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BabeTrader changes

HotnessRater

Administrator
Staff member
I don't remember how long ago. It's been quite a while. I think there is a thread about it from that time somewhere if you want to find it.

There was battling going on similar to what you see in the auctions, except it would never end so it had potential to get a lot higher

This picture was purchased for 510,000 : http://babetrader.com/picture/73061/vanessa-williams
This one 433,000: http://babetrader.com/picture/1946886/sydney-a-maler
This one 220,000: http://babetrader.com/picture/2258168/shanna-marie-mclaughlin
200,000: http://babetrader.com/picture/2424812/karen-mcdougal and http://babetrader.com/picture/2424729/karen-mcdougal

Those all happened in the beginning of 2018. I don't get the vanessa williams one but whatever
 

HotnessRater

Administrator
Staff member
and I've solved the problem of people setting their pics to 4 billion.
... I wasn't aware there was a problem with that that needed to be solved. I had never intended to just reduce by 10% until it came down. I was going to make bigger cuts to larger mark ups. But even if I didn't, the pictures would still come down to where they should be. It might take a couple weeks longer than if they were at 1 million but that's really no big deal.

You are spending time thinking about fixes to anticipated problems to algorithms that haven't been designed yet and suggesting fixes to problems that don't exist yet and might never exist.

When you make your first price reduction pass, apply the person's full markup allowance as early as possible. Then, any excess markup over 500,000 just cut to 500,000 in one whack. After that, reduce 10% per day as planned.
If you apply the persons full markup allowance as early as possible, there isn't any excess to cut after that. Not sure what you are saying.
 

HotnessRater

Administrator
Staff member
Well, I'm starting to see pics just coming out of auction marked up to high 10 figures. At 10% per day, it takes 4 weeks to reduce 100 million to 6.25 million. 4 more weeks takes it down to 350,000ish. 4 more weeks to get into the area of 20,000. 4 more weeks to get to 1250, where a person gets enough quest points to buy one pic per day. So, from 100 million it takes 4 months to any semblance of affordability. If people price at 4 billion, add 6 more weeks to that.
You're assuming that is the algorithm I would use.

I was thinking more along the line of looking at each picture and saving how much markup it had. Find out what 5% of that is and subtract that every day from all pictures until they hit their allowable markup.

So if a picture has 1,000,000 mark up, the next day it would have 950,000 then 900,000, then 850,000. All pictures would be within their allowable markup within 20 days

I might even do 10% and have markups done in 10 days
 

HotnessRater

Administrator
Staff member
Nod. I think it is best to avoid a temporary datadase mod, where you add a field, changing coding structures, then you remove it again when it is of no more use.
Meh, thats like 3 lines of code. It's not a big deal at all.

The other idea I originally presented was to freeze buying for a week
That puts things in a complete deadlock for a week. I don't want to do that.

Either can be done without any database or data structure mods.
The average query that you ask me for to find out stats is way more work than this database mod would be.

So, what do you think of my image valuation formula? It makes it hard for two people to collude in price fixing, where they sell and buy back their pics for like 100,000 each, setting an artificially inflated base price. One person can do the same thing alone with multiple accounts.
I have no idea. I haven't given it any thought really. I do know just a cash on hand rating doesn't do it, and a cash paid rating doesn't do it. It has to be something outside of that. This is a complex question. I need to give it some thought when I have time.

Do you have records of every photo's sales? Since you quoted some mammoth sale prices to me I think you do.
Yes, early on I realized it would be important to have a full log of all sales.

You would need to add a field to the photo record for convenience, to avoid a lot of on demand searches. The field would be an integer, the number of different lifetime buyers. It starts at zero, of course, all unbought images have it set to zero. As a one time thing, count the number of unique buyers for each image, and populate the field on all owned pictures.
Yes that is a factor that I could consider.

I might go in a completely different direction with this. This is just off the top of my head and I just thought about it now so this is in no way binding but I could just make a new score field that increases with different actions.

Your account could get more points based on something like this:

+2 points for viewing a picture
+1 point for having your picture viewed
+X points for completing some quests

+ who knows what for stuff that isn't necessarily related to the price of pictures bought and sold.

Make the ratings points a separate number based on picture performance and player performance instead of cash.

Again this is just off the top of my head. I would have to give this a lot of thought

These points would be separate from the currency points that are currently used. I should probably renamed these to Babes Dollars or something.

This way I can keep the Babes Dollars completely separate from the points on the leader board and have the leader board points only go up with different actions, and only go up an appropriate amount based on the actions taken
 
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HotnessRater

Administrator
Staff member
How do pics get vote matchups? Specifically?
Pictures can get in the queue for a number of different reasons. I think I already listed off a bunch of them in a different thread.

The stsyem's assignment of matchups doesn't consider at all which girls are actually being sought out.
I wouldn't say pictures with high page views were "sought out". It is usually either because we do an article on them or someone posts the link somewhere that has high traffic. Or they are doing well in our ratings so they have more visibility.

Like the Caylee Cowan pictures that had high page views. Nobody was coming to the site and seeking her out. They were Caylee Cowan fans on reddit that happened to get a link to her that got a lot of hits. Most of them weren't super highly rated (or great) pictures, they just benefited from Reddit having a ton of traffic.
 

HotnessRater

Administrator
Staff member
And yeah, the queue code was written long before I started keeping track of views for Babetrader... so no, views aren't considered when building the queue. Am I'm not sure they should be really.
 

HotnessRater

Administrator
Staff member
Well, they shouldn't be the only factor. In my pool sstem the main factor is bought sting confidence in ratings, finding ng startng pools for unrated, and providing new machups in a balanced way to give pics a chance a mobility.
I didn't understand most of that
 

HotnessRater

Administrator
Staff member
You do recall from statistics that the more votes you have (the larger the sample size) the smaller % chance there is an error in the result?
Yes and I aim for more votes. I just don't think it is necessary to put them all on the same matchup.

I don't believe that having 10 match ups that are decided by 10 votes each is better than having 100 matchups. What you are doing is decreasing the data points that are used in the calculation from 100 to 10 with the assumption that your matchups are better quality... which they would be, but having the 100 match ups overcomes that.
 

El Duderino

Member
I just tried to read through 4 pages of speculation on hypotheses here. I need a beer.
As a guy who has submitted A LOT of images, here are my feelings:
- I appreciate my privacy and cyber security.
- I'm not into taxation.
- I'm not into democratic socialism.
- I'm really not into playing some sort of game to get back something that was mine in the first place-- it's certainly easier to just look at pics of hot girls on my computer than to share them.
- After considerable work, it doesn't seem unreasonable that a person should be able to set his own sale price for his time and effort-- whatever that may be.
My advice to anyone crying foul:
- Upload an image.
- Buy it.
- Do whatever you want with it after that.
This site is in desperate need of some fresh quality material.
 

HotnessRater

Administrator
Staff member
I just tried to read through 4 pages of speculation on hypotheses here. I need a beer.
As a guy who has submitted A LOT of images, here are my feelings:
- I appreciate my privacy and cyber security.
- I'm not into taxation.
- I'm not into democratic socialism.
- I'm really not into playing some sort of game to get back something that was mine in the first place-- it's certainly easier to just look at pics of hot girls on my computer than to share them.
- After considerable work, it doesn't seem unreasonable that a person should be able to set his own sale price for his time and effort-- whatever that may be.
My advice to anyone crying foul:
- Upload an image.
- Buy it.
- Do whatever you want with it after that.
This site is in desperate need of some fresh quality material.
We get new pics daily... whether they are quality or not, is up for debate.

The thing was Babetrader was supposed to be a game where you would fight over pics, steal them away from each other and battle over pictures. It wasn't supposed to be someplace to just buy your pictures and take them off the market. That takes all of the game out of the game... and it might as well not exist. If you just want a list of pictures and not play a game, then I guess it would make more sense to just upload those pictures and have them in your "My Pictures" section. I have put in a Like feature for girls on BabesRater. I could extend that same concept to pictures or just allow users to create lists of pictures that have nothing to do with BabeTrader.

I agree. Every time I read the forums, I need a beer too.
 
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El Duderino

Member
There isn't enough beer in all of Milwaukee to make me want to continue this discussion any
further. Believe me. This is probably it.
The original point of "The Game" was to cash out your points. Thanks again, Admin. Now it's a matter of pride. You don't play The Game, you win The Game. I have my strategy. RCrus has his or hers.
Do whatever you folks think is right, as long as I crush him or her in the end.
Really, the most sensible and fair way to resolve things would be to reinstate points-for-money. 50¢/BabeTraderPoint seems fair, but I could settle somewhere around 40 cents per. That's just clean and streamlined.
And for the record, I photographed every image, of every girl, with realease form, that I submitted to this website.
 

HotnessRater

Administrator
Staff member
The original point of "The Game" was to cash out your points.
Well there originally wasn't price setting because I did intend that part of the game to be trading back and forth and fighting for pics.

Really, the most sensible and fair way to resolve things would be to reinstate points-for-money. 50¢/BabeTraderPoint seems fair, but I could settle somewhere around 40 cents per. That's just clean and streamlined.
Yeah that's only about 10,000 times what it was originally. That system just wasn't going to work. People started buying bot traffic instead of just posting it on reddit and stuff. It did nothing to increase real traffic which was kind of the point of the cash out.

And for the record, I photographed every image, of every girl, with realease form, that I submitted to this website.
Yes, I'm sure you did.
 

Dawnbreaker

New Member
First I woud like to congratulate the admin on an excellent idea and the many hours of fun I had using their implementation of this idea. This had and has a lot of potential and I would like to see it reach that potential. So anything I say beyond this point should be seen in that light.

They asked for feedback so here it goes and despite my huge respect for how they put their idea in motion I will not be pulling any punches. It would be disrespectful not to give my honest opinion.

- We are talking about this like it is a full fledged game. The babetrader-environment has several characteristics of it but at the same time it also lacks a lot of things. For instance what is exactly the goal of this game....."gotta catch them all", "find and own the hottest babe", "win the auction", "top the leaderboard".....the fact that there are a multitude of options also leads to a lack of focus. Everybody (the 10 to 20 active players) is just doing something different and only sometimes it collides. Some people might enjoy this level of freedom within their "game" but most people get bored after a while because the have reached all their personal goals or they realise that their initial goals are unattainable and it just becomes a daily grind. The "game" itself does very little to keep things fresh.
Their are some achievements but they are limited and it is just rinse and repeat after that. Besides the "win me back"-achievement doesn't seem to work for me.
To be honest to speak of an actual game it simply needs more features.

- The interface needs a multitude of "Quality of Life"-improvements. For instance the search and categorize function for your own pictures are basically non-existent. Now if I had a couple of hundred pictures that will be a nuisance but when you are talking about thousands it becomes more than annoying and simply a waste of time.

- It doesn't look like someone took the time to build a smart "game" economy. An imperative key to building an enticing game economy is balance. That means the admins must ensure the users earnings are somewhat in balance with their spending (often called the sink). This "game" doesn't have a sink apart for the investments in pictures. In other words the in-game currency over time just gets bigger and bigger and bigger and got totally out of control. The result is that there is no balance to speak of. For this "game" to be more appealing to newcomers it needs some in-game currency sinks. A good example would be upkeep. Each owned picture at a specific time should cost the owner a weekly or monthly fee. I know this is not going to be a popular opinion but ideally the upkeep should go up the more pictures you have or the longer you have a certain picture. For instance any picture should cost 1 the first month you own it, 2 the next, 4 in the third, 8 in the fourth, 16 during the 5th and so on. The upkeep will pretty soon outweigh the income and it becomes a burden to own it. It should therefore be sold back to the market (for a fraction of the initial investment) or to another individual thereby resetting the upkeep cost.
Without a proper sink you see what you are currently seeing the oldtimers own the most valuable pictures and keep earning more and more thereby cornering the market and scaring away most newcomers. It also means that any investment is a good investment even a picture that is hardly viewed at all will eventually earn back its initial investment making the auction basically a win-win situation. Either someone outbids you and you get your in-game currency back + compensation or you get a picture that earns you in-game currency over time......no loss whatsoever. The fact that Morgan has 582 bids outstanding some far from reasonable is a perfect example of it. You can't blame him for abusing this system but the way it currently works is not a smart solution if you want to have a fair auction. Outbidding someone else should directly or indirectly have a cost to it. This way the auction (but basically the entire economy as it is merely an example) is broken and is begging to be abused like it is by Morgan. (HINT: at least limit the amount of bids by an account to a maximum. The way it is now is simply ridiculous).

- Morgan has addressed this issue as well. Everything I've said about the "game"economy becomes null and void if the admins do not actively prevent and punish multi-accounts. I also have enough working brain cells to know that several accounts in the top (the same ones Morgan mentioned) are either the same user or at least working together. Admin said there is no proof to support that theory but the fact that the #4, 5, 6 and 9, 10 in the leaderboard (the ones not being Rcrus, Duderino, Acornet and Rich Garces) are within 32 pictures of each other AND are within 110.000 BTP of each other AND them using the same selling price for a lot of their pictures (10.000, 20.000, 30.000 and 80.000) without them somehow being correlated is statistically highly implausible. I am not just talking winning the lottery odds here.....I am talking winning the lottery back to back 97 times odds here. This is even disregarding that Ygroup has slightly less pictures and slightly more BTP but also using the same selling prices making it the account that needs to be "fixed". The fact that 6 accounts are this close and admin brushed the concerns of Morgan aside means that they either are in on whatever is going on there or they just don't care. Either way if they continue to tolerate that kind of in your face multi-accounting there is no way you are ever going to create a fair trade "game". If no one for instance is wondering what the deal is with this "The Mogul" account who has been bidding on hundreds of pictures but somehow owns zero than you might as well just hack the data and give yourself and the 20 accounts you can use to outbid yourself in the auction over and over again 999999999999999999999 BTP. If you allow multi-accounts there is no game......there is just a time sink.

- As a feature and in-game currency sink you could also let users build a mansion (like Hugh) with rooms (to expand the number of pictures one is allowed to own) or open different advantages or possibilities within the "game". Chaoticpanda mentioned something like that. I like it and it offers way to increase content.

- There have been talks about changes for a long period but hardly anything has been changed in that time. Letting people determine their own price was a mistake.....a mistake that should have been fixed ASAP. Instead more than a year after that change and 2 months after a second announcement that things are going to get sorted out we are still talking about "possible changes eventually". I understand that the whole point behind this "game" is to encourage traffic to several websites but to get this "game" beyond a clever idea and to give a vague sense of accomplishment for about 10-20 guys while they are looking at pictures of hot girls and women it needs an actual plan to change things. Especially the multi-accounts thing is simply a deal-breaker for me. In its current state it simply has too many problems, has too little appeal and most importantly has too many alternatives for me to spend more time on it than I already have.

Hope this feedback is somehow useful and I'll check back in about 6 months to see if something has been done with it.

Best of luck and thanks for the good times.
 
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