Taking Feedback/Suggestions for Service Reviews

Posted 5 years, 5 months ago by admin

New reviews/feedback feature?

289 Votes Replace the Service Reviews forum with a new Reviews feature. It'd be easier to use and will help cut down on drama.
220 Votes Don't need a new Reviews feature, it'll be overly intrusive. Just keep the Service Reviews forum.
93 Votes Remove the Service Reviews forum and don't replace it with anything, it's harmful and PSAs should stay in bulletins.
43 Votes Other

I've been looking over this forum recently and it's not really what I imagined when I first put it up... I do like the idea of a public space for transparent discussion of business transactions, but it feels counter-intuitive (eg. not everyone'll check for a PSA before doing business with a user) and at times overly hostile and personal. 

I originally got the idea for a reviews forum from BJD trading forums, where negative reviews are just a thread you make when you receive substandard service or products from a user (or don't receive it at all), and they were more like small posts about single transactions, rather than big compilations of evidence about why the viewer shouldn't do business with so and so. I think it'd be healthy to try moving towards a model where users feel comfortable just commenting on individual good or bad experiences you've had without having to make a case against a user's character. If a user has a large quantity of a certain type of review from a bunch of people, a viewer can more or less imagine what working with them would be like and draw conclusions from there, and it prevents the responsibility of managing a large PSA from falling onto a single individual. 

To that end, I'm currently fiddling with the idea of replacing the reviews forum with a reviews feature attached instead to each individual user's page, where users can leave reviews and comments. This would be intended to be a replacement for the Service Reviews forum. It has some upsides and downsides, so I wanted to hear everyone's thoughts. 


Basic outline of the feature:

  • When posting in the commerce section (Art Marketplace, Design Marketplace, Adoption Center), or when sending a PM, a user's review ratio is shown next to their username badge (this would be a percentage, 0% for all negative reviews, 100% for all positive reviews). This links to their reviews page.  
  • Any user (blocked or not) can leave positive or negative feedback. 
    • All reviews have to be directly relevant to a single business transaction (maximum of one review per business transaction). Some form of proof has to be provided (eg. a link to the completed product / traded character, or a link to a thread, or screenshot of the transaction or receipt).
    • Only the reviewer and the reviewee can reply to each review, but all replies are publicly viewable. 
    • Reviews can be deleted, closed, or edited by the user who posted the review.
Pros:
  • I feel like it makes more sense than PSAs; it's immediately visible as a warning when doing business with a user, but also doesn't bring additional outside attention to the matter like PSAs do, which can lead to witch hunts or harassment. 
  • Easier to browse feedback attached to a specific user (instead of having to search the Reviews forum), and encourages independent users to come forward with their own feedback, rather than having a single person take on the responsibility of collating a large PSA. 
  • Would encourage people to leave positive reviews which is nice... positivity is good...
Cons:
  • Wouldn't support off-site users.
  • I'm not sure if having a rating attached to an account would make people uncomfortable; this is the reason I specifically don't want it visible as part of a user's profile page, and want to keep it to specific areas of the site. I understand that it could create stress for users who don't want to see it, but being able to turn off the feature defeats the point of having it at all, since people with poor reviews could just turn it off. 
    • There could be an option to hide ratings from the site so you don't have to see or think about them, but other users would still be able to see your rating? 

Regarding Moderation:

I've received some requests lately for reviews/PSAs to be more strictly moderated, which I imagine will also apply to any new review feature, so regardless of outcome, I'll be looking at revising the rules for reviews.

From the threads I've reviewed, the main issue seems to be people who present one business transaction with evidence, then use it to piggyback irrelevant accusations, such as personal disagreements, proof-less transactions, or speculation. This is toeing the line on breaking the rules, so I'll be adding another clause clarifying that every section/paragraph of any PSA must be directly relevant to a business dispute with proof, and not just arbitrarily tacked onto the end of a PSA. 

If you'd like to see additional moderation for PSAs or reviews, please suggest any additional rules you think would help improve the quality of the forum (or any future features we may add). 


Please do chip in with any thoughts or suggestions, either via the thread or by filing a ticket if you're not comfortable speaking in public. Thanks as always for your patience and help. 

January

Have to agree with filthdipper here.

A minor amount of misuse exists with any feature, and the Service Reviews forum is no different. People are quick to decry an inappropriate PSA anyway, so in a way this section of the forums is fairly effective at policing itself. If the way submissions are handled (currently with zero moderation) is the root of the problem, then it would make sense to have a team (whether to create a new team or assign extra jobs to the admin team is up to the admins) whose only job is to review submissions and vet them for the various issues that plague the smaller portion of PSAs here, that is to say, excessively personal commentary against someone, real names and personal information that isn't already public, whether or not the review actually concerns a business transaction, and so forth.

Most of the criteria has already been covered in the rules of the service review forum, to be honest. It's a matter of enforcing it more effectively.

mothgf

Gotta agree with January, if the rules were enforced more effectively, then everything would be gucci.

FreeFallingUp13

If blocked and unblocked users alike can make reviews, then there's a possibility of people sabotaging others maliciously with doctored screenshots. And there is a huge possibility of unsavory users attacking those who leave negative reviews, since those are public, and view-able without an account, I'm assuming. People have block-evaded by signing out of the site and/or using a different device. This also puts more pressure on every individual user to leave a review, somewhat like ebay. This IS an obtrusive practice on ebay, with sellers basically begging users to give them full 5 star reviews because "it could hurt their score" etc. etc.

I voted on the poll before reading the forum, but I actually agree with everybody else on here saying that the forum itself seems to be more effective. While there is drama, it allows several people to collaborate and post the service review and other abusive or manipulative behaviors associated with the services. Plus, people can react in the comments to discuss and ask questions about specifics.

PicklePantry

I feel like that new system of individual ratings will be abused very quickly. For Amazon that system is fine because of how huge it and the amount of users using it, but Toyhouse is an incredibly small community where people will be more inclined to vote out of personal feelings instead of how their transaction went. We have these past few PSAs as example. The addition of letting blocked users leave their own review leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

SquidsInTheAttic

I'm on board with everyone so far.  I really don't like the idea of having a rating next to my name.  I find the idea alone anxiety inducing and would likely drop out of the community side of toyhouse and use the site solely for storage.

More moderation and enforcement of the rules seem more the way to go.

Trowa

From what i've seen, people are pretty decent with policing when posted forums are either toeing the line or just blatantly a personal issue and not a business issue.

I have to agree with the people that have spoken about just needing a better enforcement or a review system before posting. Just like before a thread can be posted on the forums, it has to go through a review by staff. Which means we have less people hastily throwing stuff together and having to go back and edit 6 or 7 times for accuracy when they should have done it the first time. The amount of boards where they start out "i just threw this together real quick so forgive me for errors! i'll fix them later" is kinda bogus but i imagine with just a review system, even that can be cleaned up.

ChickieDee

I'm gonna put my two cents in and say no to this as well, for the reasons of it being a highly abusable system.

I want to spitball here and maybe instead there can be a system of pre-review before a PSA goes live? Like once the user submits it, instead of immediately posting, it gets reviewed, and if it follows the PSA etiquette, THEN release it to the forum?

Of course, I have no idea about running a site or what kind of coding/time this would take, so this is totally just an idea to throw out in there. But I really think the ratings system is an idea which, as of how it's being pitched right now, is so, so, SO easy to take advantage of.

Taebasco

I agree with everyone above about this point system in the end being abused and having a negative impact on the community/forums as a whole. 

Also agree with the need to just enforce the rules on those especially who comment and add nothing to the PSA but accusations with no proof and speculation . As well as reviewing a PSA to avoid those who slap one quickly together (some times not even posting any proof or screen shots just 'this user did this and I'll eventually post proof' and also the Bewares that become personal or have nothing to do with some sort of exchange/ transaction 

KnightOfSpring

Oof, yeah, I gotta agree with the others here and say no as well. While I am not that active in forums(or this subforum specifically) I lurk a lot and my anxiety would just make me stop using the forum all together if this rating thing is going to be implemented. exactly because of favoritism etc. how the others already have mentioned. I personally prefer the collected threads though instead of each victim making their own post, it gets cluttered after some point and hard to see how far things reach with a specific person otherwise.

I support the idea of wicked to have a specific subforum with threads that need to be approved first(though that might mean an extra strain of work for you with seeing how many PSA's are out there already). I remember on another forum that was based around gaming that the mods had specific forms to be filled out so it's easier to read and get what the thread was about...maybe make a guideline thread that includes some sort of form and if not edited like it it won't be approved or something?