[jcole]

Update 3/30:

First off, I want to thank everyone for the high quality debate so far on this thread. Everyone has made some valid points. In this suggestion we've moved past the idea of "removing" Popularity (because it deserves a place here forever) and are now focusing on a UI/UX optimization that separates Social Standing from Marketplace Credibility.
Option 1: Social Blue (#0080FF)
This is the universal social language of the internet (Facebook, X, Discord, LinkedIn). It immediately signals to the user's brain: "This is a profile/social metric, not a business one." It creates the strongest visual speed bump against the Marketplace Green.


Option 2: Community Purple (#9933FF)
It feels like an intentional design choice rather than a low effort hot fix. It looks like the site meant for Popularity to be a distinct high status community metric.


Changing the color of popularity on a profile solves the "Trust vs. Likability" confusion dealt with by new and old users relating to our marketplace.
Green says: "This member fulfills their contracts."
Blue/Purple says: "This member is a pillar of the community."

The Result: If a user has 0 Green but +5,000 Blue/Purple, a buyer will think: "I'd love to grab a beer with this guy or chat in convo, but I should probably use a MM since he has no business history." That is exactly the outcome we want. The only outcome is to prevent members from getting scammed.

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The current state of the Reputation/Popularity system has become a liability for the marketplace. While it was originally intended to show community standing, it is now being weaponized by bad actors to bypass the safety measures we already have in place.

Here is why it’s time to phase out Popularity in favor of the Contracts/Credibility system:

1. The "Giveaway to Exit-Scam" Pipeline
We’ve seen a recurring pattern that puts members at risk:

• Setup: A new member joins and hosts a series of low-cost or "junk" giveaways.
  
  
• Inflation: In exchange for entry, they "ask" (or implicitly require) Max Popularity.
  
  
• Illusion: Within a week a brand-new user has +50 or +100 Rep making them look like a pillar of the community to an unsuspecting buyer.
  
  
• Exit: They open a high-value sales thread, collect funds based on their "high rep," and exit-scam.
  

2. Popularity is not professionalism
Popularity is a measure of likability, not reliability. It’s easy to farm by being funny in the Lounge or giving away $5 gift cards. In a marketplace environment, "likes" shouldn't be the metric we use to judge whether someone is safe to send $500 in crypto.

3. Credibility > Popularity
We already have a robust Credibility/Contract system that is significantly harder to game:

• Proof of business: It requires an actual transaction to occur.
  
  
• Two-sided accountability: Both parties are linked to a specific agreement.
  
  
• Paper trail: If a contract goes bad there is documentation and a dispute can be filed.
  

Meaningful growth: 500+ completed contracts actually represent 500 successful business interactions while +500 popularity could just mean someone is good at posting memes.

4. Reducing Profile Inflation
By removing the Popularity system, we force members to look at the metrics that actually matter. If a user has +100 Popularity but 0 Contracts, they are a socialite, not a vendor. Removing the "green apples" would force buyers to do proper due diligence via HF contracts for the marketplace.

Conclusion:

The Popularity system has become a tool for social engineering rather than a badge of honor. To protect the integrity of the marketplace and prevent "pump and dump" profiles we should move toward a model where Credibility is earned through successful HF contracts not popularity requested through giveaways.

What are your thoughts, is popularity clinging on to nostalgia of the days of reputation or is it time to archive popularity entirely?

[Pοιsonlεaf]

You make some very good points and I totally agree that the popularity system is being abused.
The "Giveaway to Exit-Scam" Pipeline is a real problem. Imho I do believe both systems popularity & credibility/contract have a place here on Hackforums. That said a more simple solution can be put in place. Ban asking for +rep in a giveaway & +rep given related to a giveaway.
If you want to give something away it has to be because you... well want to give something away and not because you want to get +rep in return.

[Omniscient]

You're not wrong but unless the suggestion has enough community support, I don't see why I would remove Popularity.

[Μinimalist]

I’ve often seen members in the dispute section say that they make deals based on popularity rather than credibility.

[Bullup]

Yeah i stand behind this for sure, there's no point in the popularity system anyways, it kinda makes credibility lesser valueable as well

[Omniscient]

Please note that removing this as a site feature will effect the Group Prestige once it's released. It was one of the parameters.

[Immortal]

Wouldn't the better solution be to disallow sales of products on hackforums? People consistently scam and get banned and then ban evade to scam again, using all sorts of parameters to do so: Rep, B Rating, Account Age, User Group, Awards, ect.

Rather then fighting just disallow sales of products. You can talk about products, work on making them, but as soon as it come to selling them nope.

[jcole]

Wouldn't the better solution be to disallow sales of products on hackforums? People consistently scam and get banned and then ban evade to scam again, using all sorts of parameters to do so: Rep, B Rating, Account Age, User Group, Awards, ect.

Rather then fighting just disallow sales of products. You can talk about products, work on making them, but as soon as it come to selling them nope.

This entire forum was built off a marketplace. Most people who are active on this site are here to buy/sell services.

[Fiber]

I agree with all your points; however,

If you are not the person to do your due diligence, with loads of factors and warnings from the website, and you STILL don't have a look at someone's reputation based on the comment/feedback (small or large) to gather whether it's a genuine reputation and not just some inflated basic reputation, you often see it's just a number, really.

We lost the ability to even type a custom message and had to pick from a list. While it was used, everyone disliked it. The site lost a lot of its personality back when people were scared of being "rep fucked" or targeted because they posted a controversial thing or some kind of dramatic event occured.

It seems crazy to think, given your points, that I would prefer keeping it.

[Vince]

This entire forum was built off a marketplace. Most people who are active on this site are here to buy/sell services.

Negative, could care less for the marketplace here. Few deals I did do ended up either getting scammed or was just tiny little deals.
Popularity is useless yes, but still a cool "thing" to collect for those who dont care for marketplace.

[jcole]

Negative, could care less for the marketplace here. Few deals I did do ended up either getting scammed or was just tiny little deals.
Popularity is useless yes, but still a cool "thing" to collect for those who dont care for marketplace.

I understand your perspective, but to be fair you have made four posts within the last six months.


Edit: I know better than anybody what it means to care about popularity. It was a mission of mine for years on end, but it's not doing anything positive for the community. It has just become a way for people to inflate their profile, and end up scamming new unsuspecting members. I don't really care if it stays or goes. It doesn't have a place for the marketplace, but it is hard for new members to differentiate between popularity and credibility. Some users just correlate a high number of popularity as trusted.

[Biggy]

It literally says POPULARITY.

At what point do you stop blaming the website and start blaming the user for not doing their own due diligence?

I mean come on now. If I sign up for a website, I’m going a ton of research on a user before I attempt to make a transaction with them. And seeing popularity vs. credibility will easily stand out to me.

You can never fully prevent scams. They will always be there no matter what you do. And I don’t think removing an entire site feature will have the effect that you think it will.

[jcole]

It literally says POPULARITY.

At what point do you stop blaming the website and start blaming the user for not doing their own due diligence?

I mean come on now. If I sign up for a website, I’m going a ton of research on a user before I attempt to make a transaction with them. And seeing popularity vs. credibility will easily stand out to me.

You can never fully prevent scams. They will always be there no matter what you do. And I don’t think removing an entire site feature will have the effect that you think it will.

You aren't wrong. User due diligence is the ultimate line of defense. If someone sees +100 Popularity and 0 Contracts and still sends $500 to a "Newbie" account, that’s a failure of common sense.

However, the argument isn't just about blaming the site; it's about UI/UX signaling.

The Green Apple effect is a real. It's happened before, and it's going to continue to happen. New users infiltrate the website. Hang out in HF convo, build rapport with veterans, host giveaways, join groups, and coast towards an exit scam. Even for experienced users seeing a high green number next to a name creates an immediate subconscious level of "trust" before they even click the profile. Scammers know this and they aren't trying to trick the veterans, but they’re hunting the 5% of users who are in a rush and let their guard down because a profile looks green and shiny.

Systemic Inflation: When a system can be "farmed" via $10 giveaways, it loses its objective value. If a metric doesn't accurately represent what it claims to (trustworthiness), then it’s just noise.

Scams will always exist, you're 100% right. But why maintain a "Popularity" metric that actively helps scammers build a fake level of activity in 48 hours? If we want a professional marketplace, we should move toward professional metrics.

At what point does "nostalgia" for the old Rep system start costing the community more than it's worth?

[Mаtt]

I can see both sides of Popularity being good and not good. I personally don't care about the Popularity since it doesn't change my activity nor limit contributions. I definitely do come here mostly for the Marketplace if I need anything, but I post from time to time. Popularity doesn't really drive interactions with certain people. I will say that it's obvious when Popularity trading is present or members do things to build their Popularity, but it doesn't bother me.

Exit scamming I think is not preventable so using that as a driving factor for any decision isn't valid. If someone is going to build up their credibility and then run off wish some large deal, they're going to find a way.

Excellent points though jcole. I'm interested to see how this pans out.

[Cooligan]

You're not wrong but unless the suggestion has enough community support, I don't see why I would remove Popularity.

This basically. After almost 2 decades of HF being the most popular clearnet hacking forum (potentially darkweb as well depending on what you consider to be a "legacy forum"). Since we've always had rep/popularity, the site would feel like it's missing one of its core features. It's not meant as a trust score as we all know, but it is a sign of forum activity, that the member is indeed an active part of the community.

Reputation and now Popularity have been a part of HF since its inception, same with any other forum board. Most users understand that a "Popularity" score is not a trustability score. Of course there's some that don't understand this, however those people are most likely going to have a bad experience due to a multitude of reasons if they're basing someone's trust factor off of a non-marketplace related number, and HF clearly states that.

I haven't seen anyone "pumping & dumping" their Popularity to a point where they can scam easier. Most exit scams I see, or scams in general, are 90% of the time from either low-Popularity L33t or Ub3r (or other forums' cheapest tiered account upgrade option, usually $20 or less) accounts or non-upgraded accounts—not high-Popularity Ub3r or V3ndor accounts. It definitely happens of course, but not nearly as much as low-Popularity L33t & Ub3r accounts from what I've seen.