Used stamps exchanges.

Is it an idea for Danubis to mention what the stars should indicatie given for a swap?
For instance:
1 star: incomplete swap, <100 stamps, damaged stamps
2 stars:
3 stars: normal, good swap, no damaged stamps
4 stars: good swap, some extra's, your wishes forfilled
5 stars: extra special swap.

This is Just an example but I think it is nucleair now

Does anyone agree or have an other suggestion?

This is somethings i understood now. Thanks for answers!

Yes of course, it is personal.

I think this ratingsystem is personally!

Personally, I have rated 5 to similar sendings.

I agree with Jess18877 that a rating of three stars is a neutral rating. And according the discussion above about the ratingsystem, every member has his/her own point of view about rating a swap.

@wimber4.0
As you can see I am the one who gave the 3 rating. We discussed before 3 is not a bad rating. It is neutral or also told as sufficiënt or satisfactory. I am sorry you cant see a quality photo but there are also damaged stamps. They are in the right of the picture. So I think a 3 is sufficiënt here.
We discussed before about that the rating is not clear. But I thought we agreed that 3 is for normaal 100 good stamps. 4 for extra and 5 for extra extra special. As you can see i give a lot of 5 stars.

I don't think 3 stars should be felt as "bad"

About rojliew’s TH-5 stamps set rating: I can not see quality photo, but something can understand and classify here 95 "commemoratives" (big size or colored stamps), 34 definitives (small or onecolor), 10 duplicates added. Results: set of 100 stamps according 5 Rules completed, added some extra definitives, friendly added some duplicates, national stamps added and “countries” diversity representative! Is it ok rating of 3 for this set? What is your opinion, club members? P.S. I have no communicated with him before and now I think that about TH-5 set user rojliew deserves 4 or 5 stars rating (photo of TH-5 temporarily added to RU-38 window for statistics illustration)

I corrected that message to "You can't give a rate lower then the current rate!"

I have added this limitation so you can change the rating up but not down.
Normally, you change the rating after a resend, so probably the rate should only go up.

After I added the automatic banning system, I added this limitation also. I thought that someone could go back and change the rating lower for the wrong reasons. Like you give me low rating, I'll go back and change the rating for you too. Or I read in the discussions that there is a problem with a member and a go and change the rating for that member.

"You can give a rate lower then the current rate!"

i wonder what does that mean? before it was possible to change the rating but now when i tried to do that i got the following sentence in red and any change seems impossible....

it´s really nice and useful to see the pictures posted ! i just saw a picture of a sending that someone had given a rating 2 -which shocks me as i think it is definitely a 3 ! and some might give even 4, no doubt. it is really a personal judgement in lot of cases ...the same envelope can be rated 2 by some and 4 by others... negative, neutral and positive are clearly more personal experiences than objectivity :) so i would not take the ratings so seriously -i think it is suspicious when a member receives rating 1 more than once... then i suggest the cases reviewed (like i wrote in another post a while ago) ^^

this is sure improvement
letters may be bigger or bold though, I missed it the first time i looked

There are so many variables to consider when rating that I find it very difficult if not quite impossible to describe in one or two sentences every star.

Can we at least agree on this? Negative: 1 and 2 stars; Neutral: 3 stars; Positive: 4 and 5 stars;

I have placed this keywords next to the stars, so when you change the stars, the keyword changes.

Hopefully this will give some direction.

yes it can be hard to rate a collector that have no idea about collecting, 5 stars for effort or 1 star for silliness? I would rate for effort.
But yet, a torn Black or Red Penny still have very high value so do lot of other damaged stamps.
All stamps on really thin paper have a big number of damaged perforations, such as all South america before 1925. So it depends on the stamp if it is okay, if it is damaged or not?
This are blind swaps here, the sender have no idea what stamps the receiver already have, that is the reason I joined this club, when swapping by direct wantlists I miss the fun in exploring and identifying new stamps. In the end, Happy collecting and keep collecting stamps on your own term.

Yes I also get lots of damaged and common definitives, so after throwing the worst ones in the trashcan I have to pass the others away to someone else (normally between 10 and 20 on each delivery). I am sorry for that, but I also understand when others also have to do it.

But sometimes the partner/collector is new and doesn't understand correctly the value of the stamps (and the damages on them). I had once a delivery that was full of crap stamps, but among them there were 5 or 6 classical and pre-classical stamps of high catalog value ... So how should I rate this user? At first look, obviously "2", but after seeing well, maybe "5" (I think I gave him/ a "4", I don't remember exactly). If I had received only those 5/6 stamps I would still be happy, so how to rate this?

I warned the partner of it, he thanked me, said he would be more carefull in the future, but also said he had sent them without care because "they where ugly" ... (so unworthly for him). So, send this user valuable "ugly" classical stamps and he will rate you low, send him big and colourful Polish stamps (just a low value example, many more exist) and he will rate you high!

yes, and still I rate received mail mostly with 4, because I know the situation...

I rather receive duplicates, than some damaged/every day/mostly unusable trading material and guess - I still receive A LOT of that...

Krepki---with this profile you are lucky to get average stamps, 75%+of theamatic collectors are collecting CEPT, Fauna and Flora so if someone want to try to send you your wishes (and no CTO's) you will only get the most common stamps ( that you probable already have ) , I have lot of duplicates but I will not be sending stamps of a value 2 Euro in a blind swap so I would send you a mix of common and semi common stamps, I could send you definitives or CTO's where you would probable get better stamps. Or I could go for the wishes on your profile and just send you 100 common CEPT, Fauna and Flora Commems, and I would have keep all CEPT, Fauna and Flora definitives. Then you get the stamps and you already have them all so you rate me 2-3 stars.
If the demands on the profile are narrow, you will end up with lot of duplicates

my opinion in short description:
1 = pure crap
2 = lousy stamps, not worth of mentioning
3 = average stamps - " I will send him, what I dont need"
4 = nice, someone read my profile & tried his/hers best
5 = oh, you were nice t me... I can do privates with you...

but the phrase "Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder" is very accurate here, what is great to one collector can be dull to another.
What I mean by this is that members that always rate low should be warned as well. They might have big collections so they never get what they want (those few high value rare stamps that they are missing)

I have about 40.000 different stamps in my collection, I will never get many new stamps in a blind swap, I would rate like that
1 star: incomplete swap, <100 stamps, damaged stamps, <90 stamps collectible items
2 stars: only 91-100 stamps in good condition
3 stars: normal, good swap, no damaged stamps, stamps that I can send to someone else.
4 stars: good swap, 1-20 stamps that I do not have duplicates of (including variants).
5 stars: very fine swap over 20 stamps that I do not have duplicates of even some I did not already have at all (including variants).
I have about 5.000 different duplicates, that is about the same amount as the smallest collections, so collectors with rather small collections should expect more new stamps to theyr collection,

I tend to agree with Jess18877.
- (2) uncompleted exchange (missing, duplicate or damaged stamps)
- (3) complete exchange (100 good condition stamps, no matter what type)
- (5) special swap (fabulous stamps, request fulfillment, extra gift, etc. )
Everything else starts to become dubious and subjective depending on the receiver's opinion. But if a 5 level stars shall continue, maybe the 2 more levels could be as:
- (1) very uncompleted exchange (only crap stamps, and yes here the member should be banned)
- (4) complete exchange with nice stamps, but nothing fabulous

I think it is not bad definition of the stars.
The question is, what's happen if a member is having only rating with 1 or 2 stars?
I didn't see anything about the possibility for him to be excluded or having the number of swap reduced. It can bring frustration to members who are sending good stamps and receiving bad ones regularly.

How about this?

Great (5 stars):
This member has tried its best to send stamps you would enjoy.

Very good (4 stars):
This member has sent very good stamps.

Neutral (3 stars):
This member should send better stamps.

Warning (2 stars):
This member should not continue like this.

Unacceptable (1 star):
This member should not participate in this project.

I have tried to come up with a more detailed list but everyone's view is different. I find it very difficult to come up with an explanation that most people would agree with. A missing teeth means damaged for some people but it would be acceptable for others.

I agree Danubius point of view.
I should add that wishlists are clearly assimetrical.

I could insert an explanation under the numbers so we could have an idea of what that number means. The explanations should be in accordance to the rules and guidance from the "Send page". For example, the "wish list" is optional. It does not seem fair to include it in the rating.

My concerns about this rating system is that it is used as a way to enforce the "want list". Exchanges on this project are done randomly and you don't chose who to send to. Therefore you don't always have what your partner likes.

I'm not sure what is the best option here.

it is clear everyone has their own idea how the 1-5 rating is done... i tend to give 4 stars even if my wishes are not really fullfilled if the stamps are almost all in good condition and not so many tiny stamps, for me 4 is already a really nice exchange :) 5 is just something extra special -even the stamps may be 4 but if the cover is special i tend to give 5 ...and 3 is average/nice too. 2 is below average, many damaged or majority tiny/common/cto/definitive stamps ...and 1 is just crappy -so far only 1 or 2 exchanges have been such to me ^^

In my opinion, 1-5 gives better idea (1 to 10 would give even beter idea).
But it is only my opinion.

Maybe it is more clear to rate 1,3 or 5 stars?

1 star: not complete, damaged, duplicates

3 star: good, complete but not special

5 star: very special swap, wishes forfilled, something extra

This "objective" way of rating is for me satisfactory, I support it.
gives a better idea for the rest of the members.
I will explain how I rate:
I usually give 4 for "neutral" and five for good swaps, as I don't expect to be sent a very expensive or rare stamp.
If the letter is nicely presented, I will always give five, because the sender took interest on send a nice letter, this happened to me last week, besides that, the stamps were nice.
1 star= incomplete, damaged more than 3%, this means missing teeth, excesive obliteration, bent stamps, broken stamps.....less than 100, duplicated stamps, abusive number of common stamps ( i should not say definitive, as some of them are rare). if somebody receives 1 star, the administration should consider to ban this member from the club (my opinion).
2 star= some damaged, or not fine or good condition, most of the stamps very common, but a complete sending. Common means common for everybody, not common for the collector, maybe he's an advanced collector. This rate should be given to the sending in which you feel that the collector is giving to you things really unvaluable for him, and he send the stamps because the other possibility is to throw them to the litter, as nobody should like to receive something like that.
3 stars= means that is a neutral sending, not bad, but not really good. If 3 is the normal rate, that means that you're not even happy to receive that kind of letters in you letterbox. I shouldn't participate in a club that is neutral in average for me. But this is my opinion.
4 stars means that the sending is fine, nice stamps, even if my wishes are not fulfilled.
5 stars means that the stamps are nice and some of my wishes have been fulfilled, or at least the sender seem to try it.
If the letter is nice, or the sender sends some extra, even a letter, I always rate higher.

And is it possible to do a Re-send and bet a better rating?