I have been with BA for a awhile now but just started trading in the last couple month and have low beer karma. I have made some great trades in that time and most have had a low beer karma and made few trades. Some have become freinds and we have exchanged care packages (not trades) between us. My question (I Hop its not Stoopid) is: Do you as traders look at beer Karma or trade list before making a decision? I do not use either. I have based it off of what will benefit both of us and can this turn into a good trading partner. On my first trade a had a great person hook me up and even shipped first. He went above and beyond because "I was new and wanted me to have a good experience". I will not forget that and would like to help others the same way. We are all lucky to have BA and should remember all of us were once rookies. Salude.
I don't look at karma but will look at completed trades if the person is new or I am suspicious for some reason. Have yet to check a reference and fortunately haven't been burned.
I look at these things. 1. Which references do you list? If I know some of them and you are on their list, I'd have no problem trading. 2. Do you post like an asshole in the trade forum IE: try to win trades, defend bad trading practices, etc.? If yes, I do not care if Jesus is on your reference list. 3. If you have few or no references to list, and do not make idiotic posts do you mind shipping first? If not, I'd have no problem trading. I do not think I have ever looked at karma. I do not believe in it anyway... Join date is not a good indicator either and is taken care of by #3.
maybe this is why i haven't been able to land a cherry rye yet, gawd being a newb trader sucks (4th in progress) YEEEE
Re This. References are very important to me along with general attitude. Looking to "win" a trade, or acting like you know it all is a red flag for me.
References are of primary importance to me, but karma is worth something for people without many trades. If you're highly active on BA (forums or reviews), then I feel comfortable knowing that you get enjoyment out of the site itself, and you are not going to want to give that up to screw me out of $50 in beer. But, otherwise, I don't much care about your karma if your references are legit.
Being an international trader mainly on RB sometimes you have to put a lot of trust in people. I have made some great friends who I will trade with again. One guy had only just joined had no feedback, other people shot him down and we ended up doing a mega trade. I gave him a couple of epic surprise beers to give him the push to keep going Main thing to remember we are all in this together, sometimes you will know you beer is worth more trade value but don't push it and take advantage.
The Karma thing hasn't come up for me, but if I trade with new people they're usually active around here and seem like cool people. If they're new and will ship first too, I'm down. I've been lucky to meet (or at least be friendly with) a lot of great people through this site, so it sucks to read about new additions to the bad trader list. Anything like Karma (even though it seems to just be an easily calculated metric of how often people use the site) is good in my book to hopefully keep even just 1 more good trader from being scammed.
"Trading Karma" would be very helpful--allowing trading partners to rate the trader. Beer karma--not so helpful.
This would be a cool idea. Could get interesting though, in not the best way depending what could potentially go wrong in a trade that's still all in good faith.
To me beer karma is worthless. Just means they like to review. I go by references and persons activity. If their posts are informative and helpful then all the better.
Whoa whoa whoa... don't be so hasty writing off beer karma as an indicator for trade credibility. Remember mikesgroove.
I mostly just look at a person's posts. This gives me a sense of who they are and a much better idea of how they'll be to trade with. If they're an asshole on the forums (not just the trade ones), then they're probably an asshole to trade with.
