Deals.Woot

@wootvan: You're still on the leaderboard because the community gave you enough reputation points early on to build up a comfortable cushion. There are groups of new members moving up the charts, but they have a way to go before they catch you. I think it's neat that your early contributions are still being recognized. You made a lasting impact on the community that developed here.

I also think what you've described is a slight flaw in the current reputation system. It worked well when the site was younger, but it needs to be modified now that the site has grown up a bit.

We're working on a reputation overhaul which you'll see sometime in early August (after the development team gets settled into the Amazon office in Seattle).

I should also say... the first draft of the new reputation algorithm has already been designed and is being reviewed internally. If anyone has any thoughts about how they would redesign the reputation system, it would be a great time to gather some community feedback.

@shawnmiller: I like your notion that people who helped make this the place it is (or the place it hopefully will be once the undies kerfuffle ends) should be recognized. Of course, newer members like tygerdave who actively support the site also deserve recognition.

So perhaps the top deals/questions/comments could be "all time" sections, while the reputations could be more dynamic?

In terms of all time leaders, the top deal hunter really should be @anotherhiggins, who has 15.5 votes/deal across seven pages of deals, not one or two! Increasing the minimum numbers required to make those portions of board would eliminate some who are resting on their laurels.

And a simple tweak to the reputations board would be to base reputation on activity on some window (last 6 months?). It should be sufficiently long that glinda can take mini on a summer trip without losing too much, but allow catbert to age out (he'd still maintain his spot on the top questioners board though).

@wootvan: I've commented on this, over on the thread on popular that bears my name.

@shawnmiller: To make reputation truly valuable would take math that is beyond the processing power of the servers used by woot. Those are the same machines that actually do more useful things, such as determine whether or not you should be allowed to vote, and keep the information that permits a user to make purchases over on the regular woot sites.

One suggests, though, that it should be a moving window, much like other things are. I made no comments, voted on nothing, and had no visible activity, for precisely two full months, and yet I remained at the top. This is due to the fact that I started playing in the earlier days of the beta testing, and then, unlike most of the original beta testers, didn't leave. It also reflects the fact that I'm a chatty little devil, since votes on comments are so important in your scheme (which makes sense).

Links in next comment:

@shawnmiller: Links to trust systems

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.82.991&rep=rep1&type=pdf (uses Eigenvalues)

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.83.9638&rep=rep1&type=pdf

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.91.8311&rep=rep1&type=pdf

There are others (and I like the first one best), but those are interesting and useful. Reputation is hard.

@shrdlu: Whoa, you're back. I remember the EigenTrust algorithm from years ago. It's a good read, thanks for reminding me.