Comment by 4sellff | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 4sellff | Hacker News Reader

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We have tried to be very clear on how the TRU Score is determined [hover over the number and you will see a tooltip/modal that provides details]. Obviously, sharing the actual algorithm would most certainly allow people to game the system.

A couple of other items to consider: [1] The TRU Score is updated 1x day [2] The TRU Score is a very slow moving value [3] As designed, it would likely take years for a member to make it above 900 [4] The TRU Score is primarily based on your activity on the platform and the community reaction to that activity [5] Outside of the algorithm used, we do not have any direct influence on the TRU Score

Additionally, we are not suggesting that the TRU Score is the absolute measurement of trust or reputation of a person. Instead, it is an additional data point that you can take into consideration when deciding if you want to work with someone. Or, if they want to work with you [both parties have their own TRU Score].

At time of registration, all members start with a TRU Score of 400. Therefore, even the most trustworthy/reputable person on earth will almost certainly have a lower score than you, if you have been on the platform for some time.

I welcome all suggestions on how you think we could be more transparent in determining the TRU Score. We all benefit if it were easier to make better decisions about who we choose to work with.

It makes sense to me that you'd need a way to regulate the platform's content to avoid it filling up with the spammy garbage that LinkedIn is known for, and I'm not sure what the right solution is. You've obviously spent more time thinking about this than I have, but my gut reaction is that this scoring approach would be super harmful for non-traditional or non-elite candidates.

To use tech as an example, in the limit, regardless of how meritocratic we claim we are as an industry, my experience has been that folks hiring technical teams are more receptive to inquiries from someone with an Ivy League education in CS than they are from someone self-taught without a degree or who has a degree in something unrelated. I assume that reaching out to several hiring managers and getting zero response would hurt your TRU score, regardless of the quality of your messages. Meanwhile a traditional candidate with a higher response rate wouldn't see their score fall quite as much, even if they couldn't pass a simple fizzbuzz technical screen.

Having to work harder than a traditional candidate to get a response is expected in this scenario, but it'd be a huge bummer if the platform itself acted as a gatekeeper in this way.

You have built a social credit system [0]. Such systems harm individuals and society.

I think you overestimate the willingness of people to participate in such a system.

And if you succeed in manipulating enough users into joining, would your conscience make you miserable?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System

Mleonhard's is a very important post, right here. If adopted widely enough, I could easily see this becoming a somewhat decentralized corporate version of the government credit score system seen in China. Get publically punished with a low score for speaking up about wanting better conditions. Do extra overtime and attend corporate events with extra enthusiasm? Rewarded with a pittance of points instead of money. Maybe you'll become rich one day if you have a good score, but more realistically, you gain a minor buffer to keep you from hitting unemployability. We already have to deal with enough of this in meatspace without the the entire federated corporatocracy having access to a free panopticon so they know they know exactly how much to exploitatively nickle-and-dime you on your next opportunity.

I do not agree that we are building a social credit system. There are some similarities to what is happening in China, but SELLFF is fundamentally different in almost every way.

To anyone who is interested in comparing the differences, you can find 100's of links from your favorite search engine.

If we step back a moment and look at this objectively, we are only focused on matching buyers and sellers. It's a marketplace for people who sell/offer services and people who buy/need services. For a marketplace to function, there needs to be access to information so that both parties [buyers and sellers] are on an equal footing. Else, one party would have an advantage over the other.

Everything we are doing is focused on making the buyer/seller interaction easier and more efficient. It seems the TRU Score is a concern evident in many of the comments. Yet, how is this different [or worse] than star ratings on Yelp, Amazon or any other rating service. Other than the initial calculations that comprise the score, all changes in the scores are based on the community of members.

I believe many members of SELLFF can obtain significant value if all they do is post "services offered" and "services needed." The application will "match" the parties so they can interact and decide if working together makes sense.

Is SELLFF different? Yes, in some ways [Ex. trading shares of people]. But isn't that part of the opportunity when creating something new? Why do the same thing as everyone else is doing? Do you really feel fulfilled when you follow or like someone? Does the opportunity to "invest" in someone appeal to you? Do you see any advantage?

Is SELLFF better than existing solutions? Maybe? Can SELLFF to iterate to meet the needs of buyers and sellers. For sure! Is SELLFF a social credit system. No, not even close.

>Everything we are doing is focused on making the buyer/seller interaction easier and more efficient. It seems the TRU Score is a concern evident in many of the comments. Yet, how is this different [or worse] than star ratings on Yelp, Amazon or any other rating service. Other than the initial calculations that comprise the score, all changes in the scores are based on the community of members.

And what's happening with Yelp and Amazon star ratings? There's abusive corruption within the community in these systems with the score-holders and/or score-takers gaming the system. Requests for 5 stars on packaging involving coupons that are practically bribery, enough corruption on Yelp to precipitate an entire South Park episode about it and many investigations, to the point people don't trust it anymore and comments on here talk about mentally adjusting google scores to equivalents that roughly fit to pre-corruption yelp scores. Government leaders of China and especially the citizens who report on each other or cooperate together in a high-visibility manner to gain status in the system are community members.

It's worse because it will affect the livelihoods of private citizens who cannot rebrand or close their store/seller account and start again somewhere else because web trackers will remember who they are by their face, ip, etc, and a history that starts mid-career might look too funny if this catches on. Please be part of the solution and take us a step away from an omni-corporate panopticon rather than closer. If a system like this is necessary for you to compete with linkedin because your potential corporate clients are requesting or suggesting it (because it adds value to them, extracted from workers who now have a direct, public, "employability credit score" to maintain), I urge you to reconsider if the field you're in is even truly ethical enough to be worth doing or if you have a personal, ethical imperative to get out, while you still can. God willing, you can remove the feature and create a decent platform that succeeds on merits without playing a handin further debasing the value of human labour in favour of our corporate masters (who already have so very much), for a new generation.

> The TRU Score is primarily based on your activity on the platform and the community reaction to that activity

This part alone makes me not interested in this platform. As a software engineer, I do not want to be forced into some social dance on a networking site just to make me eligible for jobs, but it seems like these days that's what everyone expects you to do. We can't all be professional social media users and be good at our jobs too.

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