If there is sufficient interest in this topic, I'm seriously considering building it. Here's what I'd plan to do:
Instead of keeping feedback about people, I'd keep feedback about trades. This might be a tad hard to explain, but I'll try. Instead of one user leaving feedback about another and vice versa, one user would open up a new trade. This trade would require input from both involved parties before it would be finalized.
When a user opened up a new trade, he'd leave complete feedback for the other user. He would identify the trade by the buyer and seller's names, and the item(s) being traded. After the trade was opened by one user, it would become a pending trade, and the other party would be notified by email that he had a trade pending. He could then log in and complete his evaluation of the person who opened the trade.
The interesting part: when a person goes to complete a trade opened by someone else, he cannot view their feedback of him until the trade has been finalized. He must leave his feedback w/o seeing what the other person wrote about him. This should eliminate people refusing to leave negative feedback based on fear of retalitory negative feedback. Once the trade has been completed by both parties, it will be viewable to everyone on heatware.
When looking up a user's profile on heatware, you would be able to see how many pending trades that user had. If the user was refusing to complete his trades because of fear of negative feedback, it would show up as pending. Therefore, a high number of pending trades on a user's profile would be a bad thing. This would also encourage users to make sure that they left feedback for everyone once a trade was opened.
Finally, no one could open up a new trade with a user who alreday has a trade pending with the same user. This would prevent someone from registering and starting 100 new trades with you. They couldn't start the 2nd one until the first one had been resolved.
Also, the method by which evaluations were made would be changed. Trades would be evaluated in three seperate ares (promptness, shipping, communication) based on an A-F scale. The three would also be averaged to form an overall rating. (shipping would have an N/A option in cases where one party simply sent paypal). I think this would provide a better method of evaluating a user, as you could see if they're jsut slow, or if they have a problem with shipping things in paper envelopes.
The biggest obstacle to a project like this is that it has to compete against heatware, which already has an established user base. However, if this system is superior (and I think it would be) I think it would be worth starting over with a clean record.
Anyone have any comments on this sytem?
Instead of keeping feedback about people, I'd keep feedback about trades. This might be a tad hard to explain, but I'll try. Instead of one user leaving feedback about another and vice versa, one user would open up a new trade. This trade would require input from both involved parties before it would be finalized.
When a user opened up a new trade, he'd leave complete feedback for the other user. He would identify the trade by the buyer and seller's names, and the item(s) being traded. After the trade was opened by one user, it would become a pending trade, and the other party would be notified by email that he had a trade pending. He could then log in and complete his evaluation of the person who opened the trade.
The interesting part: when a person goes to complete a trade opened by someone else, he cannot view their feedback of him until the trade has been finalized. He must leave his feedback w/o seeing what the other person wrote about him. This should eliminate people refusing to leave negative feedback based on fear of retalitory negative feedback. Once the trade has been completed by both parties, it will be viewable to everyone on heatware.
When looking up a user's profile on heatware, you would be able to see how many pending trades that user had. If the user was refusing to complete his trades because of fear of negative feedback, it would show up as pending. Therefore, a high number of pending trades on a user's profile would be a bad thing. This would also encourage users to make sure that they left feedback for everyone once a trade was opened.
Finally, no one could open up a new trade with a user who alreday has a trade pending with the same user. This would prevent someone from registering and starting 100 new trades with you. They couldn't start the 2nd one until the first one had been resolved.
Also, the method by which evaluations were made would be changed. Trades would be evaluated in three seperate ares (promptness, shipping, communication) based on an A-F scale. The three would also be averaged to form an overall rating. (shipping would have an N/A option in cases where one party simply sent paypal). I think this would provide a better method of evaluating a user, as you could see if they're jsut slow, or if they have a problem with shipping things in paper envelopes.
The biggest obstacle to a project like this is that it has to compete against heatware, which already has an established user base. However, if this system is superior (and I think it would be) I think it would be worth starting over with a clean record.
Anyone have any comments on this sytem?
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