Redistribute Bell Curve
Well it’s official, we’ve reviewed 100 strains since our very first site was launched! It’s the perfect time to revisit every grade we’ve given and redistribute some of the grades to get a proper bell curve. We know that not everyone likes or understands a bell curve, but after a lot of deliberation we decided it was in the best interest of the patients and the dispensaries to grade under one. Colorado’s MMJ scene is similar to many other highly competitive and leading environments (law school, med school, MBA school) in that we have collected the best of the best and a normal grading system would just let us know that every strain (or every student) is well above average and deserves a good grade.
The bell curve will spread the bulk of the reviews to the B+ grade and provide for only a handful of A+ and C+ grades (the respective best and worst of the best). There will be no lower grade than a C+ in our system. We plan to perform this exercise every 50 or 100 reviews so that we keep consistent to our mission of providing the most rigorous and honest review depository. Some of the grades will change during this process, but nothing should change more than 1 grade position up or down and we will make a post edit to clearly mark the orginal grade and the modified grade and date.
As always, be sure to make comments below and share your opinions. We know not everyone will agree with our choices and grading system but we feel this is the best possible grading structure. As time goes by every KindReviews.com reader will know that the review grade on every strain stands against every other strain in our database. That is how we are different.
UPDATE 9/2/10: Readers, you’ve probably noticed that we cleaned out our A+ section… Basically, the A+’s that existed are being classified as historical reviews because the medicine is either no longer available, has since been re-reviewed and lowered, or simply wasn’t reviewed under the current (and we believe the best) methodology of a three reviewer team. Because we strongly believe that only the very top strains should get a KindReviews A+, we are starting fresh post-HB 1284 and the changes it brought with no A+ reviews. This way you can be assured that when the next A+ rolls around, it was unanimous among our staff and is truly the absolute top level of medical marijuana you will see in the state. I hope you understand.
To any shops who have had their A+’s removed, please don’t take it as a sign of disrespect — we (like you) are trying to continually improve our methods and felt that this was necessary in order to keep the intent of the site intact, namely, functioning as a patient’s guide to finding the best medication. When strains have an A+ but are no longer being produced or are not readily-available, it can send patients on a goose chase that isn’t productive for anyone. We hope that a fresh start in this regard will help to push MMCs to reach a higher standard… we’ll surely have a new crop of A+’s by this time next year.
We will also be performing another Bell Curve adjustment soon, so if you see grades shifting around, that’s what happened. As always, feel free to share any thoughts in the comments section — we welcome your feedback!
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Comments (2)
Hi, newbie here! How many of you is “we”? How do you make decisions, ie:First thing in morn, some of you have certain ailments/conditions pertinent to a particular strain being reviewed, or whatever, I am just curious how you all do the process of reviewing the meds…oh, and HOW do people get their product reviewed by you to begin with?
Anyway, hope this is okay to ask about, if it’s not, I really do apologize to you all, k!
Not trying to be a bitch at ALL, I promise, I literally am just curious….after all, I really like the tiny time I have been here, it is very informative, so I plan on visiting where you advise/recommend the good meds are!! peace
Hi Brenda, I’ll attempt to answer your questions.
There is currently a team of 3 reviewers and two other KR staff members who oversee the process/site and occasionally do reviews.
We max out at two strain reviews per reviewer per day, meaning that it’s normally a morning and a night evaluation with at least 4 hours in between reviews to allow for complete sobriety. While we do not have even a majority of the conditions that are alleviated by cannabis, all of us have particular ailments that we can speak on in our reviews (i.e. I struggle with back spasms, muscle/joint pain, and anxiety so I generally focus on those areas). If we think a strain may help with an ailment that we do not actually have, we’ll note it as well since we try to cover all bases. The medical advice is purely opinion and should always be taken with a grain of salt, as we are not medical professionals and can only make suggestions based on our own experiences. Everyone’s body is different and the same strain consumed on different days in a different mental or physical state can produce almost entirely different results, even in the same person… so we do the best we can to control for that by always having 3 reviewers.
As far as getting samples, we are provided samples of strains by dispensaries in order to perform the reviews. We never take money in exchange for reviews. We ask for a 2 gram sample because it is sufficient to split between our standard 3 reviewers with enough left for a possible re-evaluation if necessary. The also allows non-reviewing members to “confirm” grades or effects if there is a disagreement between the regular reviewers.
Hope that helps, thanks for reading!