Fairly compare 2 different EAs. How about 1000 different EAs? - page 8

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Miguel Angel Vico Alba #:

I think it is important to clarify something regarding your statement about MetaQuotes allegedly removing reviews.

Claiming that MQ deletes reviews, especially in a way that implies intentional manipulation, is a very serious accusation. Without solid, verifiable evidence, such claims lose credibility and can be both misleading and unfair.

MetaQuotes, like any reputable platform, has moderation policies both automatic and manual, and there are many legitimate reasons why a review may no longer appear. These include inactive accounts, deleted content, spam, violations of platform rules, and so on. Just because a review is no longer visible does not necessarily mean it was arbitrarily removed.

If you do have specific examples with dates, usernames, products, and solid evidence, I encourage you to share them in a respectful and responsible manner or contact the Service Desk to have them properly investigated.

What is not acceptable is throwing around accusations of this magnitude without clear proof. We are here to discuss things technically and constructively, not to spread mistrust based on speculation.

Thanks for your understanding.

I think you missed the point of the whole discussion. But still you didn't quote my culprit statement. The mq at that time made an official statement about this, saying they would check all the reviews without disclosing the whole procedure and they would remove the suspicious or fraud ones. Said that, I think you didn't care to understand the whole point of the discussion, neither the intentions, and your passive aggressive behaviour wasn't made any better with your final statement in bold. So from now I will ignore you as a person , because it is my right to do so, and if you need to complain with nonsense or even with sense, report me to MQ or Who you decide to.

Thanks for understanding but from all the people here, you are the one who brought less value to this conversation.
 
Aleksandar Petrinic #:
I think you missed the point of the whole discussion. But still you didn't quote my culprit statement. The mq at that time made an official statement about this, saying they would check all the reviews without disclosing the whole procedure and they would remove the suspicious or fraud ones. Said that, I think you didn't care to understand the whole point of the discussion, neither the intentions, and your passive aggressive behaviour wasn't made any better with your final statement in bold. So from now I will ignore you as a person , because it is my right to do so, and if you need to complain with nonsense or even with sense, report me to MQ or Who you decide to.

Thanks for understanding but from all the people here, you are the one who brought less value to this conversation.

Thanks for your reply, but I believe it’s important to separate confirmed facts from personal assumptions.

Yes, MetaQuotes did release an official statement in the past mentioning that they would review and possibly remove fraudulent or suspicious reviews. That’s a legitimate and necessary part of maintaining the integrity of the platform.

However, saying that reviews were removed simply because the EA price increased, or because the user only logged in once, or due to changes in trading style, those are not documented reasons.

Presenting those points as if they were confirmed facts is misleading, especially when discussing a company’s moderation policy.

If your intention was to highlight issues with review reliability or fake accounts, then referring to the official statement would have been more than enough.

But when you go beyond that and suggest deliberate manipulation, you're making a serious accusation that requires strong evidence.

Constructive criticism is always welcome, but we need to be precise and responsible when discussing these matters publicly.

 
As a moderator I would like to issue a clear reminder to all participants in this thread.

Any post containing unfounded accusations or speculative claims without evidence will be removed.

This forum is intended for constructive and technical discussion, not for venting personal frustrations or bad moods. Please stay respectful, objective, and on topic at all times.
 
Miguel Angel Vico Alba #:
[I]t’s important to separate confirmed facts from personal assumptions.

Bingo! This is why I'm collecting stats from the Market. Numbers don't have gray areas... just like code.

 
Oleksandr Medviediev:
“Vast sea of EAs, zillion good-looking robots, each promising riches, but leaving traders and investors stranded on the shores of uncertainty.” ©

My contribution toward:
 – MetaQuotes analytical tools and metrics for evaluating strategy performance  
 – more transparent and informed trading environment  

Thinking to create something useful to last - a universal EA score/ranking system (not just XLS table), establishing standardized criteria and benchmarks for evaluating quality across all EA types, sizes and risk levels - going far beyond subjective user reviews and offering a fact-based, structured approach to EA quality.

With so many algos out there - each with flashy promises, some with impressive balance-curve visuals, many with decent track records - there’s still no uniform, recognized or reliable method for comparison and quality evaluation (beyond bug-free code), leaving traders and investors stranded on the shores of uncertainty…

STAGE-1: EA performance rating
Assign weights to key quality criteria:
 – Returns vs. risk (how much you earn for the risk you take) – 30%  
 – Drawdown and recovery (how bad it gets and how fast it bounces back) – 30%  
 – Forward-test time (live on real, not backtests - 3 months minimum, 3+ years ideal) – 20%  
 – Data stability (does it perform similarly across broker-servers) – 20%  
 - Additional metrics – optional menu: trade frequency, peak-to-valley DD, SQN, MTM, etc.

STAGE-2: Calculate final score (0–100)
Each metric is normalized, multiplied by its weight and summed up.

STAGE-3: EA ranking tiers - 4 clear groups:
 – ⭐️ Tier-1 Outstanding: 80–100 – high performance, steady 5-7 trades/day, durable and stable across all market conditions and behaviors. Price range: $800–$3000+ (up to a million if you strike gold)    
 – Good: 60–79 – solid strategy, but equity can get bumpy; 1–2 losing months per year are possible. Price range: $300–$799    
 – Mediocre: 40–59 – unremarkable, possibly overfit or inconsistent. Price range: $100–$299    
 – Poor: <40 – unstable, high risk, unreliable. Price range: $0–$99 or best avoided

The algo-trading community needs a simple, reliable Quality Score that is:  
 – objective, consistent and easy to verify  
 – globally applicable (low- mid-frequency, FX spot, retail level)

Maybe MetaQuotes builds it into MT5. Can start with ⭐️ (like Michelin) 
Could borrow from ISO or other software quality models.

Such a system could offer the clarity and transparency needed for traders and investors to choose EA with more confidence - understanding which EA is genuinely better suited for specific profitability and risk targets.

Help developers recognize their EA’s true value and fair price.  

This could naturally attract more MT5 users.
Great insight, Oleksandr. What you’re proposing aligns closely with what some of us have tried to do manually or with custom tools — but having a standardized, community-backed rating system would be a real breakthrough.

Just to add a note: within MetaTrader 5’s Strategy Tester, there is already a feature called “Complex Criteria” that attempts to evaluate systems based on a combination of factors like profit, drawdown, recovery factor, etc. It’s far from perfect and definitely not transparent or detailed enough, but it could be seen as an early form of the kind of scoring model you're envisioning.

That said, your proposal goes well beyond that. It speaks to an independent structure, possibly with broker-agnostic validation and live forward-tests — something the Strategy Tester alone cannot handle.

So yes, there’s a partial equivalent already inside MT5, but nowhere near the depth and clarity of what you’re suggesting. This could be a real contribution to the algo trading space — and something that both traders and developers would benefit from.
 
Thanks, Enrique - really appreciate your thoughtful input. MT5's “Complex Criterion” is good partial parallel indeed!
 
Ryan L Johnson #:

There is a level of protection for Buyers in the EA Market. For example, here is one sample out of over 1000 Market EA's in my list to date (which shall remain nameless here):

Published
10/01/2021		 Reviews
28		 Stars
n/a		 Price
10 000 USD


So, we have an EA that's been in the Market for about 4 years, 28 Reviews were posted, all 28 Reviews were flagged resulting in zero total review stars, and its price is 10,000 USD.

I should note that this EA was far from top of Market page at the time of this post.

No real problem here, assuming that common sense is used by Buyers.

Furthermore, MQ should not disclose its Market ranking algorithm. Would Google do this? How about YouTube? Strategic ambiguity prevents gaming of the system. This is why I'm merely collecting public information for analysis instead of nagging MQ with "ideas." Frankly, I've already confessed elsewhere that my online marketing skills could fit on the head of a pin.

Fair point - but strategic ambiguity alone doesn’t fully serve the community.

A basic MQ-made quality indicator (for EAs with signals/live track records) could support fairer comparisons without revealing the ranking formula.


TO ALL:

Let me offer a short SUMMARY:

From what I see, as time flows and strategies evolve, each of us carries his own ledger of disappointments and outcomes.

This thread captured a candid and technical discussion about:
 -- user-reviews objectivity and transparency
 -- backtests integrity
 -- assessing the trustworthiness of EA products.

All of it - built on hope and illusion.

MQ is the Boss, in the driver’s seat.

 
Oleksandr Medviediev #:
Fair point - but strategic ambiguity alone doesn’t fully serve the community.

A basic MQ-made quality indicator (for EAs with signals/live track records) could support fairer comparisons without revealing the ranking formula.


TO ALL:

Let me offer a short SUMMARY:

From what I see, as time flows and strategies evolve, each of us carries his own ledger of disappointments and outcomes.

This thread captured a candid and technical discussion about:
 -- user-reviews objectivity and transparency
 -- backtests integrity
 -- assessing the trustworthiness of EA products.

All of it - built on hope and illusion.

MQ is the Boss, in the driver’s seat.

In a perfect world, yes, we would have all of that information. But we're all living in the land of social media (for better or worse), and this includes MQ. Again, I can only guess that there is a business purpose behind the Market's existing design. (I don't even do so social media outside of trading forums, so who knows...).

I'm focusing on what we do have. I also have to keep my workload manageable. At the moment, I have about 1700 EA's entered into my list. My list will contain about 5800 MT5 EA's, resorted (most likely by stars and Reviews). I continue to find potential "sleeper" EA's with positive stars and Reviews, albeit a bit dated. I simply don't have the resources required to forward test every MT5 EA in the market, let alone other areas of the Market. My list will basically be a running "show-all" list of EA leads for Market Buyers with hopeful EA's at the top (most likely without regard to publication date and price).

Of course, my complete list won't be posted here as it will reference about 5800 Market EA's by name. No worries. That's what the Blog, Wall, and 3rd party websites are for.

If you have the resources to do what you posted in your OP, I totally support it.

 
Ryan L Johnson #:
If you have the resources to do what you posted in your OP, I totally support it.
Right, resources coming soon - once I manage to secure them. Thanks for the support, Ryan.
 
Oleksandr Medviediev #:
Right, resources coming soon - once I manage to secure them. Thanks for the support, Ryan.

We need an mqlstarter 

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