Silk Road forums
Support => Feature requests => Topic started by: MrCloudedGaze on December 17, 2012, 07:37 pm
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Alright, since the vendor cost has apparently gone up to $500 I think this idea might solve some problems. In essence, vendors will have different ratings, from C to AAA or whatever is appropriate. The rating will depend on how much money the vendor has invested in the site. A convicted scamming vendor will lose this money. A vendor retiring will get it back, providing all current deals go through.
So here's how I see it. Numbers are rough, just used as examples.
$150 = C rating
$350 = B rating
$500 = A rating
$1,000 = AA rating
$2,500 = AAA rating
Say a vendor is selling large purchases and wants more trust. The vendor buys the AAA rating and therefore has $2,500 to lose. If the vendor is removed for scamming, the $2,500 does not get returned. This means the vendor will think twice before ripping someone off for $600 because they would lose out in the long run. Buyers would avoid deals greater than the rating price. If a vendor is removed, the rating money may be divided up among the buyers affected. If the vendor retires, he or she can downgrade their rating and get their money back, provided all sales are finalized and no foul play has occurred.
I don't want to over complicate the vendor system, but I think this would both allow low level sellers to get started, while also providing additional trust among large volume sellers. Let me know what you think, I'm very open to criticism.
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Playing devil's advocate... perhaps the SR powers that be / DPR are not interested in welcoming new sellers below an 'A rating' and are more keen to host professional/business-like vendors...thus the higher $$ barrier for entry. Just my 2 roxis ;)
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That's a good point, the ratings could start at $500 or whatever the SR admins think is best. However I imagine that most users would avoid anything below an A themselves. But if the idea is to make sure the vendors are professional, a higher start up fee would be important.
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* bump *
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:)
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I think the way DPR has things set up now is perfect. Raising the price to $500 will definitely lessen scammers.
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I was thinking about something similar the other night. Sort of like a retirement plan for SR dealers & a safety net for buyers. This doesn't align well with many political ideologies but it would work by essentially taxing all sales x% total & having a portion of that tax go to DPR and another portion goes to the sellers retirement account. When the seller decides to pack up shop they are entitled to cash out their retirement coins. Obviously there are many flaws, as with all systems, but it would give buyers more security, allow new sellers into the game, encourage established sellers to cash out fairly, give them something to work towards etc. etc.
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I think the way DPR has things set up now is perfect. Raising the price to $500 will definitely lessen scammers.
I will say this as a vendor before having to now start at $500 it was still hard to get a rating by my name. It was already a lot of work to go through to scam people. I can't even imagine now :)
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The ability to purchase trust is a bad idea. The way that ratings/reviews work at the moment is actually pretty bad. Firstly, writing reviews should not be encouraged as much, since most of them are garbage, such as "FE". Customers should be allowed to rate the seller without giving a review. Also, no info is given on how trustworthy the reviewer is. A representation of these stats should be shown next to the review. Users with better stats should also give more weight to the rating they give.
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The current rating system is pretty good, the problem lies in the rule most vendors have of '5/5 or blacklisted.'
If buyers were allowed to give honest ratings with the current system without fear of reprisal, the number next to a vendor's name might actually have some sort of meaning.
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Personally I think the current rating system is skewed too much in favour of the buyer - one bad review from an unjustly disgruntled customer can really hurt an honest sellers reputation. Granted scammers deserve to be outed immediately but the impact of malicious buyers leaving poor feedback is too much. A way to reply to feeback would be great too.
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The only reason why the impact of leaving poor(accurate) feedback is considered so huge, is because vendors are engaged in an eternal dickwaving contest over who has the closest to 100 rating.
If the rating system were used as intended, 3 would be 'average' and what you would expect most people to give most vendors, 4/5 would be a vendor who has noticably gone out of their way to make the trade/product easier/better, 5/5 would be reserved for ONLY the very best trades.
The average vendor rating SHOULD be 50, so that there is the widest range either side with which to compare better or worse vendors. The current system means that the avg vendor rating is probably closer to 95.
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That's a good point, the ratings could start at $500 or whatever the SR admins think is best. However I imagine that most users would avoid anything below an A themselves. But if the idea is to make sure the vendors are professional, a higher start up fee would be important.
Allowing people who cannot come up with a measly $500 for a vendor account is a bad idea. It encourages dilettantism and unprofessionalism and I was happy when SR increased the price. Further see my comment below wrt scamming.
I was thinking about something similar the other night. Sort of like a retirement plan for SR dealers & a safety net for buyers. This doesn't align well with many political ideologies but it would work by essentially taxing all sales x% total & having a portion of that tax go to DPR and another portion goes to the sellers retirement account. When the seller decides to pack up shop they are entitled to cash out their retirement coins. Obviously there are many flaws, as with all systems, but it would give buyers more security, allow new sellers into the game, encourage established sellers to cash out fairly, give them something to work towards etc. etc.
Aren't sales on SR already taxed? So you want buyers to pay for vendor retirement now as well in addition to paying them for their product PLUS paying the SR tax?
The truth is, that there is a most effective and efficient way to solve the scamming problem. A final solution to the scamming problem, if you may - SR should formally prohibit finalizing early. Vendors caught asking people to FE are warned, once, twice, howevermanytimes, then they are banned. I've said this tons of times - vendors do not risk anything through escrow, but the buyer risks everything by FE. So their cash is tied up for some time during shipping, so fucking what? They will get paid eventually no matter what, while if a buyer finalizes early he's at the mercy of the vendor.