Updated Community Guidelines

[sheila@ebay]

Hello Community,

We want to make the Community a safe and enjoyable place for all to come participate and learn from one another. The Community team has recently updated the Community Guidelines. You can find them here.

I'll keep this post up for until the end of day on July 6th for feedback on the Guidelines.

Thank you for participating in Community!

[soh.maryl]

Have you not noticed that there is a high percentage of both buyers and sellers who read NOTHING about rules etc? 

Given those statistics, I personally find it surprising that there aren't more posts attempting to sell on the Boards.  

[tharindu1994us]

Thank you so much 

[pburn]

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@katzrul15 wrote:

Thank you, but I was asking Sheila (or Brian, etc) for an official board response.  brian@ebay 

I have read the prior language (thank you @valueaddedresource ) and the reviewed the current links posted by sheila@ebay multiple times.  Thus, the question.

I am asking the Community Manager to clarify based on my post and the types of threads that are frequent on this board. 

No offense to you, but not wishing to debate this with other posters.  Sheila indicated to ask for clarification and that is the purpose of my post.  Debating this on any level does not lend clarity - Would like for those who updated the Community Guidelines to address so that for future threads, it is known what parameters make sense and which violate board policy.

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sheila@ebay 

Is this thread for an open exchange of ideas among members, or are responses limited to only replies to you?

[partfinds]

Why is that sorting doesn’t work in this thread? I am set to newest to oldest and still see posts from 6/29 on top first. Then I go down and I see I am landing on page 8 instead of 1. 

[partfinds]

@pburn 

„Is this thread for an open exchange of ideas among members, or are responses limited to only replies to you?”

Sheila asked for ideas for her to implement or change in the community, I belive. And sometimes people want to avoid speculatuons or rumours especially when suspensions are at stake. Noone is trying to insult anyone by asking for direct answer from the source. It doesn’t mean your opinion doesn’t matter or you have nothing valuable to say. Don’t take it personal.

plus it is long weekend so I think direct sources won’t be responding in this thread.

[silverstatetreasureboxes]

Her question asked for the 2nd time was already answered in post #11 by Sheila. 

[pburn]

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@silverstatetreasureboxes wrote:

Her question asked for the 2nd time was already answered in post #11 by Sheila. 

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I  believe that member was directed his/her comment to me. Logic would dictate if you can respond when a post is directed to me, I can respond to post directed to Sheila.

Post #11, BTW, was not authored by Sheila:

Apparently, not everyone read Sheila's response a similar question I posted earlier when an attempt was made to discourage me from posting. For those who missed it, it's Message #50.

Message #50 

Here's the applicable verbiage:

"Everyone is also welcome to share ideas and talk about if the rules work or not." [Emphasis added.]

I think discouraging other members from posting or replying to posts is probably not in the best spirit of the community.

[pburn]

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@katzrul15 wrote:

Thank you, but I was asking Sheila (or Brian, etc) for an official board response.  brian@ebay 

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That tag leads to the wrong Brian. He hasn't worked for eBay for some time now.

[maxine*j]

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@pburn wrote:

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@evry1nositswindy wrote:

I love this idea.  Number of years selling comes to mind.  It is hard to convey tone through text.

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If there's one thing I've learned in my few years as a member of the Community, it's that the number of years a person has been selling does not necessarily have any correlation with their knowledge or expertise on the subject...

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Absolutely correct.  In fact, it often amazes me how often that is true. 

And do we really want advice from people who have been major sellers for many years, have dodged income taxes the entire time, and are screamingly furious that the 1099s they'll get now will make it hard for them to continue to cheat Uncle Sam?

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[donsdetour]

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@pburn wrote:

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@silverstatetreasureboxes wrote:

Her question asked for the 2nd time was already answered in post #11 by Sheila. 

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I  believe that member was directed his/her comment to me. Logic would dictate if you can respond when a post is directed to me, I can respond to post directed to Sheila.

Post #11, BTW, was not authored by Sheila:

Apparently, not everyone read Sheila's response a similar question I posted earlier when an attempt was made to discourage me from posting. For those who missed it, it's Message #50.

Message #50 

Here's the applicable verbiage:

"Everyone is also welcome to share ideas and talk about if the rules work or not." [Emphasis added.]

I think discouraging other members from posting or replying to posts is probably not in the best spirit of the community.

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Hmm be out a bit due to covid positive: you going to make me read this whole thing: LOL

[mam98031]

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@pburn wrote:

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@katzrul15 wrote:

sheila@ebay 

Sheila - I would like to seek clarity on the following:

• promoting off-eBay sites, groups, or forums, or suggestions that encourage users to leave eBay

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For context, here's what the guideline said prior to this revision:

"Members are not permitted to tell others to stop selling on eBay or to leave eBay for any reason, which includes promoting off eBay sites, groups, or forums by name or by providing links." 

And here's the relevant verbiage contained in the latest revision:

"You agree to refrain from posting content or taking actions that are:

• promoting off-eBay sites, groups, or forums, or suggestions that encourage users to leave eBay"

It appears the following point of the outlined violation has been removed:

"Members are not permitted to tell others to stop selling on eBay or to leave eBay for any reason . . . "

Personally, IMO, I find that to be an oversight in the newly revised guidelines. It's also, IMO, poorly drafted in terms of grammar and clarity, as the entire revision seems to be. I agree with another posted who stated, essentially, the revised guidelines are awkwardly worded and poorly composed. 

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Exactly!!  A very good explanation @pburn .  As you know we can say other site's names, but what we have never been allowed to do is to tell someone they should sell on another site or recommend that they sell on that site.  This rule hasn't changed.  It is the same as it has always been for years.  @katzrul15   We also are not suppose to ever tell another member to go sell somewhere else.

It is just logical stuff.  Ebay's bread and butter is members buying and selling on the site.  These are their threads.  So just normal stuff in an effort to protect part of their income and the members on the site.

[a_c_green]

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@mam98031 wrote:
Exactly!!  A very good explanation @pburn .  As you know we can say other site's names,

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Indeed; I marvel at seeing cryptic references like "the River" in posts here. For pity's sake: it's Amazon. Just say "Amazon." It's not like we're all going to suddenly start bleeding from the ears if we read that.

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@mam98031 wrote:
but what we have never been allowed to do is to tell someone they should sell on another site or recommend that they sell on that site.  This rule hasn't changed.  It is the same as it has always been for years.

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I've never seen much need in going that far. The most I will suggest to someone is that their item for sale is either too high-value or too unwieldy to ship safely, and thus they should limit it to Local Pickup Only, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't list it here at all.

[partfinds]

@silverstatetreasureboxes

„Her question asked for the 2nd time was already answered in post #11 by Sheila. ‚

But the numbers are constantly changing. It is hard to track things here.

[partfinds]

I think you take things too personal @pburn 

noone is trying to dicourage noone. Sheila stated you can give her the ideas on what to change in boards but @katzrul15  wanted to hear the answer from her and not hearsay. It would be probably different if you answered katzrul with quotes of sheila answer 

the numbers are not assigned they constantly shift when someone responds. Also the newest to oldest doesn’t work. It defaults to page somewhere in the middle all the time and the date of the post 6/29 on top.

Remember to scroll down to choose page 1 for newest posts and also since post # are not stabel/fixed it would be nice to quote things.

[partfinds]

@mam98031 

„We also are not suppose to ever tell another member to go sell somewhere else.”

numerous times I was told to sell somewhere else or to close the store all together when I was contemplating only downgrading. It suggests that this is only recommendation maybe?