Used stamps exchanges.

Hello

I hope my question is in the right section, but I couldnt find it.
I wonder if other people can see the given stars or negative feedback ?

My first enveloppe came in with 100 stamps that were very disappointing.
Only Italian, a coupe of doubles and triples and not one in my theme (I give several!)

The sender then says:
" If not ok, dont send me your stamps"

I am always trying hard to send what people ask for, or more even.

I am not happy about this at all.
I wonder if, when people get more then lets say 3 negatives, they can still go on swapping?

What are the rules on this?

Thanks in advance for reactions

Desiree

Dess: A 5 star system sounds good. It gives more flexibility and is still simple. I like both ways, 1 star or 5 stars. I would like to hear more opinions on this. 1 star or 5 stars?
Jess: I will make the stars editable so you can change your mind if something changes.
kozou: I like what you are saying and I like your profile description. Its reasonable.
Pitak: The fulfillment of wishes was extra from the beginning. People's profile description made it sound that it was mandatory. I have updated the "Send stamps" page and made it cleared that is optional.
edvasc: The stars will appear as quantity. In the positive, neutral, negative system was intended to be a percentage.

i would really like to give someone a star now that i´ve got many envelopes this member deserves it, can i do that? :)

I agree with Danubius' proposal. For me it seems a good idea (all the 3 topics).

Also I think the stars should appear as quantity number, not percentage. If you get many stars is because either you send always good packs or because you send several packs which fulfill the expectation of the receiving partner (so you are a user that makes the effort to send what the partner wants, though not always because you might not have that many spare stamps to choose from). Is like in an auction site, the user gets the stars if he has many good deals.

And by the way Danubius, thanks a lot for all the efforts and work you have with this project.

I think the idea with the stars is good. Although it may still be tricky. So if you send many nice commemorative stamps, all in good condition. It still may that you don't get a star, because you don't have the certain topic of the collector. On the other hand, someone else might not get a star, because he sends damaged stamps or lots of definitives.
All this might become a problem, when people look at the profile and send not so nice stamps to someone with only a few stars.
I also think that the wishes might be a problem. So if everyone collects a different topic it might be difficult to have such stamps. So poeple that don't have a big collection won't get many stars. Another problem for me is, when people exclude countries. So I'm from Germany and therefore I have many german stamps, which I also send.
So I think that the fullfillment of wishes is an extra as it is in postcrossing and it should be stated somewhere.

the idea to report a member could work. the admin has to do some extra work though, to inspect the complaints :)

in almost all the envelopes i received there are a few damaged stamps and many definitives -and i send the same- but not in such huge amount that would make it neutral or negative rating. i think we all miss it sometimes to check each stamp´s back and edges so carefully that there would never be any with a damage ^^ i understand some collectors may be very picky about this and report even if there are just 5 out of 100 stamps a bit damaged ;) i dont take it personally if/when i get a negative rating ^^

definitives are absolutely ok to send but not more than 50% unless requested as it´s simply not nice. most of us obviously prefer commemoratives ^^ it could be written in the profile "i send mostly definitives and hope to receive back the same" in case all you have is definitives. you can send what you have but if all you have are stamps that you have been recycling already and nobody seems to like them ...i suggest give those away for free :)

danubis; maybe give the opportunity to do a re-send and the opportunity to change the rating?

Dees:
stars were introduced later.
I had done many swaps and afther a while danubis introduced the Star-system

You could also make a 3 or 5 star system (1 for bad and 5 stars for fantastic) ?
Than there is some difference... if I see "username (9)" it could be he (or she) has had 27 swaps and only 9 stars?

Yes. I like the stars. The stars will encourage you to do the best to send stamps that your partner likes. And in the same time you don't get punished if you don't have exactly what your partner wants.

I'm thinking about this changes:

1. I make the stars the most important aspect of the rating system. I will display it like "username (9)" everywhere in the site. This will be the score each member has.

2. The message will be the starting point of a private conversation. The message you send wont be public. If there where issues, maybe they get resolved in this conversation.

3. I remove the Positive, Neutral, Negative options. Instead I add a "Report member" option on the profile page. The reports will get to the admin. That member will know that he was reported. And if several reports are received for the same member in a given period of time, the admin can suspend sending and receiving for that account.

What do you think?

Hello everybody!

I am one of those who received a "neutral" feedback because "there where too many definitives in the pack" (in the words of the receiver). I agree that there where maybe 40 definitives in them, and because of that I even added some extra 10 stamps (so I sent 110 stamps, and none was damaged).

All the definitives I had sent in that delivery were definitives I had also received in previous packs. What shall I do with the definitives that I receive and don't want? Throw them in the waste?
Also personally I don't mind in receiving definitives, as I like to collect them in all its different variants (color tones, image small sizes differences, different changes due to reprints, ...). So if this is going to be a "no definitives" exchange site, it must be stated clearly in the site registration page.

Another aspect is that some people have very demanding, narrow and peculiar requests in their profiles. Maybe they should check and see what to expect from this exchange site. Maybe they are not in the right place for them.

Once I have even given a star with positive feedback in a delivery that had 5 torn stamps that I immediately threw in the waste. What should I do? The partner had sent me 109 stamps (many from my profile request) and a postcard. So he had fulfilled 100% the request, even though some stamps were bad.

Greetings to all.

Thanks for all input. I agree with Jess
Also I think this should not only be about quantity, but also about quality.
I am happy with the starsystem, thank you Danubius

I think it is important to keep things simple and friendly.
Stars are a very good alternative.

I do think that people who are mentioned in private messages to danubis about not sending or rating correctly should get a message from the moderator.

good Morning ^^ i noticed now that the amount of stars given is visible in the profile. it is good ! if you dont want to show the positives and negatives, just the stars can be a good alternative. it could encourage us to make extra effort so that a chance to receive a star will increase ^^

Danubius, yes i think so. i dont think 1 or 2 negative ratings will make anyone believe a member is sending crap -the amount of positives, neutrals and negatives should be visible in the profile, not just the total/average. and everyone can see the rule "send 100 used stamps, do duplicates and no damages" is all we have to do, nobody can expect to receive certain topics or countries only. it may all start to work very well eventually :) the rating can have many benefits too :)

So, kozou, you say to keep the current system and display it as intended on every ones profile?

The problem here is that Jess has only positive ratings and someone lied and gave her a negative feedback. That would drop her score and made her unhappy and the rest of us, seeing her score, would think she is not to be trusted.

So if that happens, no one will trust the rating system. Jess did the best to send stamps but this did not helped her with a good score.

Another problem is that many people use their profile as a request and give negative feedback based on whether they received what they requested. And on the other hand, because this happens you also feel obligated to send what is requested. And some members have very specific interests and are not very flexible.

It seems that the rating system has more side effects then benefits. It turns this project in something I did not want.

That is all right and i want to keep this system simple too. however we have seen that some people cheat even in case of a simple postcard so it is no surprise if someone claims they did not receive 100 stamps if they still continue to receive and send or they may not even send ^^ also people can become inactive suddenly and leave the stamps unregistered simply because they dont care. mailing system is only one of the possible reasons stamps are not registered ;)

I'm not a member on swap-bot. I don't know very well their rating system. But if I'm correct it's more complicated and the exchanges themselves are more restrictive, especially to new users. I wanted to keep this system simple and I still hope to do that.

You say that your partner has lied. What is the point to resend in this case?

I can make the system so that you can change your feedback if that would help. Or I can encourage people to contact their partners and talk with them before giving a negative feedback (this is possible now).

Bags getting lost due to the mailing system is always a possibility. There's nothing we can do except if you trust your partner that he did not receive the stamps, you could accept the loss and resend.

If a member does not register the stamps. How can we tell that he lies or is the postal system? Can we ban a member in this case?

Bottom line, lost bags for various reasons are sure to happen. I as an admin can't take responsibility for this. We can only hope that the loses are at a minimum. The risk is distributed to all. It can happen to anybody. The financial value of a bag with stamps is small. For that reason I don't see why would anybody cheat? So if a bag expires I think it would most probably be because of the mailing system.

The exchanges that for whatever reason don't get registered will expire after 90 days. At this point the site is not that old. Almost there.

hello guys :)

i think the only rule is that you have to send 100 used stamps, no duplicates -i do not expect to send or receive stamps only along my interests -everyone can send whichever undamaged used stamps they have. only i think that more than half should not be small/definitives simply cos it´s not good manners especially if in your own profile you say "please no definitives" -and cto should send only when it is wellcomed (as they are not really "used" stamps). i didnt even count the stamps i received ...except now as i clearly got less than 100, twice ^^ i didnt give any negative feedback yet or receive either but 3 times gave neutral. i would not give neutral or negative feedback only if my favorite theme stamps are not received ^^ if stamps are undamaged and no cto or unreasonable amount of definitives or several duplicates, i give positive rating. the star is when the stamps in addition to that have my favorite themes :)

so, Danubius, i agree with your idea and think that is how should continue :) i hope only that the rating will be visible in everyone´s profile because it will encourage the sender to make extra effort as they know this member also sends good stamps in exchanges :)

Hi Dees and Danubis,
The oppostie also occurs:
I have send more than a 100 good and nice stamps. I got a negative rating and the receiver says they were torn and doubles. I can assure you that that wasn't the case.
I have all positive ratings and many stars were given. Why would I sent 1 bag with doubles and torn stamps???

Danubis;
Do you know the system that swap-bot uses?

Is there also a possibility to do a re-send and turn a negative feedback in a positive feedback?

And what happens when due to mailing system a bag doesn't arrive or the receiver doesn't rate you?
After how many days does a bag expire?

Hello,

I'm glad that you asked that. I created this website and I actually was about to start a discussion about the rating system.

The feedback system is not finished. Meaning that I did the first part where you give the feedback and your partner can receive the feedback you give. The second not yet implemented was to list the feedback each member received on their profile. With all the details: sent, received, positive, neutral, negative, a percentage of positive ratings received and also the actual message of the feedback.

However, recently I received complaints about the rating system and I intend to make changes to it.

First of all, the idea of this project is to send 100 used stamps to a random member. When I was a kid, I could buy from the post office a "philatelic envelope with surprises" containing 50 or 100 stamps. You did not knew what was inside. It was a surprise. I couldn't wait to see what I got! I had a lot a fun simply from digging trough the stamps. I didn't like all of them, they were randomly selected, but I could find some that I liked. This is what I wanted to reproduce with this project.

The rating system was to make people more responsible about the stamps that they send. And here I had in mind the physical quality of the stamps. Basically, don't send stamps that you would throw away. If they are the theme that you like or the country that you like is very subjective. And since the partner you get is randomly selected, you can not aspect to always have what the other one wants. Someone gave negative feedback for receiving Christmas stamps. This is especially hard for the beginner collector who doesn't have a large collection to select from.

When you send the stamps, one of the conditions is "Send stamps that you have and like". The profile of your partner is to give you an idea of what he likes and in this way to increase the chance to get stamps that you like, but nowhere is suggested that this is mandatory. As long as the partners are selected randomly, this cant be mandatory. For more precise exchanges you can propose a direct swap to someone. I am sure that if possible most of us will do their best to please the other.

I would like to hear some ideas on how to make this better.