Does the Beer Trading Feedback System work? Improvements?

My only complaint is that there is no way to drop/remove old outstanding open feedback. I have four trades waiting on the other person's feedback dating as far back as November 2013.

Otherwise, I think the feedback system works well, and I'm curious why users feel like they can't rely on it.

 

Well, if I am reading the same things you are I think people are upset about negative feedback being used as leverage to get a box. The wronged user promises to edit the feedback and make it positive if their box shows up which helps them get the beer they are out but doesn't help future traders know about a potential lazy/bad trader. I can see both sides of this issue (sort of hard to fault a person for doing everything in their power to get what they are owed) and not sure what a clean solution is.

My own small complaint is how some people don't seem to follow through with feedback. This results in me having 3 "open" trades (minimum) at all times when in fact those people have gotten their box a while ago and just cant or wont leave feedback. I don't care too much except now users seem to be gauging their willingness to trade based on how many open trades you have.... (yes, I have had one person say they would prefer to hold off on our trade until I wasn't so "busy"...) In another thread a BA user innocently suggested the idea that traders with X amount of open trades should be blocked from opening more trades until they have closed out previous ones which is troubling for a few reasons.

Not sure what the solution there even is... or what the software could even support. Possibly a pop up reminder telling traders to leave feedback?

(edit: started typing my longwinded response before @pmoney posted but interesting to see the overlap after hitting post)

 

I think one possible point of improvement may be the wording on the options when you leave feedback. IIRC (don't have an open trade right now to check) the "Good" option says something like "Were all expectations met?". If people interpret that as "Did I get the beer I was promised?" then they may think they should leave Good feedback even if it took six months and a SEAL team raid to make it finally happen. Adding an additional bit of text to the prompt like "Did the person ship or show up when they said they would?" might help with this.

 

The issue I've seen raised is that the feedback system is unreliable because most people seem to be SO reticent about leaving anything other than glowing feedback. This results in a situation where basically everyone has 100% positive feedback, until they rip someone off and a bad trader thread gets started, then people come out of the woodwork saying, "yeah, he was a month late with my box too, but he ended up coming through so I left good feedback."

That said, I have no idea what the site could do to fix that. Even if they come through eventually, a slow/unresponsive/poor communicating trader should get neutral feedback (and maybe even bad feedback depending on the particulars), but mods can't force people to leave appropriate feedback. The tools are there, people just need to use them.

Just brainstorming, but one possible fix I could imagine would be to allow a 1-10 rating of the trade instead of just good/neutral/bad. I think a lot of people see even a neutral rating as harsh that would damage a trader's "perfect" rating. Perhaps traders would be more likely to give someone, say, a 7 or 8 out of 10 if a trade had issues but wasn't a total rip off. That still feels like a decent score but shows that not everything was perfect. Good traders will continue to largely rack up 9s and 10s, and the not so good ones might eventually see their ratings dip into the 70 and 80 percent range.

 

I think a 1-10 scale gets confusing and different people will have different definitions. I would rather see a binary option - would you trade with this person again? Yes or no.

 

I understand how some individuals would promise a putative "bad trader" to edit bad feedback to positive if they send in the beer they had promised. I think one good fix would be to put categorizes that you can check off under good feedback/neutral feedback/negative feedback.

So you would have a box you could check off for positive things like: (X) Sent beer on time, (X) Good Communication, (X) Solid Packaging,

Or on the flipside you could also have negative things you could check off: (X) Late to ship beer, (X) Spotty Communication, (X) Beer Missing

The positive wording is probably better, but this way you can get more information about the trader in question (ie...ships late, or goes off the grid often) rather than raving reviews on each trade.

 

The feedback system is fine. Let's not complicate it.

If a person didn't ship what was agreed upon or the package is weeks late, I hope the trading partner leaves a review stating that.

 

Is there some value in looking at how eBay does feedback? Our trading is a two way transaction. Long ago eBay was setup this way and has manifested to be more focused on feedback about the seller. We still need feedback supporting a two way system so it does need to be a modification of how eBay does it current day.

So how about a multi-line set of feedback?

Stick with good/okay*/bad but these ratings are do r each of the following:

1) communications
2) shipping time
3) packaging
4) overall

Each could be optional but at a minimum the 4)overall is needed for submission. We could then have a composite score as we do for beer or place ratings. Is it really that much more difficult to rate a trade this way? Subjectivity comes into question but again, it does for beer or place ratings.

* And perhaps the 'okay' rating is changed to 'neutral'

 

Of the issues mentioned, the only one where a fix would be possible would be the ability to remove open feedback or to have open feedback drop off after a certain time period. Open feedback is not an issue I've encountered, but I could easily see it being an issue for someone who trades a lot.

As for changing the rating system, it doesn't matter what you change it to or how many components are added, most traders will simply try to trade with whoever has a perfect score. Anything less than a perfect score will be viewed as a negative. Although a nine out of ten seems like a great score, people will be upset if they receive a nine, even if a valid score. And I believe you can apply this to any of the more intricate ratings suggested, as well.

 

I trade all the time, and I always look to see the feedback of the person I'm trading with. If the guy has 20+ trades and it's usually all solid I don't hesitate to trade. I also rarely trade my rarer bottles w individuals that don't have glowing feedback or better yet haven't traded w people I've also traded with. I think it works as I regularly encourage newer people to the forums to check my feedback and remind them that it should prove I'm a man of my word. What I would like to be perhaps more highlighted is the number of repeat trades one has- this to me is an indication of a person's willingness to trade again, because for me the primary reason I have been so successful is not only do I try to be generous, but I want to show that I seek a repeat regular trade partnership thereby endorsing my agenda for a greater sense of community. I know that sounds like I'm politic-ing but really I'm saying overall it works, and it's better than any other system I can think of.

 

It's probably too much work to implement but I'd like to see a system similar to how we rate a beer. Maybe criteria like:
Communication ( poor, okay, good or 1-5 scale)
Packaging (poor, okay, good or 1-5 scale)
Timeliness of shipping ( poor, okay, good or 1-5 scale)
And allow a place where we can still add comments.

 

The feedback system works, the last thing I want to do is start rating the packaging, communication, etc. on a trade. There's always going to be situations where a person has positive trades and a negative experiences, that's not a fault of the system, just people involved.

 

It works for me for the most part. I've brought up the eBay style granular feedback before. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense to go that route, but make granular ratings on (potentially) communication, packing job, ease of transaction, and shipping turn around be optional, similar to how beers are reviewed. In other words, leave the feedback the way it is, but add optional detailed feedback ratings on those factors. This will give the traders better feedback on what they can improve upon and others to get a better sense of what to potentially expect for which aspect of the trade.

 

I think for the most part it works. If you read through the bad trader threads you will see instances where it doesn't work. There are numerous times where a bad trader gets called out and people who have previously traded with the bad trader chime in. Some report positive experiences but others will say that they have had a similar experiences to the person calling out the bad trader and they still left positive feedback. Clearly that is not how the feedback system should work. You are correct saying that the it's the user. Maybe doing what myself, @rightcoast7 and @mythaeus are proposing forces people to think about their experience and give useful feedback.

 

Somehow I missed your original response. Yup, we are on the same page and...exact same. Hahaha... I basically try to include all of the categories in my feedback to traders, plus a few words on how easy it was to deal with. It's hard to quantify "ease of transaction", but it's such an awesome thing to feel like you don't have to exert so much effort into hammering out a trade. Thankfully, lots of my experiences have been good.

 

I agree with @mythaeus and @jbaker67 ...

The system itself works, but having a setup similar to the beer rating/reviewing system with the drop down menus and choosing a score for each category. It could be optional to use that portion for more exact - specific feedback, versus quick feedback. Basically rating a user, versus reviewing a user.

 

I work in market research and data analytics, and have fielded hundreds of surveys with ratings scales over the past decade. The way to get quality data is to achieve 2 things:
- Clearly define the categories
- Enable respondents to give free and honest answers

The current system fails to do both of the above, but the problem has nothing to do with the scale; 3 options is actually simple and easy to use so I think it is ideal.

The real issue is there are no guidelines or definitions for "expectations were met" etc... and even if there were, people won't follow them as there is an element of fear of receiving an 'okay' feedback score in return if you leave honest comments.

Lets take an example of a trade:

• Trader 1 & Trader 2 agree to a simple 1:1 trade and agree to both ship the next day
• Trader 1 packs and ships as agreed, bomber packing etc... - basically what 80 or 90% of traders on here do - a good trade.
• Trader 2 is a week late shipping (busy at work or whatever excuse), and a bit patchy on communication (doesn't tell Trader 1 about the delay for a few days and it takes a few reminders from Trader 1) but comes through with a box in the end.

To me, the above should have 'good' feedback for Trader 1, and 'okay' feedback for Trader 2 (with a note about the delay as the reason). Frankly, you could argue for 'bad' feedback since the expectation was established to ship next day, and it most definitely wasn't met...

Would anyone on here actually leave the 'okay' or 'bad' feedback? I suspect almost everyone would hesitate and probably not leave 'okay', and almost certainly none of us would leave 'bad' since that is basically a death sentence for a trader.

When you get right down to it, the trade system is actually fine - the real problem is us. We could improve things by defining criteria for good, okay and bad, but it requires people to actually do it...

 

I think the system is fine and works as well as it's users will allow it to.

The only "hitches" or breakdowns seem to stem from users who are drug around but end up getting their box (and sometimes extras) and are just happy to be done and give positive feedback. I really don't understand why these users are afraid to give neutral and explain, but it's the human condition of many generous beer folk that don't want others to dislike them...which any system isn't going to fix.

The beer sharing ("trading") community is *mostly* actually a community, unlike eBay. There is an added factor of "cool" and relaxing that naturally happens.

Sure, an added field or ratings wouldn't really hurt, but I also don't think they would help the few problems that exist. You can do everything those added fields would add with the current Neutral field rating and explanation. My .02

 

@Todd Is there a way to link the the trade thread itself to the feedback system as a way of verifying that all of these threads that say "CLOSED!!!!" actually did close?