Right, but your missing the point, that the only incentive someone could have to post a 'vouch' on a 'Sythe' 'Vouch' 'Thread' would be to give other users the impression that a trade occurred as this is acknowledgement of that.
No, like I've said, it is NOT restricted to a record of a trade.
Whether or not intentional, that's the impression it's gonna have. No? You say it's an 'approval of trust'. Well why do you need to share that with the world? Hell it's suspicious at the least. Clearly just another tactic to get free FAKE vouches.
No, if it's a vouch like this, I know it's not a record of a trade, it's an acknowledgement of trust:
Example said:
Vouch for Wulfspade1, I would trust him.
Why not, if someone I trust is starting a business, I'll vouch and say I'll trust him. I've seen this happen since I've ever came here; moderators, administrators, community members, regular people, etc. ALL do this, are they all suspicious? Absolutely not. Do you think all those vouches given out by administrators, moderators, etc. are fake? Absolutely not. If you suspect someone self-vouching, report it and it'll be dealt with. Otherwise, most of them are legitimate. Predominately, people who vouch for others they haven't traded with are users who are active in the community. It's newcomers a VERY small amount of time. Even then, you can tell if it's a fake vouch or not.
Every scammer on this site wouldn't scam their mum, their best friends, people they'd known for years. Does that mean that if his whole family tree felt the need to vouch on his thread, this should be acceptable and credible? Just because I can say I think my best friend Joe Bloggs is a cool guy, who I've known on RuneScape for 10 years, does that mean he's gonna be equally as trustworthy to a stranger?
Who cares, why does that matter? Let them vouch if they want, it's up to you to decide the credibility.
Whether or not he asked, wouldn't be relevant. Because you wouldn't know. Like I said, there's only one incentive for doing it. It's dumb, it's wrong. Hell, I don't even have time to count all my vouches, never mind add in fake ones. Wait there aren't any fake ones, because people don't do that. It's wierd. It's suspicious. It's 99% done on request. :|
No, there's not only one incentive. I've vouched people on Sythe that I've trusted, so should I be banned for fake vouching? There's no way you can prove that. Like I've said, most of those "fake" vouches are done by newcomers, and you can tell if it's fake. Otherwise, it's done by active members of the community who are vouching on the basis of trust the have for the other user. This has NOT been in an issue in the past, and this thread seems to have blown it out of proportion.
If every person on Sythe was aware that it's considered acceptable for mates to vouch for you saying your trustworthy/would never scam, you'd see newcomers with 50 'vouches'. Who is anyone to say that the user had requested them to post that?
Uh, if people trust you, they can vouch for you. But, it's up to check the quality of the vouch, like you do with "trade" vouches. If it's by a newcomer, you could think it's not trustworthy enough. If it's by a administrator, you could think different. Also, if a newcomer had 50 vouches, I'm sure that he would receive a TwC. Those things are done by a case-by-case basis. Like I've said, this whole thread is blown out of proportion out of something that was NEVER an issue in the past.