Flash of Insight 68 Point Reduction Roundtable WRITTEN BY Michael Paul Skipper

In this episode we discuss ideas around point reduction strategies for a balanced economy with high velocity trading. This is a continuation of an ongoing conversation around this topic, which you can catch up on in our article “How PucaTrade Manages Its Point-Supply: Data, Theory, and Observations.”

Flash of Insight #68 - Point Reduction Roundtable

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After witnessing positive effects on trade-velocity from our preliminary efforts to reduce points-per-capita in the system, we’re exploring the idea of creating “point sinks” to remove them at a faster rate.

There are many ways that we could accomplish this goal, and here are five in particular that we want to bounce off of you:

1) The PucaTIP: A Tariff for Imports on PucaTrade

This method would likely be the most straightforward and impactful. The PucaTIP would be a 2% point-levy on all inbound trades. We like this method because it’s barely noticeable for cards worth both 10 points and cards worth 10,000 points. It’s about as close to 0 as you can get while still making a huge contribution to point-reduction.

2) Optional Insurance on Outbound Trades

This method would offer sender the ability to “insure” a card or package for a very low Pucaprice (likely around 5 points or so). Insuring a package this way would be functionally similar to purchasing insurance from your local post office, except that we would offer it for a fraction of the price.

We like this because in addition to removing points from every transaction it would reduce the number of point-creation events from case resolutions that involve crediting both parties. We also like it because each trader would have control over whether or not they wanted to exchange points for this service. In that way, it would feel a bit less like a tax or fee. From a user-interface standpoint, we would simply offer a checkbox on your settings page that read:

Apply insurance to each of my trades worth more than [ ___ ] PucaPoints.

3) Priority Case Resolution Response

This feature would offer you a way to escalate your case to "high-priority" for 500 points or so and guarantee you a zero to four-hour response time from our case admins.

We like this feature because it’s something people ask for from time to time, and it is an additional level of service that makes sense to have a cost associated with it.

4) Warning System for Discouraged Behavior

Right now we have two account statuses on PucaTrade: “Good Standing” and “Banned.” With this feature, warnings could be issued at the discretion of PucaTrade admins for discouraged behavior such as:

Intentionally sending the wrong edition or condition

Failure to ship an initiated trade

Repeated failures to ship within our necessary timeframes

Rude or offensive language

Warnings would cause an icon to appear next to someone's name every time it appears on the site and could be cleared from an account by paying 500 Points. We like this because it’s an intermediary measure between “good standing” and an outright ban, but it still carries some consequences for the trader who needs guidance. We also think there’s appropriate synergy in requiring someone who has negatively impacted the community to positively impact the community by helping to reduce points.

It’s important to us that this does not become a way to “give someone a free-pass” if they are a repeat offender simply willing to pay 500 points every time they screw up. We will still hold each of our traders to the same high standards of today, and we are still willing to remove people from this community if they continue patterns of bad behavior.

5) Profile Customization

We’d create a wide variety of ways to customize the look and feel of your profile, add your own personalization to your account and incentivize other people to trade with you. We like this feature because it’s an additional optional service that would reduce points in the system while being peripheral to day-to-day site usage. And besides, who doesn't want a little profile bling from time to time?

If you’re interested in point-reduction strategies, we hope you enjoy this roundtable discussion on this topic, and invite you to send us your feedback by filling out the survey below. Also, Team Puca is on Discord! Stop by and say hi or come chat with us direclty with any feedback you may have.

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