Trust Score for Brands & Places
The Problem with Traditional Reviews
Traditional business review platforms are fundamentally broken. They rely on simple arithmetic averages where a fake 5-star review from a bot carries the exact same weight as a thoughtful 3-star review from a real customer. This creates a system vulnerable to:
- Review bombing: Coordinated mobs sinking a score without ever visiting the business.
- Paid inflation: Fake reviews purchased to artificially boost a rating.
- Volume over quality: High numbers of low-effort ratings drowning out genuine, detailed feedback.
The Fix
Brands, pages, and places on HYFY use the familiar standard 1 - 5 review scale, but the math behind it works differently. A business's score isn't a simple average - it is a credibility-weighted composite.
By backing business ratings with the same multi-layered Trust Score engine that measures user credibility across the platform, HYFY ensures that a 1-star rant from a troll carries vastly less weight than a 4-star review from an active, trusted community member.
The Review Scale (1 – 5)
| Score | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 1 | Poor experience |
| 2 | Below expectations |
| 3 | Average / Acceptable |
| 4 | Good - above expectations |
| 5 | Outstanding |
Unlike person-to-person ratings, there is no floor on the display score beyond zero. If a brand consistently receives low ratings, its Trust Score will reflect that honestly.
Who Can Rate
- Only people accounts can rate brands, pages, and places
- Business and page accounts cannot submit ratings on other businesses
- Self-rating is blocked - a brand cannot rate itself
- No mutual follow required - anyone with a people account can leave a review
This ensures that brand ratings come from real users with genuine experiences, not competing businesses or the brand itself.
Account Types
HYFY distinguishes between several business profile types, each with its own trait set:
| Type | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Brand | An online-first business or creator brand | A D2C fashion label, a SaaS product |
| Place | A physical venue or location | A restaurant, gym, coworking space |
| Page | A community page or publication | A fan page, a hobbyist community |
Each type has traits specifically designed for its category, reflecting the qualities that matter most for that kind of business or venue.
Trait-Specific Ratings
Just like people, businesses are rated per individual trait. Each trait:
- Has its own community average
- Is weighted by configurable importance
- Contributes independently to the overall Trust Score
This means a restaurant could score a 4.5 on Food Quality but a 2.8 on Service - and the overall score reflects both.
Review Windows
Business ratings have their own update and cooldown schedule:
- After submitting a rating, you have a generous window to revise it (e.g., if you return to a restaurant and your opinion changes)
- Once the update window closes, a cooldown period applies before a new rating version can be submitted
- This prevents review bombing while still allowing genuine opinion changes
No Calibration Bias Adjustment
Unlike person-to-person ratings, business ratings use direct scoring - the raw rating maps directly to the calibrated score without rater-bias adjustment. This is deliberate:
- Business reviews are expected to vary widely based on genuine experience
- The Bayesian smoothing layer still prevents a single extreme review from dominating the score
- Reviewer credibility weighting still applies, ensuring that established, consistent users carry more influence