Another improvement in the FPA’s reviews. Weighted scoring.

Another improvement in the FPA’s reviews. Weighted scoring.

For over 9 years now, I’ve worked to make the Forex Peace Army’s reviews the fairest and most honest forex reviews in the world. Even though I think I’ve succeeded in this, I also know that there is always room for more improvement.

There are two things which had been bothering me about the final rating assigned to review pages.

First, anyone could leave a review without a forums account.

This made it very difficult if I or one of my moderators had a question for the reviewer. It also made it harder to have confidence that the reviewer was a real person.

One option considered was to require FPA membership from all reviewers. This created 2 problems. There are real reviewers who have been threatened by companies. Despite the FPA’s privacy protections, there are real customers who are afraid to give any contact information. There also are real customers who don’t want to participate at the FPA other than leaving an honest review.

Since I didn’t want to get rid of reviews not linked to forums accounts, the best option was to give less weight to anonymous reviews than to reviews from FPA members.

Now, reviews tied to forums accounts are now given more weight than reviews left anonymously.

Reviews with or without forums accounts still pass through the same screening process. In some cases, a suspicious pattern of reviews may result in some emails being sent later on to check if the reviewers are real people or not.

The program for giving more weight to member reviews over anonymous reviews was quietly brought online not long after the last big reviews update. The programmers kept it so quiet that I didn’t find out it was live until I asked: “When will we start giving member reviews more weight?” 6 months later.  :)

The second thing that bothered me was how slow ratings could change.

Sometimes a previously well-rated company will go bad. If a company already has 100 rated reviews and an average rating of 3.5 stars, it will take many 1 star reviews to pull the rating down.

Now, newer reviews are given more weight than older reviews. This means a sudden change in the ratings being left for a company will change the average rating faster.

This new weighting-by-age of reviews began a few days ago. Most companies had their rating score changed by 1/10th of a star or less under the new calculations. The biggest changes were companies which either got much better or much worse recently. If anyone thinks this was somehow rigged to benefit the FPA’s rating, the fact is that the FPA’s own review page lost 0.026 stars.

Currently, I’m double-checking some companies with larger changes to their ratings. So far, everything seems to be working as it should.

Is the FPA review system perfect? No. Is the FPA review system now even better than it was? Yes, I believe it is. Are there more improvements under development? Yes.

Special reminder for all forex peace army reviewers:

If you submitted a review and it was not approved within 5 business days, there’s an easy way to check. CLICK HERE and read the post. If you still don’t understand why your review wasn’t approved, there’s a Missing Review Inquiry Form at the bottom of that post. Complaining in a forums post may not get my attention or the attention of any review moderators. Filling out the form will get you an answer.

Special hint for company representatives at forex peace army:

Representing your company in the reviews and leaving professional responses to negative reviews is a good thing to do. You may be able to clear up many misunderstandings, which can get a client to upgrade a 1-star rating to 4 or 5 stars. Even if you can’t fix an issue, showing how you try your best to handle complaints will make potential clients much more likely to sign up with your company. It’s good for your karma and is also good for your business.

Author Profile

AsstModerator FPA

AsstModerator FPA

Bill started off as the Assistant Moderator to the FPA's forums in December 2007. Not long after, he was promoted to being the forums administrator. Even with the promotion, he kept the same username, which led to some very amusing conversations with people who didn't know that Bill and AsstModerator were the same person.

Being blamed for everything people disagreed with in the forums wasn't enough punishment for Bill. A few months after becoming the forums admin, he started making suggestions to improve the moderation of the FPA's reviews. Now Bill is the person who gets blamed for everything people get blamed for in the forums and reviews.

Info

2259 Views 8 Comments

Comments

D
dakiwi
6 years ago,
Registered user
A very good thing.
cheers
dakiwi
P
petemech
6 years ago,
Registered user
Sounds a good idea- really appreciate all the hard work you guys do
1 x thing though that needs improving is the layout of reviews (very confusing)
also no date/time of when review is posted (only member join date !)
K
kimmy12
6 years ago,
Registered user
> For over 9 years now, I've worked to make the Forex Peace Army's reviews the fairest and most honest forex reviews in the world. Even though I think I've succeeded in this, I also know that there is ..
Sounds great
J
JoachimDippold
6 years ago,
Registered user
Greetings!

Sounds fair to me. Looks like you found a very good solution that makes total sense, i like it. No critics from my side i don´t know what i would change. Please keep up the good work, you are doing fantastic!

I wish you a wonderful summerday!
And of course: Happy Trading!
Joachim
A
AsstModerator
6 years ago,
Registered user
> Sounds a good idea- really appreciate all the hard work you guys do
1 x thing though that needs improving is the layout of reviews (very confusing)
also no date/time of when review is posted (only mem..

The date shown on the review is the review submission date. It's only the same as the member join date if the member joined on the same day.
E
Ernie
6 years ago,
Registered user
The forex peace army has a reputation for being the voice for the little guy.Great Job Thanks
P
Pertti
6 years ago,
Registered user
This is by far the best forum on internet. After beating the most gigantic scam ever Banc de Binary I am contacted by people almost every day. Only 2 of them are from Finland.

Remember this. Cysec regulated and Israel based brokers dont respect Cypriot authorities but they DO respect ISA.
P
Pharaoh
6 years ago,
Registered user
I'm glad this will make brokers that go deposit-only get a lower rating faster.