Frequently Asked Questions

[Mike]

I thought it would be a good idea to have a list of the most commonly asked (or what I believe will be some of the most commonly asked) questions.

If I'm new here, do I have to send first on trades like on other sites?

In short, no! We do not have a must send first restriction for new members. We believe all members of this site should be able to make up their own mind on whether a trader is trustworthy enough to deal with. That said, we will place members on restriction, or ban them completely, if they don't make good on their end of their deals.

My rating is wrong. Is the rating calculator broken?

It's true, we do have a unique way of calculating ratings so it may not be what you think it should be. Here at SCA our ratings are calculated based on your rating averages from each member instead of each transaction. This is to prevent members from padding their rating by trading with the same people over and over again. For a more detailed explanation, and an example, please click here.

What are the requirements for hosting a group break here?

We have very few requirements, none of which are hard to follow. In fact, if this is your first day on the site, you can probably still host a group break here (assuming you can get it filled). You can see the requirement threads in each of the group break marketplace forums here: Baseball | Basketball | Football | Hockey

 

[Mike]

Rating calculation explanation

Let's say you've completed a total of 10 transactions, getting the following ratings from these members.

1. UserA rated you a 5
2. UserB rated you a 5
3. UserC rated you a 1
4. UserA rated you a 5
5. UserB rated you a 1
6. UserA rated you a 5
7. UserA rated you a 5
8. UserA rated you a 5
9. UserA rated you a 5
10. UserA rated you a 4

On other sites, you would add all of those ratings and divide by 10, leaving you with an overall rating of 4.1 (4 stars).

Here at SCA, since our calculations are first done by member, that means your individual ratings would be as follows:

1. UserA: 4.86
2. UserB: 3.00
3. UserC: 1.00

So, to get your overall rating, we would average those, leaving you with an overall rating of 2.95.

A vast majority of transactions end up with a 5 star rating. This system makes it so that members who do get the occasional "ding" can't simply go make several low end trades with their friends to bring their rating back up.

The only way to bring your rating up here is to 1) deal with the same member again, so that you can get a better rating from them, in turn bringing up your individual rating from them or 2) deal with other members who you have never dealt with before, gaining more individual ratings that can help your overall rating.