Hey, all! I’m excited to share that we’re launching a major community feature: Endorsements!
Our new Endorsement system is a way for you to feel empowered to reward good play and behavior yourself. You’ll have a direct impact on our community, encouraging others to keep our tables welcoming and friendly.
I’ll walk you through this new feature with a series of questions.
So … how does it work?
When you play a hand with another person, you’ll notice an “Endorse” tab appear next to your “Notes” tab:
Click on the player at the table that you’d like to endorse. You’ll then be prompted to choose between three different categories.
- “Poker Pro” - Is the player in question great at the game? Select this button to give them a shout-out.
- “Good Sport” - Are you having a friendly chat with someone? Do they have a great attitude, take their losses in stride, or make you feel welcome? This is the endorsement for them!
- “Helping Hand” - If you’ve got questions about the site or the game, and someone helped you along the way, choose this option to say thanks.
Each of these awards will contribute to a player’s endorsement rank, on a scale of 0-5.
A player’s endorsement rank is displayed on their profile page. You can also learn which endorsement type they receive the most, by percentage:
Ok, but what do I get out of it?
Other than the good feeling of being recognized as a pillar of the community? 
Don’t worry, there’s more!
As thanks for being a positive presence on our site, we’re doing monthly chip drops based on your rank. Each rank has a set range, and you’ll be awarded a random amount from that range. The higher your rank, the more chips you’ll receive.
We also award you with 25 chips each time you make an endorsement, because we appreciate you taking the time to acknowledge other great players.
In the future, we plan to offer additional perks, such as:
- A chance to receive a ticket each time you receive an endorsement.
- Unique customizations.
- A small amount of restricted ring game tables. We’ve heard you – it can be frustrating to encounter a player who shoves all-in every hand, or seems to deliberately use up the clock regularly. (We only plan to offer restricted tables up to rank 1 or 2, which are quite easy to attain if you play nice, so these tables won’t be exclusionary.)
How do I rank up?
Each time a player awards you, you’ll receive endorsement points that contribute to your rank.
It’s easy to reach rank 1, but it becomes more challenging to attain ranks beyond 2. If you have an endorsement rank of 5, you should feel very proud of the contributions you make to Replay Poker’s community!
I really liked playing with someone during a tournament, but got rebalanced before I could endorse them!
If you pull up a replay where you shared a hand, you’ll be able to endorse them from there.
Can’t people just endorse their friends until they’re all a high rank?
Nope! We have some methods in place to prevent abuse.
First, you may only endorse a player you’ve played with at a table. You can’t simply visit all your friends’ profiles and award them from there.
Second, you’re limited by how often you can endorse within a 24 hour period. You may only endorse 20 players within that period, and you cannot endorse the same person more than once in those 24 hours.
Important note: 24 hours means 24 hours! If I endorse rachalse at 8:00am EST, I can’t endorse her again at 7:50am EST the following day. It will have to be 8:00.
What if someone manages to get to rank 5, then just acts like a jerk to people?
If a player has not received any type of endorsement in a significant period of time, their endorsement rank begins to slowly decay. In order to maintain high ranks, players will need to continue to play nice. Your rank will not decay back to 0 – it stops at rank 1.
However, if someone acts outright rude at the table and violates our Code of Conduct, and they receive a serious moderation action, they’ll lose ALL their endorsement points and reset back to rank 0.
Does that mean a volunteer moderator can reset my rank if they mute me?
No. While our moderators do consistently take action based on our guidelines, only staff members have the ability to moderate serious infractions that cause a drop in rank.
Your rank will never be reset based on a warning. Repeated, escalating behavior will result in serious moderation that drops a rank back to 0.
Why implement this feature?
Replay Poker’s community is special. As we grow, we want to make sure that we retain that welcoming atmosphere, no matter how many players we have.
The Endorsements feature places the power in our community’s hands. You encourage the behavior you want to see, while Code of Conduct violations result in a loss of perks and recognition.
I hope you have a lot of fun with this new system, and I look forward to your thoughts as you get a chance to try it out! I’d love to hear any ideas you have for additional perks for endorsement ranks.
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This new feature is rolling out gradually, so we can get a feel for engagement. If you don’t see it right away, you should have it very soon!