How we calculate the score
Every number you see on Platísimo comes from people's ratings and can be recalculated from them. This page explains how, without formulas or tricks: there are no sponsored dishes, you can't pay to move up and nobody on the team moves a list by hand.
The dish's score
It's the average of published ratings, from 1 to 5, but not a plain average. While there are few ratings, the score stays close to its category's average and only moves away from it as more people arrive. That way a dish with a single 5 doesn't overtake one with fifty ratings of 4.6, which is what happens in almost every list on the internet.
Example: four ratings of 5, 5, 4 and 3 in a category whose average is 3.8 give a score of 4.0, not 4.25.
Recent counts more
A kitchen changes: the cook leaves, the price goes up, the portion shrinks. Each rating weighs half as much after a year, half of that after two, and so on. We don't delete anything — the 2023 rating is still there and can be read — it simply counts less than yesterday's.
When a dish enters a list
From its first rating a dish already competes in the rankings. While it has few, we mark it “few ratings” and its score stays close to its category's average. Between three and ten we say “provisional ranking”, because the score still moves quite a bit. From ten on the score is steady and carries no label.
Where the category average comes from
From published ratings in that same category — desserts with desserts, rice dishes with rice dishes — and, while a category still has very few, from the average across all of Platísimo. With no ratings at all in the database, the starting point is 3.5.
What doesn't count
A rating hidden by moderation stops counting towards the score as soon as it's hidden. Ratings from a deleted account stay, but anonymous: the dish keeps its history and the person disappears from it.
The platazo
The score measures whether people agree. The platazo measures something else: how much a dish stayed with you. It's scarce on purpose, because if you could always give it, it would say nothing. You earn one for every three ratings posted with a photo, you can hold three at most and they don't expire. It's only given on your own rating, and only if you gave it a 4 or a 5. It can't be bought or sold, and it never enters the dish's score: they're kept apart on purpose, which is why there's a separate list, “Favourites”. If you change your mind within the first 24 hours, you can take it back and it returns to your account; after that, taking it back still spends it: a platazo you could always get back wouldn't be scarce.
The long version
The exact definitions, with step-by-step numerical examples, are written in the project's repository, in “docs/metrics.md”. If a number on screen doesn't match what that document says, the mistake is ours: tell us.