Dissappointed With New Site.....attn Bill Weiss!

Don....I disagree with the hidden names.
If you are willing to denounce someone auctions....you should stand behind it.
WITH YOUR NAME....not your user id.

Kevin,

Even though the reporter's name may not be visible, the site admins know who it is, hence you are standing behind your opinion.

Don has also mentioned that they will not allow members with an axe to grind.

I agree that not everyone wants their name out in public regarding stamps, however they are free to do so. Remember that reporters are giving an opinion, and flaming sellers is not allowed. The results will speak for themselves over time.

Also "denounce" is not the purpose, education is. If the seller continues to ignore advice and lists auctions that are wrong (or deliberately misleading in order to scam buyers), then they will be found out eventually as more people become aware of the site.

Everybody should have the right to know their accuser. I think that is fair.

Of course, when you think about it, most sellers are also using a username that is not their legal name. Many times, their legal name is not revealed anywhere in their listings or their online store. Some even use pseudo-names when corresponding. When I was active at another auction site, I would on occasion PM a seller regarding incorrect or dubious listings. Many of them I only knew by username, having no idea who they actually were. Some replied with their full names, some replied without revealing name or actual name, some didn't bother to reply at all.

Sellers often don't publicly reveal their legal names until after a sale. While I agree in principle that a person should have the right to know their accuser, it seems a bit unreasonable in the case where the accused won't publicly reveal their name either under normal situations.

Not taking sides here, just saying the internet is what it is.

Back to the point that the site is not about accusing anybody. If it were, I would agree that real name should be used all around (starting with the seller).

There have been cases where a vindictive seller will go out of his/her way to flame/harrass a person reporting (the reporter used real name, seller did not). Don't need that headache.

I think the site is a good thing, and will serve the stamp community well. I am fully supportive of its activities.

While it may not be the intention of the site to accuse anybody, the reality of any such site is that anybody who gets listed without responding favorably will in essence be tried and convicted by many users of the site. While I am not a seller on ebay, I can understand how even legitimate sellers might have a problem with that.

I recognize the legal need to protect the site from libel. But the site seems geared to searching out problem sellers without regards to good sellers. I don't expect to see any listings of items that were described with exceptional accuracy. In other words, it's not an evaluation site, but an investigative and public documenting site. Very useful, especially if the seller responds favorably about the problem listing. But it is also pretty clear what the end result most of the time will be. One can keep saying the site is not directly accusing anybody. But even my reaction the first time I visited the site was: here is a site that points out bad sellers, how useful. But I can foresee that more than a few sellers may suffer a fate worse than simply being accused. Granted, many of them likely will deserve that.

I guess in this day and age, it's part of doing business on the internet.

P.S. -- Don, I hope your wife is doing much better!

What difference doe it make knowing a sellers real name or buyers real name? Its the internet where even if someone's handle is John Brown everyone assumes it's a handle and not a real name. I agree with the comment above that it is not so much a crucifixion but an attempt to bring dodgy sellers to the forefront and educate buyers.

i think buyers are hiding in the battlefield and laughing at sellers with the shenanigans the buyers pull on sellers.

you should give sellers equal time in the form of a guest book where sellers can list dodgy buyers and people can look through a search engine to see if their flimflam man has been active, prospective sellers could look up names and see if there was a problem before they mail out valuable items just to get dinged by the buyer with lousy feedback. ha what a hoot that would be. not to worry I won't hold anyone to doing anything getting burnt on ebay is just something you prepare for because you know each and every auction you sell on can turn around and bite you on the whowhobadoo. ha lol

Personally I don't like the site. It looks like some of the " reporters " have been going through sellers that they don't like listings and reporting items for very minor faults which are clearly visible on the scan,

Pagoda

This very forum does not force users to post their real names, and this very forum has many posts where people have taken issue with specific sellers (and buyers). I may be wrong but I do not recall anyone raising the same issue here. That said, there is one forum that I am aware of that actually stepped over the line (IMO) and ferreted out a seller by posting his real name and address while those who did the 'detective work' remained unidentified.

We have done everything possible to prevent this site from becoming a tool to be critical of sellers. It is about listings, not sellers. It is about members reviewing listings and offering their opinions in them. Any trends that might arise concerning a seller is left up to the user to determine, we feel that users are capable of making their own buying decisions and that we are only providing them with another tool to be better informed.

Could someone go 'rouge' and try to influence those trends? Possible but we have put in safe guards and will be watching for such nonsense. And frankly anyone can run around the various forums and web site and launch a negative campaign against a seller.

For whatever reasons many seem to also be ignoring the fact that we proactively work with sellers and try improve listing before a sale. While this is time consuming we still felt it important to do what we could in helping the hobby have better transactions. It is my opinion that providing a free service like this will benefit everyone. What quality seller would not want to be asked about possible confusions in their listing? Who would rather deal with returns and the fall out of an unhappy customer? We have also added the ability for a seller to supply their own opinion or side or the coin. They can even do this 'historically, or in other words well after the listing/review has aged.

We have had three types of sellers responses so far. First are those who are interested in improving any misunderstanding about their listings. The next kind are those who do not agree with the review but remain professional in standing behind the listing as they wrote it. And lastly those respond in a very unprofessional way. But note that we do not 'out' those sellers who act unprofessionally; because this is not about sellers, it is about listings. We have gotten seller responses that simply tell us to go &$*#@ off but we do NOT add this kind of reply to the review. Instead we simply say 'seller was not willing to change the listing'.

Pagoda, I understand your concern. The site does not current have enough reviews from enough different reviewers to become statistically significant. But how is this any different than hundreds of other examples where people provide a review of a good or service? Every day millions of online users make purchasing decisions, some based upon things like reviews or feedback scores. Is it not obvious to most that only having a handful of reviews is not going to provide a balanced picture? The key here is to build a good amount of reviews, I simply do not know how to do this with starting somewhere. Seems unfair to me to not give us time to build this site into what it can be; it is like finding fault with a new forum when viewing the first 50 posts.

I am certainly willing to listen to all constructive criticism on the site. But it also seems unfair to pin concerns like forcing members to use their real names on it when the entire internet does not work this way. Folks can choose to ignore all the safeguards, site verbiage, and attempts to keep the site educational in its intent. But please note that we have prepared for those who might try to use the site for their own purposes and agendas and are committed to preventing this from happening.

LarryBruce, I understand your recent frustration but how could one review a buyer? I do not see how it would work; we could not use things like r****h to try identify them. First, we don't know for sure that the r****h isn't assigned to multiple buyers nor are we sure that ebay can/would randomly change these.

Regards
Don

Don....
I am basing my comments on what Bill W stated previously....that a MEMBER would use their name.

As a seller.....would you want to get a email from Mr. Joe Knowitall stating...fake (or whatever is wrong)....
no name, no reasoning, nothing.....answer NO.
Hiding behind a alias when posting something to the net is common....yes
BUT...when you design a site for this purpose you should man up.
My opinion....

Remember the days when certs were signed on the bottom by the reviewers....
They are held accountable for the decisions. They signed it with their name....
not a screen name.
I use Bill W for his Expertizing Service.....WHY??? Because he
signs his NAME to it. He is stating what he believes to be true.
I applaud Bill for this....he is the ONLY US Expertized doing so.
CLAP-CLAP-CLAP.
Again....my opinion.

Kevin,
Understood, sorry there was a misunderstanding. But the rules never, ever, said that was the case. And the fact that you started this thread and made allegations that we had violated our own rules kind of frosted me. But my frustration is not important. For me it boils down to which is worse for the hobby; the possibility that someone might enter an incorrect review vs. the possibility that a buyer (especially a new hobbyist) might have a bad online transaction?

To be honest and in my opinion the chances that our hobby is being damaged by bad transactions far exceeds the potential that someone might post an occasional bad review. In other words, it seems to me the education for the betterment of philately trumps a few bad apples. I have had several negative comments and frankly most are from highly experienced hobbyists. One has even told me, 'I had to learn the hard way, caveat emptor, new hobbyists should just suck it up'. I find this attitude appalling and a possible contributor as to why our hobby is not thriving. New hobbyists use this medium, it behooves us all to do what we can to facilitate their entry into this great hobby.

I am failing to understand the lack of tolerance. On the one hand several people seem very concerned about fairness yet they pass judgments before we have even had the chance to get up and running. If someone said they were going to hang a big sign around their neck, stand on the street corner, and promote stamp collecting; I might not believe that they stand a good chance at helping the hobby. But what would be the value of me posting threads and negative comments about it? I could easily make a thread saying, 'hey this is bad thing for the hobby, people will think that philatelists are crack pots standing on the street corner like that'.

Philately will be better served if we did not make rush judgments, resist making assumptions about other's people's intentions, and keep in mind that anything we can do to help new hobbyists is a 'good' thing. We are committed to making this work and keeping the reviews as clean as possible. We are quite sure that it will be far better than the lame feedback approach that ebay has (which limits feedback to a few words and serves neither the buyer or the seller well). And we are proud that Members own the data and the site, that we are not asking for their time and contributions only to run off with the data/traffic for our own purposes.
Don

Don,
We need this. Thanks
Pat

Everyone must remember the bottom line. What Don says is that this is not in anyway about the review of the seller, but simply to educate buyers about sellers who have bad listing practices.

A jerk reviewer is a different mindset than someone who would go to Stamp Smart and list a warning about a listing.

BUT... This does open another interesting question about "revenge listing warnings". Just because a buyer does not like a particular seller, a "jerk buyer" could flood Stamp Smart with complaints about a seller's listings, when in reality the seller's listings are just fine. Hopefully these occurrences would be few, but even once can be hurtful to a good seller.


-IBFS

Don, totally agree that we need this. I would not be surprised if it grows into something big/well used.

So many times I have wanted to say something about a listing (to the buyers/bidders/seller), but hesitated sending a comment, thinking that the seller already has good bids, why would they listen to me, or post my comment saying it was an obvious fake/forgery,etc?

Since buyer IDs are now secret, we can't contact them through My Messages anymore.

PS: Keep in mind that the majority of those that agree it is a good thing do not bother to post. Don't be discouraged at all.

I'm sure in ebay's thought process they saw the ability for a bidder to scare off the other bidders to obtain an item for cheap.