I cant find this anywhere else, and im curious: How does sparkfun figure out a user’s rating? just what all affects it, and does it have anything to do with the 100 char comment limit i seem to have?
There’s a detailed article [here.
To quickly answer your questions, customer rank is derived from how your comments have been rated and how much business you’ve done with SparkFun (not just in dollars, but how frequently, how recently, and a few other things). Customer rank and maximum comment length are directly related.](General Information - SparkFun Electronics)
I have no idea how it happened, but my user rating somehow became 81 (!).
I think I posted a couple of unusually useful comments in the comments sections of some of the products, but I guess it´s probably mostly because I have made a LOT of small orders from Sparkfun.
Either way, it´s a bit embarrassing, but pleasing at the same time. I made some effort, and it´s reflected right there in the page.
Thank you frencil, i was all over te site, and im still not sure how i couldn’t find that page 
Yeah, that page needs to be more accessible. I’ll get some links added in appropriate places.
having read the user rating page several times, theres one line i still do not understand.
"The light star is a customer’s rank:
Rank can only be positive."
for my current rank is
" –42"
is there a system explanation for this, or is it just a fluke?
Frencil:
There’s a detailed article [here.To quickly answer your questions, customer rank is derived from how your comments have been rated and how much business you’ve done with SparkFun (not just in dollars, but how frequently, how recently, and a few other things). Customer rank and maximum comment length are directly related.[/quote]
There is a few too many “rn” on that page…](General Information - SparkFun Electronics)
SlyVixsky:
“Rank can only be positive.”…my current rank is " –42"
is there a system explanation for this, or is it just a fluke?
The statement that rank can only be positive was indeed wrong as rank can go negative. That’s been fixed.
You’re rank, however, is a fluke. Your rank specifically was primarily affected by two comments, one with a rating of ~-7 and another with a rating of ~0.03. A function designed to help temper the discrepancy in weights between the first comment and the nth comment of a single user was having the opposite effect in your case where two ranked comments existed with several orders of magnitude difference.
Needless to say, the algorithm has been tweaked. Most ranks won’t drift too much. Ones like yours will become more meaningful. Unfortunately some high ranks will be leveled out slightly. Them’s the breaks.
gussy:
There is a few too many “rn” on that page…
Thanks for the catch. Fixed.
Frencil:
SlyVixsky:
“Rank can only be positive.”…my current rank is " –42"
is there a system explanation for this, or is it just a fluke?
The statement that rank can only be positive was indeed wrong as rank can go negative. That’s been fixed.
You’re rank, however, is a fluke.
My fluke is now -50. Is there any way to fix this, or am I now a permanent failure in everyone’s eyes?
SlyVixsky:
My fluke is now -50. Is there any way to fix this, or am I now a permanent failure in everyone’s eyes?
I have to ask you to hold out for about another week. Next week is our scheduled deployment for our latest round of upgrades and the fix to which I’ve referred will hit when that goes out. When that happens your rank should adjust to a much larger negative number (smaller in terms of absolute value).