The IAB uses a feedback system to give a user rating for people so you can bid with confidence.

Definitions:

Feedback

Placed after an auction is over. The buyer and the seller each get a rating from the other with a comment.

Reference

A user can request references from outside sources (usually trades or other auction services). This also has a rating and a comment, and is listed as feedback

For each feedback and reference a user has from unique sources the following values are applied:

Good rating

+1 (green)

Neutral rating

no change (gray)

Bad rating

-1 (red)

These numbers are added together to give you the total rating, which is shown in the rating picture.

Also, the picture shows the percentage of good/bad/neutral ratings you have gotten with different colors, and gives you a graphical representation of how many feedbacks a person has by the height of colors. Here are some examples:

	User has a total rating of 2, everything is green, so he has two people who have both reported good feedback.
	User has a total rating of 1. There are good, bad and neutral ratings. Approximately half of the bar is green, so half of his ratings are good, which means the rest are neutral or bad. The color bar is not tall, so there aren't many feedbacks, so probably he has 2 good, 1 bad, 1 neutral rating.
	User has a negative rating, that does not look good. Not much green, also does not look good. The color bar is taller, which tells us that he has a *lot* of bad/neutral ratings. Don't buy from this guy.

Note that if you go to a user's information page, you can view all of his feedback in detail. The picture is just to see the rating at a glance.