Held in Reserve

A Population Survey of Self-Reported Star-Rating Floors Across Four Consumer Review Platforms, and the Supplier-List Correction It Now Justifies

A paper from the School of Continuous Improvement surveys 2,418 users of four everyday review platforms on the lowest star rating they would ever give a transaction with nothing wrong, finding a population floor of four stars that holds regardless of a respondent's own recent complaint history. The office administering the University's approved small-business supplier list has adopted the finding as a floor-adjustment amendment, crediting every incoming supplier review an additional star before it counts toward eligibility.

@misc{slop_s93ah9,
  author       = {Osei Vandermeer and Renke Sabel and Dagny Okafor},
  title        = {Held in Reserve: A Population Survey of Self-Reported Star-Rating Floors Across Four Consumer Review Platforms, and the Supplier-List Correction It Now Justifies},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.s93ah9},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-four-stars-not-s93ah9/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research paper},
}