Our Memorial Day Giveaway survey uncovered that at least a few folks felt that our profile score calculation was biased. Additionally, I felt the need to both simplify the math and increase the weight of several metrics. Therefore, the following changes have been made:
- The number of recent sales or purchases by any given user is no longer a factor when calculating scores.
- Each of the 5 remaining metrics are now weighted equally.
Here’s a quick reminder of how each metric is calculated:
- Reviews = 100% - (Positive Ratings Received / Total Ratings Received)
- Reliability = 100% - (Orders I Canceled / (My Sales + My Purchases)) *Only applies to orders after 10/15/2021
- Shipping Speed = 100% - (1 / 336 x (Time of Carrier Pickup Scan - Time Action Required Email is Sent to Seller))
- Response Time (AKA Seller’s 1st Response Time) = 100% - (1 / 7200 x (Time of Seller’s 1st Response - Time of Buyer’s 1st Message for a Given Order or Listing))
- Community Engagement = ((seller ratings given/purchases) + (lot ratings given/listings purchased) + (Percentile rank of participation in The Lupulin Exchange Community, calculated as follows:
Received x 100 + Days Visited x 1 + Time Read x 20))/3
Most members will find that their score only changed by 2% or less; however, users with very good (or very bad) community engagement will experience much larger shifts. And that is by design because The Exchange isn’t a store or a hop supplier; it’s a community. Members of the community can find every hop variety, every brand, and every vendor. They can effortlessly compare prices, reviews, shipping speeds, reliability, and more, and they can leverage the platform’s extensive resources & conveniences when they need to offload excess inventory or over-contracted positions. And we have many more exciting tools & features in development that will greatly benefit community members.
But with great power, comes great responsibility. Members are expected to contribute to the community; rate & review experiences and lots, follow community discussions, provide feedback & ideas, speak up when something isn’t right, abide by our rules, and respect our core values. I’m confident that profile scores now do a better job of communicating the performance of each community member.