Reputation Activity Score

[Mick]

What up gamers,

Today we have a new, separate suggestion that I would like to bring up to the community.

Right now one of the main issues with reputation totals is that they are not reflective of a user’s actual reputability, so it has been a common suggestion for us to completely remove reputation totals. In my opinion, this is not an adequate solution, and instead, we should consider trying to change our current reputation totals into a number that takes many more factors into consideration. This number will be considered your ‘activity score’. It is worth noting that this number is never going to be able to be perfect and should not be used by itself. We heavily recommend users perform their own due diligence and always look through a person’s posts, reputation, and other parts of their profile to get a better idea of who you are dealing with.

What I would like to propose today is an idea that Kram and I have been considering and preparing for a while now, and it is for us to remove the current reputation totals to replace it with a new number called ‘Activity Score’. The activity score of a user is calculated using an algorithm that takes into account many aspects of their contribution to the site, both positive and negative. With this score, we would be keeping the exact method of calculation completely unknown, including most of the specific metrics and how they are weighted. Some metrics include feedback, posts, account age, as well as negative factors such as warning points. This system does consider banned and legacy reputation, but it simply contributes a relatively lower amount compared to feedback with proof. We will still add the ability to add proof to your legacy feedback to make it worth more and we highly encourage you to do so.

Although we will not be sharing specifics about how the system calculates scores, below are some scores to show how this change would influence a variety of users on our platform. Please note that these scores are not finalised and are only approximate for now until we can gauge community interest to see if this is an idea worth developing further.

Spoiler: User scores

Zyger: 298
Doge: 297
LonelyTree: 205
Asa: 202
Glove: 183
Chearful: 173
ThaMango: 165
Ivain: 156
Ghast: 129
Choo:129
User: 109
null: 90
Dann: 77
JayMC: 61
Rika: 41
2pac:-2

Along with this, we would still continue to grey out legacy and banned reputation, no longer accept reports on this feedback, add a notice about legacy reputation, and send out messages to all users with feedback they need to upload to migrate their legacy feedback.

This idea is pretty different to anything else we have considered in the past and I am unsure of what you all will think of this, so please provide your input below and I look forward to considering it all .

Thanks everyone,

 

[Lotus]

Honestly, I feel like this would be a good site addition, but kept separate from reputation. There are tons and tons of users with very few posts/reactions (or high warning points) that are considered highly reputable. It is good for determining how much they've contributed to the site, yes, but not necessarily how trustworthy they are in terms of their deal-based reputation.

It’s not removing the reputation system or page, but simply another metric for users to view.

I’m sure the staff team will be constantly adjusting the weighting of the system as time passes, hopefully getting closer and closer to the ideal state.

 

[User]

It’s not removing the reputation system or page, but simply another metric for users to view.

I’m sure the staff team will be constantly adjusting the weighting of the system as time passes, hopefully getting closer and closer to the ideal state.

Yes, but I don't think it should be labelled as a reputation activity score; you can include rep in the algorithm (because, of course, dealing on-site means contributing), but I don't think it should be linked to reputation whatsoever. One is a measure of trust, while the other is a measure of contribution.

 

[Cal]

I'm not really a fan of this metric.
I understand the thinking on your end. Along the lines of "The current reputation system is inadequate, a change to a better version of the reputation is not ideal for many users, an entirely new system may be able to offer a compromise."

My concern is that this is not actually solving the problem.
Users want a score to judge the reputability of a user, this provides a score. But the score is not directly correlated with reputability, it's a holistic evaluation. The problem is, how the score is used doesn't change, it's still used as a score for reputability only now with added abstraction.

Users want a reputability score, which is what we have right now. It's not a perfect system, but it is far too late to go back on that system. The best way I can think to get out of that corner is to offer a better alternative to reputation. What that looks like, I'm not so sure, but as it stands the reputation system is going to have to stay.

Spoiler: The Danger Zone

This feels like a roundabout way to get to David/1337's suggestion of making legacy reputations worth 3/5ths of a current rep.

 

[Glove]

This idea is different and very cool, only part I have an issue with is this

"Along with this, we would still continue to grey out legacy and banned reputation, no longer accept reports on this feedback, add a notice about legacy reputation, and send out messages to all users with feedback they need to upload to migrate their legacy feedback."

I dont know how many more people have to say it, just leave legacy rep and banned rep where it is dont accept reports on the feedback and move on with literally any idea besides greying/removing old rep

 

[Kram]

This idea is different and very cool, only part I have an issue with is this

"Along with this, we would still continue to grey out legacy and banned reputation, no longer accept reports on this feedback, add a notice about legacy reputation, and send out messages to all users with feedback they need to upload to migrate their legacy feedback."

I dont know how many more people have to say it, just leave legacy rep and banned rep where it is dont accept reports on the feedback and move on with literally any idea besides greying/removing old rep

Well, they won't be removed, just greyed out because there is a difference with those reps and newer reps that needs to be visible. This still counts legacy and banned feedback, it just informs users that aren't aware of the possible issues of feedback that is legacy and banned. What is in this suggestion by far helps sellers with a lot of legacy and banned feedback because it actually makes a difference to your score.

 

[Kavish]

This idea is good, but the weight between these categories needs to favor fewer things like activity and general likeability. There are some users that are hated on but would be still considered trustworthy. Just hope this algorithm works fine.

 

[Glove]

Well, they won't be removed, just greyed out because there is a difference with those reps and newer reps that needs to be visible. This still counts legacy and banned feedback, it just informs users that aren't aware of the possible issues of feedback that is legacy and banned. What is in this suggestion by far helps sellers with a lot of legacy and banned feedback because it actually makes a difference to your score.

i'd rather them be deleted then greyed out and not counted in total score they're pointless if they're greyed out stupid stupid thoughts that delusional people are trying to put in just leave old rep where its at ffs

 

[Kram]

i'd rather them be deleted then greyed out and not counted in total score they're pointless if they're greyed out stupid stupid thoughts that delusional people are trying to put in just leave old rep where its at ffs

Well, they are counted in the total score? So you would prefer the system of just deleting them to this where they are counted but they are visually marked as different?

 

[Glove]

Well, they are counted in the total score? So you would prefer the system of just deleting them to this where they are counted but they are visually marked as different?

I was understanding that greying them out meant they were not counted in total score my bad, If they're greyed out and not counted I would just rather them be deleted (worst case scenario). If they're counted and greyed out I guess that works as long as there is some sort of way for someone to understand what the visual difference on the reputation means.

 

[Kram]

I was understanding that greying them out meant they were not counted in total score my bad, If they're greyed out and not counted I would just rather them be deleted (worst case scenario). If they're counted and greyed out I guess that works as long as there is some sort of way for someone to understand what the visual difference on the reputation means.

Yeah, there will be a significance to the feedback even if it is greyed out. That's also while we will have a note present on greyed out feedback explaining why we are greying it out.

 

[Glove]

Yeah, there will be a significance to the feedback even if it is greyed out. That's also while we will have a note present on greyed out feedback explaining why we are greying it out.

Perfect! As long the endless amounts of old deals people have done are counted however it's done it'll be perceived well by the community hopefully, just those banned member reps and old reps do matter !!

 

[Ery]

include expired warning pts?

 

[Kram]

include expired warning pts?

Is that a suggestion or a question? As of right now, we don't plan on including expired warning points.

 

[alice]

I still feel like the best possible solution would be to separate Reputation from Vouches.

• Vouches would basically stand for "Trades Completed" and require evidence, transacted funds, deal URL, etc., as it does currently. There would be no such thing as a neutral vouch or a negative vouch.
• Reputation would mostly be unmoderated outside of direct harassment and be opinion-based as it is on a typical forums. This means you could +rep someone if you like them and -rep someone if you don't. You could add a profanity filter to detect words like "retard" each time someone tries to rep someone and force them to remove it while linking them the reputation rules.

Move all legacy reputation to reputation -- rather than vouches and leave it as is. Maybe remove everyone's negative reputation so that everyone has a clean, positive slate without any complaints.

This way, everyone should hopefully be happy. Users with a lot of legacy reputation will still get something out of it.

Vouches and reputation should both go on the user's postbit on the left side and be given more attention to (remove reaction count as well). Reputation could be green, and vouches could be purple, or they could just both be green.

 

[Lotus]

I still feel like the best possible solution would be to separate Reputation from Vouches.

• Vouches would basically stand for "Trades Completed" and require evidence, transacted funds, deal URL, etc., as it does currently. There would be no such thing as a neutral vouch or a negative vouch.
• Reputation would mostly be unmoderated outside of direct harassment and be opinion-based as it is on a typical forums. This means you could +rep someone if you like them and -rep someone if you don't. You could add a profanity filter to detect words like "retard" each time someone tries to rep someone and force them to remove it while linking them the reputation rules.

Move all legacy reputation to reputation -- rather than vouches and leave it as is. Maybe remove everyone's negative reputation so that everyone has a clean, positive slate without any complaints.

This way, everyone should hopefully be happy. Users with a lot of legacy reputation will still get something out of it.

Vouches and reputation should both go on the user's postbit on the left side and be given more attention to (remove reaction count as well). Reputation could be green, and vouches could be purple, or they could just both be green.

That's actually a pretty interesting perspective. I wouldn't be opposed to splitting 'deal-based activity' and 'opinion-based' at all if it offers more clarity and distinguishment for other people. Bit of a big change and I wouldn't entirely agree with removing everyone's negative reputation, but... the idea could be viable if developed more by the staff team (assuming I haven't missed any glaring issues with it).

 

[alice]

That's actually a pretty interesting perspective. I wouldn't be opposed to splitting 'deal-based activity' and 'opinion-based' at all if it offers more clarity and distinguishment for other people. Bit of a big change and I wouldn't entirely agree with removing everyone's negative reputation, but... the idea could be viable if developed more by the staff team (assuming I haven't missed any glaring issues with it).

A couple of other big-name forums do this and have no issues with it. It would likely remove the need for Feedback Moderators as well and over moderation of the reputation system.[DOUBLEPOST=1576893353][/DOUBLEPOST]Also, just because someone is a douchebag doesn't mean they aren't a credible seller. Therefore, you could even be in negative reputation (because you're an asshole) but have a lot of vouches (trusted).

 

[Cade]

I do not like this idea as I'm not always able to be active on-site and don't want to be declined because I'm not active recently.

 

[Ally]

I do not like this idea as I'm not always able to be active on-site and don't want to be declined because I'm not active recently.

You wouldn't particularly suffer from inactivity though I don't think.