All About Coupon Trains

[FallenPixels]

Trains – 3+ members are put on a ‘train’ together. There are different types of trains
Regular Train – Coupons are put in and the envelope is sent from person to person with people taking from the envelope and adding back coupons. Say you find baby coupons but do not have children, you could take beauty or food coupons and add the baby coupons for a member who wants those etc.

VWT Train – A Virtual Wishlist Train – each member provides a wishlist of coupons they want. You send a certain amount of coupons (or $ amount of coupons) for each person to the conductor and they send you back all the coupons sent for you.

Buddy Train – The conductor will pair you with a mystery buddy. You are given their wishlist and someone else receives yours. They send you an envelope of coupons directly.

Gift exchanges - are not allowed without permission from the Package Train Moderator (see this thread for current package trains and information). They are usually run for holiday seasons and include actual items. There are additional requirements for riding and running these trains which the moderator can explain to you.

Conducting a Train
Please make your own train outline and do not copy those from other trains.
Please change the 'Thread Prefix' from Boarding/Full/Ended to allow people to choose trains to board more easily. (Go edit your first post and then click "go advanced" to change the prefix)
Please check the trade ratings of members before agreeing to have those members on your train.

Rating a Train

Train conductors, please leave appropriate feedback for your riders, if a train gets 'lost' in between stops please leave neutral explaining this.
If you are for sure your train was stolen leave negative.
If the train moved on and arrived at the next stop leave positive.
Please allow some lee way between stops in case a train does appear (use your discretion)
If there is a boarding pass, you may wait until the train arrives home to rate.

** If a member gets a negative or neutral rating on a train that was derailed please do not take the rating personally, as it is to safeguard the conductors and riders****

Passengers please leave a trade rating for your conductor! Do not rate them on how you 'liked' the coupons but on how it was run, and that they sent it out, its a great thing to run a train and it takes time to do so, please give them the appreciation they deserve.

For regular trains, each member should rate the conductor and the conductor rates each of the riders. The riders do not rate each other.

For VWT trains, all members are rated however, it is the conductor's responsibility to ensure rules including appropriate coupons sent - please bare that in mind when leaving ratings.

*NEW* Round Robin Trains (multiple cars sent by each rider) - these are getting problematic as ratings are being left when they should not so a new rule has been added
You should rate ONLY the conductor and MAYBE (this is currently being discussed with Boo) the person sending the cars ONCE. Too many traders are padding their scores with multiple ratings from these. NO RATINGS SHOULD BE LEFT FOR A PERSON NOT ON YOUR CAR - if you were not involved with a trade with them, do not rate them!

This thread replaces (you can read conversation in each of them)
What is a train
Train Rating System
How to rate a reg train
Regarding gift exchanges

[dreamcatcher1962]

I have a question regarding this part.
Does this mean that only the conductor is to be rating passengers? Are the passengers not to be rating other passengers anymore? Please advise. Thanks

"For VWT trains, the conductor should check the coupons and ensure that they are suitable for the wishlist, therefore they would rate the riders. This will stop new users getting high ratings from one train."

[Anna Michele]

i read it that way as well

[FallenPixels]

That is what the original thread stated, that the conductor rated passengers, I just copied it over to one thread to cut down on the stickies in the hope that people actually read them. I know it has not been the case recently

Although we may want to revisit enforcing it, we have sadly had a lot of newer members ride 2 trains, get 15 ratings and then none of their actual trades go through

[pumpkin9211]

I have a question regarding this part.
Does this mean that only the conductor is to be rating passengers? Are the passengers not to be rating other passengers anymore? Please advise. Thanks

"For VWT trains, the conductor should check the coupons and ensure that they are suitable for the wishlist, therefore they would rate the riders. This will stop new users getting high ratings from one train."

My concern: On the VWT's I think it is important to have riders rate fellow riders... its a great way to note how generous another rider has been. It also keeps conductors in control of their trains because they know when the trains arrived home, etc. And, it keeps the conductors honest... without leaving individual feedback from each rider, the conductor could just send home whatever coupons and the riders would be none the wiser...

With all that said, I doubt any of the seasoned conductors would do that.... but new conductors... I don't know.

I know that I look at feedback before I enter into a one on one trade. If a newer member and all positives have come from a VWT I will ask them to send first... but that same feedback confirms that they sent 10 great bundles of coupons to 10 other people.


**** I am NOT picking on Fallen-- just offering my opinion on the subject ****
**Thanks for stepping in Fallen**

[Anna Michele]

I agree 100 % with pumpkin!

[Anna Michele]

That is what the original thread stated, that the conductor rated passengers, I just copied it over to one thread to cut down on the stickies in the hope that people actually read them. I know it has not been the case recently

Although we may want to revisit enforcing it, we have sadly had a lot of newer members ride 2 trains, get 15 ratings and then none of their actual trades go through

I can def see that happening especially with a new member or someone faking a second account but if they did in fact send coupons to each rider on the vwt than they should get the credit for it, and a negative for the trades that didn't go through,
we are able to see where the rating come from ie trades/trains, with all of the great features on Smart Canucks to ensure positive outcomes like pumpkin said if they haven't traded only ridden trains by all means ask for their end first, besides most people start off trading first then work their way up to trains, i know i did and i'm hooked hardly "trade" anymore unless someone has something I am looking for

[FallenPixels]

As I said, not making new rules just copying the old ones we have been ignoring for a long time

[ErinsMom]

Just curious...if we were never suppose to be leaving feedback for each other as passengers, why does the trade rater page have the choices as: "coupon train passenger", "coupons train conductor" & "trade"?

Trading in a VWL train really is a one on one trade- it just goes through the conductor first.

Maybe that rule was meant for regular traditional trains? I can see not rating all the riders on a traditional train- I have been on trad trains recenty where conductors asked for this & I challenged it. I am not going to rate a rider that was 3 riders before me, I have no idea what they actaully added to the train. For traditional trains riders should only be rating the conductor & the conductor rates each rider.

But for WVL trains I think it's perfectly fine to rate each other- every rider sends coupon bundles to every other rider so why shouldn't each rider get a rating for it?

That rule should definitely be revisited. There would be very few ratings given out if only conductors left feedback for trains. Trains are a huge part of this site & the information we get on each other from trains is just as important as one on one trades in my opinion.

Thanks to Fallen for taking all this on...a big job that has not gone unnoticed!

[FallenPixels]

Reading the back story, it seems that conductors were saying that they were replacing coupons for certain users, so they would perhaps leave a neutral but the train passengers would give say 6 positives because the conductor bulked up their envies. The alternative was that conductors did not do this, waited for a resend and coupons were expiring in the mean time (something that has also come up on the blacklist recently)

The idea was, it was not a direct trade with the person, you are not aware if there were issues, the conductor was and therefore you can't fully rate them. The rating system also came at a time when often you did a VWT and the coupons were not clipped by user, you just got an envie from the conductor with the train name, the conductor OKed the coupons and rated, you rated the conductor.

Looking at the blacklist, many did get a decent rating from a few trains and sometimes traditional trains where they got many positives when they potentially added little.

Even from some of the people I have been dealing with this week, when I checked their feedback, there are thanks for using my swagbucks link type ratings which do not give an indication of how honest the trader is.

I do see that it is like a trade between the individuals, but also see the point from the original threads that the people receiving are not aware of the issues with coupons etc that a conductor may have made up for the sake of the train

[FallenPixels]

Hmmmm while I know the system can't be changed itself, I wonder if the features are editable and we could add VWT Passenger to differentiate them?

Must find Boo online to ask

[ErinsMom]

I can say on my trains if I fix a small error I always still send the original coupon with a little sticky note saying what I fixed so the receiving rider still knows what was originally sent. My riders always know where mistakes were made & it would be their decision how to rate that rider.

If there are numerous mistakes that rider is removed from the train & whatever coupons were sent in for her are returned to the original owner. Again all riders will know who made the mistakes. I believe most experienced conductors run their trains this way.

Most WVL trains as far as I know keep the coupons separated, when I receive my final envie I know exactly who sent what so I can rate them appropriately. The only exception I have been seeing lately are some trains where everyone throws X number of coupons into the pot & the conductor mixes them up & sends everyone back a mixed envie of new coupons. I haven't rode on these trains, but I would think in this case each rider shouldn't be rating each other becasue no one really knows what each rider sent in.

...I can see all sides & all arguements for this. But in my mind the more info I can gather on a rider the better. I just think if it's reduced to only conductors leaving ratings there will be much less info out there for us to go by when deciding to ride trains.

In regards to the trade rater options...I think the choices we have already separate the types of trades/trains. If I look up a rider I can clearly see which ones were for one on one trades, which ones came from train conductors & which ones came from train passengers.

[FallenPixels]

Yes, but its not always clear if they came from a VWT where there was an implied trade or a regular train where you have no clue what they included

I have even seen newbie traditional trains that encourage rating everyone to help them get a rating, these are included as train passenger

[FallenPixels]

Also, not all conductors are as thorough as you

[ErinsMom]

I see what you're saying. That would be good...further separate the rater options as VWL train passenger & traditional train passenger.
Wonder how much work that would be to change the options in the system?