Detecting low-rating alerts
Written by Elena David, SEO, ORM, and AI Visibility Consultant.
An alert is a valid current review that is both newly observed and at or below the selected maximum alert rating. Reviews already identified in the previous snapshot are not flagged again.
Default rule
The default maximum_rating is 2. The analyzer applies this comparison:
review.rating <= maximum_ratingWith the default, newly detected ratings 1 and 2 qualify. Ratings 3, 4, and 5 do not.
The supplied new reviews are:
| Review ID | Rating | New? | Default alert? |
|---|---|---|---|
REV-016 |
1 | Yes | Yes |
REV-017 |
4 | Yes | No |
REV-018 |
2 | Yes | Yes |
Existing low-rating records such as REV-003, REV-007, and REV-013 are counted in the analyzer's all_current_low_rating_reviews collection but are not written to the current reports. Only new_low_rating_reviews becomes report output.
Change the alert rating
The Streamlit slider label reflects its current value. At the default it reads:
> Alert me about new reviews rated 2 stars or less
The text beneath it explains: Choose which ratings should trigger an alert when new reviews are detected. Moving the slider changes the maximum rating that triggers an alert. For example, selecting 3 includes newly detected 1-, 2-, and 3-star reviews.
The command-line equivalent for selecting only new 1-star reviews is:
Select only new 1-star reviews:
reputation-monitor --maximum-rating 1The CLI accepts whole numbers 1 through 5. argparse rejects other values before analysis.
Generated alert labels
The selected maximum alert rating appears in both generated formats. The CSV reason lists every qualifying rating, and the HTML heading describes the same range.
| Threshold | CSV reason | HTML heading |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | New review rated 1 star |
New 1-star review alerts |
| 2 | New review rated 1 or 2 stars |
New 1- and 2-star review alerts |
| 3 | New review rated 1, 2, or 3 stars |
New review alerts for ratings of 1, 2, or 3 stars |
| 5 | New review rated 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 stars |
New review alerts for ratings of 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 stars |
What the rule does not determine
The application does not inspect review language or context. It does not classify sentiment, urgency, fraud, defamation, patient safety, or medical significance. A rating threshold is a triage rule: it identifies records for human review.
It also does not notify a person. An “alert” is a row written to a file and displayed in the HTML report.
Recommended verification
After each run:
- Record the threshold used.
- Check the terminal's new-review and new-alert counts.
- Confirm every alert rating is less than or equal to the intended threshold.
- Confirm every alert ID was absent from the previous valid records.
- Review malformed-row warnings before interpreting counts.
See CSV alerts for the export schema and Understanding monitoring reports for the HTML presentation.