How it works

How BuildDock actually decides what to show you

This page exists because the FAQ's short answer leaves out the mechanics. Here's the real thing, in more detail — including the parts that aren't built yet.

The short version

Every time your bar loads, BuildDock runs a weighted random draw over every eligible project. Projects that have been shown less recently get better odds; projects that have been shown a lot recently get worse odds, temporarily. It's not a fixed rotation and it's not a coin flip — it's somewhere in between, on purpose.

The weighted draw, step by step

For each eligible project, BuildDock counts how many impressions it's received in the last 48 hours — a rolling window, not an all-time total. That count feeds directly into a weight:

All the weights for that moment's eligible projects are added up, and BuildDock rolls a random number against that total — the same idea as a raffle where a less-shown project holds more tickets. Because the 48-hour window is rolling, a project's exposure history isn't a permanent mark against it: impressions age out, and its odds recover on their own as time passes without a new one being added.

What keeps it fair right now

• No immediate repeats. BuildDock remembers, per requesting site, which project it recommended last, and excludes that project from the very next draw.
• Self-exclusion. A member's own site is never recommended its own project.
• Only active members are eligible. A paused or cancelled project is excluded from the draw entirely.
• No self-exclusion, by design. If the network's current global pick happens to be your own project, your own bar shows it too.

What's designed but not built yet

The fuller system BuildDock is building toward adds three things this version doesn't have: synchronized rotation slots shown to every site at the same moment, a dedicated cooldown period, and a contribution-weighted Boost pool. None of that exists yet — we'll update this page the moment any of it ships.

Why this version, and not the full design yet

This is a first, honest version of the scheduler, built on real data with no fabricated numbers. We'd rather ship something real and say exactly what it does than describe a system that doesn't exist yet.