What is up with the Feedback Page?

[vesrian]

...and I contend that Btown could go another MONTH without the ITL being fixed and they wouldn't be hurt for it.

I think you've just redirected the pitchfork mob from my house to yours.

I was surprised to see the doomsday phophets chiming in about how the lack of ref posting would be the end of BT. I'm equally surpised that people would be leaving the site over it. The site's up. The trading forums are working. Not being able to add references is inconvenient but it doesn't prevent the site from serving its main purpose.

Someone made an excellent suggestion in another thread. After you've done a successful trade, have the other trader post a thread about you in the good trader forum. Then have each person you trade with after that reply to that thread with a good reference for you. Pop a link to the thread in your sig and you're good to go.

Then when the ITL is back, post refs for all the people who you traded with and ask them to do the same for you.

[npd_bigdaddy]

...and I contend that Btown could go another MONTH without the ITL being fixed and they wouldn't be hurt for it.

I think you've just redirected the pitchfork mob from my house to yours.

I was surprised to see the doomsday phophets chiming in about how the lack of ref posting would be the end of BT. I'm equally surpised that people would be leaving the site over it. The site's up. The trading forums are working. Not being able to add references is inconvenient but it doesn't prevent the site from serving its main purpose.

Someone made an excellent suggestion in another thread. After you've done a successful trade, have the other trader post a thread about you in the good trader forum. Then have each person you trade with after that reply to that thread with a good reference for you. Pop a link to the thread in your sig and you're good to go.

Then when the ITL is back, post refs for all the people who you traded with and ask them to do the same for you.

That's hardly even a bandage at best. Again, that's all coming from established traders. How long would it be until that is abused, and it most certainly could be abused VERY easily........

And at what point to you stop? 200 new Good Trader Threads, 300? How far back are you willing to look for "New Trader Guy X" to see if he's had any positive trades in the last month?

I hardly see that Good Trader thread being a long term solution, or even close to the feedback system as it is now. We have the advantage of being stable traders, being around for a while and being established. Those in the 0-20 trade community do not.

They are going to be doing all the up front work for a while, and not receiving any recognition for their efforts. How long would you keep that up if you were the FNG?

Now I'm not saying soon, but I think that if this isn't nipped in the bud by next month (and that includes the whole month), you're going to see a huge drop-off in posts and trades here, unless it's by the 100+ gangs only.

And the longer the refs are down, the quicker the time's going to come when bad trades are going to start increasing, and/or good trader refs are going to be abused in the good trader section.

It's just a receipe for a disaster waiting to happen the longer it's down..........

Erik

[fitterpete]

Hey MM sorry I hit a sore spot.I dont remember posting "screw bartertown" anywhere or giving the impression that I was POed.I am honestly worried that the bad eggs will somehow take advantage of the refs being down.That if the credibility of the site is comprimised some will think "what have I got to lose?"And sorry, but I keep thinking what if Im in the middle of a trade and the rest goes down? I have actually talked to 3 guys at the last HMGS convention that said they quit Btown after the last crash.I dont know how long it lasted,what happened, or when,{it was before my time} but the fact is Btown lost 3 traders.So dont jump my a$$ for giving my opinion, you have 10 times the rating I do but Im not a 12 year old kid and I didnt break any rules.When the refs come back I will feel safe about trading again till then I dont.Sorry if I seem POed now but I didnt appreciate the sarcasm about the getting me to define "soon" crack.

[JohnHwangBT]

As a BTowner with 100+ rating and low activity, Feedback being down doesn't hurt me. At least, not in the short term.

But if I were a BT n00b with any volume, I'd be mighty annoyed because my Feedback wouldn't be close to tracking where it should be. And I'd be very concerned about people not "catching up" on Feedback when the system does come back.

BT prides itself on its Feedback mechanism. Without a working Feedback system, that's a real problem. You force people off-site or less convenient things like the Good Trader Forum.

Anyhow, I look forward to things running normally again.

[MagickalMemories]

Hey MM sorry I hit a sore spot.I dont remember posting "screw bartertown" anywhere or giving the impression that I was POed.I am honestly worried that the bad eggs will somehow take advantage of the refs being down.That if the credibility of the site is comprimised some will think "what have I got to lose?"And sorry, but I keep thinking what if Im in the middle of a trade and the rest goes down? I have actually talked to 3 guys at the last HMGS convention that said they quit Btown after the last crash.I dont know how long it lasted,what happened, or when,{it was before my time} but the fact is Btown lost 3 traders.So dont jump my a$$ for giving my opinion, you have 10 times the rating I do but Im not a 12 year old kid and I didnt break any rules.When the refs come back I will feel safe about trading again till then I dont.Sorry if I seem POed now but I didnt appreciate the sarcasm about the getting me to define "soon" crack.

First off, please chill for a moment. Read this post without assuming ANY negativity. You've totally gotten the wrong idea and, perhaps, I can clear it up.

Apparently, *I* am the one who hit a sore spot.
Take my word for it... You didn't. You have to make an actual attempt to tick me off before you will. If you don't seem to be doing it on purpose, I give you the benefit of the doubt ("You" in the general sense, not "You" specifically).
I had NO ill will in my posting.
... and still don't, BTW.

FWIW, THIS comment:

"Damned Bartertown! Taking forever to get the feedback portion of their free-for-me-to-use site up & running again! Screw them. I'm leaving and taking my trades with me!"

Wasn't meant with negativity, either. Just my standard brand of playful straightforwardness.
Okay... and some sarcasm... but playful -not mean- sarcasm.

I didn't jump yout @ss. I simply disagreed and pointed out where I thought you were exaggerating. I still think those two points WERE an exaggeration. Like I said earlier, though, I *DO* agree that the feedback system getting fixed is priority 1.

Also, please keep in mind that you brought the rating difference into it. I may have 10x the rating that you do, but that doesn't make my opinion worth anything more than yours. Well... It IS worth more to me, but that's the nature of opinions. It's just like your own opinion being worth more to you than... mine, for instance. Still, though, that has NOTHING to do with ratings, post count, or length of BTown history, IMO. I don't even bring those into my thought process and paid NO attention to them in responding to you.

Im not a 12 year old kid and I didnt break any rules.

I never thought of or treated you like one. I simply disagreed. My was meant in the same way I would do it in person. Yes. I would have ed at those two comments in person. The difference being that you'd have been able to hear the "tone" of my words better. Also, I never accused you of breaking any rules OR saying "Screw Bartertown."

Lastly, there was no sarcasm in getting you to define "soon." I was being literal. Just about every post was agreeing with you (I'll make another point about this in a moment but, for now...). It also seemed to me as if they all thought I disagreed 100%. My post was to point out where I disagreed and why. The part about defining "soon" was so that we could all be on the same page. If MY soon is a week or two and Yours/THEIRS is a couple MONTHS, then we have a communication gap. Clearing up the meaning of "soon" clears that gap.

As for the "point" I mentioned a moment ago; Just about everyone who was agreeing with you and, to a degree, disagreeing with me is someone who I kind of consider a "Bud." They're people who I'd make an EFFORT to meet up with in person if we ever found ourselves at the same event. My point? THEY were in disagreement with me (again -- to a degree), as well. I don't hold it against them. I'm married. I'm used to people not agreeing with me. LOL

So, hopefully, this clears it up.
I still find those two points able, but now you understand the nature of the better.

I really WOULD like to know what you meant by "soon," as well.

Eric

[flagg07]

I'd be interested to know if the sites traffic has slowed down because of the ITL. I doubt it, but only hard numbers can prove it one way or another and I'm in no position to get that info. I do understand people's concern about the ITL. Especially since it was last reported at 99% done and would be implemented several weeks ago. Even if there is a bit less traffic, this does not really effect my trades because I have established myself a bit.

Fortunately, Bartertown has some redundant systems built in which seems to be just as good as the ITL in every aspect except not adding to the overall Trader Rating.

1) ITL is still there for all trades prior to the switch. Chances are, an established Trader (50+?) will continue to operate per the Feedback they've already received. If for some reason they do turn rogue, the ITL likely wouldn't help you avoid a scam anyway. "How's that?" you ask. BTR's often have several weeks, 3-4 seems to be the accepted length, before being posted and the Negative Feedback takes even longer for people to leave for several reasons... 1) worry about Retaliatory Feedback, 2) Hoping to still get their stuff and 3) Change of heart once they get their stuff.. NEG refs take a while to impact the ITL (TDZ comes to mind). The system has not been down long enough to have an impact on this, yet...

2) Bad Trader Forum- The BTR threads are the most up to date info on scammers and bad traders available to members of the site. This is generally the first step before the NEG ref is left in order to give the trader an opportunity to correct the situation. Since BTRs don't mean an automatic Negative reference, the BTR forum is the most up to date info you can get on traders who are not following through 100%, or are flat out scamming.

3) Good Tader Forum- If making your own personal/ private list of completed trades does not suit your needs, open a GTR as many traders have already done. List all the tradeers you have completed and ask that the other parties reply in that thread to confirm your report. Add to that single thread as you complete trades. Your rating = # of trades confirmed X2. Pretty easy and a decent enough way to figure out who should be sending first, especially between junior traders.

To me the ITL is good because it shows our trade ratings and what can be expected of prospective traders, but it is not mandatory to conduct safe trading. We knew there would be bugs when the switch got flipped. We just need to deal with what we've got until, the powers that be are able to get it fixed. I would like more commo as much as everyone else though...

[carmachu]

Any timetable on when the feedback will be back up? While I have a few of my rating or higher that it wont really matter to, I also have some under 20/50 ratings that I want to make sure get good refs to.

[JohnHwangBT]

And at what point to you stop? 200 new Good Trader Threads, 300? How far back are you willing to look for "New Trader Guy X" to see if he's had any positive trades in the last month?

At some point, I think people are going to have to start linking to the individual Good threads in their signatures, just to keep them findable for their prospective trade partners.

[vesrian]

And at what point to you stop? 200 new Good Trader Threads, 300? How far back are you willing to look for "New Trader Guy X" to see if he's had any positive trades in the last month?

At some point, I think people are going to have to start linking to the individual Good threads in their signatures, just to keep them findable for their prospective trade partners.

That's kindof what i said in my post above. But if they ask trade partners to reply with a ref to the existing thread rather than making a new thread, there'll only be one link to put in the sig. You click the link and see a list of good refs for the person. It's the poor man's ITL. No it's not perfect, but it gives people a way of showing that they've had good trades with other users. I think it's a reasonable thing to do until ref posting gets fixed.

[MagickalMemories]

Emailed Lin and received the following response.
Email was dated 9/7/2008 with a time stamp of 6:55 PM Central.

Adam will be posting the rebooted ITL tonight. He was having trouble with the "send a PM when a reference is posted" thing and decided to scrap it for the time being. This information is current as of ~2 hours ago when we spoke.

Eric

[JohnHwangBT]

Eric:

Can you (or some other mod) sticky this, along with the Lin's note on the ITL?

Thanks!

[MagickalMemories]

Eric:

Can you (or some other mod) sticky this, along with the Lin's note on the ITL?

Thanks!

I'm not a Mod, so I don't have "sticky" abilities. In fact, I'm not totally sure if anyone but Administrators do.

That being said, there is a more recent thread on the topic:

viewtopic.php?f=40&t=71691

I've been pointing members there when these older threads pop back up, and locking them.
The other one, unfortunately, isn't much more informative, but it WAS started by Lin, himself, at least.

L8r )

Eric