Trader rating for vendors

[whiteNSXs]

Woohoo!!

in the last 10 minutes my reputation has gone from -1 (it was neutral yesterday before this thread appeared ) to -10

I'm such a bad person

chastise me why don't you for having an opinion different from yours.

I don't know if anyone told you guys, but in a democracy people are not necessarily bad just because they don't share your views.

I challenge anyone of you cowards hiding behind your keyboards to prove that you are not (a coward) and own up to giving me a bad reputaion point and state EXACTLY what I have done (apart from sharing my honest opinion) that is SOOOOO bad.

what a wonderful community this has become

Hypocrite, so you call people who don't share YOUR views "coward?"
I am sure some of the items you received are actually PAID for by people ripped off by Mark. Your money actually went for the "free" T-shirts instead.
Steve

 

[orange606]

Logically it would seem to me that trader ratings should be used much like it is with any other online bidding or market place system. One rating is placed for each transaction. I think this works well because you are commenting on the entire process or procuring an item or items. I can see an issue with the ratings in question due to there identical posting date.

I think most would agree that if they were to research a seller on eBay or like system, similar feedback postings would seem suspect. Imagine this, a seller with a mix of negative and positive feedback, all of a sudden has mass positive feedback from the same person on the same date. This would lead me to move on to the next source.

Trying to look for an official guide on how the trader rating works, resulted in little clarification. All I could find was the following

"What is a "Trader Rating"? Every forum member has a feedback rating which is displayed as a rating number in parentheses. If you click on the number a window pops up displaying comments from other members they've bought from, sold to, or traded with. It is important to click on the number to view the actual comments and ratings because someone with 5 negatives and 10 positives will have the same rating as someone with 0 negatives and 5 positives."

A link follows this statement that promises further explanation of the trader rating system, but the link leads to a page concerning smilies. Perhaps once the page is restored it can shed some light on proper market place etiquette.

If the postings in question are indeed discrete purchases then they are, to some degree, valid. Although, they should have been entered when the orders were completed not simultaneously. I think as a whole they do not integrate into the essence of what a trader rating system is about. By selectively posting ratings and then writing comments that sound more like a sales pitch then a review, ctrlaltdelboy has made himself suspect. Can he deny that such posting are out of the ordinary, and would him self have questions after seeing similar trader ratings?

I do think it uncouth to attack a person for saying what the feel. However, questions asked in a curious manner are no less valid.

In the end, unless i missed something, I think the issue is a demonstration of a need for an official decree from the forum gods as to use of market place trader ratings.

 

[NSX Prime]

I am quite certain there is no need for name calling, hostility or the use of leading questions in this discussion. THAT is going to earn negative reputation from me if it's not gone in the very near future. If anyone needs guidance, read orange606's post, he has summed it up very well.

Then we can discuss the actual issue at hand.

 

[ctrlaltdelboy]

I am sorry. I shouldn't have used the word "again" and "troll."

many thanks for your apology and retraction Steve.

But your action and intention was indeed to artificially boost the rating of Dali.

I think what you mean to say is that you believe that this was my action and intention.
As far as action is concerned, it is my opinion that the trader system operates in a similar way to ebay feedback, in so much that only positive feedbacks from unique ID's count towards the overall rating i.e. the one that show next to a members name - yours appears to be that the overall rating is not the prime mechanism by which someone 'rates' a trader and that the total number of positive ratings, including all of those which may have come from (as in this case) a prolific purchaser, are the main foundation of what constitutes a member's rating.
I think that these two different views on how someone's trader rating is best evaluated will have to remain a matter of personal preference and as such will continue to cause differences of opinion. For all prime members who use the first method described above, NSXGOD's rating has not been affected by a single point following my positive postings last week; however I had not considered the alternative evaluation method that I have described above until now, and to all of those who use it I would like to apologise - it was never my intention to use what (if people do indeed use this other method of rating evaluation) amounts to a loophole to increase a trader rating, as I said - I never even considered any other evaluation method and so this never even crossed my mind.

As far as intention is concerned, I would request Steve that you refrain from posting your belief of what goes on in my mind as alleged fact - you do not know what my intention is, you only have a suspicion, theory, idea, inkling etc etc - please remember this in future and only state things as facts where you know them to be so.

I highly doubt that Dali shipped you 70+ times(transactions), but perhaps there are 70+ pieces all together.

you are of course free to doubt this if you so desire, I never claimed that he did. I'll look up and tell you exactly how many times Dali did ship me and let you know - I'm sure it won't be 70 though, so I'll join you in doubting it (whose claim are we doubting here anyway?). Why don't you read the first few posts of the bunch that I did last week, if you do you will see that I quite clearly state on these that I got them all from MJ when he came to Spa in Sept 02 - this demonstrates that these 3 were indeed 3 seperate items purchased in a single 'transaction' and that I am not attempting to trick anyone or hide anything, but this point that you have raised does raise one or two other questions..

1. where in the rules of posting trader ratings does it state that posts must be in reflection of a single transaction despite the number of items involved in order to pass comment on the smoothness (or otherwise) of the transaction? I must confess to not having read this anywhere, and in my naivety imagined that the function of posting could equally relate to commenting on the quality (or otherwise) of the item purchased. As far as I can see neither definition is specified - does this make you right and me wrong or vice versa?
I think this again is going to be simply a matter of opinion unless and until things are further clarified. I would add that until this happens it does upset me that I have been accused of being the bad guy just because my interpretation of what is a valid use of the system differs from other peoples.

2. if as you suggest 'post-per-transaction' is the correct way to use the trader rating system, this makes things a little difficult for me because I run a tab at Dali - I tell him from time to time what I want/need, he sends me boxes of stuff as and when things are in stock, and I send him a couple of thousand dollars whenever the tab goes into the red by a grand or two.
looking at my tab I can see that I have purchased 92 items, but since some of these are repeats of the the same item such as oil filters etc you will note that i didn't bother posting about the same item more than once - that would not be right. By checking my tab I can also see that I have had 42 seperate deliveries of stuff. Also my tab tells me that I have sent money to Dali on 29 occasions.
given the overview above of my relationship with Dali you can see that it is difficult to determine how many 'transactions' I have had.

So should we call the 29 payments made transactions and rate them? - not really much use, from the purchaser's perspective as they don't relate to specific purchases (would work from the seller's viewpoint though, perhaps I should ask Mark to give me 29 positive posts?)

Should we call the 42 deliveries received transactions and rate them? - a little better than payments, but still not specific to the payments and therefore leaves me unable to say 'Mark sent me the stuff I paid for '

So the best option for me was to work on a per purchase basis as you have seen. I am sorry that this choice has caused so much offence.

Perhaps I should contact ALL my previous buyers/sellers to itemize EVERY single piece and give me rating on each item.

as I think you may have gathered, I would not have an issue with that as this is the way that I thought the system worked anyway, and if you did do this the only effect that it would have is that the content of your trader ratings page would have a lot more feedback in it, enlightning people to all of the items you have traded with comments regarding each (would that be so terrible?) but all the time your 'rating' (as I understand it) would remain unchanged.

ie. Lud should give me 34 positive ratings for buying my HID kit.

again, all down to interpretation as to what is acceptable, but I think most people (including yourself) would agree that to post individually on 34 identical items would be pushing the envelope of credibility somewhat - this will be the reason (I suspect) why Lud has not so far volunteered 34 positive posts for you on this and also the reason why I have posted only once for NSXGOD regarding things like oil filters, (I've had half a dozen) trunk/hatch struts (2 at a time), Wheels (2 fronts, 2 rears different items in each case) etc. etc.

Yes, you have your free speech but you ABUSED the rating system.

difference of opinion depending upon your method of evaluating rating

In fact, you are supposed to get one point for each entry.

I don't know if this ever was the case, but one thing I can say for sure - before I posted about all of my purchases so far the system did not operate in the way you describe - NSXGOD's rating at the time was 6 and that was made up of only positive/negative posts by member count - positive/negative posts themselves were both higher in number than the number of members counted to comprise the stated trader rating of 6 and as such do not play any part in increasing or decreasing this figure. I knew this before I posted about all of my purchases, and this in conjunction with my naiive belief that everyone else evaluated a trader's rating according to the number given by the system described here means that I can hold my head up high in the knowledge that my intentions were fine and my actions just. I am sorry that others think that I had bad intentions and was attempting to mislead, but I guess everyone is entitled to their opinion.

You intended to give Dali 70+ points but you failed. Reason is simple, moderator blocked your unethical attempt. Do you think they are stupid or something?
Steve

As already requested Steve, please stop presuming to know what my intentions may be and posting your presumptions regarding my thoughts as facts. My comments above demonstrate quite clearly what my intentions were, and that they were not what you think they were. I knew that my postings would not change NSXGOD's rating beyond the 6 that were there already, in fact I would not have undertaken the excercise had I thought this would be the case as to do so would be unethical and misleading to other members - something I would never do, and yet have been portrayed as doing.
I did not fail at all, as no such attempt was even made.
I am sure you'll find that no moderator intervention has occured here and that your statement of fact is yet again nothing more than your incorrect assumptions being wrongly posted as such.
I do not think that the moderators are stupid, in fact I think they do a great and usually thankless task in trying to keep things in order around here - no easy job as the emotions in this thread have again demonstrated.

finally I would like to extend my thanks to whichever Admin/Mod responsible for moving this distasteful thread out of the vendor area and tucking it away in Website news & discussion instead. Also my thanks to (I assume) the same Admin/Mod for reinstating my neutral reputation which was so unjustly trashed, you never know I may yet make it onto the right path

Darren

 

[NSX Prime]

Yes, but on his avatar at the side of his posts it displays 25, while Dali's displays 7 - that is where the inconsistency is. It appears (may be wrong) that this new rule was put in specifically because of the ctrlaltdelboy ratings (I thought I saw Dali's at 70 yesterday), however it has not been applied universally as demonstrated regrading whiteNSX's example.

There is no different rule. In fact there no way to create different rules for different people or groups in the trader rating system. It works the same for everybody.

HOWEVER, it does appear that there was a data conversion problem related to the recent upgrade. It counted every single rating from the old system as a point instead of only counting one rating from a given user. It displays correctly if you view their profile, but the number in parentheses under their user name is incorrect.

It recalculates this the first time someone leaves them feedback. Since trader ratings had been left for NSXGOD since the conversion, his rating had been recalculated. None had been left for WhiteNSXs since the conversion so his had not. I just tested it by leaving a neutral test trader rating for WhiteNSXs and it replaced his 25 with 18. I then deleted my test rating.

Unfortunately the Trader Rating system does not have a maintenance component so I do not have a good way to tell it to recalculate everyone's totals even though the data is there. I'll look into it and figure something out.

 

[RSO 34]

Darren,

You and I may disagree with the propriety of bulk posting in the manner you did but I do commend you on your efforts to let us know what you were thinking when you did that.

Bob

 

[ctrlaltdelboy]

Bob

thank you so much for taking the trouble to write that last post.
not only is it nice to see a positive post in this predominantly negative thread, but it was really great to read some encouraging words after the pounding I've received over this in the last couple of days.

Darren

 

[ctrlaltdelboy]

Just one other thing I noticed,

the first 3 posts in NSXGOD's trader rating appear to be all on the same day, all from the same person and all containing links to the product decriptions at Dali's website.

isn't this exactly the same heinous crime that I have been hauled over the coals for?

or is it not a crime because it was done by KGP?
or is it not a crime because it was only 3 items

I'm getting more and more confused over what is right and what is wrong here - I have been torn apart for doing exactly the same thing that KGP did, so if it's ok for him to do it why is it not ok for me to do it?

that's not a hypothetical question by the way, I really want to know where the difference lies.

before posting your answers I would repectfully ask that no-one comes back with any points that I have already adressed in this thread, so please read my other posts above in case your point has already been covered. Also, just because I have bought more things from Dali than KGP has is not a valid difference.

thanks

Darren

 

[KGP]

I have been torn apart for doing exactly the same thing that KGP did...

I have bought more things from Dali than KGP has is not a valid difference.

When I posted ratings for the first three items, it was right at the start of the trader rating system. If you look at another vendor rating, you will see that I posted multiple on the very same day. Again, I did it this way because it was the "kick-off" of the system, and perhaps that was wrong. Also, while I have purchased many more items from Dali (and other vendors) I haven't placed another trader rating to them (that I recall anyway). Is your situation the same? I don't know, and don't care to debate.

 

[KGP]

One more thing

Using the logic of one rating per transaction, my ratings towards all vendors are more than fair. While it has been so darn long ago that I can't recall if those three specific ratings towards Dali were separate transactions or not, I can assure anyone that I have completed far more than three transactions with Dali.

 

[nsxtasy]

It counted every single rating from the old system as a point instead of only counting one rating from a given user.

Lud, are you saying that if someone gives a vendor a rating multiple times (presumably representing different transactions/items/whatever), the system only counts all of them as a plus one or a minus one in calculating the rating (after it gets corrected from the conversion by a subsequent rating posted)?

 

[NSX Prime]

Lud, are you saying that if someone gives a vendor a rating multiple times (presumably representing different transactions/items/whatever), the system only counts all of them as a plus one or a minus one in calculating the rating (after it gets corrected from the conversion by a subsequent rating posted)?

Yes. It counts the first positive and the first negative rating from someone.

If someone leaves you 5 positive trader ratings, your Feedback Score only goes up 1 point.

If someone leaves you 5 negative trader ratings, your Feedback Score only goes down 1 point.

If someone leaves you 3 negative and 5 positives, your Feedback Score goes down 1 and up 1 for a net change of 0.

I just need to get it to re-calc all the scores so it will perform this calculation for people who have not received a trader rating since the upgrade.

This is very similar to the way eBay works, except I think eBay is a little more complex and will count all the positives and negatives from one person and then net it out for a -1, 0 or +1. In other words, in the last scenario above of 3 negatives and 5 positives, eBay would actually calculate it as a +1 since the 3 negatives are cancelled by 3 of the 5 positives, then there are 2 positives left but you can only get one point from one person so you get +1. Here only the first negative and first postive would be counted and they cancel each other out so you would get 0.

You can see this if you view WhiteNSXs trader rating: http://www.nsxprime.com/forums/traderratings.php?u=7212 -- Note that there are 25 feedbacks, all positive. However a few people have left more than one trader rating, as those 25 ratings are from only 18 people. Thus his Feedback Score is 18 because he received positive ratings from 18 unique user IDs and no negative ratings.

 

[ctrlaltdelboy]

Yes. It counts the first positive and the first negative rating from someone.

This has been my point since the first accusations against me. I was aware that the system operated in this way and that my rating of all my purchases would not affect the overall rating figure.
For all of those who misunderstood the mechanics of the system and have accused me of attempting to mislead, or artificially inflate the rating, I hope that thanks to Lud's clarification, you are able to now understand and see that I did neither.

 

[docjohn]

if I'm understanding this correctly then like a boolian(sp) system there is iether + or- 1 regardless of number of trader rating entrys by the same person?If that is the case and ctrlaltdelboy understood this to be the case why then bother entering over 50 in one clip,seems to be a waste of time.Not flaming I'm just trying to understand the nature of the event as told by rso.

 

[ctrlaltdelboy]

Hi docjohn. your understanding of the trader rating system matches mine and also matches the description given by Lud.

As to why waste my time, well Bob (RSO 34) was quite right in his earlier post in this thread, that it was following the comments that NSXGOD's trader rating resembled a christmas tree (i.e. the combination of red and green smilies) in the now closed Dali poll that prompted me to look again at the trader ratings and then post up all of the succesful purchase ratings that I had not done before, besides, it only took me an hour and I didn't see it as wasted time.
Also, whilst on the subject of why, I guess the answer is similar for why Russ posted twice and KGP posted 3 times for NSXGOD and CDub & Hiroshima both posted 4 times each for WhiteNSXs - the extra postings were not going to further boost/decrease the ratings but were made for the benefit of anyone taking the trouble to look deeper than the rating score alone. (here I have assumed that the members concerned understood the mechanics of the system as I did and like me, made multiple postings in the knowledge that the rating score would remain unchanged beyond +/-1)

 

[docjohn]

understood!Thanks for more clearly defining your actions.

 

[RSO 34]

Actually, the calculation of only one point per member regardless of the number of posts appears to be a recent "tweaking" of the system. If I recall correctly, previously trader ratings calculated the total number of positives and negatives regardless of whether there were multiples by one person. Although my personal preference would be to avoid "loading" the system in such a fashion as to break down single orders into multiple "transactions," at least now the final tabulation correlates to unique members rather than total entries.

 

[ub2slw]

hmmm smells funny to me, you actually recieved ALL your items on that day.

Appears to be one big advertisment for dali.... you even got TWO intakes, and two oem rear valances (one JDM and one 2002+ USDM?) and a RM splitter (or is the RM splitter to be used with the WW kit on the front?) Can you use all those splitters, valances, diffusers and WW kit with one another????

I also noticed you ordered a US bumper, was it cheaper to buy a 91-2001 rear bumper and 2002+ rear valance and JDM diffuser rather than a complete 2002+ rear assembly and diffuser?

 

[ctrlaltdelboy]

Hi ub2slw, thanks for your interest and queries which I'll endeavour to answer for you.

Of course I did not receive all of the items rated on the same day - the items listed were purchased between September 2002 and the date that I took the time to rate them all.

yes I have bought 2 intakes - the first one I bought was the Shiny one with the monster filter, then a year or so later I fancied the carbon one with the Apexi filter, so I got that one.

the JDM valance you refer to is not a valance but a diffuser which attaches to the bottom of the valance, the US valance is exactly that and goes with the US bumper cover. I got all of these to replace the damaged original UK ones which got scuffed and cracked when I spun the car off at Castle Coombe circuit into a marshall post.

I replaced the oem front lip with an RM splitter a long while ago, but I very quickly damaged it (the car is substantially lowered) so I ordered a couple more from Dali to ensure that when I inevitably damaged my replacement I still had another one handy to replace that with - I later decided to go with the Wings West instead - my unused spare RM splitter now adorns the front of Kevin's car (Kevin is known as J14NSX on here).

I'm sure your question 'Can you use all those splitters, valances, diffusers and WW kit with one another????' was hypothetical, but whether it was or not you will see from the info above that the answer is no.

regarding the 2002+ US bumper & valance - I went for the US ones because
a) it was cheaper and faster to get these via Dali than it was from my local dealer over here
b) the licence plate 'hole' in the US version is much smaller and more attractive than on the UK versions
c) I really like the new rear valance on the 2002+ NSX's I have seen and by getting this I have 'updated' the rear of my car to the new look - I love it!

regarding the JDM diffuser - this is a JDM Type-R only product - I got it cos I thought it was really cool.

I hope the above helps to fix the funny smell you are experiencing - I have no problem letting people know about the wonderful service I get from Dali Racing