Trust Score for People
Why Rate People?
On traditional social media, you have no way of knowing whether the person behind a profile is genuine, trustworthy, or just putting on a show. Follower counts can be bought. Likes can be faked. Bios can say anything. There is no real signal for trust.
HYFY's Trust Score changes this by letting people vouch for each other. It's not about punishing anyone or calling out bad behavior. It's about making genuine trustworthiness visible. When your community recognizes you across real qualities, that recognition accumulates into a score that speaks for itself.
The people who show up, who are authentic, who add value to the people around them, they earn recognition. And that recognition becomes a signal others can rely on.
What This Achieves
- Accountability without surveillance. Your score comes from people who actually know you, not from an algorithm watching your every click. It doesn't track your behavior secretly. It reflects what the people in your life genuinely think.
- Trust at scale. When you meet someone new on HYFY, their Trust Score gives you a quick, honest signal. Not a vanity metric like followers, but a composite of peer feedback across real qualities like authenticity, empathy, and reliability.
- Better communities. When meaningful behavior is recognized, people do more of it. When gaming the system is structurally difficult, bad actors move on. The result is a healthier, more genuine digital environment.
- Bridging online and offline. HYFY is built around the idea that digital relationships should lead to real ones, meetups, collaborations, events. Trust Scores help people make better decisions about who to connect with before they meet in person.
The Recognition Scale (3 - 5)
When it comes to rating other humans, HYFY takes a fundamentally different approach. Rather than a conventional 1-to-5 scale that invites harsh judgment, HYFY uses a recognition-only system designed to celebrate positive qualities.
People on HYFY rate each other on a 3 to 5 scale, where each point has a distinct meaning:
| Score | Label | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | 🤙 Chill | Solid, no issues. A baseline of respect |
| 4 | 🔥 Fire | Noticeably great to interact with |
| 5 | 🏆 Elite | Exceptional. The best of the best |
There is no 1 or 2. You cannot express "bad", only varying degrees of "good".
Why No Low Scores?
Traditional rating systems create anxiety. Users hesitate to engage because they fear being judged harshly. By making the minimum a positive signal, HYFY removes that fear:
- Rating someone a 3 simply means "they're cool", not criticism
- The system shifts from evaluation to recognition
- Users are more willing to rate, generating richer data and more accurate Trust Scores
Traits and Personas
Ratings are not general. They are given per trait, a specific quality that matters in context. Traits are organized under two personas:
- Social persona covers traits relevant to everyday interactions and relationships
- Professional persona covers traits relevant to work, collaboration, and expertise
Each trait carries a weight that reflects its relative importance. Your overall Trust Score is a weighted composite across all your trait scores, giving a multidimensional view of your reputation rather than a single flat number.
This means someone can be rated highly for social warmth but have a different standing on professional reliability, and both dimensions are captured independently.
Who Can Rate
Not everyone can rate everyone. HYFY enforces a mutual follow requirement:
- Both users must follow each other before a rating can be submitted
- This ensures ratings come from people who have actually interacted
- Drive-by ratings from strangers are impossible
Additionally:
- Self-rating is blocked. You cannot rate yourself
- Only people accounts can submit ratings on other people
- Business and page accounts cannot rate individuals
Display Floor
Once a person has been rated, their Trust Score will never display below 3.0. This reinforces the recognition-only philosophy: your profile score always reflects a positive baseline.
Users who have not yet been rated display a score of 0, clearly indicating "no data yet" rather than a misleading midpoint.
Rating Windows and Cooldowns
You can't spam ratings. After rating someone on a specific trait:
- You have a limited window to update or change your rating
- After it locks, a cooldown period must pass before you can submit a new version
- Only one update per day is allowed during the active window
This prevents impulsive changes and ensures that ratings reflect considered opinions.