Trader Ratings

[bensontwenty]

What happened to the trader rating system. This afternoon, I had a nice healthy 55 - I go out for a while and come back to find that somebody has added positive feedback yet my trader rating has dropped to 43. In my profile it shows 56 but in the threads it only shows the 43 :o

Is it because I have received multiple feedback from different people. Sure hope its not been changed for this to make it more ebay'esque as I have always hated that system on ebay.

 

[Coastalguy]

What happened to the trader rating system. This afternoon, I had a nice healthy 55 - I go out for a while and come back to find that somebody has added positive feedback yet my trader rating has dropped to 43. In my profile it shows 56 but in the threads it only shows the 43 :o

Is it because I have received multiple feedback from different people. Sure hope its not been changed for this to make it more ebay'esque as I have always hated that system on ebay.

I'm afraid that is the case, although this has been implemented for awhile now.

Some like it...some hate it.

ST

 

[bensontwenty]

I know I am a few days behind ST but thanks for the reply - limited internet access at the moment as I am travelling.

Count me as one of those who hate it - always hated the ebay feedback system - a well - c'est la vie.

 

[Sabre]

i dont like it either... i think that if you get multiple reviews from some people it just means you and them do business more often than with others????

 

[Peter]

the problemn is the old system was open to abuse,

what would stop someone getting their freind to give them dummy feedbacks, the old system would show them all the new system would only show 1

 

[matrics]

Yeah, but there are occasions when I deal with the same person twice... and I can't give feedback each time.
Plus, if a single user gave feedback say, 5 times one after the other, it would look suspicious and get reported, so I don't see where the problem is.

 

[RJ]

Yeah, but there are occasions when I deal with the same person twice... and I can't give feedback each time.

Actually you should be encouraged to leave a feedback for a user after every transaction. All feedbacks, unique user or not, are recorded and displayed in the feedback profile.

Topic here is the trader rating "score" that is displayed in the postbit. This was previously based on total feedbacks while since the system upgrade it has been based on unique user feedbacks. We have left it this way for a couple of reasons.

First, it better guarantees the integrity of the feedback system. If you came across a sales thread started by a member with (50) feedback, you might assume they have completed many positive transactions with other members. However, with the previous system it was possible for someone to conspire with a friend or two to repeatedly rate each other to achieve higher trader rating scores.

B20, I can look at your (43) score and see that you have conducted transactions with 43 other members that were impressed enough to leave feedback for you. To me, this is more impressive than a user having a (43) score for transacting with only 10 other members, or even worse with one fake account. Scoring by unique users eliminates most incentive for users to try this. If you see a high score, you can be better assured that this user has conducted many positive transactions.

And a slightly selfish reason is that there is less staff work involved. We don't have to spend as much time investigating claims of feedback fraud. We still track down duplicate and false account of course, but we don't have to try to verify how many transactions actually took place between users. The trader rating system is based on a system of honor, so we don't have any method of immediately verifying actual transactions.

One way to look at the trader rating score is "how many other member can vouch for this person"?

 

[Qwert]

Yes 43 is nothing bad.

 

[True_Snake]

Yeah, compared to 2!


True_Snake

 

[johnny6]

"B20, I can look at your (43) score and see that you have conducted transactions with 43 other members that were impressed enough to leave feedback for you. To me, this is more impressive than a user having a (43) score for transacting with only 10 other members, or even worse with one fake account. Scoring by unique users eliminates most incentive for users to try this. If you see a high score, you can be better assured that this user has conducted many positive transactions."

RJ, you're ignoring the fact that there are some people who do a more-than-proportional share of business on this forum. For example, I have a trader rating of 60. I have 78 positive reviews. I've done repeat business a TON (johnn, manicgirl, anthony, etc). The reason I did repeat business? Because the business was always so smooth and successful. But that business is not reflected in any of our trader ratings...it seems to me that that's counterintuitive - shouldn't repeat successful business by a person be a sign that they're someone to be trusted? And shouldn't that be shown by their TR? Just my two cents...
John

 

[PolurNET]

johnny, I agree somewhat, but at the same time, what RJ is saying is right... For newbies to NP, it's better to keep the system in place. But repeat business is always good, just that the user will find that out when clicking on your TR anyway.

So it's a balance already, and it's gotta be for the "worst" case scenario, where fraud may easily occur, whereas now it will be greatly reduced and encourages meeting new ppl :D

Cheers
Anand