Updating the BiggerPockets Influence System

[Joshua Dorkin]

Hey All -
One of our upcoming projects is to update our influence system to one that better reflects a user's influence on the site.

We will be transforming the system from the current limitless influence scale to a 0 to 100 scale, where all new users start at 50, and can work down or up from there. Active users who have influence points currently will be placed in the new system based on their current influence.

That said, one of the important factors of our new system will be a time decay of influence, so those people who may have been active in the past, but who are no longer active, will slowly lose points over time.

Ultimately, we're interested in hearing from you, what makes you trust OR NOT trust someone on the site?

We want to take as many factors into account as possible so this system has some meaning and shows at any given time who the influencers are, and I'm looking to you for your feedback.

One of the things I'm most interested in hearing about is user feedback on negatives and the drivers of a user losing "points" on our scale.

Thanks and I look forward to a lively and respectful debate.

[Will Barnard]

After reading all the comments thus far, I am leaning towards this:

Screw it, delete the influence system all together, who cares. You know who you like and respect after reading their posts so just go with that. If you are new, it will become abundantly clear who the main contributors are, who is wise in what areas and who is not.