In order to provide information on the recent reputation reset I'm creating this post. It should answer any important questions you may have.
Recently we've added a new Marketplace system called Contracts along with Marketplace Suite. These are going to be the driving force behind our market. When we launched Contracts we removed the display of reputation inside Market tab. This caused some confusion for members who wanted to still see reps. Our new system is replacing reputations for market activity.
Previously the reputation system was the main method used to vouch for members or make complaints. Yet it was a far from perfect system. In MyBB, our forum software, reputations were never intended to be used for marketplace style comments. We did our best but it was highly flawed. Many left "deal with caution" reputations to members they never dealt with. And friends would often vouch for friends without dealing with them. It was often difficult to use reputations as a means to trust a member.
Contracts was conceived by me many years ago and called "Vouch" but unfortunately I was never able to realize that feature until this year with the help of Xerotic, our new admin. And this whole time reputations have built up as a psuedo-trust system. Almost daily there was abuse and complaints about reputations.
With Contracts we no longer have to rely on reputations and we encouraged those active in the Marketplace to immediately begin using Contracts. However, when we released it, it was was completely obvious that members were resistent to the change and adoption of the new system. That was a serious problem and the only true solution was a complete reset of all reputations for all members.
While it may seem drastic and disheartning to lose years of reputations we have to embrace changes to the site which improve our features and functions. We also can't anchor ourselves to old ways especially if they didn't work very well. We needed to do it even if members don't agree.
Some are concerned about their old reps and associations with friends. We plan on putting the old reputations on HF in archived form for you to view. No one but you and our Staff/Admin team will be able to see those reputations.
We also changed our reputation system to be canned pre-written messages. You will no longer be able to write custom comments on reps. This prevents all forms of abuse and stop the reputations from being used as a marketplace trust tool. Again, something that was necessary.
Since we have revamped how reputation works on the site it was decided that the old rules for reputation no longer applied. The Help Docs were updated to reflect that. New policies include allow asking for reputations or even selling/buying it. Also enabled is the ability to link reps to a post. That ability allows you to rep a member twice in fact, once from profiles and once from a post. We encourage you to read our Help Doc for more info.
We expect reputations to still have a place here on HF but only as a community based system and not marketplace. We have no plans to remove or disable the reputation system.
I hope this has answered many of the questions. If you see others asking about reps please link them to this thread. Thank you.
Recently we've added a new Marketplace system called Contracts along with Marketplace Suite. These are going to be the driving force behind our market. When we launched Contracts we removed the display of reputation inside Market tab. This caused some confusion for members who wanted to still see reps. Our new system is replacing reputations for market activity.
Previously the reputation system was the main method used to vouch for members or make complaints. Yet it was a far from perfect system. In MyBB, our forum software, reputations were never intended to be used for marketplace style comments. We did our best but it was highly flawed. Many left "deal with caution" reputations to members they never dealt with. And friends would often vouch for friends without dealing with them. It was often difficult to use reputations as a means to trust a member.
Contracts was conceived by me many years ago and called "Vouch" but unfortunately I was never able to realize that feature until this year with the help of Xerotic, our new admin. And this whole time reputations have built up as a psuedo-trust system. Almost daily there was abuse and complaints about reputations.
With Contracts we no longer have to rely on reputations and we encouraged those active in the Marketplace to immediately begin using Contracts. However, when we released it, it was was completely obvious that members were resistent to the change and adoption of the new system. That was a serious problem and the only true solution was a complete reset of all reputations for all members.
While it may seem drastic and disheartning to lose years of reputations we have to embrace changes to the site which improve our features and functions. We also can't anchor ourselves to old ways especially if they didn't work very well. We needed to do it even if members don't agree.
Some are concerned about their old reps and associations with friends. We plan on putting the old reputations on HF in archived form for you to view. No one but you and our Staff/Admin team will be able to see those reputations.
We also changed our reputation system to be canned pre-written messages. You will no longer be able to write custom comments on reps. This prevents all forms of abuse and stop the reputations from being used as a marketplace trust tool. Again, something that was necessary.
Since we have revamped how reputation works on the site it was decided that the old rules for reputation no longer applied. The Help Docs were updated to reflect that. New policies include allow asking for reputations or even selling/buying it. Also enabled is the ability to link reps to a post. That ability allows you to rep a member twice in fact, once from profiles and once from a post. We encourage you to read our Help Doc for more info.
We expect reputations to still have a place here on HF but only as a community based system and not marketplace. We have no plans to remove or disable the reputation system.
I hope this has answered many of the questions. If you see others asking about reps please link them to this thread. Thank you.