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Mon, 08 Aug 2011

Some thoughts on eBay feedback.

NOTE: This post uses MathML. You will need a modern browser to view things correctly.

I just had a fairly annoying experience with pocketronics and have left negative feedback for the first time.

Basically they expected the customer (my mother in this case), to contact them when Australia Post failed to deliver. And, rather than sending out another item — as they had to anyway — they wanted to wait until Australia Post reported back.

Which takes 10 working days. So for about ~AUD$30 they decided it was worth throwing away their reputation.

Obviously a company with a different view of the life time value of a customer and the earning of goodwill than most.

With eBay generally almost never leave 'positive' feedback because, frankly, that should be the default case. Anyway.

But some feedback about eBay's feedback system.

Limiting to 80 characters is pointless. I could have put in a bit.ly link to a twitter status as my feedback for pocketronics. Or a blog post (like this), linking to their site (as above).

If I want to write an article, then let me.

And just as I can respond as many times as like via other media, I ought to be able to do the same via the internal ones.

The score calculation is weighted towards positive feedback. As explained scores are: $\frac{\mathrm{positive}}{\mathrm{positive}+\mathrm{negative}}$ Which for pocketronics comes to: $\mathrm{99.7}=\frac{\mathrm{5071}}{\mathrm{5071}+\mathrm{16}}\times <!--\; multiply\; -->\mathrm{100}$

If the calculcation instead took into account neutral feedback too, then things change - not by much, but enough. To wit: $\frac{\mathrm{positive}}{\mathrm{positive}+\mathrm{negative}+\mathrm{neutral}}$ And it becomes: $\mathrm{99.0}=\frac{\mathrm{5071}}{\mathrm{5071}+\mathrm{16}+\mathrm{36}}\times <!--\; multiply\; -->\mathrm{100}$

I think that also by default feedback to be neutral by default, it would reduce the gaming of feedback.

To have a positive score you would need to be exceptional.

Not just run of the mill. Which is what the current system encourages.

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Anand Kumria
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