How does the Bigger Pockets rating work?

Question

I see on the right hand side of Bigger Pockets that some people have scores. How do you get a score and how can you score higher?

Mindy Jensen · Answer

@Andrew Postell, it's a combination of votes and posts, plus some other math magic that I was not a party to.

Basically, the Top Contributors are people who have been active on the site recently, and who are providing value.

If you make one post in response to someone else's post, and it's a short "Great job!" that isn't going to garner nearly the votes as a well thought out post that is 400 words long and filled with the information the original poster is looking for.

So if you want your beautiful face up there in the upper right corner of the site, you'll have to make posts - and lots of them - filled with great content.

The highest score is 10.0. The exact formula is secret, kind of like Coca-Cola and KFC Spices.

I'll even start you off and give you a vote for this thread.

David Faulkner · Answer

The truth is that BP has a pet monkey that lives in the basement of their Denver headquarters ... in the basement there is also a giant cork wall with printouts of all the faces of prominent BP members pinned to this wall. Every day at precisely 2 pm a BP intern brings the monkey a bucket of darts. The monkey then throws the darts at the wall and whichever BP members get hit are ranked the highest. Sorry if I just ruined the secret.

Andrew Postell · Answer

@Mindy Jensen thanks for the explanation.  Since the highest score is a 10 I look forward to having an 11 ;)

Patti Robertson · Answer

@Brian Burke is right.  I mostly use BP on an ipad - not the app.  Not only can we not see votes, we can't even vote!  We could vote if we used the app, but because the app doesn't work in landscape mode and I use a keyboard case, I never use the app.  That's not the only reason. The app also doesn't give notifications like the full site does. I generally address topics based on my keyword kits.

Linda Weygant · Answer

Usually what this means is that the person who wrote that part of the code is no longer there.  The team has looked at the code, can't figure out what it does, can't figure out why it works, much less how and generally they've all forgotten about it.  So then when new people ask about it, they talk about secrets and "need to know"...

Patti Robertson · Answer

@Mindy Jensen -  My question  wasn't clear. What I meant was how would I know if I am included on the top contributor board and how would I know what other user see as my score? I never pop up on my own screen and it doesn't appear to be included on my profile page. I can't even see the number of post a number of boats and one screen, so I have to manually go calculate that.  I do personally keep track of my number of votes to post because I want to make sure that I'm a make good contributions. I'm not asking what the formula is, I'm just asking what my score is.

Mindy Jensen · Answer

@Patti Robertson , they won't even tell ME the secret formula... It's all based on contribution, and I see your smiling face a lot, so you should be close to making a Top Contributor board if you aren't on one already.

Andrew Postell · Answer

@Mindy Jensen I was wondering if I was overshooting it with that reference but glad you got it ;)

Mindy Jensen · Answer

@Andrew Postell , I work here, and asked the developer who created the scoring system to game the system so I could go to 11. No dice. But the Spinal Tap reference made me smile.

Oren K. · Answer

@Patti Robertson   Not sure if it is visible / usable from mobile but using the browser interface on a PC, on your 'Settings' page, bottom link on the left hand side is 'Stats' which give you your 'current' score and some other information.

How does the Bigger Pockets rating work?

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