Editing Incubator escapee wiki:Trust network (section)

==Potential for misuse==

Declarations of trust should be limited to users the declarer has high confidence in, but not necessarily all those that they like or agree with. Since "who trusts you?" is more important than "how many people trust you?" there is little point in creating sock puppets to declare trust in yourself. It would not be appropriate to make statements of trust as part of deals, either for tit-for-tat recognition or for a favour elsewhere. Again, since it is unlikely that anybody offering such an arrangement is a respected member of the community, there is little benefit in having that person declare their trust in you. It is important to remember that the trust network is not a popularity contest, and so there is no need to actively seek out declarations of trust. The fact that another user has not made a declaration of trust in your favour is by no means a declaration of distrust.

A web of trust should not be overly relied upon. Naturally, new but excellent contributors will take time to be integrated into the web. Neither does the web document even widespread distrust of a user. For this reason, it will always be important to peruse user and user talk pages, as well as an editor's contributions, when trying to find out about a user you have recently encountered.