Dominant / Submissive Trust system

[slave1987]

To be honest elements of this seem to mark a return to the rep system that used to be in place for individual posts, that was scrapped because of all the bitching about people being targetted and their rep dropping because someone took a dislike to them
The problem with any system where people are asked to judge others is that it's open to abuse and there is no real way around that.
e.g. What would you do if you had one report that someone who was judged as trustworthy was abusive towards a new slave/dom and the accused said that they weren't? How can you accurately judge the situation without either alienating the accused or potentially putting more people at risk?

[carom]

Originally Posted by Ranzid

Members who wish to have a Trusted badge will have a minimum of 10 endorsements from senior members who believe they are trustworthy and contribute to the community.

Who in your eyes qualifies as senior member?

And why not call these people Mentor or simply Helper?

People that are there to help others that are new is a good thing.

But "trusted" is misleading if you ask me

@slave1987, exactly my point

[Star Shadows]

Originally Posted by Ranzid

nellybell

Having an email/pm thing as soon as you join with information and where to get it shouldnt be to hard to implement (but thats for the admins to sort)

and yes this system isnt perfect , and yes some people will ignore it .. but there is no system that could protect people like that short of cutting off their internet connection, you help who you can when you can.

Most people wont read the automated messege a number us have tried pming people and there are a number of messages for new members i think and largely they fall upon deaf ears for those who need it. 90% of the people i would pm would still end up being owned or with an ad and or no limits dare thread within about 5 minutes of joining.

I also agree with the questioning of what makes a senior member a senior member?

[YouCouldBeMine]

Originally Posted by Id.

I think what I am trying to say is that the reputations people earn through posts, friends, visitor messages, etc. already serve as a sort of endorsement, since they engaged in all of that positive interaction without getting banned. Adding an extra merit system for those who have been endorsed is fine, but I think Nellybell hit on the main point that these people are not usually the ones who end up being abusive subs or doms anyway. Perhaps restricting the activities of brand new members would be a more effective way of weeding out at least some of the negative experiences?

For example, members could be prevented from posting in the slave/master section until their accounts are at least so many days old. This would block those people who just post ads hoping to get someone nude on cam one night when they randomly find the site. Or require that they have so many posts, or so many friends (basically like endorsements), before entering the chat. These kinds of measures already exist within the system. Plus it would not take a very high standard to block a lot of the negative activity.

I'm more inclined to this idea by Id. Prevent new members from posting or maybe they can post but not create a new topic. Also a "Thanks" system could be implemented to measure how helpful for the rest of the community is a member.

I think the badge / trust thing idea is very hard to implement right and to maintain.

Just my two cents.

[Ranzid]

First up , theres no reason why it cant be called helper or mentor , I didnt mean that those without a badge wernt trustworthy or the those with the badge are somehow senior to others.

by senior member I mean members of the forum here for over 6 months , granted this doesnt mean they are perfect but is there a better idea?

The system wouldn't be easy and yes it would be hard to maintain but so far I haven't seen any alternatives that might improve the safety of newcomers to the site.

Ill say this again .. This is just an idea .. a concept .. that I put forward for people to think about change and see if it can work, its not set in stone and im not the arbiter of the whole thing.

also .. yes most newcomers wont read automated messages and the like , but even if this stops just 1 person from having a bad experience then I think all the effort will be worth it not matter what kind of system it is.

[slave1987]

Originally Posted by Ranzid

I haven't seen any alternatives that might improve the safety of newcomers to the site.

There comes a point in people's lives where they have to take responsibility for their own actions. With the new member being restricted to over 18 to comply with the ISP, they are old enough to be looking out for themselves.
The safest thing for newcomers to do is do what they should have been doing on the internet for years: protecting their personal information and not blindly trusting that people are who they say that they are.

What I'm trying to say is that if they haven't learnt it between parents, school and what is reported in great depth repeatedly all over the internet, news and papers then any system that a site puts in place won't make a blind bit of difference.

Originally Posted by YouCouldBeMine

I'm more inclined to this idea by Id. Prevent new members from posting or maybe they can post but not create a new topic.

Similar things to this have been brought up before and always shot down for the same reason, there are quite a number of people that are attracted to this site for the S/M section and by severely restricting what they can do they just won't bother to stay, or they'll create an account and leave it alone for a week or however long it needs till they can post. An the people that are more likely to create an account and then just come back in a week or so are(in my opinion) more likely to be the ones that you don't want here.

[nellybell]

Simplified version:

Originally Posted by Ranzid

and nellybell the system is less complex now than it has been:


Current Proposed System:

Members who wish to have a Trusted badge will have a minimum of 10 endorsements from senior members who believe they are trustworthy and contribute to the community.

New members will be encouraged to talk / engage with badge holders.

Badge holders will be expected to assist new members interested in the scene.


taadaaa

expanded/complicated version.

Originally Posted by carom

That exactly is a problem.
You need to learn to be careful and watch out for yourself and not to feel safe just because of a good reputation that is in most cases questionable in an environment where all are incognito.


1st
I will take me as an example as I am blank. You don't know me and have zero information of who i am.

-You may see my age that can be to high or to low.

-You see my gender that can be false.

-I can tell you that i have zero experience or that i was raised by a dom/domme couple with 20 subs in their household and learned everything about being a good dominant since i was 10. Both stories are equally valid from your point of view in the way that you cant tell.

- I could be an admin of the site, a searched rapist, a cop or a nice and normal guy and you have no way to tell

The point is that you can tell any of that from almost no one here, no matter how good known they are.
You may be able to make a better guess, after some time and some reading what they say, but it will still be a guess in most cases.

2nd
Lets assume you find a way around my 1st problem, for arguments sake.
Now you want to make a reputation system where you order people in a trustworthy - untrustworthy way,

So to start you need your trustworthy group of experienced people that know what they talk about to start with. Even if i forget about the possibility that they are lying you may come down to maybe 10 people on the site that may be up to that job in the way of age/experience and 2 or 3 of them are active

3rd
On what will you base the reputation? on what someone is saying?

I agree you may filter out the worst idiots that are clearly talking shit but they should disqualify themselves anyway in a short time. But beside of that people can tell one thing and do the other.

So you are down to sort by what people say about the person.
Let us again assume you crossed my first 2 problems somehow, you have now the possibility that one of the people that are trustworthy has 1st hand experience with the person. Then the sorting is comparable "easy".
But in most cases that will not be the case but you will have to rely on people you don't really know.

So lets assume Someone tells you that i am the greatest dom she ever had and that i am honorable and absolute trustworthy.
This could mean
- I am really like that
- I am not really that great the girl just doesn't know it better (after all 95% on the site are beginners)
- I am very popular
- I blackmailed her to tell you that
- I am her

Or the other way around
She tells you i abused her
this could mean
- i really did that
- she is overreacting because of something minor
- she misunderstood something
- she is angry at me and lies to hit me
- she herself is abusive

You cant tell, I have dealt with enough situations like that to say so . Even in rl it is hard to tell and there you have a lot more information about the people involved.

While I get the general concept, this is what the actual thing you're going to have to deal with is. Almost none of these are things you can solve either.

Also, like many people have mentioned above, senior member means NOTHING. It is something like, what?, 30 posts? I've seen people get up to that in a day. They are not people I would consider trust worthy and have no buisness saying anything about who else is trust worthy. Then on the other hand you have people who are already in the know before they come here and actually are capible of making good reasponses and such. You would have to take the time to go through someone's posts and consider the content of those posts before they should be allowed to endorse.

Also, what about people who are good people but have very little idea of what they would be doing in a D/s relationship. That is just as dangerous as having someone who knows what they're doing and is just an asshole. In both things, people get hurt. How do you make the distinction of who knows what they're doing and who doesn't?

What I suggest as an alternitive, having who would have been considered as the "gold badges" just be there as someone they know could give help if they were asked. This takes out a TON of the uncertainty that would come with trying to give badges to people we don't know, who could be psycos that hide it well. It takes a ton of the responsibility for what could happen if we mislabel someone.

The harsh reality is, even with the best intentions, people are going to get hurt. Instead of lulling them into a false sense of security (like Bondage said about feeling safer simply because of an additional title) make them more aware. Teach them what to look for, not just hand them the information. We will never be able to catch even a fourth of the creeps on here, so we need to help them to know what to avoid.

Another very sad thing is that, like stars said, they won't listen. Like a small child being told that the burner will hurt if you touch it, they won't believe you until they figure it out for themelves. Once the first damage is done, they will listen but often it is too little too late. You just have to be aware of what the signs of an abusive relationship looks like. If you can spot it you might be able to step in and do something.

A common place I've found that shows off bad relationships the best, is the request punishments and ideas section. If a girl is being made to ask for punishments and have it writen a bunch of times that "I will do anything to get him back" "I don't want to lose him" You have a good possiblity that things might not be too kosher. This is especially true if they have only been together for a very short period of time. Don't ever be afraid to go and message someone to ask about how things are and if they're happy the way things are. Don't be afraid to tell them that things could be better with someone else because sometimes they don't know that it could.

[florida87x]

You know, the big issue I see about this whole badge system is that people don't look for help.

I mean, if you really want to learn about stuff, enough resources exist to find people. You read posts, use the search bar, look at the user stats under people's avatar. These things help you identify where you can get help. If you don't use them, then why would you care about one more little badge?

The other issue I take with this is that, to a certain extent, this badge of trust already exists. If a confused person on this site went looking for help, wouldn't it make sense for them to ask a moderator? They're clearly labeled, and even if they don't have any interest in the bdsm portion of the site, they probably know someone who does. They have been identified as trustworthy and involved community members.