About the Trader's Ratings

Originally Posted by hhmoore

I still think moderator votes should count x5 in things like this...which would make the count 7 in favor of change, and 39 opposed.

I think we should change it to in favor of everyone being able to give feedback, and force Harald to babysit every single person across the whole site

I'd just disable the positive option...people would end up entering negative feedback, just to see if it worked. My mailbox would be full, so it wouldn't matter to me.

Originally Posted by WebSlave

If I thought that this change would affect your workload, I would have put this poll to you all first, and you would have all had to be unanimously for it.

Understood.
But, I think that most members don't venture outside of the classifieds these days... I wonder how many of the ones that have registered in the past year even know this forum is here? If that crowd finds out about this poll, and manages to get here, I'd expect the numbers swing hard.

Originally Posted by hhmoore

Understood.
But, I think that most members don't venture outside of the classifieds these days... I wonder how many of the ones that have registered in the past year even know this forum is here? If that crowd finds out about this poll, and manages to get here, I'd expect the numbers swing hard.

I put an announcement in the classifieds sections to try to get more peoples' attention to this. Not to say that anyone there will actually READ it, though.

Originally Posted by WebSlave

I put an announcement in the classifieds sections to try to get more peoples' attention to this. Not to say that anyone there will actually READ it, though.

Voted. Please do not change it.

Here is a point for keeping it the way it is ...

If you allow non-paying members the ability to leave feedback, that takes another perk away from the paying members. Commenting on ads was a perk, now it is not. What are you going to give away free next? The ability to leave negative Karma? I willingly donate/pay to have these perks, if I had more money I would donate/pay more, if I can come up with $25 a year to be able to leave trader ratings & negative Karma, I think everyone who wants to be able to do those things can donate/pay also.

My point is, it would be unfair to the ones who pay and have been paying to just give it away for free. If stingy broke members want to leave feedback, they can do so on the BOI.

I am in favor of keeping it the way it is in light of the possibility of abuse.

Another thought ... I think if more perks are taken away from the paying members, it would significantly decrease the amount of paying members. Why pay, when we can get all the perks for free? Unless, you are going to come up with new stuff we can get as a bonus for our membership fee.

There is always going to be the few who want something for nothing. The last time I checked, that is not how the world works. I work hard for what I have and I am willing to pay for things I want. I think it is unfair for the few to demand something be given to them.

The has to be an end to this gimme generation, you are not entitled to everything.

Originally Posted by Snake-Queen

Another thought ... I think if more perks are taken away from the paying members, it would significantly decrease the amount of paying members. Why pay, when we can get all the perks for free? Unless, you are going to come up with new stuff we can get as a bonus for our membership fee.

There is always going to be the few who want something for nothing. The last time I checked, that is not how the world works. I work hard for what I have and I am willing to pay for things I want. I think it is unfair for the few to demand something be given to them.

The has to be an end to this gimme generation, you are not entitled to everything.

I understand the concern, but this is a multi-faceted issue. For instance it was brought up that only paying members had the perk of replying to classified ads up to the recent past. Well, when reviewing the results of implementing this classifieds ad restriction a few years back, it appeared to me that traffic was on a downward spiral and I thought possibly that restricting replies was at least a partial cause. Surprising as it may seem, not all of my ideas prove to be GOOD ideas... In a case like this, what would be more important of a consideration? (1) The overall health of the site by allowing DISCUSSIONS to take place on a DISCUSSION FORUM based site, or (2) retaining a relatively minor perk to try to entice members into becoming paying members? Would it make much sense to prioritize (2) over (1) if the site might not be around much longer in order for such perks to matter?

Honestly, the way it worked out was that I pretty much gave all the perks here away for free before paid memberships ever existed. The paid memberships started out as being strictly contributions that members will willing to donate in order to help keep this site alive. Which is why the original membership (and ONLY membership level at the time) was called a "Contributor" level membership. Then as newer features were added in, some of the options were offered to paying members, and even some higher level parts of the new features offering higher benefit levels were offered to members willing to donate more in order to receive those additional perks.

Now this stuff with the Traders Ratings was a custom coded function that was put in by my programmer, and as best I can recall, I decided from the very beginning that it needed a safety valve to keep the ratings from being abused by malicious individuals. The only available option available to me, realistically, to try to accomplish that goal was to restrict the Traders Ratings to paying members only. It had nothing to do with a "perk" at all. It never was intended to be that way, but I guess some will obviously look on it in that light. It's sole purpose was to try to limit the number of bogus ratings that would likely result without that restriction in place. Otherwise, if there was no likelihood of that abuse taking place there, then everyone would have had the capability of leaving traders ratings for everyone from the very beginning. I only did it that way because I thought it was necessary. The "perk" aspect never entered my mind as a consideration.

So from my perspective, if it comes to pass that the voting shows that I should open up the Traders Ratings to all members, I am not looking at it as taking away a perk from paid memberships at all. It is merely the removal of a restriction that the majority of the people voting feel is unwarranted, unneeded, unwanted, and in the best interests of this site as a whole to have removed.