why do people say +rep and -rep

[General Montague]

I don't understand why people do this because it doesn't do anything

[FMP]

Some people think it means something.

[crunchyfrog]

Because there are some people who trade outside of Steam (foolishly).

To them, because there's not much in the way of security there, the best they can come up with is some sort of feedback system.

And yes, it's DEEPLY flawed.

[nullable]

In an uncertain world people will create any bit of nonsense for a feeling of security and so they don't have to think too hard about whether something is actually safe, or a person is actually trustworthy.

It's why people rely on +/- rep, or Steam level, or any number of arbitrary things they hope provides some sort of promise of safety, and barring that, maybe claim "it's better than nothing." But it's not. Deceiving yourself and getting away with reckless behavior a few times isn't doesn't make a bad idea better than nothing.

[lPherion]

Originally posted by Serious Postal Worker:

Some people think it means something.

And means nothing....

[Darkslayer16]

It's for trading but people that do it on steam profiles make 0 sense. Say I trade with you and you scam me. I say -rep, you can literally just delete my comment lol

Also I'm pretty sure some of them are bots or something. I haven't traded in years and I randomly get scammers leaving comments like +rep or spamming me friend requests saying they need to talk.

[Jerry]

To put it a bit more friendly than the answers before me, it is a misunderstanding.
Many trading platforms require some sort of trust by both parties and for this reason do implement a rating- and comment system. Ebay is the first example, I tend to name when it comes to this.
Steam trades do not require trust, as it is possible for both sides to trade their goods simultaniously, and any different way ("going first") is strongly discouraged and, from what I see, has even fallen out of fashion for scammers.
Still people arrive here with the mindset, that trustworthiness and some form of "reputation" are as important as elsewhere and at least during their first months of active trading (or also multiplayer gaming; I've seen rep-comments applied to team gaming performance as well) try to hand out and receive ratings on a regular basis. At some point, they see that it is pointless and stop it.

For a while, I have tried to sort out rep-comments from my profile and only leave the substantial ones standing, but I got lazy.

[crunchyfrog]

Originally posted by Jerry:

To put it a bit more friendly than the answers before me, it is a misunderstanding.
Many trading platforms require some sort of trust by both parties and for this reason do implement a rating- and comment system. Ebay is the first example, I tend to name when it comes to this.
Steam trades do not require trust, as it is possible for both sides to trade their goods simultaniously, and any different way ("going first") is strongly discouraged and, from what I see, has even fallen out of fashion for scammers.
Still people arrive here with the mindset, that trustworthiness and some form of "reputation" are as important as elsewhere and at least during their first months of active trading (or also multiplayer gaming; I've seen rep-comments applied to team gaming performance as well) try to hand out and receive ratings on a regular basis. At some point, they see that it is pointless and stop it.

For a while, I have tried to sort out rep-comments from my profile and only leave the substantial ones standing, but I got lazy.

Ah but as we've pointed out they mean NOTHING, because even with the best of intent they are easy to exploit.

[Jerry]

And I won't deny that. But the question set up was, why people are posting them. ;-)

[crunchyfrog]

Originally posted by Jerry:

And I won't deny that. But the question set up was, why people are posting them. ;-)

Adn this is part of the answer too.