Community Updates: 20/11/11

[egladmin.livejournal.com]

wonderfinch here with a couple of quick updates!

Anon-enabled ARC
We've run into a bit of a sticky issue with the anon-enabled ARC: we can't really respond to comments and show or explain how a situation has been dealt with unless we unscreen the comments in question. Please be assured that we ARE following up with all the situations that have been reported, but also be aware that we may not have a way to get in touch with you for follow-up. If you'd like to know how your situation has been handled, please leave an e-mail address so we can contact you. You can always make up a free account at http://mail.com or http://yahoo.com if you feel uncomfortable using a current one. Please refrain from using a temporary e-mail service like 10-Minute Mail since we only check this particular ARC every 24-48 hours.

English-only Rule
After considering input from community members in our last updates post, we've decided that we will not be implementing this rule. Please be aware, though, that we may not be able to help you out if you run into issues while conducting a transaction in a non-English language- simply because we may not understand what's going on. Even at the best of times, Google Translate and other online translation tools are imperfect, and they can't always accurately capture what's going on in a difficult transaction- so we may simply be unable to help, though we will always try our best.

Feedback- Statute of Limitations on Neutral and Negative Feedback?
Occasionally, we get a feedback dispute where a buyer (or seller) will attempt to leave feedback weeks, or even months, after a transaction has occurred. Obviously, this isn't a problem for positive transactions. But for negative or neutral transactions, it can be a bit of a sticky issue. For example, if a buyer has an item for three weeks, they may have unintentionally damaged an item and, in an attempt to recoup their loss, try to pin it on the seller or bully the seller into offering a refund with the threat of negative feedback.

Clearly, this isn't really fair to either party, but our community rules are unfortunately vague on the length of time a buyer or seller has to leave negative or neutral feedback. In the interest of rectifying this, we're considering imposing a time limit of two weeks after an item's receipt on negative and neutral feedback. We reasoned that this offers a reasonable amount of time for buyer and seller to communicate and discuss possible solutions to the issue, but at the same time is not so lengthy that an unscrupulous user could take advantage of it and attempt to unfairly blame a seller for damages.

Again, this would only apply to neutral and negative feedback. Thoughts on the matter?

And that's all from us for the moment~ As before, please submit your suggestions here if you don't mind commenting under your own username and here if you'd like to submit them anonymously.