Heads up: ToyHive is in pre-production. Everything here is a test environment — all data will be wiped before we go live.
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Member toy reviews

Let the families who actually borrowed a toy tell everyone else how it went — a star rating, an optional comment, and whether they'd borrow it again.

Turning reviews on

Reviews are off by default. Turn them on per library in Settings → Loans → Member toy reviews. While the setting is off, no review UI appears in the member portal and no star averages show anywhere.

Who can review

Only a household that actually borrowed the toy can review it — a review always traces back to a real loan. A family can review a toy once its loan is returned, or once they've had it at home for at least three days (so an open loan counts too, but a same-day drive-by doesn't). Editing a review updates the one review — it never creates duplicates.

What a review contains

  • Stars (1–5) — required.
  • A comment — optional, up to 1000 characters.
  • "Would you borrow it again?" — a sharper signal than stars for what to buy more of.
  • The child's age — optional, and feeds back into the catalogue's age guidance.

Anonymised by default

Reviews show as "A family from {your library}". A member can opt in to show their household name instead, but children are never named, regardless.

Publish first, moderate after

Reviews publish immediately — there's no queue to staff. Instead:

  • Any member can report a review they think is inappropriate. Reported reviews jump to the top of the review list on the toy's inventory page.
  • Staff with the "Moderate reviews" permission can hide a review (a short reason is required) or unhide it later. A hidden review still shows to its author in their portal history as "hidden by your library", and it's excluded from the star average.

By default the Owner, Manager, Committee and Staff roles can moderate reviews.

Where reviews appear

  • Member catalogue cards and the toy page show the library-local star average and the published reviews.
  • The toy's inventory page (staff) has a Reviews section for reading and moderating.
  • Cross-library star aggregates feed the shared public catalogue once a toy has enough reviews from enough libraries.
  • Comments now also appear on the public catalogue for those well-reviewed toys, anonymised as "Member from {your library}" — never a family's name.

Writing a comment others will see

Because a comment can appear on the public catalogue next to comments from other libraries, review the toy itself, not your specific copy. A note like "great for rainy afternoons" helps every family; "the box in our library is missing a piece" doesn't — that's a job for your own stocktake, and the catalogue team may hide comments that are about one copy rather than the toy.

Privacy & erasure

If a household is erased, its review comment is deleted and the review is forced anonymous, but the star rating is kept (anonymously) so the aggregates stay honest.