could have just had a trusted third party certify that your operation was nothing like that and accepted that people asking questions is a cost of doing a sketchy looking business (especially one that operates by ripping people off), instead you behaved in a really concerning way. ...

People not asking and being able to entertain tough questions has been a factor behind any major scam on the forum.  And yet you attack me for trying to look out for others?

Please read the actual post?  He was not even claiming to be a pool hopper at the time, and I stand by my message. https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.725229

I wasn't the only person to be targeted by Goat's "bounties" either:

The forum's trust system is better than bitcoin-otc in this area because you can give someone a positive rating without trusting their ratings. Your situation is caused by two other defects in the forum's trust system:
- If you trust someone in your trust list and your depth is 1+, you will trust everyone they trust. There's no fancy WoT algorithm here, or even a way to add manual exceptions. So I can't remove Goat from my trust network without also removing DeaDTerra.
- The trust score algorithm isn't very good in general. In this case it sees that you're a new user of the trust system, so it penalizes you in various ways. But this is really not appropriate for you...

Wait how did I miss this event?  Using CP as a weapon?  That is pretty low.   I have no love for pool hopper but they merely exploit the poorly constructed rules of prop pools.  A good thing IMHO as it has driven those pools (mostly) out of existence replaced with fairer distribution systems.

Well this may be related to a problem that the Bitcoin-OTC trust system shares:  Trust for trades is not the same thing as trust for trust.  There are people I'd gladly let hold my money, but I'd take their opinions of others with a big grain of salt because they're too trusting, too critical, or are just big on grudges and retaliation.

(I was going to say that trust-trust is a subset of trade-trust, but I can think of at least one forum member who's ratings I'd weigh heavily but that I'd never trade with them)

I dunno, as we all know, the Trust system is completely subjective. The best a person can do is post their information and link their sources, and its up for the reader to detirmine its validity.

For the record, I would trust Goat with my money, and find him to be a very trustworthy person. However I agree with not having you on the default trust list, not that its a vote anyway, tis Badbear's decision. Nothing personal, however some of your feedback ratings have been driven by personal fights you have had with people, and not whether or not they are financially or morally untrustworthy. You have helped to tag scammers and I do appreciate that, but the default trust list isn't about who is trustworthy, its about who can give fair feedback to establish a larger trust network.