New feedback form

[wunderdog]

Am I correct in understanding that you can no longer leave feedback for a buyer without rating the merits of the item you purchased? In other words, if you buy, say, a book, you have to read it and decide how much you liked it before you can assess the quality of the transaction? For one, I may not get around to reading that book for months. For another, whether that book is good or bad has no bearing on the seller. I'm not sure why item and seller ratings would be mingled other than to artificially inflate product ratings.

[tsuenn]

Making it mandatory to rate the product before being able to leave seller feedback is unfair to the seller, in my opinion. Starting today I haven't been able to leave feedback for sellers without first providing a rating for the product itself. If I don't rate the product the "Leave feedback" button remains greyed out. Since I'm not yet ready to rate the product itself, the seller misses out on getting the positive feedback I would have left for the transaction. 

[reallynicestamps]

I got one FB that said "."  . There were no quote marks though.

FB is a legacy of the 20th century internet when buying online was scary and edgy and not how we order obscure batteries and new socks.

The sooner eBay drops it the better.

I've been rereading Tanith Lee's "Bite the Sun" and it reminds me of how the inhabitants of that moneyless society pay for goods- with effusive thanks.

[fillydelphia]

"How would you rate this item?"  I assume the "item" is this line of questioning on the feedback form;  so I left "poor" as the rating for this feedback item since I think this question item is inappropriate.

[dark_jaguar]

I just saw this pop up when I was trying to leave feedback to a seller, and I think it should be anything but mandatory.  I am NOT interested in giving a review of the merits of a particular mass produced item on eBay.  You run a platform that also sells plenty of homemade knicknacks and stuff that can't otherwise be easily grouped as a single "product" (like old silverware bought half a century ago).  I'm fine with this being some new optional thing, but PLEASE remove the mandatory aspect.  I don't want to stiff someone a positive review on how well they handled the transaction just because I'm not in a position to fully review the merits of the object.  Also, some of us "flip" a lot of stuff.  It's not our concern to actually read some book or use a toaster.  Heck, there's things I buy that I objectively consider terrible and which I bought BECAUSE it was terrible, like a Big Mouth Billy Bass.  How the heck do I rate THAT?

Please stop thinking you're Amazon.  You're an auction house.