Remove total Ratings or REVAMP, Keep post ratings

[Corey B]

Ratings are the downfall to everything. We all know this. The people that say "my ratings are what makes my rep" are complete idiots. Let's go over the reasons:

- Most scams = People with REP or Alts with no Rep. People that believe building rep will make them seem trustworthy is completely wrong. People have scammed in all sorts of ways, little or big rep. The people that usually scam are high rep because on your post they think more ratings would mean more trust. The people that scam know this thought process and think "That's how I will scam"

- There isn't competition. The people with high ratings will be more trusted then people with low ratings because they think a system can tell them who is and isn't trust worthy. This kind of thinking needs to go away because I don't trust users high ratings or low. I go off of my own system that has worked in the past.

Point is. You all say ratings build rep, show you're trustworthy,etc. But you're dumb if you think that a number system that is abused every single day, can say if you can be trusted or if you will scam. No one knows that. Not even you.


Post below your thoughts and opinions. Poll will be added if requested.

~Side Note: I didn't add a poll because it takes 2 seconds for someone to come here who doesn't know anything or doesn't care, and hits the button everyone else does. IF you care, you will speak your reason and debate it.

 

[nara~kavi]

While I think this thread is pointless as Justis already has a thread about this *very same thing* and this thread was merely made because we all know Corey has to be the center of attention, I will go ahead and respond to all of your points.

Ratings are the downfall to everything. We all know this. The people that say "my ratings are what makes my rep" are complete idiots. Let's go over the reasons:

- Most scams = High rep. People that believe building rep will make them seem trustworthy is completely wrong. People have scammed in all sorts of ways, little or big rep. The people that usually scam are high rep because on your post they think more ratings would mean more trust. The people that scam know this thought process and think "That's how I will scam"

This, first of all, is completely nonsensical. Monty & I have gone over the statistics on this time and time again and frankly they are just immensely skewed in the opposite direction. One merely needs to go look through the scam reports section or the banlist to see mountains and mountains of people with low ratings or no ratings at all being banned from the site for scamming. This is extremely common, and happens on a daily basis.

We happen to have a very useful tool on our hands for examination: the Most Positive Ratings member list. This list shows the top 50 members with the highest reputation. Initially scrolling down this list you'll see a lot of banned members and think, "Wow, a lot of these people have scammed." In reality, however, only *four* of these members were banned for scamming. In order, those members are Skill, Jurhed, LeCat, and Zekra. That's *FOUR* out of *FIFTY* high-rep members that have been banned from this site for scamming. This is representative of a total 8% of high-rep members doing scams. Further, examining these members that were banned for scamming, Skill still does business with a number of members on this site, Jurhed scammed because he was bored of the game and the site and wanted to quit and there were plenty of warning signs ahead of him scamming, LeCat merely failed to pay back a loan, and Zekra was banned because his method of obtaining OptiFine capes was patched and all of the capes he sold were lost which wasn't really his fault. The rest of the members on that list that were banned were banned for reasons other than scamming.

So, statistically speaking, members with low reputation are extreeeeeemely more likely to scam than members with high reputation.

- There isn't competition. The people with high ratings will be more trusted then people with low ratings because they think a system can tell them who is and isn't trust worthy. This kind of thinking needs to go away because I don't trust users high ratings or low. I go off of my own system that has worked in the past.

People will always find an easy way to determine if people are trustworthy or not. If you remove ratings, people will look at the new trade reputation system that is equally as abusable as the rating system is. People are already abusing it and trading rates4rates on there. So how exactly is that an improvement? If you were to remove *both* those systems, people would just look at post count, which is an even worse system than ratings to determine someone's trustworthiness. If you were to remove ratings *and* post count, then people would look at join date, or they'd find some other random arbitrary way of easily saying to themselves, "This person seems trustworthy." What you are arguing against is the nature of human beings. It is the nature of human beings to be lazy and to look for an easy solution to things, and people will always do that and there's nothing that this site or any other site can do to change it.

Just because you have your own system doesn't mean that everyone else should be forced to use it. The simple fact is that people with extremely high ratings wouldn't just throw that away to scam someone the next day. Because these people worked hard to build themselves up a reputation on this website through contributing to the website in a consistently positive way - along with doing a number of successful deals. Members like Doge deserve to be at the top of the positive ratings page because everybody knows that members like him are pillars of the community that help this site remain relevant. Because what keeps people here - rather than running off to spin-off sites - are pillars of the community like Doge, and whether ratings are useful or not at determining trustworthiness these members deserve to have their contributions to this website recognized.

Randomly or arbitrarily removing ratings from a site that has had them since its founding would be not only moronic - it would be suicidal for a website that is simultaneously prohibiting account selling and introducing new systems that many people are confused by and uninterested in.

The system has worked for this site for the year+ that it has been in operation and removing it just to satisfy a very vocal minority of people who think that the system is bad would be a very, very bad idea. I can guarantee that it would be the nail in the coffin for a number of quality members who have been on this site for a long time and who find themselves with nothing much left to do here.

Point is. You all say ratings build rep, show you're trustworthy,etc. But you're dumb if you think that a number system that is abused every single day, can say if you can be trusted or if you will scam. No one knows that. Not even you.

Then by Corey's logic, post-count, rating-count, the new trade system, and more should all be removed because these systems are all very abusable.

Nobody would support that.

Let's just drop this nonsense.

 

[Corey B]

While I think this thread is pointless as Justis already has a thread about this *very same thing* and this thread was merely made because we all know Corey has to be the center of attention, I will go ahead and respond to all of your points.



This, first of all, is completely nonsensical. Monty & I have gone over the statistics on this time and time again and frankly they are just immensely skewed in the opposite direction. One merely needs to go look through the scam reports section or the banlist to see mountains and mountains of people with low ratings or no ratings at all being banned from the site for scamming. This is extremely common, and happens on a daily basis.

We happen to have a very useful tool on our hands for examination: the Most Positive Ratings member list. This list shows the top 50 members with the highest reputation. Initially scrolling down this list you'll see a lot of banned members and think, "Wow, a lot of these people have scammed." In reality, however, only *four* of these members were banned for scamming. In order, those members are Skill, Jurhed, LeCat, and Zekra. That's *FOUR* out of *FIFTY* high-rep members that have been banned from this site for scamming. This is representative of a total 8% of high-rep members doing scams. Further, examining these members that were banned for scamming, Skill still does business with a number of members on this site, Jurhed scammed because he was bored of the game and the site and wanted to quit and there were plenty of warning signs ahead of him scamming, LeCat merely failed to pay back a loan, and Zekra was banned because his method of obtaining OptiFine capes was patched and all of the capes he sold were lost which wasn't really his fault. The rest of the members on that list that were banned were banned for reasons other than scamming.

So, statistically speaking, members with low reputation are extreeeeeemely more likely to scam than members with high reputation.



People will always find an easy way to determine if people are trustworthy or not. If you remove ratings, people will look at the new trade reputation system that is equally as abusable as the rating system is. People are already abusing it and trading rates4rates on there. So how exactly is that an improvement? If you were to remove *both* those systems, people would just look at post count, which is an even worse system than ratings to determine someone's trustworthiness. If you were to remove ratings *and* post count, then people would look at join date, or they'd find some other random arbitrary way of easily saying to themselves, "This person seems trustworthy." What you are arguing against is the nature of human beings. It is the nature of human beings to be lazy and to look for an easy solution to things, and people will always do that and there's nothing that this site or any other site can do to change it.

Just because you have your own system doesn't mean that everyone else should be forced to use it. The simple fact is that people with extremely high ratings wouldn't just throw that away to scam someone the next day. Because these people worked hard to build themselves up a reputation on this website through contributing to the website in a consistently positive way - along with doing a number of successful deals. Members like Doge deserve to be at the top of the positive ratings page because everybody knows that members like him are pillars of the community that help this site remain relevant. Because what keeps people here - rather than running off to spin-off sites - are pillars of the community like Doge, and whether ratings are useful or not at determining trustworthiness these members deserve to have their contributions to this website recognized.

Randomly or arbitrarily removing ratings from a site that has had them since its founding would be not only moronic - it would be suicidal for a website that is simultaneously prohibiting account selling and introducing new systems that many people are confused by and uninterested in.

The system has worked for this site for the year+ that it has been in operation and removing it just to satisfy a very vocal minority of people who think that the system is bad would be a very, very bad idea. I can guarantee that it would be the nail in the coffin for a number of quality members who have been on this site for a long time and who find themselves with nothing much left to do here.



Then by Corey's logic, post-count, rating-count, the new trade system, and more should all be removed because these systems are all very abusable.

Nobody would support that.

Let's just drop this nonsense.

I agree it should all be removed. And it isn't nonsense. Lots of people agree that ratings should be removed. Sure some people like Doge can be trusted(maybe not, I don't know him personally), but the ratings or staff rank shouldn't tell me that. I should know from other users that I speak to.

Ratings should be removed for the sole fact it causes more damage than good. I'm not sure why you can't see that.[DOUBLEPOST=1456962479][/DOUBLEPOST]

I have, I've been watching shit go down in the shoutbox all afternoon at college, a lot of people are doing feedback for feedback when they haven't dealt with eachother, getting feedback for free stuff, it's not "total trash", it's useful in a lot of ways, just that some people in the community will abuse it, it is easy to abuse and be effective now, however as time goes along the "feedbackforfeedback" people will be weeded out either because they've scammed and lost their ratings and it would have given time for the levels of feedback to level out so that you know what's high and what's a low number of positive feedback as general, give the system time, I think it might work out in the long run, but if it becomes way to abused in the next few weeks then remove it again.[DOUBLEPOST=1456962151][/DOUBLEPOST]

Dead

I have, I've been watching shit go down in the shoutbox all afternoon at college, a lot of people are doing feedback for feedback when they haven't dealt with eachother, getting feedback for free stuff, it's not "total trash", it's useful in a lot of ways, just that some people in the community will abuse it, it is easy to abuse and be effective now, however as time goes along the "feedbackforfeedback" people will be weeded out either because they've scammed and lost their ratings and it would have given time for the levels of feedback to level out so that you know what's high and what's a low number of positive feedback as general, give the system time, I think it might work out in the long run, but if it becomes way to abused in the next few weeks then remove it again.[DOUBLEPOST=1456962151][/DOUBLEPOST]

Dead

There are a bunch of ways to fix what is on MCM. They either don't want to deal with users or make their lives easier. I never share my ideas publically but I've talked to people privately and they've agreed. I'm not oging to spoonfeed MCM and tell them what to do. That's what they have staff for.

 

[Doge]

Ratings are the downfall to everything. We all know this. The people that say "my ratings are what makes my rep" are complete idiots. Let's go over the reasons:

Nobody other than a few new members think that ratings are rep. They learn that it isn't rep fairly quickly most of the time.

- Most scams = High rep. People that believe building rep will make them seem trustworthy is completely wrong. People have scammed in all sorts of ways, little or big rep. The people that usually scam are high rep because on your post they think more ratings would mean more trust. The people that scam know this thought process and think "That's how I will scam"

Completely incorrect.

Only four members on the top ratings list were banned for scams. Skill, Jurhed, LeCat, & Zekra.

Skill still does business with many members of this site, Jurhed got bored of Minecraft and the site and wanted to focus on his studies and exit scammed, LeCat hardly scammed at all and just didn't pay back a loan IIRC, and Zekra was banned while he was on holiday and his method for obtaining capes got patched which wasn't really his fault as obviously his capes weren't legitimate.

In fact the majority of scams are done by new users and normal users that don't have many ratings.

- There isn't competition. The people with high ratings will be more trusted then people with low ratings because they think a system can tell them who is and isn't trust worthy. This kind of thinking needs to go away because I don't trust users high ratings or low. I go off of my own system that has worked in the past.

It's only natural to trust someone who has been around more, is more active, has done more deals and has contributed more. Nobody goes solely off of ratings but rather the positive reputation and dedication to the site attributed to the said user.

Point is. You all say ratings build rep, show you're trustworthy,etc. But you're dumb if you think that a number system that is abused every single day, can say if you can be trusted or if you will scam. No one knows that. Not even you.

That "number system" is not reputation and never was. It's simply a way to react to a post and users who abuse it get punished anyway.


Fortunately it's been decided that the rating count is here to stay.

 

[BuildNIX]

I am not sure but it depends what you consider high rating? I believe there's a lot with high ranks that scam, and most new accounts are the high raters that are re-creating accounts to scam again, "Ban avoiding" and such, I certainly do agree that this should be removed at it gives no useful inform about anything but favoritism. I don't see a valid point why we should compare "New users" to old "Users" @Nara as you said 4 out of 50, and how many users in total is there? that is equivalent to rate a new registered member for a banned for scam, and ban avoiding because that could of been a scammer. Secondly I think those that care so much should stop caring so much because they'll still be "Poppng and Rocking" with those "Vouches" comments, that's what "VOUCH" Stands for. I totally think That this reputation thing is a mess and quiet frankly a waste. It just messes peoples minds up.

 

[nara~kavi]

I agree it should all be removed. And it isn't nonsense. Lots of people agree that ratings should be removed. Sure some people like Doge can be trusted(maybe not, I don't know him personally), but the ratings or staff rank shouldn't tell me that. I should know from other users that I speak to.

Ratings should be removed for the sole fact it causes more damage than good. I'm not sure why you can't see that.

I know it's a little hard to read big things but you should try a little harder to respond to all of my points, since I took the time to respond to all of yours and that is the way that debating works.

People can generally use ratings to gouge if a user is trustworthy or not. If a user has more than 500+ ratings, and the user has been on the site for a long time and did not suspiciously quickly gain all of those ratings over a short period of time, then I think it is totally acceptable to say that that user is far less likely to scam, statistically speaking, than a user that has less ratings. I provided statistical evidence for my claims, Corey. Where is your evidence for anything that you or anyone on your side of the argument has said?

I agree that using ratings entirely to determine whether or not someone is trustworthy is moronic, but as I said, lazy people will always find some lazy solution. What sort of proof do you have that removing ratings will reduce scams in any way? If anything I would suggest that it would *increase* scams as if people had no simple way of gouging whether or not someone is trustworthy in an easy and simple manner then they'd just probably do deals with whoever and then get scammed by the dozens and dozens of low-rating or no-rating members who get banned from this website each week.

What damage, exactly, can you prove that ratings do, Corey?

 

[BuildNIX]

Also, I honestly don't care who was banned with what reputation, If there can be 3 good given reasons why we need this dramatizing system on MCM I will let it go because I for a fact can say 3 reasons why we don't need it:

1. Favoritism comes to play.
2. New users have no way to communicate or purchase anything because they're not "Trusted"
3. The Economy and risk scam percentage rises a lot, because it gives the higher rankings a chance to scam more as new users can't because they're "un-trusted" so I believe for all of us to be treated equally it should be a different system totally.

Sorry for those who don't agree but I totally believe it's causing this forums a lot of damage and statics damage.

P.S: Because when I personally was new I got ignored a lot.

 

[Blowns]

I think they should stay, it's people's own fault for going by post ratings as reputation. It's a fun little feature that's been around for a long time, and it allows users to express their opinion on other people's posts without having to click 'reply' every time.

 

[Corey B]

I think they should stay, it's people's own fault for going by post ratings as reputation. It's a fun little feature that's been around for a long time, and it allows users to express their opinion on other people's posts without having to click 'reply' every time.

We're talking about the total on profile posts. Not actual ratings. I agree they are for fun purposes, all for keeping them. Just not on profile posts for "rep"

 

[Blowns]

We're talking about the total on profile posts. Not actual ratings. I agree they are for fun purposes, all for keeping them. Just not on profile posts for "rep"

Oops, my bad

 

[Doge]

Also, I honestly don't care who was banned with what reputation, If there can be 3 good given reasons why we need this dramatizing system on MCM I will let it go because I for a fact can say 3 reasons why we don't need it:

1. Favoritism comes to play.

Of course active contributors to the site and well known members will be liked more. This has nothing to do with ratings alone. Ratings are simply a thing that comes naturally to active contributors and high quality people. Obviously trusted members are favored over randoms.

2. New users have no way to communicate or purchase anything because they're not "Trusted"

It's not "anything" but rather large deals. (I've personally done many small deals with users who joined days before contacting me, some of which had no messages yet) Nobody wants to risk a chargeback on a large deal to a user that has no reputation. 90% of chargebacks are from users who joined just to scam. Why should any seller risk something like this?

3. The Economy and risk scam percentage rises a lot, because it gives the higher rankings a chance to scam more as new users can't because they're "un-trusted" so I believe for all of us to be treated equally it should be a different system totally.

No, it really doesn't. I don't know where you got that idea from. See, if a "high ranking" scammed, they'd be banned instantly and everyone would be in utter shock. As I stated before only 4 of these people were ever banned for something close to scamming and they were very rare cases.

"Treated equally" Uhh, what? Reputable members are reputable because they've made many contributions and many successful deals. Why should these people be treated like some new member that has nothing to prove their trustworthiness?

They aren't reputable for nothing, they worked hard and earned it. If you want to be treated like a reputable member, become one. Do many deals and prove your trust. It's not something that you get overnight.

 

[BuildNIX]

Of course active contributors to the site and well known members will be liked more. This has nothing to do with ratings alone. Ratings are simply a thing that comes naturally to active contributors and high quality people. Obviously trusted members are favored over randoms.




It's not "anything" but rather large deals. (I've personally done many small deals with users who joined days before contacting me, some of which had no messages yet) Nobody wants to risk a chargeback on a large deal to a user that has no reputation. 90% of chargebacks are from users who joined just to scam. Why should any seller risk something like this?



No, it really doesn't. I don't know where you got that idea from. See, if a "high ranking" scammed, they'd be banned instantly and everyone would be in utter shock. As I stated before only 4 of these people were ever banned for something close to scamming and they were very rare cases.

"Treated equally" Uhh, what? Reputable members are reputable because they've made many contributions and many successful deals. Why should these people be treated like some new member that has nothing to prove their trustworthiness?

They aren't reputable for nothing, they worked hard and earned it. If you want to be treated like a reputable member, become one. Do many deals and prove your trust. It's not something that you get overnight.

As I stated that's why we have something called "Vouch" If you trust a user use the word "Vouch" and it would mean he is trusted. We don't need a reputation system for any kind of reason because all it does is ruins new people's welcome to MCM because they aren't respected. If we remove it we would give everyone a 50/50% to prove themselves because either way you cannot stop a scam. and there's still scam reports going on and it'll never stop. And reputation system does not help scams one bit.

 

[nara~kavi]

As I stated that's why we have something called "Vouch" If you trust a user use the word "Vouch" and it would mean he is trusted. We don't need a reputation system for any kind of reason because all it does is ruins new people's welcome to MCM because they aren't respected. If we remove it we would give everyone a 50/50% to prove themselves because either way you cannot stop a scam. and there's still scam reports going on and it'll never stop. And reputation system does not help scams one bit.

That's totally nonsensical. Almost every market forum out there has some sort of reputation system.

New members/members with low reputation are simply far more likely to scam than members with high reputation who have been here for a long time. This is statistical and logical fact, and arguing against it only makes you appear silly.

 

[BuildNIX]

That's totally nonsensical. Almost every market forum out there has some sort of reputation system.

New members/members with low reputation are simply far more likely to scam than members with high reputation who have been here for a long time. This is statistical and logical fact, and arguing against it only makes you appear silly.

"Almost" is the key word and we are talking about "MCM" here not about "Other" Market forums here, And obviously people who were here for a long time will be trusted because they're known here and it's NOT because of their reputation...But, Because of their activity and loyalty to the forums. Please stop making it seem like the reputation system is any good, because it's not. Maybe for you because you always like to brag about how "Popular" you are.

 

[nara~kavi]

"Almost" is the key word and we are talking about "MCM" here not about "Other" Market forums here, And obviously people who were here for a long time will be trusted because they're known not because of their reputation... Because of their activity and loyalty to the forums. Please stop making it seem like the reputation system is any good, because it's not. Maybe for you because you always like to brag about how "Popular" you are.

lol when have i ever bragged about that?

People deserve to be rewarded for their activity and loyalty, don't they? Currently the rating system is the only reward system in place for people positively contributing to this site and building a name for themselves and removing that system would only discourage these quality members from coming to this site. Many high-rating members are already talking about leaving because of the account drama - this would be the nail in the coffin for them.

If you tear down all of the pillars of a community that community will come crumbling down.

 

[Watson]

Neutral. I completely agree that ratings are a huge issue in reputation on the forums, but as of right now they are the ONLY form of reputation here. What I think should be an alternative is a better way of giving people reputation. There needs to be a system where you can trust someone based off their "reputation" on the forum, rather than the likes that they receive from posts.

Likes on posts don't always necessarily mean that the person is trustworthy, and that's something that is a major issue on this forum.

 

[BuildNIX]

lol when have i ever bragged about that?

People deserve to be rewarded for their activity and loyalty, don't they? Currently the rating system is the only reward system in place for people positively contributing to this site and building a name for themselves and removing that system would only discourage these quality members from coming to this site. Many high-rating members are already talking about leaving because of the account drama - this would be the nail in the coffin for them.

If you tear down all of the pillars of a community that community will come crumbling down.

They're rewarded by having a community? They're rewarded that Mick took over as the owner and is currently trying to improve "MCM", They're also rewarded that the staff are so easy going. I don't know what else is their to be rewarded? If you want a Reputation system, Go and create a Poll on every post you make and ask if the member was satisfied are not. I don't see what you are getting out of the reputation system? It's nothing but a Hypothesis.

 

[Corey B]

Neutral. I completely agree that ratings are a huge issue in reputation on the forums, but as of right now they are the ONLY form of reputation here. What I think should be an alternative is a better way of giving people reputation. There needs to be a system where you can trust someone based off their "reputation" on the forum, rather than the likes that they receive from posts.

Likes on posts don't always necessarily mean that the person is trustworthy, and that's something that is a major issue on this forum.

Ratings does not equal Reputation. That's the issue. People spam ratings day in and out like it's no big deal. Then you see people with 100+ ratings scam because "They got to a trustworthy point".[DOUBLEPOST=1457018155][/DOUBLEPOST]It was unfair so I will respond to each point as well. But no. Justis thread seemed useless because it added a poll to which Staff and users saw the most votes go to "nothing". Anyone can come to a poll and vote the most popular. The people that want the change would fight. Onto the points:

lol when have i ever bragged about that?

People deserve to be rewarded for their activity and loyalty, don't they? Currently the rating system is the only reward system in place for people positively contributing to this site and building a name for themselves and removing that system would only discourage these quality members from coming to this site. Many high-rating members are already talking about leaving because of the account drama - this would be the nail in the coffin for them.

If you tear down all of the pillars of a community that community will come crumbling down.

They're rewarded by having a community? They're rewarded that Mick took over as the owner and is currently trying to improve "MCM", They're also rewarded that the staff are so easy going. I don't know what else is their to be rewarded? If you want a Reputation system, Go and create a Poll on every post you make and ask if the member was satisfied are not. I don't see what you are getting out of the reputation system? It's nothing but a Hypothesis.

As BuildNIX said above, staff are extremely lenient when it doesn't come to shoutbox. Ratings are looked at for fun on posts, everyone like them. It doesn't reward you because what do you get out of it? Nothing. Just someone a user might trust and if you scam or cause problems then they might turn the other way and scam after.

When have I bragged about that? Really? Just the other day when ratings got temp-removed, you and Monty just kept on saying "all the time, all the years,etc. That we built up our ratings and now they get removed" You guys brag all the time about "being high-rated members" when a while back it was proven you rate boosted. You don't do it that much but it is noticable in your posts... You both rate each other everytime you make a post, or vouch. So yes, you have bragged.

Discourage members? I don't think it would discourage them. In fact, I would think that more staff members would need to be hired. Everyone says the feedback system is good but it doesn't do anything. Anyone can fake it. Already proven. What you could do is hire staff that check each deal with proof if they want a feedback system so bad. Ratings are useless and it has been said countless times.

High-rated members leaving? Good. Account selling should have never been allowed to begin with. It goes against EULA anyways that no one gave a damn about. There really aren't that many high members anymore, especially ones that sell Accounts. So I wouldn't say "many" but probably a few or some.