Figures with 0 Trusts:

Judas Iscariot
Benedict Arnold
Lando Calrissian- with the caveat that he got them all back.

I think its fine.

Although in my perverse Hibernian fashion I have people on my "who irishgit trusts" list who are there because I trust them to be congenital cretins, provide unintentional belly-laughs, or otherwise entertain me.

A good feature for gauging the validity of a reviewer's posts. If no one else trusts them, I usually don't either, unless the user shows otherwse in their posts. Keep it. :)

There are points against having it, but everytime I find a new reviewer with a few comments that impress me I click the little box and sign up as trusting them. To me it just means that I recognize that they have a brain and the potential to amuse me, and most importantly that they are not full of crap like some around here. (you know who you are) I think I trust about 80 reviewers and about 60 or so trust me. I think we should keep it.

I like this feature because I use this to find new areas to go to. I will go to a user page and see what lists they have or sometimes read their comments then find new topics to comment on.

I am on a fence about this.It is nice to see that there are posters who say they trust you. but on the other hand it is kind of like a clique. or even a who is the most popular? or who likes you and who hates you?

My wife doesn't believe that there are actually more than 9 people on Earth that trust me. . .

Excellent unique feature. As a newbie a few months ago I felt really super that several others trusted me.....

A good idea and I'm all for everything new, but it's a very cliquey thing for me at the moment. This could easily dissaude a new user as that "club" atmosphere of seeing the same reviewers on someones page can turn someone right off whose never been here before and it could make some people overlook a potentially good reviewer whose new to this site.

I was wondering what the scoop was with this feature, and now the mystery is out. Like or dislike? Too early to tell. I'm guess I'm neutral, on the fence. As mentioned earlier by magellan, it could be useful if new users, like friends of friends, join the site. Kind of like the whole concept behind Friendster - if you know someone who knows someone, you have somewhat of a connection and may be more apt to listen to what that person has to say.

As stated on the RIA blog, I have no use for the tacked-on redundancy this feature provides. I'm trying to "filter in" as many opinions as I can get and (again) this'll either end up victimizing or homogenizing. When push comes to shove, I'M the one who's gotta make his own decisions (for better or worse) and adapt to the outcomes of such. Look around, and you'll begin to see the "clubbiness" settling in. Personally, I plan on ignoring it (although the "snails-crawl" load speed of my user page is a painful reminder) and continuing on as the keister-bound case of prickly heat RateItAll knows and tolerates.

I'm kind of on the fence about this. I was flattered to see pictures of users on my user page, and I was surprised and touched by some of the people who said they trusted me. But as abichara says, this could encourage cliquism. And by the way, abichara is very trustworthy.

Let's not keep it. As flattering as it can be, the uncertainties outnumber its convenience. In any case, the trust element is less important than sharing contrasting opinions.

I liked it well enough when it was anonymous. Not so sure how I feel about it now.. for all the reasons stated by the other reviewers. I like being able to give a thumbs up to people who I think are doing a good job.. but placing my photo on their user page seems an awful lot like sucking up. I don't know. I guess I could have done without the change.

I'm a bit skeptical about this idea. I see the potential for this "trust network" to deepen the cliques which already exist within the network. The standards to measure trustworthiness are rather arbitrary to say the least. Ideally, it would be the ability to offer consistently interesting ratings. It's sort of a high school-ish, back-patting activity. It does look nice on the page, but I can think of a few ways that it can be abused. Hopefully, it won't be and it will actually root out illegitimate raters in the long haul.

Currently, this feature is not much more than pretty pictures on the page. I have to admit, I sort of like opening up my user pages and seeing all these folks (people, dogs, lizards, whatever flick's thing is, etc.) looking out at me, and telling me that I'm not just writing into a vacuum. At the same time, if that's all it turns out to be, I could do without it. It slows page loads down, adds a hurt feelings aspect for some, and could be a tool to just slap each other on the back. However. If RIA somehow finds a way to leverage these "trust networks" to deliver more relevant ratings and reviews, i think it could be very, very powerful. Filter out the bozos, and keep the opinions of those who I admire / respect / trust. So when I'm looking for a movie to rent, if there's an automated way to filter out the "IT SUCKS!!!!" people and the "SHE"Z SO HOTTTT!" people, I'm all for it. I think for this thing to work, RIA will need to grow to include more than a core cadre of users, and will need to start to fragmenting into groups around subject matter of interest. As is, with a core group of people who all pretty much trust each other (or at least say they do), the feature is pretty superficial, bordering on the worthless. But again, I can see the potential. Let's say that Kamylienne has in her network a friend from Gainesville that is only an occasional poster. If executed properly, this Trusted Network thing could allow me to automatically "know" that a review from this person is one that I can trust, because of my connection with Kamylienne. When you multiply this network effect by thousands of people, I think it could be very, very cool.

Sorry to say, I think people'd be more honest about whose reviews they like if they didn't identify the raters who "trust" them. It's reminiscent of "Friendster"-esque nonsense. Yeah, it's nice and colorful on the pages, but I'm still not sold that this is a good idea. Plus, if I haven't gotten around to clicking on someone to mention that they're helpful, I would have to wonder if they would take offense to it. Arg. I honestly can't think of a legitimate way of measuring "trustworthiness" of a reviewer. I think this idea has potential to fall short; but, let's let time tell.

Not sure I trust people to be fully honest with this, since a few helpful click scroungers will "trust" people they may not hold in esteem, in hopes of winning their favor. I like the feature, though I don't know if I need to see my geeky picture splattered over so many user pages! Guess I'd better hunt for a new photo ID.

Not at all sure as to what the purpose is, especially because no one can see who makes the trusted user list. Quite odd feature and somewhat unnecessary.