Addendum to "Updated Community Guidelines" thread . . .

[pburn]

sheila@ebay 

The "Updated Community Guidelines" thread is now closed, but I just ran across a member profile that can perhaps shed some light on whether more is involved with the rankings than just how many posts a member has made.

This person has a "Rockstar" designation.

• Posts: 0
• Solutions: 0
• Helpful Votes Given: 48319
• Helpful Votes Received: 0

Based on this member's profile, you were certainly correct:  there are more factors that enter into the rankings than posts alone.

[sheila@ebay]

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@nobody*s_perfect wrote:

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@evry1nositswindy wrote:

Even having solutions is no real answer.  How many people reiterate a post and choose their own response as a solution?  How many people choose the wrong one   ...

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Once in a while, I wonder whether I should report a solution acceptance to the mods for reversal, when a poster selects a solution that is utterly wrong.   After all, the OP who asked the question in the first place is the usually the poster who is  LEAST qualified to judge whether an answer is correct.

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The mods don't have training on determining if a solution is correct or not. I'll talk to the Team Lead and ask that the workflow be changed so those types of suggestions are forwarded to Velvet, Elizabeth and Devon. Alternatively, you can tag the Community team as well. 

[evry1nositswindy]

@pburn  I know exactly who you are talking about!  The number is now up to 48,364.

[a_c_green]

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@evry1nositswindy wrote:

@pburn  I know exactly who you are talking about!  The number is now up to 48,364.

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I have a feeling that I do, too. I noticed it a long time back, and finally decided that he was simply using the Helpful indicator as a flag to mark which postings he had read. Hey, whatever floats your boat... 😉

[maxine*j]

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@evry1nositswindy wrote:

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@dhbookds wrote:

Renaming the ranks........will not solve anything.......

Doing away with them AND helpfuls would go a long way toward curbing the "extraneous" cute/sarcastic remarks that take threads off topic and demean serious answers that are pertinent to the topic. 

We are adults here, or should be, .....not a bunch of kids trying to earn a gold star.

My opinion.......

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No helpfuls, no names...how is a person who asks a question supposed to know who to believe and trust?  Sometimes there are just plain wrong answers given.  Posting IDs cause problems too.  Who to trust??

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It's the web.  People using it must trust themselves.  They must trust their own ability to read critically, set aside their own confirmation bias, weigh what they're told against what they already know, take into account the apparent literacy and numerancy of the poster, be alert to hidden agendas, accept consensus when it seems foundationally solid, give more credence to answers that include reasonable citations from pertinent sources, and so on.

The Nicknames, Helpfuls, and Badges can be factored in only as a sort of final bit of evidence to tip the scales in favor of one answer, or consensus of answers.  If the answer, or consensus, looks good and the respondser(s) have already been credited with solving quite a few other problems and judged fairly helpful overall, it adds a touch more validation.

But in the end...  There's no way to know who's at a keyboard, and no way to know if the ID/account they're using is even theirs.

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[evry1nositswindy]

It can't even be based on whether we buy or sell or just sell or just buy.  There are some people here who just buy, but they seem to know eBay policy and offer links.  This too is valuable.  I don't think I would want to be in charge of this overhaul! 

Hopefully some REAL sellers and buyers will be involved, not just the ones in charge.  Our opinions are valuable as we use the system every single day.  As sheila said, customer service can't answer these question or offer help as to solutions.

[dhbookds]

No helpfuls, no names...how is a person who asks a question supposed to know who to believe and trust? Sometimes there are just plain wrong answers given. Posting IDs cause problems too. Who to trust??

How about "rewarding" those that quote/give link to Ebay policies?  I've often thought we (including me) do a disservice on those basic questions by not at least "introducing" sellers to the help pages Ebay has.  Granted......would certainly not apply to "why don't I have any sales" questions, etc, and the help files are so difficult to use these days with all the links to other pages, it's like looking for a needle in a haystack, but in the long run.....teaching sellers to use them would be a better solution than us trying to do a synopsis of the policies. A line could be added to the reply portion to make the effort "countable". 

just a thought.

[donsdetour]

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@dhbookds wrote:

No helpfuls, no names...how is a person who asks a question supposed to know who to believe and trust? Sometimes there are just plain wrong answers given. Posting IDs cause problems too. Who to trust??

How about "rewarding" those that quote/give link to Ebay policies?  I've often thought we (including me) do a disservice on those basic questions by not at least "introducing" sellers to the help pages Ebay has.  Granted......would certainly not apply to "why don't I have any sales" questions, etc, and the help files are so difficult to use these days with all the links to other pages, it's like looking for a needle in a haystack, but in the long run.....teaching sellers to use them would be a better solution than us trying to do a synopsis of the policies. A line could be added to the reply portion to make the effort "countable". 

just a thought.

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Were as I do post links: a great deal of folks are not going to click on any links in a post.

[eburtonlab]

I still cannot see any rational reason for this flood of hundreds if not thousands of clueless postings from just that one country alone.

A user from that country indicated that there are some popular "How To Get Rich on eBay" courses that convince users that getting "helpfuls" on the community boards are a key to success on eBay.

I suspect that many of the 10,000 "Buyer can't Pay" and "What are available payment methods?" posts are copied directly from an example question or a template provided by such a course.

[a_c_green]

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sheila@ebay wrote:

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@nobody*s_perfect wrote:

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@evry1nositswindy wrote:

Even having solutions is no real answer.  How many people reiterate a post and choose their own response as a solution?  How many people choose the wrong one   ...

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Once in a while, I wonder whether I should report a solution acceptance to the mods for reversal, when a poster selects a solution that is utterly wrong.   After all, the OP who asked the question in the first place is the usually the poster who is  LEAST qualified to judge whether an answer is correct.

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The mods don't have training on determining if a solution is correct or not. [...]

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sheila@ebay: That last line above has really been chafing my britches since I first read it yesterday, not because I disagree but because I think it's exactly right. It has annoyed me no end for several years now that the moderators have no working knowledge of the topics being discussed here, and have little to no interaction with members except when some kind of disagreement breaks out.

This is the only forum I know of where that is the case. I was a past moderator of one interest-group forum under General Motors, and I am a current moderator in another public group of a well-known consumer product, and in both cases I was invited to the role after a year or two of participation where I demonstrated my knowledge and my ability to get along with others.

It would be inconceivable in either case to simply stick someone in the role of moderator when they have no idea of the topic or the subjects being discussed, and yet that seems to be standard practice here. I can see that they have some basic rules to enforce, and I know that they're employees of Khoros rather than eBay, but the manner in which "moderation" is done here seems too often to be tone-deaf and heavy-handed. 

For moderation, we should be hiring from within, not casting from outside, with moderators expected to actually participate and set an example for others. I can think of several people here who would be more than qualified to fill that role and hit the ground running.

[stephenmorgan]

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@pburn wrote:

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sheila@ebay wrote:

In this case, this Community member might be gaming Community by giving kudos, hence they have the reason why they have the Rockstar status.

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I'm not sure what your post means. 

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Perhaps it is in the Rules of Engagement because as you have seen just giving Helpfuls alone will change your Ranking.  

Rules of Engagement

Content and actions not permitted 

last paragraph

https://community.ebay.com/t5/About-the-Community/Rules-of-Engagement/td-p/26164369

manipulating the “Helpfuls” by giving an excessive number of helpfuls, using multiple accounts to give yourself or others helpfuls, and marking another member’s posts as helpful to help them get to the top of leaderboards

There is another RockStar with 94,735 Helpfuls Given, 49 Helpfuls Received and 14 Posts.

I would say if you are just giving Helpfuls to move up in the leaderboards you may be manipulating the "Helpfuls".

[pburn]

Since this thread has strayed dramatically from its intended topic, I've asked the moderation team to lock the thread from further replies.

[kh-vince]

Hi everyone,

This thread has been closed at the request of the OP.

Thank you for understanding.