Trader Rating System

[irokin]

Heres the disclaimer while I'm working on an explanation of the system. How the ratings and risk-o-meter are calculated are relatively complex but how you leave feedback as an end user is pretty straightforward. Theres nothing you need to know to start leaving and receiving feedback aside from how to get to a persons feedback form. To get to the there you need to click on the persons info box which will take you to their overview page. At the top of the page you will see a link titled "Leave feedback for this user here" follow that and you're there.

 

UPDATE: Juicy stuff in the next post down!

 

 

http://www.rollaclub.com/rating/index.php?a=disclaimer

Disclaimer:

 

 

Risk-o-meter: The Risk-o-meter is designed to give a computer generated indication of a users standing within Rollaclub. It does not guarantee a successful trade and you should ALWAYS use your own judgement as to whether the risk is acceptable for you to trade with a person. Trading on the internet is inherently risky and the Risk-o-meter attempts to guage how high the risk is. High numbers (in the Red spectrum mean high risk, the highest (most risky) rating being 0 which means potentially EXTREME risk. Low numbers (in the Green spectrum) can indicate a reasonably good history of this person, the lowest (best) rating being 0. A low risk rating does not provide any express or implied guarantee that you will have a successful trade with this person.

 

Please note that there is absolutely no guarantee that the Risk-o-meter is accurate. While all efforts have been made to take into account as many factors as possible there may be unforeseen circumstances which could make a persons rating excessively high or low. Risk-o-meter takes into account the length of time since the person signed up, the number of posts they've made in that time, their current moderator warning level and their user group and is then weighted against their feedback derived rating. Also, users who have been inactive for long periods of time have a decaying risk rating however this is restored when they next login. If you find a Risk-o-meter rating that you feel is incorrect please contact an administrator with details. Again ALWAYS use your own judgement independant of the Risk-o-meter.

 

Please also note that the Risk-o-meter is not a direct reflection of a persons character. A person may have a poor risk rating but be an honest and reliable person.

 

User Feedback: User feedback is intended to be feedback left by users who have traded with this person. Rollaclub cannot guarantee the accuracy of the feedback submitted, whether the person has actually traded with the user in question nor do we endorse any of the feedback comments submitted. It is intended to be a tool for you to judge the potential risk of trading with a person. Always use your own judgement independant of the user submitted feedback.

 

If you find comments that are offensive, unnecessarily abusive, false, fraudulent or in breach of the Rollaclub rules please contact a moderator or administrator.

 

 

Rating: A users rating is derived from the rating submitted by other users while leaving feedback. The feedback is weighted against the time that a user has been a member on the assumption that feedback submitted by long term members is more likely to be valid and correct. Rollaclub provides no express or implied guarantee that a persons rating is correct or reflects the reputation or character of the user in question. Always use your own judgement independant of the user submission derived computer calcluated rating.

 

Please note: All new users or users without any ratings have a rating of +0 automatically applied.

 

If you find a persons rating that seems to be incorrect please contact an administrator.

 

 

Changes: The rating and feedback systems are under almost constant review and scruitiny to ensure they provide the best possible information available. As a result users ratings and risk-o-meter ratings may fluctuate with these changes. For large Rating changes users rating weight may be periodically recomputed to improve the systems output. The system always stores the originally submitted raw rating and this does not change.

[irokin]

Trader Rating:

 

Your trader rating is calculated from the ratings that others leave for you. The value ranges from -50 (worst) to +50 (best). Everyone receives a +0 rating if they haven't been rated yet. The value isn't a simple average however. When you leave a rating a weighting for that rating is calculated based on the amount of time you have been a member. When you are a new member you will have a very small weighting power. When you've been a member for as long as I have you will have almost the maximum weighting power. The reason for this is to combat people signing up fake accounts and rating themselves highly. In theory genuine ratings will outweigh the newbies rating.

 

How is the weighting calculated? Well, up until you've been a member for about 154 weeks your weighting increases pretty much linearly (though it isn't 1 weighting point per week). Once you get to 155 weeks as a member your weighting power switches over to a log scale. This essentially caps your weighting power while still allowing it to increase slightly though not as fast as before. This prevents one person from gaining a weighting power thats excessively high. We store all the raw data necessary to recalculate peoples weighting in case we decide to make drastic changes to the weighting system.

 

From there to calculate the rating is fairly simple:

 

First we add up everyones weighting power.

Then we calculate each submitted weighted rating:

(weight*rating)/total weight

And then simply add all of those together.

 

I should also mention that theres some rating damping if someone receives very high ratings as their first few reviews. This goes away once you've had a few more ratings submitted.

 

 

Risk-o-meter:

 

Basically the risk meter attempts to establish how potentially risky it is to deal with this person. The key thing to remember when looking at this value is that it is just computer calculated. The computer has no way of judging the character of this person so we have to give it numbers to look at instead. The algorithm I've written takes a bunch of data from the forum and attempts to profile a person based on roughly the profile most scammers appear to take. Now this does not mean that a low value automatically means someones a scammer. It does mean that, to the computer, this account shows a profile that is possibly like a scammers account. Its not fool proof, at all. You should ALWAYS ALWAYS use YOUR judgement!! I cannot stress this enough. As a persons account profile looks less and less like a potential scammer account the system improves your Risk-o-meter rating.

 

Things that affect your Risk-o-meter rating:

• The amount of time you've been a member. This is pretty much the biggest non-rating factors that will affect your Risk-o-meter rating. If you've only been a member for a short period of time the system penalises you. As the time you've been a member increases the penalty becomes less and even positive when you've been a VERY long term member. The only way to affect this is time, so don't stress about it.
  
• Your post count Yes you receive a small penalty if you have a low post count and a slight boost if you have a very high count. Hopefully this doesn't encourage spamming or I will have to warn you (see below).
  
• Your Warning level You receive a penalty of 10 for every warning you receive meaning that if you've had the maximum 10 warnings you get a risk rating of 100 (the worst). So, don't spam or be a dweeb.
  
• Your user group This only applies if you're an Admin, Mod, Bad Trader, Suspended or Banned. Admins and Mods get a risk rating of 0 because they're so awesome. Conversely Bad Traders, Suspended or Banned accounts receive a risk rating of 100 because obviously they've done something very bad.
  
• Your Rating This is (currently) by far the easiest way to improve your Risk-o-meter rating. Get good reviews from your trades and the Risk-o-meter will give you a good risk rating. If I find people consistently abusing the system I'll reduce the power of this to improve your rating.
  

 

 

Future additions

 

Bump penalty bot: This will be a robot that scans the for sale areas for breaches the bumping rules. It won't remove your post but your RATING (not risk rating) will be hit with a penalty. I haven't decided how much the penalty will be yet but it will be fairly hefty so something to avoid at all costs.

 

...

[irokin]

Have a read, if you have any questions I'm more than happy to answer them. I understand it might be a bit confusing at first and I've probably missed covering some stuff thats obvious to me (because I wrote the system) but not so obvious to someone on the outside.

[irokin]

I should also add that its OK to add retrospective feedback for trades up to two months ago for the next two weeks only. I'm keen to see how the system performs and I need a bunch of reviews in order to see that and tweak it accordingly.

[LukeAE71]

How come some people have the trader rating and some don't??

[irokin]

How come some people have the trader rating and some don't??

 

Can you link me an example? Every post in the trader forums should have the info box underneath the avatar. Its not displayed outside of the trader area because it would get annoying, real fast!

[LukeAE71]

Can you link me an example? Every post in the trader forums should have the info box underneath the avatar. Its not displayed outside of the trader area because it would get annoying, real fast!

 

Ah that is the reason, I didn't notice it was only visible in the trader area.

 

Sorry :dance:

[towe001]

So whats going to happen to the Seller Feedback section ? Keep or ditch ?

[irokin]

I think it'll be left there until the new system takes hold but only as an archive/reference point. Once we've got enough info in the new system it'll probably be removed.

[towe001]

I think leaving the feedback might take a little getting used to. I just leave feedback for JiP and after i finished i thought i had some how left it for myself cause on the left hand side of the page it had myself under the heading "User Ratings". My first thought "Oh crap, i just left it for myself" till after a bit of digging around...

Apart from that nice and simple to use

[irokin]

My first thought "Oh crap, i just left it for myself" till after a bit of digging around...

 

Haha, not possible to leave feedback for yourself but I see your point. The interface does need some tidying up.

[67Rolla-Ken]

Can I leave feedback for people I have purchased things off in the past?? In particular Gavclassic has helped me out heaps and at very reasonable prices, is there any way I can give some backdated feedback for him??

Edited January 18, 2010 by 67Rolla-Ken

[philbey]

I just left a couple for people I've bought from in the past.

[irokin]

Can I leave feedback for people I have purchased things off in the past?? In particular Gavclassic has helped me out heaps and at very reasonable prices, is there any way I can give some backdated feedback for him??

 

I should also add that its OK to add retrospective feedback for trades up to two months ago for the next two weeks only. I'm keen to see how the system performs and I need a bunch of reviews in order to see that and tweak it accordingly.

 

 

Yes.

[67Rolla-Ken]

Cheers. Gavclassic has a rating :dance: