Patent ID: 8155998

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of rating a particular user, the method comprising: determining a first quantity of submissions that were submitted by a particular user; determining a second quantity of submissions that (a) were submitted by the particular user and (b) obtained a particular submission rating from a rating mechanism; determining a particular user rating for the particular user based at least in part on the first quantity, the second quantity, and a factor that is independent of both the first quantity and the second quantity; and displaying the particular user rating; wherein, in determining the particular user rating, an influence that the second quantity has on the particular user rating relative to an influence that the factor has on the particular user rating is based at least in part on the first quantity; wherein determining the particular user rating comprises determining the particular user rating based on a two-dimensional contingency table h(n,n B ) that contains counts of submitters who have answered n questions and had n B of those answers given the particular submission rating by submitters of those questions; wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices.