Fuelly FAQ

Why don't you list everything in order of best fuel economy?

Since all the data on Fuelly is self-reported, we have to be very careful with how we give out incentives on the site, because it is so easily gamed.

So for instance, if we listed the top MPG by user, and someone wanted to be number 1, they could just start uploading a bunch of faked data with more MPG than they actually get. And once people have a way of getting to the top, they can start to exploit that for other means, so a user could sign up with their domain name for a spammy website as their username, then rocket to the top of the best MPG list and then we're all forced to look at CheapBonerPills.com claiming to get 100mpg from a 1977 Lincoln Continental. :)

We're definitely open to ideas on how to reward people (currently we think the "best tank" stars are a good way to do that) but we're also hesitant to do something that would lead to bad, useless data and people gaming the site for their benefit to the detriment of everyone else.
posted on August 31, 2008