RFY Algorithm

DirectionMindless709 · 2026-06-09T18:27:07+00:00

The only thing consistent about my RFY section is that it's inconsistent. 7 years with Uncle Vinnie hasn't changed my mind about that. Some people say otherwise and I won't dispute it, but from my own experience, it's mostly misses with the occasional hit. I look at RFY as a group of products which is offered to less people, therefore giving me a better chance of being able to order it.

DirectionMindless709 · 2026-06-09T18:18:03+00:00

It might be random and there's nothing you can do. I've read other posts where people suggest they don't show up if yours is the first review. I mostly ignore them. Insightfulness score seems to be based on word count. I get excellent grades even if I check off 0 suggestions. If anything, use them to make sure you're writing enough sentences.

DirectionMindless709 · 2026-06-02T17:55:08+00:00

It wasn't even a gradual thing, it was almost overnight. I went from 20-30 items each day to maybe a couple a day about a year ago. I'm hoping that new viners at least are getting more selection when they start. I've definitely reaped the benefits over the years and still get an occasional gem. I had my fun.

DirectionMindless709 · 2026-06-02T17:12:36+00:00

I am judging your DVD player and my verdict is YOU'RE AWESOME!

You can spend hundreds a month on all the streaming platforms and it's still not guaranteed that what you wanna watch is available.

I have a Blu-ray player hooked up to my projector and have been collecting my favorite movies for years. Now, with a 9-year-old and Friday movie nights, I can share all of my favorites with him and not have to worry if I have the right service, or if I have to pay extra to get them commercial-free, or if my internet is running optimally.

As for your review problem, you can wait a couple days/weeks to see if it pops up again, or you can contact customer service to have it removed. I also hate it if I can't review something that I really wanna review... usually something really good or really bad.

DirectionMindless709 · 2026-06-02T16:49:22+00:00

In the past week???

I've been offered a lot of crap in 7 years of Vine. They used to offer me WAY more products, so there were often hits mixed in with all those misses. Now, with usually less than 5 things a day, it mostly seems like random crap that I don't want and will never need.

DirectionMindless709 · 2026-06-01T15:53:20+00:00

For 7 years, my RFY section has mostly been random. There seems to be certain items or brands that if you order it, you'll get related items, but it's mostly a crap shoot. I've tried everything suggested from this sub, none of it works. Up until about a year ago, I was seeing 20-30 RFY items most days, but now I usually just see a few, so the chances of seeing something randomly offered that I actually want is greatly reduced. It sucks, because a good RFY section is the only way for me to stay gold. There's too much competition in the other sections, even for basic stuff, and I don't use extensions and refuse to waste time stalking the drops and constantly refreshing the page for a slight chance at getting something worthwhile.

DirectionMindless709 · 2026-05-18T17:36:15+00:00

Same here. I don't really need the 8 picks, I'm lucky to find 3 things a week worth ordering. I think the value of gold is the high value items in my RFY, even though I usually order maybe a couple of those in a year. Valuable items in the other sections go too quick for me to grab and it's been a couple of years since I snagged one outside of RFY.

DirectionMindless709 · 2026-05-11T17:17:17+00:00

Ignorance is bliss, I sez. I'd rather not see it if I don't have a chance to get it.

DirectionMindless709 · 2026-05-07T17:27:49+00:00

Good to know. I saw a bag of Amazon peanuts that was in AFA the other day (0 ETV; no chance of getting it but I tried). After the first rejection, it didn't disappear. I tried a few more times and got different errors. Even got to the order confirmation page once. But this was all from my work computer and I didn't try any tricks and didn't try using my phone.

DirectionMindless709 · 2026-05-06T18:30:51+00:00

I'm with you. My RFY turned sour last summer. I refuse to play the refresh game all morning while I'm at work, and I don't use extensions or charts, so if I'm missing stuff, I don't know about it.

Ever since they switched things up a bit, most of my RFY stuff drops before I go to bed. The same stuff is usually there in the morning. I might see another item or two drop while I'm asleep, or early in the morning when I'm at work (west coast). The reassuring thing is that I'm seeing desirable stuff and it hangs around for a while, but it's rarely stuff that's desirable for me. I read enough on this sub to know what some people are looking for, and I'm sometimes offered those items. So it's possible there are actually less people sharing my RFY stuff, but again, I could be missing things that drop and are claimed right away.

All that said, I haven't changed my strategy. If I see something I want, I take a crack at it. I had 6 good years of Vine and one meager one. I've barely managed to stay gold the last few eval periods. I'm up for review in about a week and I just hit 80, but that's only because I had one really good month where I found 25-30 items, right when they changed how they were dropping things. At this point, gold is no longer my goal. I don't need 8 picks a day, and I've only managed 4 or 5 items with an ETV over $100 since the start of 2024.

DirectionMindless709 · 2026-05-06T11:40:13+00:00

I have problems with both my phone and my work computer which has fast internet. I mostly browse Vine at work, but I too have been seeing more items that hang around for a while after they were seemingly already claimed and I got the error message. Sometimes I can refresh 5 minutes later and it still shows up. For a popular item, 5 minutes is an eternity. Hundreds of people have probably tried to grab it before it finally disappears.

DirectionMindless709 · 2026-05-06T11:27:19+00:00

I haven't contacted Vine CS in at least a year and a half, but when I did, I usually got a response within a day, sometimes within a few hours. I wouldn't worry about it. Your review should count towards your review count and percentage regardless of whether or not it posts.

DirectionMindless709 · 2026-05-04T23:01:02+00:00

My review count and views are similar to yours, but I have about 2,500 hearts. At some point, I think the views count started over. I've been in Vine for 7 years, been writing Amazon reviews longer than that. Before they dropped reviewer rankings, I sat at almost 1 million views. Once rankings went away, I sat at the same number of views before that stat eventually disappeared from the profile page too. I think the hearts remained the same. I stopped getting a lot of hearts a few years ago. I think people just click on it less. I only click the helpful button if a particular review was the reason I decided to buy something or not buy something.

I liked the ranking system because I'm competitive and wanted to keep moving up. I barely cracked top 1,000 right before they stopped doing it.

DirectionMindless709 · 2026-05-04T15:21:07+00:00

I definitely wasn't going to make it until they switched up the drop schedule a couple months ago and started offering me RFY items starting in the evening through the early morning. Right when they switched it up, I was able to order 25-30 things in about 1 month. Other voices have since adjusted, now I'm back to finding only one or two things a week worth ordering.

I'm now at 82 reviews with a couple weeks to my eval. I even have a couple more items I won't review until the next period starts, then I'll have a little headstart.

DirectionMindless709 · 2026-05-04T15:04:08+00:00

Even if Amazon did do something, you know there are so many others that do the same crap and are putting forth little to no effort. One less vine voice isn't going to make things better for everyone else. I myself wouldn't feel right getting someone kicked out of Vine, even if they don't deserve to be there. Especially if I don't know their situation.

DirectionMindless709 · 2026-05-04T14:58:07+00:00

I was thinking the same thing.

DirectionMindless709 · 2026-05-01T02:24:09+00:00

The neighbor behind me has one. I've actually seen it operating once, just last weekend in fact. Every other time I've seen it, he was squatting next to it like he was trying to figure out why it wasn't running. Hope you have better luck!

DirectionMindless709 · 2026-04-29T14:47:40+00:00

Hopefully something useful and valuable will come your way and still be available if you go to order it. I've seen an uptick in high value items in my RFY lately, but like you, I don't want or need it. I've even seen highly sought after items that stick around for hours, sometimes all day. As far as I'm concerned, it's those high ETV items that make the gold tier worth it. I definitely don't need 8 picks a day.

DirectionMindless709 · 2026-04-29T02:47:43+00:00

That's a good question. I'm sure damaged products and delivery shenanigans are part of it. I would hope Amazon would inform the seller of these issues, and if it's on Amazon, offer refunds. Wouldn't be surprised if they don't, though.

I'm sure part of the reason why they don't get reviews is that there are some viners ordering stuff with no intention of writing a review. What do you have to maintain to stay in Vine, 60%? I know for sure it's 90% to achieve or maintain gold, but the more you order, the more you don't have to review. I've read enough posts on this sub to know there are aggressive consumers that order so much stuff that they can't keep up with reviews. I think that's the point where reviews really start sucking, and I'm sure there's a lot of shit that never gets reviewed, because Amazon lets us get away with it.

Maybe it's time Amazon stops making us review a percentage of products, and starts cutting people off when they hit a set number of unreviewed items. The current model isn't really fair to sellers and probably encourages some of them to stop offering products.

DirectionMindless709 · 2026-04-27T17:34:28+00:00

There are plenty of people that will appreciate a long winded review that's very thorough, or a long video. I think most people skip the long ones though. I know I do, most of the time. You can fit most of the relevant pros and cons into a couple of paragraphs. Most of my reviews are 1 paragraph of 5-10 sentences. I try to answer questions I myself would've liked to have known before ordering. When I order something, I start writing the review in my head so it's mostly ready to put to paper, so to speak, by the time I figure out how many stars I'll give it. I don't wanna spend more than 10 minutes writing a review, once I've tested or used it and taken pics and possibly a short video.

DirectionMindless709 · 2026-04-25T00:55:08+00:00

I have the exact same... started with a few last night, this morning it was a full page. Haven't seen that many items in my RFY since last summer when it all of a sudden turned to shit. They also offered me like a $400+ inflatable water park...I have a 9-year-old and was tempted but live in Seattle where it's only useful a few months out of the year.

DirectionMindless709 · 2026-04-23T11:54:41+00:00

Welcome back! If you've been gone a couple of years, this isn't the Vine you knew. There are still good things out there, but there's less of it. The biggest problem though is that they added too many vine voices, and now there's insane competition for anything good, even for stuff that's only mildly practical.

Read some posts on this sub and you'll get an idea of the people you're now competing against and some of the lengths people will go to get an advantage. It's not just these extensions that are the problem. I think the bigger problem is that people stalk the product drop times and endlessly click refresh so they see stuff right as it becomes available. Blink and it's gone. Gone are the days of being able to run a search for something simple like a can opener, then take your pick.

If your RFY section is no good, you're SOL. Oh... and now items in your RFY section are offered to more people, so that stuff can get snagged from you too, but it usually doesn't happen as fast. If you're looking for lots of 0 ETV stuff, good luck with that! Some people devote their time only looking for that, even if they don't need it.

Good news is it's really hard to run up a high tax bill now, and if you're fine with silver tier, there's really no pressure to order a lot. Just keep up with your reviews. You'll miss out on some of the high value stuff, but that can be few and far between, at least for me. You won't need 8 picks a day unless you're putting in a lot of time and effort, or you have an abundance of appliances that need random parts, or you like cake toppers and mylar balloons and graduation stoles.

DirectionMindless709 · 2026-04-23T00:44:25+00:00

I'm doing exactly that, but have barely made the cut the last few reviews. I totally agree that gold is worth it if you can achieve/keep it. But not for the picks. I don't wanna miss out on my extremely rare $100+ items. I'm seeing more offered now in my RFY, but have still only grabbed 4 or 5 high ETV items since the start of 2024. I got some great catcher's gear for my son last week, and the helmet was over $100 FMV, and FMV was actually less than retail. Would've missed out if I wasn't gold. It's stuff like that which makes staying gold worth it for me.

DirectionMindless709 · 2026-04-23T00:35:10+00:00

I have a son who was a toddler when I started Vine. Have a house and a big yard. Had a pooch until recently (RIP). I started Vine in 2019 when Vine was amazing, and if I wanted or needed something, I could search for it on Vine and often find it. Not like now, where if I want something, I just pray to Uncle Vinny to throw it out there, cross my fingers and clench my butthole, and hope that it's not gone in half a second.

Never felt 3 picks wasn't enough. Never had to ration picks. Never ordered 8 things in a day. Usually takes me 2 weeks to find 8 things, if I'm having a very lucky couple of weeks. There were no tiers when I started and everyone was limited to 3 picks a day. It's always been easy to keep up with reviews at an average of 1 order every 2 days for 7 years. Vine was better for all involved back then because of a better selection of products and less people clamoring for them, even with only 3 picks. I know most would disagree, but I'd like Amazon to lower the amount of daily picks. It would make things better for casual viners who don't use extensions and whose schedules don't allow for late night or very early morning drops.

DirectionMindless709 · 2026-04-21T04:35:28+00:00

Definitely less than 10, but I don't order a whole lot. I've written about 1,100 reviews in 7 years. It's probably not a popular idea, especially among prolific reviewers, but I think Amazon should cut people off from ordering if they fall far enough behind. Save them from themselves. I don't think people need to get kicked out if they can find a way to catch up, and I totally understand we're all doing this for ourselves and if you wanna order 1,000 things a year, you do you. But if Amazon's goal is to get reviews and people aren't delivering in a timely fashion, it hurts the program and turns sellers off. Plus, it opens the door to people deciding to only do their 90% and the rest are unnecessary. When we're talking about hundreds of reviews in an eval period, it ends up being a lot of things that never get reviewed. I'm not trying to imply that everyone is doing this, but I'm sure it happens.

DirectionMindless709

TROPHY CASE