Trust settings & coaster reviews

I have a couple suggestions that I would like to see. On another board (non-coaster related) that I frequent, they have something called "trust settings". You can specify how much you trust another user. It basically goes like this: if I trust A, and A trusts B, then I should trust B. It helps to distinguish how reliable information is. We have a slider to adjust from -100% to 100% trust, and it uses a formula from there.

Another thing I'd like to see is in our track record, the ability to review and rate a coaster. That way, when planning a trip, I can see what others thought, an average rating, and even an incorporation of the trust settings.

Those are my ideas. Not huge ideas, but things that I believe would improve this site a little. Thanks.

The track record stuff you can bet will be implemented in the next version of the site. The trust thing basically comes down to a popularity contest, so I'm not sure if I'll do that or not. I've seen them implemented on a lot of different forums, and they almost never really say anything about the person they're attached to. We'll see.

I've been on sites before that utilize that kind of arrangement to some degree. I don't think it helps matters... as Jeff said, it basically turns things into a popularity contest where users more of less lobby for the trust of others. I think the back-to-basics approach around here works fine- watching how people respond to one another, looking at the quality of people's posts and , if necessary, see how long they have been on the site.

Transitive trust is problematic for a large number of reasons, not the least of which is that they are generally subject to both collusion and sybil attacks.