- Do I need a hat to become a Featured Member?
Yes. Advisors, Top Reviewers, and Category Leads are given the option to become featured members when they receive a hat. Other members are not given the option to become featured members at this time.
Featured members have profile snapshots posted on the Epinions homepage, as well as on the category page in which they have a hat, giving them more exposure to the Epinions community.
- What distinguishes the Most Helpful reviews on the front page from other Most Helpful reviews?
Most Helpful reviews featured on the front page meet a specific set of criteria. Relevant factors include the number of Most Helpful ratings given to a particular review and the total number of reviews on a product. Reviews shown change each time a user goes to the front page. You can press refresh if you would like to see a different set of Most Helpful reviews.
- How are the Most Popular Authors and Most Popular Reviews determined?
The Most Popular Authors (MPA) list is made up of Epinions members who have received the most hits on their reviews overall or in a certain category. There are also lists that are broken down by year. Only reviews written in a given year contribute to the author’s popularity for that year. All lists change monthly to reflect new member totals, usually shortly after Income Share is processed for that month.
The Most Popular Reviews (MPR) list is made up of the individual reviews that have received the most hits. As with the MPA list, the MPR list is broken down by category and by year. For example, you can view the 1000 reviews receiving the most hits in the Beauty category for 2005. It is important to note that on the yearly lists, reviews are listed under the year in which they are written, but hits from subsequent years continue to be added to the total.
In most cases, there will be 1000 members on each list. The exception to this rule is in cases where there have not been 1000 members writing in a category during a given year, or 1000 product reviews written in a category during a given year.
- How do I add MPA and MPR information to my profile page?
You do not: this information is added automatically by Epinions beginning in the month in which you qualify. A bug in the code, however, requires that a member qualify in both (any category's) Most Popular Author and (any category's) Most Popular Review all-time (not yearly) lists before the information is placed on their profile.
- Why do the numbers on the MPA lists differ from the numbers on my account summary?
Most reviewers will find the MPA list hit totals differ from those on their profile pages. This can occur for a couple of reasons. First, the MPA lists are only updated once a month. Therefore the user page will be ahead of the MPA list most of the time. Additionally, not all pieces written on Epinions contribute to the MPA list. Anything written in the Writer’s Corner or Member Advice section will not contribute to the user’s total for MPA purposes, no matter how many hits such a piece receives. In addition, hits on any content that has been deleted will still show on the user's profile page but is not counted for MPA lists, nor is any content that addresses a topic that has been retired or archived.
- What are the requirements to have MPA and MPR data appear on my profile page?
In order to have statistics show on your profile page, you need to have one review on the all-time MPR list for any category and also make it onto the all-time MPA list for any category. This means, for example, if you have the 987th most popular review of all-time in Beauty and are the 950th most popular author of all-time in Pets (or Books, or Music, or...), you will have these statistics listed automatically.
- Is there a way to prevent the MPA and MPR lists from appearing on my profile page?
For this and any other request, you can contact Epinions Community Care.
- Why are there SH reviews on the Most Popular Reviews lists?
Rating practices have changed over time. In the early, freewheeling days of the site, short reviews containing minimal information or little opinion about a product or service were still rated highly by the writer's friends. If they happened to be on very popular topics, they soon garnered enough visits to make their way onto what would eventually be the Most Popular Review lists. As the site has matured, however, newer and lower ratings more in line with the current ratings standards - and ratings by members who carry relatively high current rating power - have dropped the overall rating of those reviews below Helpful. This may have occurred as an Advisor or other member was performing a vertical rating of a topic.
Since a review cannot lose hits, these rare reviews remain on the Most Popular Review lists even though they are not directly accessible by non-members. Epinions has not seen fit to filter them from the lists in any case.
In Online Stores and Services where (unlike other categories) reviews with an overall Somewhat Helpful rating are visible to non-members, it is possible that a SH review is receiving sufficient non-member attention to reach the Most Popular Reviews list. This distinction holds true only in Online Stores and Services, however.
- Why do the Top Earning Reviews lists change at the beginning of the month and again in the middle of the month?
The change made in the middle of the month is an update immediately after income share is calculated. At that point, the list accurately reflects the ten top earning reviews from the previous month. For example, on April 15, the lists will reflect the top earning reviews from the month of March. The change made at the beginning of the month is only a change in the month listed. For example, on May 1, the list will change its title to say, “The top earning reviews in Games earned over $5 in April.” At this point, though, the list is still reflecting the top earning reviews for the month of March. This can be confusing, but the actual list has not changed at this point.
- Who has written the greatest number of reviews?
Epinions does not keep an official list of writers with the greatest number of reviews. Members have made an effort to keep track, and a recent version of the list can be seen here, and discussed here. It is difficult to keep track because member review totals are constantly changing. Additionally, totals may not be completely accurate because deleted reviews are still counted, even if they are subsequently reposted in a different category.
We do know that many people have written hundreds of reviews here at Epinions. Almost a dozen members have passed the 1000 mark and at least one reviewer has written more than two thousand reviews to date!
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