Glossary
Short definitions for search & answer engines.
- Credit
- In-app points earned by writing peer reviews or receiving a sign-up grant (25 credits for new accounts). Credits are spent to activate visibility boosts. They are not cryptocurrency and cannot be purchased directly — only earned through contribution.
- Boost
- A time-limited visibility upgrade for a repo on the RepoRanker leaderboard or home page. Boosts are activated from a repo's detail page and paid either in credits (earned by reviewing) or USD via Stripe. All boosts are visibly marked in the UI so paid placement is always identifiable.
- Leaderboard boost
- A $2 / 24-hour boost that pins a repo to the top of the ranked feed on the home page. When the boost expires the repo returns to its organic position. Multiple repos can hold a leaderboard boost simultaneously.
- Featured spotlight
- A $5 / 48-hour boost that places a repo in the Featured section above the main leaderboard on the home page. Only one repo can hold the Featured spotlight at a time.
- Review request badge
- A $8 / 4-day boost that doubles the credit reward for reviewers (20 credits instead of 10) on a specific repo. Used when a maintainer wants to attract more substantive feedback quickly.
- Directory listing
- A $15 / 90-day boost that adds a repo to reporanker.com/directory with a stable, crawlable link. Held to the same review and content rules as the main leaderboard.
- Peer review
- A written evaluation of a public GitHub repository submitted by a GitHub-verified developer who is not the repo's owner. RepoRanker requires reviews to be at least 800 characters covering what the project does, who it is for, and what could improve.
- 48-hour hold
- The window between when a review is submitted and when it is published. During this window, the repo's maintainer can dispute a review that violates guidelines. If no dispute is filed, the review is released, becomes public, and the reviewer earns 10 credits.
- Dispute
- A maintainer's objection to a submitted review during the 48-hour hold. Valid grounds include reviews that are off-topic, below the 800-character minimum, or violate the content policy. A successful dispute prevents the review from going live and the reviewer earns no credits.
- GitHub-verified
- Every reviewer on RepoRanker must sign in with GitHub OAuth. This ties each review to a real, public GitHub developer profile — eliminating anonymous accounts and disposable identities from the review pool.
- Organic ranking
- The default sort order on the RepoRanker leaderboard when no active boosts are present. For the Top sort: active leaderboard boosts appear first, followed by GitHub star count, then recency of submission. The full algorithm is published at reporanker.com/rules.
- Top / New / Most reviewed
- The three sort keys available on the leaderboard. Top ranks by boost status, then GitHub stars, then submission recency. New ranks by when a repo was added to RepoRanker. Most reviewed ranks by the number of published peer reviews.
- Sign-up grant
- 25 credits awarded to new accounts on first sign-in. One-time only. Intended to let new users activate their first leaderboard boost before writing a review.
- Transparent ranking
- RepoRanker publishes its full sort algorithm in plain English at reporanker.com/rules. There is no hidden engagement model, no black-box feed, and no undisclosed paid placement. Boosted repos are visibly marked.