geeogree : those are great ideas but do you really have to force everybody (and/or everypony)  to give a reason.... and I ask this question because I really don't like to the word force... its sounds harsh. But anyway good idea.

earthwarrior :   Actually, it is going now that you only loose trust points if the user is banned. Well, that is how it is going. I have been down rated, , and the users who game me trust points didn't loose any.

Barathemos : Really? 
geeogree : Is this true? I don't remember ever seeing this. 
supercool22 : It would be automated most likely. The user would say how many points they give, why, then the staff would review it. Similar to user content requests. I'ts not too hard. . 

I remember one of my friends rallying up my other friends and stripping someone's TP away because they didn't like the person... it was sad...

supercool22 : yes, I would force everyone to give a reason. I want to know why you think someone deserves the trust point(s) they just got. "I like him" is not a good reason for trust points.

Barathemos : probably.... however, I would also eliminate all trusted members right before changing the system so the only "trusted" members would be Vizzed Elite and staff. We would probably have an influx of people getting points early on while we re-trusted a few people that we think deserve it and then after that we would start rating people who deserve it.

geeogree :   Wow, that would be harsh. I would say goodbye to trusted forever, seems like people don't trust me.

Barathemos : the point is to make people EARN it. Simply being a well liked member has never been deserving of trusted member status. I also hate when someone is a member for about 3 months and is already a trusted member. Stuff like that would stop happening if staff only made the votes. It would force people to really have to work for it.

There would be a lot of people who would lose their spot for a long time but most people would keep their spot once they got it.

geeogree :   3 months? Seems like you are talking about me. But from the day I got my first one, I wanted to be the best member that I could so I could become trusted. I really wanted it so I became more active and more respectful to people. I don't think I could get it back no matter how much I tried.

Barathemos : I have seen plenty of people become trusted in under 3 months only to lose it again a month or 2 later. I would rather people spend time earning it and keep it. If people aren't trusted and then they screw up it isn't as big of a deal.

geeogree : I became trusted in less than a month after I joined the website, but I do like to think that I earned it with insightful and respectful posts. However, I have seen people who I, personally, wouldn't necessarily deem "Trusted" earn that position quickly. I think it might actually be unnecessary in a lot of ways, as it's too easy to earn trusted, especially if you find yourself in a little clique here. Perhaps upping the necessary TP count for Trusted would help, as well as making staff votes weigh more than non-staff might help. Say, a 15 TP minimum for Trusted with .5 points for regular members, 1 for Trusted, and 2 for elite/staff/mods. And I think that once a member becomes trusted, there needs to be a hedge of protection for that member's TP for say, a week (only to be overridden by a moderator if the member does act out of line, and with accountability measures in place) so that jealous users won't mark down the newly-trusted. In my case, I had 9 TP at one point before someone down-rated me by 2 for no reason whatsoever. That shouldn't happen, especially because I was still a newer user and was trying really hard to be nice.

I also think that the perks of being trusted could be expounded upon with an increase of TP. Instead of just having access to a few extra board features, what about a Viz "discount" on games/layouts or a Trusted-exclusive item that can be purchased for 10,000 vizzed or so? Just thoughts, nothing I'm banking on or anything.

pray75 : it's very possible you got trusted in the right amount of time. I'm not saying "3 months" is the right amount of time. Some people earn it faster than others.

However, most people earn it too quickly. I do like somehow making staff votes worth more somehow. I also think that people should only be able to vote up or down by 1 point per person at a time.

So, if I wanted to rate someone up or down by 2 points it would take 2 weeks to do that (well, 8 days really but I would have to wait). And in order to reverse an up vote into a down vote it would take a longer time. This would prevent people getting voted up too quickly by a small number of people or from getting down voted maliciously by a small group of people.

It wouldn't stop it completely because some people might be patient enough to down vote over several weeks but it would slow things down.

I do not think they are being attacked, but more not earning the trusted status, and being given TP be their friends.

geeogree: I really like the 'give a reason' idea, I think you should ask David to implement it.

zelda2 : it has been requested I believe. I'm not sure if David is going to modify the TP system any time soon because he did a big change to it recently. I imagine if any updates are going to happen they will happen later this year.

Still, having ideas on ways to improve the system are always good.

I've been keeping my opinion out of this, but this was very clearly instigated by a recent happening.  And I'd like to just point this out to everyone:

Just because someone claims to have done nothing to deserve a massive downrating... doesn't mean they're being honest.  Of course someone that faces the consequences of their actions is going to deny that they did anything wrong to begin with.  It's a ploy to gain pity, look innocent, and gain favor from people that don't know any better.

I guarantee you that someone who gets massively downrated did something to deserve it.  There isn't going to be a day where 20 staff members wake up and go "Oh, let's randomly downrate this person just because!"  No matter what someone tells you, they did something to provoke it.  You shouldn't buy the "I'm so innocent and I didn't do anything wrong!" plea.

That being said, we can all agree that the system CAN be abused, that fixes ARE being discussed, and that the system isn't perfect.  I just wanted to point out that some of you are taking something for granted that you shouldn't.

Singelli : Yes, I agree. I mean, staff don't take trust points away for no reason. They wouldn't be staff if they did.

geeogree : I suggested this a while back. That there should be a certain position, like TP rating reviewer, or something like that. There should be a reason why the person was rated, and then the person with the position would have to approve it or not, and have to say why they did. And then it would go up one more level, just in case, to be reviewed. Or something like that. 

thing1 : People have talked about this a few times. My trouble with it is, say if I wanted to give geeogree trust points because I like the letter G, I could just put that he has been a good admin for the site, and its not like anyone would know. 

ender44 : Maybe there should be categories, or check boxes. Maybe something like that? But yeah, I see your point, and that would be an issue. Maybe that is why there should be the categories and check boxes to choose from, and then there could be a description box?

I do not think any trusted members are being attacked for their tps, there are many good reasons they could be losing their points, most of the time being they've been bad and lose them but they can always easily earn them back.

I became Trusted after 2 Months. I also thinking that people are Trusting me and now I have 9 TPs in total.
I also saw this Thread: https://www.vizzed.com/boards/thread.php?id=60843
And it let see that really lot people on Vizzed like to see me as a Staff Member. Which really means a lot for me and that gives me some Spirit to keep on.
This also let see that I am Trust worthy enough for my opinion of course.
In my opinion: That Thread let us see that we are Trust worthy enough because people are saying who fits to be a Staff Member.
I only give TPs out with a reason. For all the TPs that I gave on people I had a different reason for all because everyone is special here.

I also have an Idea: Maybe it's a good idea that Trusted Members with 10 or more TPs only can give TPs.