perplexed by some customer reviews.....

[Ozwell Wayfarer]

Hey Catya,

Please don't be offended, but you seem much more frustrated with the situation than I was. I was just curious and yes maybe a little disappointed, but I don't think anyone has taken this thread and twisted it in any way. On the contrary, I think some of the responses have been excellent and this has been a very fruitful discussion. I was concerned that I was not providing something and my customers were not happy, when i found this was not the case I could relax a bit about the whole thing. As I said before, nobody has made disparaging comments to me in reviews or directly, so we are coming from different angles in this regard.

The rating effecting the listing position is annoying, but this is not the fault of people giving their honest opinion, but rather an imperfect rating system, and as Ilan pointed out, this may not even effect sales as much as one would think. I don't know if this is true, time will tell.

With regard to customers coming and asking for something in a different colour or suggesting improvements - isn't that part of being in business? So long as the people are not rude I certainly don't mind people telling me how I can make something "better", thats free market research! Rude people just get bopped on the head with the mute-hammer and life goes on. People don't do this so much in SL because there is more choice, so instead of contacting you and you having a chance of a potential sale, they pick something else and you loose the opportunity all together.

But the bottom line is, if your not having fun, stop. It is very sad that the community will be deprived of your work, but this should be a joy, not a chore. Whatever you decide to do, I wish you all the best.

[Sierra Jakob]

I'm totally with Catya.

I do pretty good business in SL--more than enough to pay my fees there. It's not a living, but it doesn't cost me.

I've been placing items in the Kitely Market to help Kitely as a business. But if Kitely will not make the rating system fair for merchants, then as each of my products gets a less than 5 star rating--unless I agree--then I'm pulling that product from the Kitely Market. I am unwilling to ruin the name I've made for myself.

All of the merchants and creators in Kitely are actually building the Kitely Market and the Environment. And they are not being paid to do it. In fact, they are spending their own hard earned cash to contribute. I don't think any of us (except maybe one) have made enough in the market to even pay our Kitely fees, much less to pay for all the time and effort we've spent trying to create the items and get them up and running in the market. If Kitely won't make the rating system fair for merchants--their number one resource--what kind of business is it going to be?

I'll begin pulling up stakes later today. I'm moving from Gold to the cheapest plan. I'll keep my untainted products available for folks till an unfair star rating is posted. So if you see something you've had your eye on--better get it quick..... actually, after thinking about it, since I'm selling almost nothing here in Kitely, I'm planning to pull all my products later today and just sell them where I have a market established. If Kitely won't protect me from unfair arbitrary ratings, why should I continue to make Kitely look better by offering high quality items here.

[Ozwell Wayfarer]

Hey Sierra,

Don't you feel your being a little disproportionate somehow? I just checked out your store and you have two 4 star ratings, both of them indicating that they like the product very much.

I recognize that I am never going to make everyone jump-for-joy over-the-moon happy, its just not possible. I don't see how those reviews are ruining your reputation.

As SL merchants, we are used to people using the rating system to indicate absolute love or outrage and very little in-between. The outrage reviews are usually unfair and we can have them removed. I had a great example of this when someone gave me a 1 star for my product being mesh and therefore not as editable as something made from prims. The fact the item was mesh and the implications of this were clearly discussed in the MP listing, the customer just dint read it before purchasing. I got that removed in a snap. That is not what has been happening here at all.

Very few people use the rating system in a sensible way, and that is what we have become used to. But if every review is 5 stars, then what are the other 4 even there for? I can live with people just being "satisfied" with my product, even if I aim to go further than that. Like I said, you can never please everyone all the time.

As I indicated before, I think its the reviewing system that is imperfect, not peoples use of it, and if people in Kitely are trying to use the rating system in a more realistic way then I think its a good thing, even if it is to my detriment sometimes.

[Sherrie Melody]

Just to remove the mystery, I am the customer that angered and frustrated Catya. I purchased a pretty hair from her a while back. I gave the hair a high rating, I thought, of 4 stars. In the review, I said that the hair was very pretty and the only thing I noticed was that sometimes the pink of my skull peaked through and it would be nice if it had a hair base. I didn't say it was that way all the time, just sometimes. When Catya IM'd me, she was very angry about the 4 stars. I was very confused because 4 stars is a high rating to me. She said that I was just adjusting the hair wrong. I don't think she had processed that I had said "sometimes" She said that my criticism caused a complete halt to her product sales. At the time, I'm afraid I didn't believe her because I had given the hair a high rating and was complimentary of it. I changed my review to imply that I was probably wearing the hair wrong and included an apology to Catya in the review. She was not pleased with that. What she felt she needed was a 5 star rating. My rating was my honest opinion, which is actually quite high. I promised not to buy her products anymore so that I didn't do anymore damage to her ratings.

[Sierra Jakob]

I'm not being disproportionate. I'm sick of merchants being crapped on. I'm not asking for merchants to control the rating system. I'm asking for a fair rating system. It is totally doable to have an objective system. I've given an example here in my first post. If Kitely won't do it, considering how merchants are being treated by customers, considering that customers HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH IT COSTS A MERCHANT WHEN THEY RATE THEM DOWN--AND NEVER WILL REALLY UNDERSTAND UNTIL THEY BECOME A MERCHANT THEMSELVES--it's up to Kitely to do the right thing. If they won't, I really have no reason to be here. I'm sick of it. I came here because I thought Kitely was trying to create a new, more logical business process. It's just not worth it to me anymore to continue. Words of reason don't seem to be heard here. There's too much emotion about petty things, and not enough emotion about doing what's right.

[Dot Matrix]

Kitely Market is new. It is not SL.

Perhaps there is a chance here to create a new way of understanding ratings, where merchants don't automatically think that anything but a 5 is a criticism of their products and then bombard their customers with IMs.

As Zuza, a merchant herself, pointed out, in a rating system of 1 to 5, 3 is the middle point. That logically should be the value where the worth of a product to a customer is judged. Ratings higher than 3 indicate a good product; ratings less than 3 indicate something is amiss.

Could people reflect a bit more on this, please? It is a rational, logical system, just as much as the other.

The advantage of this one (where 3 = as advertised) is that it can be implemented straightforwardly.

It is a matter of education and willingness to perhaps think things differently.

[Ozwell Wayfarer]

Sorry Sierra, but I dont follow your logic. If you never had these problems in SL, but are now sick of merchants being "crapped on" from two -and lets be clear about this - Positive, just not Amazing reviews, you must have a very short fuse. We all acknowledged that the rating system is far from perfect, both in SL and here. I am sure if there is any grid anywhere in the metaverse that stands any chance of some day improving the system its Kitely. Just look at everything else they have done.

Expecting them to just magically implement a system that you agree is fair overnight is not realistic, and that is essentially what you are doing by saying you will pull your products in the next few days. There is no magic bullet for this problem as thousands of SL merchants, Ebay sellers and Amazon merchants will confirm.

As you know I am a merchant and fully aware the damage poor reviews can do. You say people are being emotional about this, but at this point I think the most emotional responses by far have been yours. I LOVE your idea for a rating system like that, but only Ilan or Oren could even say if its realistic and easy to implement something like that any time soon. Throwing all your toys in the box and storming off hurts your reputation more than a few not so great reviews.

Everyone else is being fairly constructive here, and your first posts were very constructive too, but now your not being constructive at all. Your bordering on a rage-quit and I really urge you in the friendliest possible terms to instead work with the community and maybe we will get a better long term solution somewhere further down the line.

[Dot Matrix]

Hi Sierra,

I'm really saddened that you feel that way. We spent a long time researching what rating systems are in use in mass-market marketplaces and online stores (Amazon, Wallmart, etc.) and created a system we believe provides a best of breed solution that serves to protect both merchants' and buyer's interests.

There are two types of rating systems that are in popular use. One a 5 star rating system and one a vote up/down system. After reading academic research about the subject and viewing what the big ecommerce sites have opted to do (after much internal testing) we felt that the star rating system is the preferred approach that gives better resolution in differentiating between votes. Making it hard for people to quickly rate (by requiring many steps) significantly reduces the number of votes in the system which results in a lot less data which gives more weight to negative ratings than to positive ones (people are more likely to bother to state their displeasure than to give praise). Having less votes means that the rating difference between great products and ones that are just okay will be a lot lower, thus hurting the merchants who sell the great products and the people who trust the rating system to try to decide what to buy.

The nature of a 5-value rating system is that not all votes will be 5 or 1 stars. There will be a distribution and that distribution provides a lot of valuable information to potential buyers and also protects merchants from the effect of negative rating bias and uncharacteristic reviews.

Many merchants who list items in Kitely Market have never paid us anything, they use the free Kitely Merchants Sandbox and list their items for free in our marketplace. Any money we earn from them is from sales commissions. In other words, they aren't paying us to build our business. The only investment many of those people make is to spend time listing in Kitely Market, which they do not to help our business but rather in order to increase their potential sales outside SL.

Several merchants have already had Kitely Market revenue in excess of $100 and a few dozen merchants have earned more than the minimum payout amount. Those numbers aren't bad considering that the marketplace is new, that all these sales are still just from Kitely users and that we've yet to enable hypergrid delivery to third-party grids (which should increase sales volume significantly).

[Sierra Jakob]

Sorry Sierra, but I dont follow your logic. If you never had these problems in SL, but are now sick of merchants being "crapped on" from two -and lets be clear about this - Positive, just not Amazing reviews, you must have a very short fuse. We all acknowledged that the rating system is far from perfect, both in SL and here. I am sure if there is any grid anywhere in the metaverse that stands any chance of some day improving the system its Kitely. Just look at everything else they have done.

Expecting them to just magically implement a system that you agree is fair overnight is not realistic, and that is essentially what you are doing by saying you will pull your products in the next few days. There is no magic bullet for this problem as thousands of SL merchants, Ebay sellers and Amazon merchants will confirm.

As you know I am a merchant and fully aware the damage poor reviews can do. You say people are being emotional about this, but at this point I think the most emotional responses by far have been yours. I LOVE your idea for a rating system like that, but only Ilan or Oren could even say if its realistic and easy to implement something like that any time soon. Throwing all your toys in the box and storming off hurts your reputation more than a few not so great reviews.

Everyone else is being fairly constructive here, and your first posts were very constructive too, but now your not being constructive at all. Your bordering on a rage-quit and I really urge you in the friendliest possible terms to instead work with the community and maybe we will get a better long term solution somewhere further down the line.

Ozwell, if you want to follow my logic, it might be helpful to go back and read my posts. I'm not feeling emotional. I am frustrated that no one is actually reading the most thoughtful comments in this topic. Everyone here seems so invested in their own way of thinking about things, that they are unwilling to hear the main problem--the unfairness of the rating system to merchants. I don't give a fig if it's a 5 star 3 star or 10 star or which star means what. But I do care that customers, must be made to allow the merchant to correct any issue before they can rate them--otherwise it's just plain slander. It's like saying "graffiti is fine because it's free speech". I'm not making this decision impulsively. It's a rational decision. It's not worth it to me now to list my products in Kitely. I have other more profitable and less frustrating ways of enjoying my free time.

[Catya Smith]

"There's too much emotion about petty things, and not enough emotion about doing what's right"
Sierra, you hit the nail on the head when you said this! A lot of people in here are so quick to jump on others and enforce their opinion on them and make comments about things they do not even know about. It is very petty and a waste of time! I get the feeling a lot of posters on the forum never read all the way through posts, because they already have comments in their head and can't wait to jump on it. That is why some of the comments don't make sense and they miss addressing something that was actually said.

READ THIS BEFORE YOU MAKE FURTHER NEGATIVE COMMENTS: Unless you are a store owner...not someone with a few items in your "store" you cannot understand the work it takes to get each item on Kitely MP. It's not like SL where you create it and list it.

You have to buy the items you need to make it in SL, sometimes this costs thousands of Lindens. You have to buy, or make textures, contact the creators and buy a lic. to bring items here. This goes for sculpts, skins, etc. Most of the time it costs a fortune! This is money out of the store owners pocket...I use my own money and the money from SL MP I make, to buy more items for Kitley MP and most of it has gone towards things I know people need in Kitely.

You have to buy Second Inventory, set it up and then you pull your items through (not always easy and very time consuming) bring them into Kitey, adjust them to the differences in Kitley, box them, take pictures, make the ad, upload them into Kitely mp, fill out the ad and write a description. Then you finally list it. It's a very costly, time consuming job and each item goes through this process. In the beginning, there were some bugs with MP so it took even longer because you had to reset hair that wasn't staying on properly, notecards wouldn't open and there were problems with textures on items that were already listed. They had to be worked on again to be fixed.

So please stop and think what an actual creator goes through in here to bring items to customers. I made a store here and was very excited about it. I love to create and get a great deal of satisfaction when I finish an item, list it and someone buys my product. I have always been friendly to customers and go out of my way to make sure they are happy with my product. I have given a lot of items away for free to people, just because I am excited to have things to offer that were not here before. I know there are customers out there that know this for a fact. I even go to them to help them with problems that they encountered, especially in the beginning, before the bugs were worked out. I have always been available for help and do so with pleasure, because I want my customers to be satisfied.

Ilan you told me that bad ratings didn't affect the stores, but that is not true! A best selling item with a four star rating (I don't mind the four star ratings on things listed as a beginner item) but a negative comment will kill that product and I know that first hand. You don't seem to understand that one product may have been the item that was making the most money for your store and putting it at the top of the page and bringing people to your store. But once you receive a bad comment, that item stops selling. Not to mention, that one item that you wave your hand at and say it's just one bad comment, might have cost you the most money to create! I am a buyer and a seller, I see it from both sides. I do not purchase items that have bad ratings and reviews and a lot of others don't either.

Sierra was so right in her posts, especially when she said if we bring products to this store that have good ratings in a SL store, it does hurt our reputation! I find it strange how people in SL love the products, but people in here are so critical and unfair, even though there wasn't anything to buy until Kitely MP opened. I did not expect this and it is very disappointing!!!

Right now we are selling to people in this game, but if we open to other worlds and those ratings and comments are on our products, we will just be pushed to a page that is never looked at! To me, there isn't any reason to create and sell here, after all of the problems with this, the fun of making items to sell is gone for me in here. I am not used to this type of behavior from purchasers and did not expect it from a new MP and a game that didn't have anything to offer when I first came in. if people are not going to appreciate what store owners have brought into the game than Kitley MP will not grow!

Note: Ozwell, we will see how you feel down the road, you may have to go back and rethink your change of story!

P.S. Minethere Always, I don't think you have purchased anything from my MP store, I did give you some free items in the beginning when we met about sounds, but no you have never given me a negative comment. I liked your comment about closing down the window when it asks you to comment More people should do this!