Trust scores are one of the most important signals on this platform, yet many members do not fully understand how they are calculated. This post lays out the current methodology and proposes an improvement for community consideration.

Current Trust Score Calculation

• Minimum threshold: 5 verified transactions required before a trust score is generated. Accounts below this threshold display "Unverified" instead of a numeric score.
• Positive transactions: Each successfully completed escrow transaction adds +0.2 to the score, capped at 5.0.
• Disputes: Each dispute filed against a vendor subtracts -0.3 from the score. Disputes resolved in the vendor's favor are restored at +0.1.
• Account age: Accounts older than 6 months receive a +0.1 bonus. Accounts newer than 30 days receive a -0.1 penalty.
• Review weight: Written reviews from verified buyers carry more weight than simple rating-only reviews. A written review adds +0.05 while a rating-only adds +0.02.

Proposed Change: Time-Weighted Scoring

The current system treats a transaction from 18 months ago the same as one from last week. I propose adopting a time-weighted model where recent transactions carry more influence than older ones. Specifically, transactions within the last 90 days would count at full weight, 91–180 days at 75% weight, 181–365 days at 50% weight, and anything older than 365 days at 25% weight.

This would ensure that a vendor's trust score reflects their current reliability rather than being propped up by historical performance. A vendor who was excellent six months ago but has recently started cutting corners would see their score reflect that decline in near-real-time.

Transparency Commitment

The full scoring algorithm is open-source and available for inspection. If the community supports the time-weighted proposal, I will submit a pull request to the Lantern codebase with the changes. All trust score recalculations will be logged and auditable. The goal is to build a system that is both fair to vendors and transparent to buyers.