How to improve rep

Essentially a discussion/ possible guide.

But what are the effective ways to improve reputation? Other than literally as ive seen in most buying a few keys at a time from multiple people.

And then obviously theres no easy way to improve rep as then scammers could do that

I'm not really a noob to trading, just don't usually participate in paypal trades often and the few paypal trades the person didn't have didn't have sourceop accounts so it gets posted on the profile which obviously doesnt count.

But yeah ive just recently started participating in forums and I just sorta wanna make a name for myself as I have made it this far in trading.

The only really valid reps are with money trades, without a MM, where the rep-giver went first, for a amount above 30 dollar, which are named on a forum thread.
- rules out MM trades (only rep is then for the MM)
- rules out item-item trades (no risk)
- rules out tiny crap trades (2 keys w/e)
- rules out fake alt account reps on profile (if found on a forum, those involved get marked scammer).

Situation 1:
- A buys buds from B, B gives buds first, A pays after.
- B gives A rep.

Situation 2:
- A wants to buy a max head from B, and they use MM C.
- C receives the item, and transaction for money from A to B happens, and C trades the item to A.
- A and/or B give C rep.

The pattern is that the one receiving first follows up on the payment, where the others are risking. The one receiving first could have run with it, but didn't, which is rep-worthy. As such, a MM must have sufficient rep to get such a tag for being a MM. The known ones don't even ask for it anymore. Some of those are known to other admins and trusted and made MM (Such as GTFO Avenger is trusted by DataStorm, or Like This by Diego and couple others where likewise made MM)

/edit: I agree also with the above response you got, helping out in communities gains you reputation too, for ppl get to know you there. One remark on that tho, you get more known with the ppl that have contact with you there then that the high rep ppl get to know you.

That helps explain a lot, although do to that in order to get rep you thusly need to have rep or find someone that can trust you to send first.

But its nice to know that those rules exist, as lots of people do +rep for random trades (usually unusual trades sometimes) when its not really deserving.

its not really a rule, its just plain logic. the party to recieve anything first can scam the other party. The rep is therefore for not scamming. It is the reason why even the most rep on the forums are not worth much for these reasons:
- doesn't name who went first.
- doesn't name what was traded.

If you clean out a rep thread for those properties, then most have only a couple valid rep instead of x pages.