Unable to leave feedback for seller under new system unless I also rate the product - **bleep**?

[danl001]

eBay has added a new "rate the product" feature to seller feedback.  Unfortunately, it seems to be mandatory.  I have no issue with rating the seller, but do not appreciate being forced to rate the product.  Heck, I may not have even used the product yet.  This will just lead to artificially inflated and, consequently, useless product ratings.  Any workarounds?  If not, I will just stop leaving feedback.    

[evry1nositswindy]

Are you sure?  I just left feedback for a seller today and there was nothing about rating a product.  In fact, I have never rated a product in my life.  Doesn't sound right.

[shipscript]

@danl001 

If a product rating was requested, then this is an item that is in eBay's catalog. Very few items would qualify for the catalog or product rating. Can you share a screenshot?

A "mandatory" product rating does not seem right, and there should be some way around that. There should certainly be a "tell us what you think" or a "comments" or "feedback" widget somewhere on that page to let the programmers know what you think of it.

There has been some recent confusion where new buyers have been rating the product instead of the seller, so this might be some middle ground. Nonetheless, you have my curiosity aroused.

[danl001]

This is the situation I ran into.  I highlighted the new area at top and, as you can see, it will not allow feedback unless I provide the rating.  The item is a book which I have yet to read.  Hard to provide a rating for that.

[shipscript]

@danl001 

Thank you so much for sharing the screenshots. I can see that the feedback button is still disabled. Can you tell if it is enabled by stars, or by text, or only by both?

There are asterisks on the top two lines. Where do they lead?

I'm the investigative sort, so tend to always need more data. {{cheesy grin}} Hope you don't mind the requests.

[danl001]

The asterisks apparently just mean those two fields are required.  The feedback is enabled if there is at least one star in the "rate this item" field and at least one character or space in the "tell us more" field.  Oddly enough, the code is so sloppy that you can simply put a blank space in the "tell us more" field to enable the feedback.  (Which essentially leaves that field blank.)   There seems to be no getting around the "rate this item" field.

[shipscript]

This may be one of eBay's tests. It may not be visible to everyone.  It is certainly not operating the way it should if you have to pretend you have already evaluated the item before you can evaluate the seller. I'll send this along to staff.