WavelyGuidelines
Rating Guidelines
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Ratings are what make Wavely different from a feed: they help people decide whether something is worth their time before they spend it. A rating is only useful if it is honest. These guidelines explain how ratings work and what makes one manipulated. They add to the Community Guidelines.
Before you read on
How ratings work
When you publish a post you choose how it is rated, and that choice is fixed once it is published:
- A personal rating is your own verdict. Only you rate the post, and nobody else can.
- A community rating is built by the people who see the post. Each person rates it once, and can change or withdraw their rating at any time. If you rate your own community rated post, your rating counts once, like anyone else’s.
| Scale | Values | How the average is shown |
|---|---|---|
| Stars (the default) | 1 to 5, in half stars | Rounded to the nearest half star |
| Ten point | 1 to 10, to one decimal | To one decimal |
| Faces | Smiling or frowning | The share of smiling responses |
A community rating shows an average only once five people have rated, so one rating cannot pass for a consensus. The number of people who rated is always shown beside the average.
Rate from your own experience
A rating has to be your own honest judgment of something you have experienced. Anything else is not allowed, including:
- Rating something on someone else’s behalf, or rating what you have not experienced as though you had.
- Rating to punish or reward a person rather than to judge the thing itself.
- Rating based on a person’s race, religion, gender, or another protected characteristic.
Disclose your connections
In short
If you made it, own it, work for it, were paid, or got it free, say so in your post.
People rely on ratings being independent. If you have a connection to what you are posting about, say so plainly in the post itself, not only in your profile. A connection includes:
- Owning, working for, or being related to the business, or making the work.
- Being paid, or receiving a free product, discount, or other benefit.
- Being friends with the creator, or competing with them.
Consumer protection laws, including the US Federal Trade Commission’s rule on consumer reviews, also prohibit fake and undisclosed incentivized reviews.
What counts as manipulation
Anything that distorts ratings is not allowed, including:
- Buying, selling, or trading ratings, or offering anything in return for a rating.
- Offering a reward only for positive ratings, or asking only happy customers to rate.
- Using multiple accounts, or asking others to rate on your behalf.
- Coordinating people to flood a post with ratings, up or down, regardless of experience.
- Pressuring or threatening anyone to change or remove a rating.
What we do about manipulated ratings
When we find ratings that break these guidelines, we may:
- Remove them, and recalculate the average without them.
- Remove posts that hide a connection or exist only to inflate a rating.
- Restrict, suspend, or remove accounts involved, as described in How We Enforce Our Rules.
We do not remove ratings because they are negative, and businesses cannot pay to have ratings changed or removed.