Another Idea for Better Auction Feedback
Yesterday I posted some thoughts we’ve had about how we might improve the auction feedback system on the Marketplace. Since then, the development team has done a little more brainstorming and we think we have another good idea.
What if we keep the feedback system the same as it is now, except you don’t get to see the feedback that is left for you until either a) you have left feedback in return, or b) the time limit for leaving feedback has expired?
On the surface, this seems like it would be an effective way of avoiding retaliatory negative feedback, freeing up Marketplace users to be honest and open in the feedback that they leave.
What do you think?
July 18th, 2008 at 7:39 pm 1
Sounds good to me, I would also like to be able to easily remove comments without the whole page reloading, it just took me 2 minutes to remove 5 comments from my auction, with a bit of AJAX so the page does not have to reload it could have been done in 20 second or so.
THanks
July 19th, 2008 at 2:03 am 2
mm that won’t fix the problem cuz it’s not hard to predict what feedback had been left to you if the auction didn’t end up successfully.
July 19th, 2008 at 2:04 am 3
The only problem I see with that is that feedback couldn’t be shown publicly during the period in which the seller is still eligible to leave feedback. So essentially, a rogue seller would have sort of a grace period to keep ripping people off before any of the negative feedback was made public (granted, ripped off parties could still go through official channels to report the bad apple…).
Just something to consider.
Otherwise, that seems like a good way to minimize retaliatory negative feedback and make users more comfortable about the entire feedback process.
July 19th, 2008 at 5:26 am 4
I don’t really like the sound of it. Better if the seller/buyer able to leave feedback anonymously.
July 19th, 2008 at 2:03 pm 5
@SP User, The problem we envisaged with anonymity alone was that people don’t deal frequently enough that it wouldn’t be obvious who left the negative feedback. Although it would in theory be anonymous, in practice it wouldn’t. A system whereby feedback from both parties is published at exactly the same time removes the ability to retaliate.
@Josh, this is our biggest concern with this system. The question is, is delayed feedback better than (potentially) meaningless feedback?
@Tony, if the auction didn’t end successfully and you’re expecting a negative it would suggest that the negative would be justified. Feedback is supposed to be about the ease with which the transaction occurred. If the transaction went badly a negative would be expected.
@James, good point, though perhaps rather than AJAX we can just add checkboxes to the comments to mass delete for now?
July 19th, 2008 at 7:09 pm 6
Ok I have an idea, not sure if it’s going to work for you..
What if the feedback system is actually a reputation score and is calculated automatically. It won’t be people who leave feedback but we need a way the system to recognise which auction has completed successfully. In order to do so you need to incorporate the whole process in the site. When a contest successfully finishes a buyer will have a button to make the payment just like it is now “BIN through PayPal” . That way the system will know for sure whether a payment have been made.
The seller however will have a files depot where he will upload the files and when the payment is complete the buyer will automatically gain access to it.
That way the system can keep track of how the auction goes after it is complete. And automatically leave reputation scores for the buyer and seller.
The problem here is how to manage website auction, domain auctions where you can’t actually upload some files or the payment method is not paypal and so on. I think the above method will work well for templates however.
July 27th, 2008 at 12:24 am 7
@Tony
That doesn’t sound like a feasible system. The far majority of websites I sell on SitePoint are far too large and/or complex to merely upload the site files to an FTP space of sorts. Aside from feasibility, that sort of system wouldn’t even guarantee security for the buyer; the seller could merely upload site files different from those described in the auction. What you’re describing sounds sort of like an automated escrow service–and there’s a reason why no fully computer automated escrow services exist today
July 27th, 2008 at 12:34 am 8
I think SitePoint’s current feedback system would be perfect with the addition of a structured method to dispute feedback left by SP members. If one could plead their case to SitePoint, provide evidence supporting their assertion, and have clearly unjustified feedback removed from their account I would be thoroughly satisfied. Think of it as a PayPal dispute process. It’s generally not that hard to tell if feedback has been left merely in retaliation or is completely unjustified (i.e. this sort of system should not consume excess SitePoint staff hours).