Why yes I have lol. For the volume of students that I have had, it sounds like I have not seen it as much as some of you who have reviewed less.

October especially was a bad month which is when I believe the system was changed somehow intentionally or non-intentionally to not allow GCs for students who went up for voting in the middle of a class. I got super frustrated with it because of all the work I put into being a mentor. So this month I started explaining the program to my students and asking them to not short cut. I explain the hard work we do as mentors and that if they put in the work too it will reap rewards. So far every single one has respected that. I think it has been about 6? Not all of them are done with class as of yet though.

I have even had other students from other mentors ask me how they get to advanced while they were in someones class as if they had no clue that they would become advanced from graduating. So be sure to explain that, because it apparently is not getting communicated as someone mentioned they didn't remember seeing that in the guidelines. None of the mentors here had students who came and asked me btw lol. But maybe that would help...explain that right off the bat in the first message you send them, like I have been doing recently. less

Perhaps the voting should be restricted to mentors? It seems fair as the mentors seem to be the ones setting the standards for what qualifies as a quality review. I think you guys are doing a great job, I learned a lot in a short time. Maybe the voting should be abolished. It seems that the mentor program is the most effective way to ensure that only qualified people are getting through to advanced status.

If a person not willing to put in the time and effort it takes to make it through the program, I don't see why they should advance. It seems counter intuitive. It took me less than 2 weeks to make it through the program because I already had products that I could review. If a person wants to advance at a faster pace, maybe they should invest in a second product to add to their order. This way they can complete the necessary work without having to wait the full month in order to apply for a second sponsored item. less

Perhaps the voting should be restricted to mentors? It seems fair as the mentors seem to be the ones setting the standards for what qualifies as a quality review. I think you guys are doing a great job, I learned a lot in a short time. Maybe the voting should be abolished. It seems that the mentor program is the most effective way to ensure that only qualified people are getting through to advanced status.

If a person not willing to put in the time and effort it takes to make it through the program, I don't see why they should advance. It seems counter intuitive. It took me less than 2 weeks to make it through the program because I already had products that I could review. If a person wants to advance at a faster pace, maybe they should invest in a second product to add to their order. This way they can complete the necessary work without having to wait the full month in order to apply for a second sponsored item. less

I would agree with limiting it to people who are mentors or have the qualifications to become mentors (I think it's people with a rank of 6 or higher?)

Edited to add: I would also support a requirement that only people who've gone through the mentor program and been successfully graduated could qualify as advanced reviewers. less

This is a good possible solution. So is voting only by members of a certain rank, or only by mentors. I also liked that second tier of approval thing, although that makes more work for the staff.

I must admit, after reading various threads on the topic, just dumping the voting entirely sounds like a fine idea to me. I've never really paid any attention to that part of the process before, and when I showed up, the mentor program wasn't available. But looking at the big picture, sort of from the outside, yeah, the voting is in my humble opinion obsolete. less

Well, when I first was here, there was no voting and you had to send them a request actually. People did not go up for voting at all, it was purely a request to the people who worked here, I believe. That was a harder way to do it though, because it probably put a lot of stress on the workers. less

I don't even remember how I moved up to advanced. When my first order arrived open and caused grief (thank you nosy post office), I freaked out and was too chicken to request a free assignment for about a year. (Well, part of that year included me flat on my back after surgery, so I was a little distracted, but still.) Anyway, things like the mentor program evolved while I was MIA, so I'm looking at the whole thing a bit out of order now, and it seems a whole lot more efficient to just have one way to graduate to advanced, rather than two. less

I don't think that this has been asked yet, and I'm pretty sure I know the answer, but I just want to check.

I enjoy being a mentor but it is hard work so I appreciate the gift card we get once we are finished working with a student. I've had multiple reviewers recently become my students as non-advanced reviewers, but during the course of the class request to be voted to advanced and get voted in, so they're advanced before I actually get to graduate them. I'm guessing that when this happens, the mentor does not receive the gift card at the end? Can someone please clear this up? I'm a little confused because they were not advanced when they began the class, but my graduating them is not what's getting them to advanced. less

I feel really bad about being one of the students who did this. I had no idea that I'd become an advanced reviewer after I graduated. I misunderstood and thought I had to apply in order to be considered for graduation. I thought I was writing my reasons for being a good addition to the community to the mentors and employees of Eden Fantasys, not to any and every advanced reviewer. Now that I know about the gift card I feel so bad that I gypped Jul!a. She deserves that gift card. When I first joined her class I thought she was going to help teach me how to choose and use sex toys... she really deserves that gift card. less

Quite honestly, I joined the mentor program to help people who wanted some help with reviews and other things around the site. The gift cards are really just a nice bonus, but I'd still be a mentor even if none of the students netted me a gift card.

And did I miss something and graduating a student automatically nets them an advanced status? Because I don't remember hearing about that but that's what I keep interpreting from the conversation I'm reading here, lol less

Yes, graduating a student gives them advanced status.

And giftcards upon graduation are only given for basic students - not students who are advanced. It's a new rule (From last month maybe?) which is a change from the "All graduated students will net their mentor a $25 giftcard". There is also a limit on how many students a mentor can accept at a time. (I think it was like six a month?) This is to allow other mentors aside from the popular ones to receive students.

If you ask a student to not apply to be graduated and they do after you've accepted them, drop them. It's as simple as that. If someone can't honestly follow a very simple request, there's no reason to keep them as a student. I'd feel disrespected and insulted. However, that's only if you are making everything clear at the start. What the mentor program is, what it does for you, what it does for the student, what they get out of it, and what you expect from the student. My "intro" letter to students is six or seven paragraphs long. And if they don't respond to the intro letter (which most don't, 'cause I have a feeling that's daunting), I just will drop them.

As for my opinion, if it wouldn't be horrible on the coding end, I think there's enough mentors to go around for people to apply into the mentor program to be advanced instead of just being voted in. At one point, there weren't enough mentors, but now we usually have at least 15 mentors hanging around waiting for students at any given time. Again, it's what EF would prefer, but I have a feeling it would be (hopefully) producing better reviewers. If it's not horrid on the coding end, I feel like it'd be worth a try? Especially since netting 5 votes is not really a difficult task anymore. less

Just a question - but with the voting for people to become advanced, has anyone ever been declined advanced??

The way the current system is it appears that everyone & anyone can get though even if their reviews are nothing more than regurgitating the product info page. Am I right? or wrong? in thinking this less