eBay

marnotom! · ‎12-15-2013

While I appreciate that there have been loads of threads started about Global Shipping Program purchases and it can get a bit tiresome wading through all of them, I'm not sure that it's doing the community a service by consolidating them into the "Comments About the Global Shipping Program" thread.

Many of these threads are concerns about specific purchases made through the GSP, rather than general observations, comments or rants, It's actually easier for community members to assist the member with such concerns on a smaller thread, rather than in a thread with a lot more traffic that's likely going to see the concerns from that member get lost in the shuffle.

In other words, requests for help from the community are getting shuffled into a larger, more general thread. I don't think this is right. It may well be adding to the frustration being experienced by these users needing assistance.

i*m-still-here · ‎12-15-2013

Since someone started a thread to the moderators, I'd like to add my two cents worth.

Numerous threads are getting moved around here, there, and everywhere and it makes no sense other than to the person moving it.

Posters are selectively dissed etc.

This board is close to Kaput!

afantiques · ‎12-15-2013

I suppose that explains why those threads kept coming up with unreads when I thought I was up to date, I have been repeatedly marking the topic option 'mark all as read', so I probably missed a few things I was following.

patken123 · ‎12-15-2013

Yes there is a lot of rants with no substance or solutions from members who hardly ever posted before and will probably never post again ,and after reading 5 or 10 ,they all sound the same .

My suggestion to all of you regular members who genuinely are trying to help/educate those who need help,is to react like the way ebay reacts to these rants which is ,just tune them out,ebay is the best act to follow,they pretend they are listening,have moderators working overtime removing , deleting,posts but at the end of the day they are going full throttle forward with their plans and hear no criticism .

My hat's off to those who do try to make a real difference.Unfortunately though,you must learn to identify and ignore the ranters who will at times test your patience.These rants must be tiring and must make you feel unappreciated but I'm here to tell you that you are the last and only hope for the frustrated /irate ebay customers and also the only source for clarifying the ever so confusing ebay rules and regulations.

i*m-still-here · ‎12-15-2013

The heavy monitoring and the GSP appeared around the same time, and in tandem they've pretty much killed any interesting discussions or exchange of ideas on this board.

I get that.

After all, it's an eBay sponsored board at their cost and for their benefit...................... and not meant to ease the boredom of sellers (like me) trying to kill the time while their listings load

pierrelebel · ‎12-16-2013

I agree with you but it appears that Lithium moderators have decided to do what they do.

This morning, threads started in June were locked (cannot answer questions) with a note from the moderator to use the threads started in late September!

eBay's site - eBay's rules - whether they make sense or not.

marnotom! · ‎12-16-2013

@patken123 wrote:

Yes there is a lot of rants with no substance or solutions from members who hardly ever posted before and will probably never post again ,and after reading 5 or 10 ,they all sound the same .
My suggestion to all of you regular members who genuinely are trying to help/educate those who need help,is to react like the way ebay reacts to these rants which is ,just tune them out,ebay is the best act to follow,they pretend they are listening,have moderators working overtime removing , deleting,posts but at the end of the day they are going full throttle forward with their plans and hear no criticism .

To clarify, my peeve is with the ranters who start a brand new thread seemingly oblivious to the other threads that have popped up on the GSP. If people have a genuine issue that requires assistance from the community that just happens to involve the GSP, as far as I'm concerned that shouldn't be dumped into the "Questions" or "Comments" threads. If it's just a garden variety B-festival on how the GSP is a "scam" or "rip off" or what have you, then, sure, by all means relocate it.

I don't think this distinction should be too difficult to make by the Lithium moderators.

i*m-still-here · ‎12-16-2013

marnotom, unless things have changed in the very recent past (since I stopped reading the GSP posts), posters are not asking for assistance.

They are simply venting and trashing a program they don't love.

What............. is it about 50% of the posts to this board now ranting about what a PITA the GSP program is???

marnotom! · ‎12-16-2013

Assuming you're correct and 50% of the posts about the GSP are rants, that means that 50% of posts concerning the GSP are ones that aren't rants, which means they're either more thoughtfully composed posts or ones where a buyer is needing assistance with a purchase that just happens to involve the GSP.

On another thread, Stamps and I have been giving some advice to someone needing help with a refund of a defective item purchased through the program. I'm a bit worried that this one, too, will end up getting dumped into the "Questions" thread.

If you go through the last couple of pages on the "Questions" and "Comments" threads, you'll see a number of posts where the title of the post doesn't match the thread title. Those titles were the those of the original threads to which those posts belonged before the posts were relocated. You'll see that a number of them aren't "rants".

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding Kalvin's intentions, but I thought his request for questions about the GSP was one for general questions, rather than ones associated with specific transactions.

i*m-still-here · ‎12-16-2013

No,

About 50% of all the posts in total on the buyers and sellers boards are about the GSP.

Almost ALL of them are from buyers venting and angry with the program.

Unless things have changed recently, they understand the program.

They just don't love it.

marnotom! · ‎12-16-2013

Things have changed recently.

i*m-still-here · ‎12-16-2013

BTW........ my point was that the whole board has become very tiresome because of the censoring and monitoring coupled with the fact that such a huge percentage of the posts are from buyers angry with the GSP.

No one can help with that other than eBay if they opt to get of it.

However, EBay is pushing it harder all the time so that's not gonna happen for a long time if at all.

So on with the rants it is.

marnotom! · ‎12-16-2013

People can rant all they want. The problem is that this post relocating is resulting in many requests for assistance on GSP purchases are getting buried in the rants. That's why I'd like to see the threads started by users needed this assistance kept where they are.

The fact that you can't seem to find these "help" posts just underscores my point.

afantiques · ‎12-16-2013

li-leslie

Re: pre paid duties with purchase of eBay item

in reply to cj2tj

‎12-16-2013 11:01 AM

Please post questions about the GSP here: Questions about the Global Shipping Program

Please post comments about the GSP here: Comments about the Global Shipping Program

The problem with this simple and simplistic directive is that this and other threads are from users who do not know the GSP from a hole in the ground, so are never going to post 'as directed' , they are just going to post the queries as they seem to them.

Shunting them off into the morass of the above threads will stand a good chance of frustrating the users request for help.

anguscoinshop · ‎12-16-2013

i agree 100% with this post

moderators need to butt out, the north American continent is a democracy

keep your dictatorship ways for countries that use it.

reallynicestamps · ‎12-16-2013

the north American continent is a democracy

Basically true of two of the countries, but I'm not sure about Mexico.

dipmicro · ‎12-17-2013

@reallynicestamps wrote:
the north American continent is a democracy

Basically true of two of the countries, but I'm not sure about Mexico.

Harsh 🙂 Which two are the lucky ones ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_in_North_America

afantiques · ‎12-17-2013

A very interesting link.

I think I will go to Saba, because who could resist a place where the capital is called 'The Bottom', the local volcano is called 'Mt. Scenery', and is English speaking, run by the Dutch and uses US dollars. The inhabitants must be uniquely pragmatic. Not to mention being 30% medical students.

pierrelebel · ‎12-17-2013

It appears to me that the decision to centralize all comments and questions about the GSP was made by eBay.ca and the moderators are following instructions.

Last Wednesday I had a post addressing GSP in the "weekly hour" with eBay.ca staffers. The post was quickly moved by eBay.ca community manager to one of those omnibus threads. To be honest, I am not too happy with that move as it resulted in few readers being made aware of the comments/questions/suggestions.

But, once again: their boards, their rules. This is not and was never meant to be "democracy".

Anyone wanting "freedom of expression" should write a letter to the editor of their local newspaper.