Technical Issues with Kiva.org Website

[Guest]

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[YowieFreak]

Another bug (I assume) that has turned up today:

The "My Credit" page defaults to being sorted in ascending date sequence - "Date / Time (PST)" has an up-arrow next to it.  (https://www.kiva.org/portfolio/credit)

Clicking on the heading switches the sort order ... to ascending date sequence - "Date / Time (PST)" with a down-arrow.  (https://www.kiva.org/portfolio/credit?url=portfolio%2Fcredit&txn_orderBy=create_time&txn_direction=ASC&txn_page=1)

Clicking on the heading yet again switches the sort order to descending date sequence - "Date / Time (PST)" with an up-arrow.  (https://www.kiva.org/portfolio/credit?url=portfolio%2Fcredit&txn_orderBy=create_time&txn_direction=DESC&txn_page=1)

I am somewhat confused as to whether the headings should have up-arrows or down-arrows next to them to signify ascending or descending sequence, but I don't think that's anything new.  What is new is the fact that the default is obviously not what the Kiva engineers expect it to be.

(I wonder how long before someone comments on the fact that there are two possible interpretations of the first sentence of my last paragraph.)

[iampaul]

Not sure if this is just me, but when I sort the loans by expiring soon right now, I'm getting 6 loans that were just posted today coming up before the actual oldest loan for Medardo, Accion USA.

I've noticed other sort order quirks from time to time that I've mostly just ignored. For example, looking at the last loans listed in a Most Recent First sort is often not a perfect reversal of the Expiring Soonest sort. Generally I've attributed this to a number of loans being uploaded within smaller time increments than what are used to establish the sorts. That doesn't appear to be the culprit this time.

Another odder one, to me anyway, is that sorting by Repayment Term also often returns results out of order. At this moment it is placing a seven month loan above a six month loan and another six month loan and another six month loan and another six month loan, and another six month loan, another seven, another six, etc.
 

Paul

[alan]

I am somewhat confused as to whether the headings should have up-arrows or down-arrows next to them to signify ascending or descending sequence, but I don't think that's anything new.  What is new is the fact that the default is obviously not what the Kiva engineers expect it to be.

or

I am somewhat confused as to whether the headings should have up-arrows or down-arrows next to them to signify ascending or descending sequence, but I don't think that's anything new.  What is new is the fact that the default is obviously not what the Kiva engineers expect it to be.

 

I've never thought of you as confused, Ian.

[YowieFreak]

Another odder one, to me anyway, is that sorting by Repayment Term also often returns results out of order. At this moment it is placing a seven month loan above a six month loan and another six month loan and another six month loan and another six month loan, and another six month loan, another seven, another six, etc.
 

I haven't actually gone and checked your specific examples, but my bet is that you are looking at the loan terms (from disbursal date to last repayment date), rather than the term from now until last repayment date - which is what I think the sort is probably using (or, at least, should be using).

[iampaul]

I haven't actually gone and checked your specific examples, but my bet is that you are looking at the loan terms (from disbursal date to last repayment date), rather than the term from now until last repayment date - which is what I think the sort is probably using (or, at least, should be using).

"Repayment Term" is the specific terminology used on both the entrepreneur listings and on the sort pop-up. That is what I used and that is what I believe any Kiva lender would expect to use. I did not look at actual repayment dates.

EDIT: Your theory on that doesn't work either. In the order listed above, the payoff dates are: August, August, September, August, August, August, July, August.

Paul

[YowieFreak]

"Repayment Term" is the specific terminology used on both the entrepreneur listings and on the sort pop-up. That is what I used and that is what I believe any Kiva lender would expect to use. I did not look at actual repayment dates.

EDIT: Your theory on that doesn't work either. In the order listed above, the payoff dates are: August, August, September, August, August, August, July, August.

Paul

Actually, I was thinking of the last payment date rather than the last credit date (so June 17, June 19, July 30, etc) - but even that doesn't work.

I guess I lose the bet - here's your winnings  

P.S.  As a fairly rational Kiva lender, I expect "repayment term" to be one of two things:

• the term from disbursal until the entrepreneur makes the final repayment to the MFI (i.e. the actual term of the entrepreneur's loan)
• the term from "now" (i.e. when I am making a loan) until when the final credit should end up back in my Kiva account (i.e. the actual term of the loan I am making to the MFI)

My guess is that most lenders would be expecting the "Repayment Term" sort to sort things using the second of those definitions.  They would probably also expect that to be the definition used on the entrepreneur page as well, but could probably understand it being the first definition instead - after all, that page is about the entrepreneur and not about the lender.

However, on the entrepreneur page I believe the "repayment term" is calculated as time from disbursal to final credit, rounded to the next higher month - so is therefore a mix of two completely different things and absolutely meaningless.


Edit: the help text confirms my understanding of the weird way that the repayment term is calculated on the entrepreneur page.

[iampaul]

However, on the entrepreneur page I believe the "repayment term" is calculated as time from disbursal to final credit, rounded to the next higher month - so is therefore a mix of two completely different things and absolutely meaningless.


Edit: the help text confirms my understanding of the weird way that the repayment term is calculated on the entrepreneur page.

Wonderful. Well, whatever Kiva decides to use, if they can make a decision about it whether it's a weird way or not, their definition should be consistent throughout the site. The definition in the help file should be the same as the definition in the Sort should be the same as the definition on the entrepreneur page...

Paul

[alan]

Wonderful. Well, whatever Kiva decides to use, if they can make a decision about it whether it's a weird way or not, their definition should be consistent throughout the site. The definition in the help file should be the same as the definition in the Sort should be the same as the definition on the entrepreneur page...

Paul

But consistency would be so boring! 

[David2051]

But consistency would be so boring! 

Don't worry about that, Alan!  Not a chance in the world...   

[YowieFreak]

But consistency would be so boring! 

And consistency would expose things which Kiva is not wanting exposed.  (Like the fact that the actual local repayments [as seen via the API results for each loan] don't match the local repayments shown on the entrepreneur's page - because the ones on the entrepreneur page have been scaled, from a total equal to what the entrepreneur borrowed, up to a total equal to what we have loaned to the MFI.  And, if that was made easily visible, it would destroy the myth that all the monies lent by Kiva lenders go to the entrepreneur.  In reality, the MFI gets to keep some part of the loan in their own coffers and they just repay that part to Kiva lenders if/when the entrepreneur repayments are due back to lenders.  [And, if the entrepreneur defaults, the MFI is able to not bother ever repaying the part still sitting in their own bank account!!])