Comments on: A rating system

By: Robin

Robin — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 17:52:05 +0000

The whole idea is awesome except one thing The one part about quailty of swap item. To me this could cause alot of hurt feelings. Me I will ner send used items only brand new or never been open. What I send could be awesome to me, but the person you swap too could say it isn’t exactly what they had in mind. I don’t know maybe it is me.

By: Valerie

Valerie — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 17:01:25 +0000

I like the idea of having a rating or feedback system, although I’m curious as to why a 5-star system would be used, rather than the positive/negative/neutral systems that many feedback systems use. Although the 5-star system allows for a little more flexibility in ratings, the positive/negative/neutral system does simplify your choices a bit. With the numbers, for example, would a 5 mean that the swapper did exactly what they were supposed to, or that they went beyond what was expected. People are sometimes hesitant to rate something at 5 or 100% unless it really blew them away, so I wonder if most people would just get 4′s if this happened.

I’m not sure about the idea of allowing users with 3 or fewer ratings in automatically to certain swaps though. Would they just appear as zero until they’d been in 3 swaps? And what if they’d been in 2 swaps and were horrible swappers? Allowing them into another swap would be a reward for being a poor swapper, while also being a possible punishment for the coordinator. I think it’s fine to start everyone off at zero, and then let the swap coordinators decide the ratings threshold for their swaps. If they don’t want to deal with beginners, then they should have that choice.

In terms of what other information would be needed for the ratings, I think a comments area would be extremely important. Just putting in a number rating doesn’t tell you very much, but having a brief space to add a little explanation would help, especially if this is shared with others, like on a swapper’s profile.

As for when this rating system would become available, it might seem bad to show the name and ruin the swap susprise, but the function of having this rating there is probably more important. Ideally, it should be available at the time of the sending deadline at the very latest. There could also be some sort of status component, in case the swapper sends before the sending deadline. Normally, a swap organizer tracks when the swappers send and receive their swaps, so it would be great if this could be incporated into the system. Perhaps swappers would log in and let the system know exactly when they send and receive their swaps. These dates could be visible to the organizer and perhaps the swap partner as well and could even allow for a tracking number to be entered. And if a swapper never sends their swap, the sending deadline would kick in, so they would not be protected from getting feedback.

I’d be really interested to hear your thoughts on all of this. I appreciate your having created this system, to automate all of this organization, and it would be great to include even more features into it all.

By: pumpkinoodle

pumpkinoodle — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 09:49:23 +0000

Can’t you just have it display a dialog asking “Received your swap? Click here to leave feedback and rating!” That way, people get to self-select when to see their swap partner. You could also have a “Haven’t received your swap? Click here to contact the swap moderator/send an anonymous swap-message.” You could enable people to send an email to their partner without knowing who that person was. Also, usernames, in general, would be a great addition…

By: Lain

Lain — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 05:37:37 +0000

Ratings would be great. I have gotten ripped off so many times after sending out really good stuff! Would love to know that I’m going to get some minimum level of stuff in return.

By: melanie

melanie — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 16:57:31 +0000

i think that is a great idea travis johnson. you know i used to date a guy named travis johnson…hmmmm haha

By: teresa

teresa — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 13:36:06 +0000

This would work as long as the information is accurate. In my case, i mailed two swaps off on time but was in an area without internet available, so i was unable to update the swap-bot sent category until today.

One thing i would like to see, when you pull up the partner screen, is there anyway to have which swap they are tied to in the header or footer of their address? I print my partner screen and staple it to the print of the swap so i can keep all the swaps straight.

This might be helpful for all of us who are participating in multiple swaps.

By: Amy Roche

Amy Roche — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 20:16:31 +0000

I was going to suggest two weeks after the swap ends. I think that’s plenty of time. However, then, my concern comes up with what if someone just sent something late and then gets bad rating rather than just ok rating? Is there a way that you could structure questions for it to give a certain rating than someone just making up the rating? Like if someone is mad they don’t get their stuff right away, they might be more apt to give the worst rating which i think the worst should be giving for those who don’t come through at all.

By: Nicole young

Nicole young — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 23:45:04 +0000

What would be great is a feedback system like ebay.